The Man of My Dreams

It must have been a bad dream; one of those that I’m not supposed to remember. It wasn’t your fault; no one had told you that I usually remember the details. You would’ve not knocked on my door that night if you had known it from the beginning. Some strange feelings tell me that you would have not asked for tea, particularly for the one I used to make, you would’ve not sat on the love chair, held my hands, made me sit on your knees, you certainly would have not asked me to comfort you when I looked into your tired, sad eyes……  

It must have been a bad dream; me, sitting on the sofa in front of you, you, trying to convince me that you had no other choice, expecting me to understand your situation, that you were suffering, even more than how I was, holding my hands, holding up your tears…. 

It must have been a bad dream; we were all lying down on the floor staring at the ceiling. Something was about to happen. Something unknown, somehow scary, sad even! Your right hand crawled under the blanket and held my left hand; so tight that I felt nothing could ever come between us, nothing could ever hurt me........

It must have been a bad dream; you looked into my eyes, had that mysterious smile on your face. “Are you sure that it will be just this one time?” you asked. “What if you want more after this?” smile turned into some sort of frustration! “It’s gonna be just this onetime. I will disappear from your life after tonight” I whispered into your ear. You stood up, held my hand and walked me down the street. Familiar faces were looking at us. I could see the curiosity in their eyes. “Was she real this whole time?”, “Why is he holding her hand?” How strange it is that I could hear their thoughts! You stopped at the intersection; put a piece of paper in my hand, and said: “go to this address and wait for me.” Then you walked away. Then I walked away ………

They must have all been bunch of bad dreams! meant to be forgotten before the sun rises, but my stupid imagination has a way of hurting me! It makes me wonder if it’s your imagination living in my head instead of my own! But out of all these strange stories, there is one that I want to remember forever: 

The story of a man who stole my eyes the moment he appeared in front of me, the man whose smile has been burnt on my brain since he looked into my eyes and called me beautiful…. I often feel the same heat in my heart that I felt when he sent me that email asking me to contact him…. I remember his every single sentence….. I don’t think I will ever forget when he held my hands, when he asked me if I was gonna get lost if he had let go of me, when he told me he liked me as we were crossing the street …… I won’t forget his voice when he asked me to sing for him forever ….. When I felt his arm around my shoulder….. His fingers … there are so many things that I may never forget about him! Like that time when he asked me to wait, or that time when he didn’t want me to wait…. when he told everyone that he had nothing to talk to me about ….. and the message he sent me after that, telling me he had missed me.... Or that time when he made me wait for him till one in the morning before he said that he couldn’t come…. All those other times that he made me wait …. How could I ever forget his message at 4 in the morning asking me where I was…. Or his replies in the morning when he was in his way to work…. how can I forget?! How can I ever forget that “Yes” that I got from him in the middle of my final exam…. I screamed! And all the other lies………… how can I ever forget all of those!? The image of him leaning on the wall, lost in his thoughts, holding his cigarette.… how much I wanted to be that cigarette in his hand in that moment! How much I still wish that I was ….

How tired I am of only seeing him in my bad dreams!

Foggy Road

Something has changed inside me. I live with some sort of unease; some sort of existless, if that is even a world, inside me trying to take over. The pain is still there, even though the form of it has changed; it’s not sharp like it used to be, it doesn’t push me over the edge when it strikes, instead it gradually eats me up. It feels like I have become that edge myself, and every second I might fall over … studying is not what kills my body and takes away my energy these days, I study to stop me from feeling me….. 

At night, when I put my head on the pillow, I just want it to be over, and in the morning, still, every single day, I ask  myself the same question: is it really another day I gotta go through…………………………

Meanwhile, I’m living life, like some others out there, day by day, from journey to journey, trying to take the best possible steps, smile at little things, inspire others, be the best I can be, help as much as I can, do my part, make the difference, be thankful for the opportunity that I was given, and I was given again, and even one more time …. 

Sometime I spread all the future plans in front of me, smile at each wondering if I should kiss them goodbye…. What was that line from Thorn Birds? The line about that brother who never planned long term because he knew there was no such a thing as long term! 

It’s not that bad! Somehow it makes me get more done with my time…. I assume I treasure the time I have left more than I used to! 

Till the night comes again, and I ask the same question: was it the last one?  

The Old Traveler

Sometimes when you travel, you meet those who’ve been on the road for a lot longer than you have. My 60 years old bus driver friend is one of those. He has been on the road for 40 years; and I’m not just talking about operating on the famous 240 route between 15^th Street, and Vancouver. 

Originally, he wanted to go to Sweden after finishing high school. He had done all his research, had gone to the embassy, and was ready for the big move. He had always loved this country. Still does, to this date, but plans changed when his older brother moved to Montreal to go to law school. His family decided that brothers should study in the same country and the same city, so they sent him to the land of Eskimos. 

 He came to Canada to study engineering 40 years ago, and finished his master in Montreal. He got a job in a German company in Iran right after the revolution, but it was right when the executions started, and he had to endure the pain of seeing his friends being imprisoned and executed for no logical reason! That’s why he came back to Montreal and decided to make this country home…… 

Few years later he lost his wife in a car accident. That was about 24 years ago. They didn’t have any kids at the time, and he never got married again! 

He worked in different companies all through his life, got laid off several times, lost his home due to recession, hit the bottom line, and stood up again! Wow! The power of human being’s determination! His high school friends are all gone. His brothers and sisters are way too busy dealing with kids, grandkids, son, and daughter in laws whom he had never had a chance to really get to know. Beside the child he has adopted, he doesn’t really have anyone to call family! But none of these keeps him from welcoming you with a smile every time you get on the 240 bus…..

Today, we were talking about life; the blessing of witnessing generations going through life. He was telling me how those who used to get on his bus to go to school, these days come on board with a stroller, or those who used to be on the stroller, not so long ago, are in middle school, and junior high. 

“It’s like your story!” he said. “Life is strange! One day you said you were gonna go away for a while, and now you’re back, standing here on my bus, like you were never gone!”

He stopped the bus, exactly where I used to get off, and said: “See! I remember people and their stories! I think this is going to be my last route in this life…..” 

 

The Story of a Little Girl

Once on the road, I met a little girl. I say “little”, because she really was! Underneath the skin of a grown up woman, a cheerful spirit of a little girl was trapped. I could see her coming up once in a while then disappear in a blink of an eye, like she was pulled by an invisible elastic band and put back to sleep… 

One night, when we both were gazing at the stars, deep in our own thoughts, she told me that she had died in an accident few years back. In fact, she couldn’t exactly remember the date, but she said that she didn’t have those gray hairs before the accident…. “It must have been long time ago” she said. It was a train accident, as she recalled, in a station in the heart of a city far far away. She was sad, really sad, in fact, she was sad enough to go over the yellow line few seconds before the train approached the station…. and then she died. 

She had an old outdated phone she used to carry with her all the time. Once been bright and pink, the case had aged too! The wallpaper was a picture of a man, wearing a letter black jacket with metal thorns on the cuffs, yokes, and collar, and a black shirt underneath. He was staring at the camera with some sort of anger in his eyes, or maybe pride; I couldn’t tell! She used to spend hours looking at the phone, pressing the keys, touching  the screen over and over again, opening and closing the same old folders every time, sending messages to a name on the phone list, and wait and wait for an answer which was not going to come! 

She knew she was casted out there after the accident; she knew all the connections with the real world were gone; she knew the strange man in the picture, the name on the phone list, couldn’t reply to those messages; he couldn’t even read them to begin with, but she couldn’t stop herself! 

Sometimes, she really wanted to leave the phone on a bench in a park, and pretend that it was lost. Or on the bus, she once said. She could get off the bus; take three steps and all of a sudden would remember the phone. It would have been too late, and she could’ve become free! But she couldn’t get herself to do it! She used to think that the phone was part of the curse. The juice bottle was too! 

Long time ago, she had read in a book about how objects hold on to memories. A tree for instance remembers all those who have ever leaned on it. “The same is a bottle, it remembers the memories of those who picked it, held it in their hands, it even remembers the taste of their lips” she believed. 

   

She loved music. Almost any sound was reminding her of some sort of story lying in the past! Her favorite song was rain! She would stay up till really late, next to the open window, in her dark room to listen to the melody of the rain falling from the sky, hitting the roof, and pouring over the earth. She loved to walk in the rain too. She would go for a really long walk, and come back with red eyes! So red that could’ve been mistaken! You could have said that she had cried! Who would have believed that about a dead little girl?! 

Besides that, she was quiet in most part. She looked like she was always waiting for something to happen. She had to remind herself all the time that it had already been done.  She was already dead! What else could have possibly happened?! But then, maybe the distracting phone was confusing her! 

Some nights, she couldn’t sleep at all, some nights; she would wake up shaking calling someone’s name, sometimes she would scream in the middle of the night, or day! Once or twice even, I had to stop her from hitting herself! It must have been hard! She must have felt frustrated! Being alone, and dead, carrying a phone that wouldn’t send, or receive any message! With a picture of a man who was looking at her in anger! Poor little girl…..

One morning, when I came back from my walk, I couldn’t find her. She was gone! Without a word, or a letter, or even a sign that could help me find her…. But there was an old phone, with a worn out pink case left beside her bed in her room. I picked it up… It was working!  

Confession

If you pretend not to recognize my name; if an invisible hand deletes all the CCTV camera records of us together; if Kakao server crashes and there no more be any history of us ever communicating; if someone goes and deletes my mailbox; if I can never turn that cell phone, that has your last messages, on; if it all looks like you never happened; if the whole world call me delusional…………, I know you were real! Because I feel your fingers on my right shoulder every time I sing “잊지 말아요”; because I often find myself standing in front of the juice shelf in the grocery store; because I notice when someone buys cigarette; because I sing kids songs when I’m stuck in the traffic; because I can’t listen to Roly Poly without your voice ringing in my head; because even hearing “당연하죠” makes me smile; because I like Thursdays; ………………. 
Because my tears always fall when I think about you!