steady tone
"I haven't seen your face in one-and-half-years, and I think I am going to cry!"
My eyes did really swim with tears, and they sidled up to the edge dangerously, threatening to overflow. Her hair was carrot orange. It used to be blonde, but the hairstyle was still the same. Curly at the sides, shorter at the back, and bouffant in a way that I could recognise her from two traffic lights away the last time I saw her in person. Her glasses were different. Were they? No, she used to wear contact lenses, so maybe they were the old pair. I raked over the laptop screen, playing Spot the Difference with my imagination. The way that she smiled, lazily and gently, with an air of bemusement, as if I was an entertaining child: same. The way that she broke into laughter, scattering the air with mirth: same. The way that she sometimes halts mid-sentence, trying to grasp at an appropriate English equivalent, all the while muttering in a language I can only do a pale imitation of: same. The pauses, the half-sighs, the hesitation as she mapped out sentences. I don't know why I was expecting her to be very much different. It was safer to think that way; it would make saying goodbye once again easier.
But she hadn't changed. Not much, anyway. I said that I was going to cry, and she shushed me with a 'tsk tsk', so I didn't. A few months ago, I was using my old phone and I read through old chats on train rides to nowhere important. Scrolling through the timeless bubbles, I swore that I wouldn't be such a nonchalant and flippant brat again. I would be good; there is no time for otherwise. There is no space left in the ten thousand kilometres between to do so either. She mused briefly about why it took us one-and-a-half-years to Skype with each other. The old me would have joked that the statement was a sly attempt at offloading blame. Now, I nod and smile, happy enough to see her pixellated and crackly. It just happened to turn out this way, and it is okay. Parallel lines are only mathematical. Still, I parade before the camera, puffing up like a pudgy penguin, singing that she "can't touch this". She whined, and then, laughed. Maybe she was glad that I didn't change too much as well.
"Schläfst du?"
"Nein, I am looking..."
Her head was propped up with the crook of her elbow. She yawned, and a few seconds later, I yawned too. Yawns were infectious, even through a simulated image, we discovered after much merriment. She asked me questions about Singlish; I answered them while attempting to tone down on the accent, because since long ago, she found it hard to understood what I said. (and vice versa, but I learn fast, shh) She talked about Finnish Christmas markets and popping by Poland for lunch, while I bawled about how I lost my phone in Johor Bahru. She heard about my research on an island off the island, and I listened to her new school/new city/new life. She rehearsed the Chinese phrase I had taught her, which was "消化", because we three tended to eat too much, and as usual, it sounded more like "笑话", which was quite a running joke and was more useful anyway.
"Verdauungspaziergang!" I rolled the word off the tongue with practised perfection. "Ich bin müde," Nailed it. "Na ja!"
Her grin grew wider with each phrase, and she positively squealed at the last one. "I was waiting for that! I knew it was coming!"
Of course. I wouldn't want to forget any of it.
"Even if it takes me thirty years, I will visit you! And when that happens, you will long for the day that I leave."
Come. Come soon. Come with T, and form the coincidental duo again. Come, and we would be a triangle becoming a dot. Come, knowing that you will go, but would come around again.
My eyes did really swim with tears, and they sidled up to the edge dangerously, threatening to overflow. Her hair was carrot orange. It used to be blonde, but the hairstyle was still the same. Curly at the sides, shorter at the back, and bouffant in a way that I could recognise her from two traffic lights away the last time I saw her in person. Her glasses were different. Were they? No, she used to wear contact lenses, so maybe they were the old pair. I raked over the laptop screen, playing Spot the Difference with my imagination. The way that she smiled, lazily and gently, with an air of bemusement, as if I was an entertaining child: same. The way that she broke into laughter, scattering the air with mirth: same. The way that she sometimes halts mid-sentence, trying to grasp at an appropriate English equivalent, all the while muttering in a language I can only do a pale imitation of: same. The pauses, the half-sighs, the hesitation as she mapped out sentences. I don't know why I was expecting her to be very much different. It was safer to think that way; it would make saying goodbye once again easier.
But she hadn't changed. Not much, anyway. I said that I was going to cry, and she shushed me with a 'tsk tsk', so I didn't. A few months ago, I was using my old phone and I read through old chats on train rides to nowhere important. Scrolling through the timeless bubbles, I swore that I wouldn't be such a nonchalant and flippant brat again. I would be good; there is no time for otherwise. There is no space left in the ten thousand kilometres between to do so either. She mused briefly about why it took us one-and-a-half-years to Skype with each other. The old me would have joked that the statement was a sly attempt at offloading blame. Now, I nod and smile, happy enough to see her pixellated and crackly. It just happened to turn out this way, and it is okay. Parallel lines are only mathematical. Still, I parade before the camera, puffing up like a pudgy penguin, singing that she "can't touch this". She whined, and then, laughed. Maybe she was glad that I didn't change too much as well.
"Schläfst du?"
"Nein, I am looking..."
Her head was propped up with the crook of her elbow. She yawned, and a few seconds later, I yawned too. Yawns were infectious, even through a simulated image, we discovered after much merriment. She asked me questions about Singlish; I answered them while attempting to tone down on the accent, because since long ago, she found it hard to understood what I said. (and vice versa, but I learn fast, shh) She talked about Finnish Christmas markets and popping by Poland for lunch, while I bawled about how I lost my phone in Johor Bahru. She heard about my research on an island off the island, and I listened to her new school/new city/new life. She rehearsed the Chinese phrase I had taught her, which was "消化", because we three tended to eat too much, and as usual, it sounded more like "笑话", which was quite a running joke and was more useful anyway.
"Verdauungspaziergang!" I rolled the word off the tongue with practised perfection. "Ich bin müde," Nailed it. "Na ja!"
Her grin grew wider with each phrase, and she positively squealed at the last one. "I was waiting for that! I knew it was coming!"
Of course. I wouldn't want to forget any of it.
"Even if it takes me thirty years, I will visit you! And when that happens, you will long for the day that I leave."
Come. Come soon. Come with T, and form the coincidental duo again. Come, and we would be a triangle becoming a dot. Come, knowing that you will go, but would come around again.