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A faint imperceptible air, minutes, a paused oscillation.
He experienced a sense of weight, comparable to a large mountain, agitation, and a slight stickiness. The somewhat blurred and incomprehensible sight, the great murmur of the city and the shrill horns piercing his soul, and a weak breeze that strikes against whatever it is that takes him through the weak urban core.
Although, in reality, the situation was much worse, because he could not feel anything and everything was a little illogical.
Wandering around the sad and cold surroundings of the old center, he thinks about the past and laughs as he remembers how silly it is to think that there is always more than we imagine. Life is a little more cruel than he ever expected, and he didn’t really expect much and still found himself disappointed.
He walks around and remembers because there is nothing else he can do, and sometimes wonders what he’s waiting for. The tragedy happened five months ago, and then shouldn’t he be somewhere else? Should he do something else that he can’t understand?
There is no more existence, no warm, no movement of lungs, slight lashes of eyelashes, heartbeats, nothing, only immense tapes of pure and warm memories are present.
Although he does not think much about it, he secretly enjoys continuing close to his essence, even if he cannot see him. Also, honestly, he is scared of the after, because what is supposed to come after this? Does the loss of memory continue? Is silence coming and a great emptiness? Terrifying.
Circulating and listening, circulating and observing, that’s much better than whatever comes next, even if no one can see him.
He thinks that never bothered him back then, when he could still turn off his alarm before it rang and pass an arm over the body lying next to him. Now, not being seen was different, another story, because the one person who promised to always keep his gaze fixed on his shimmering black orbs couldn’t see him either.
He was upset, as much as he could be, or at least he tried, he no longer knew if he was capable of doing something similar.
A movement of the clock hands, a soft autumn wind, an instant and he hated everything. He hated the memories, the smell, the uncertainty, the noises, the indifference, everything that could gather in that insignificant space time.
He was still able to feel it. His soft touch in the morning, the gentle rubbing of his delicate fingers on his face, running across the bridge of his nose and then resting on his jaw for a few seconds, the strong pressure of his arms around his waist, every tiny detail.
The memories and the subtle blow in an imaginary heart. It was always like this, thinking, overthinking, waiting and crying.
He looks around a little, sees the quaint houses on the corners, medieval architecture that surrounds him, clouds that carry rain from one side to another, a sky too grey to be real and people who do not stop for a second. He sees much more, but feels that it is not the day to describe the intense atmosphere, apparently he has walked this time with a different purpose, a little more melancholy than the other times.
Something hurts, he identifies it and feels it even more deeply.
He tries to be faster, more skillful and bold, but they always end up catching him. The memories and their wide nets of thick and hard ropes.
So there are no options available, it can only be him and the memories of his soul in what he once called life.
Then he remembers his morning favorite coffee, latte without sugar with a little cinnamon on the surface; the time he goes to work, nine o'clock in the morning, very punctual, but if it is raining he leaves fifteen minutes earlier; the number of times he fixes his glasses before start reviewing a file, three or four if it is long and tedious; how many fingers he put on the moment of grabbing a cup, four, subtly raising his pinkie; the moles of his left ear, three and one on the right; and-
He thinks he can finally say that he could spend the rest of eternity talking about Phuwin. Quiet and effusive, no need for anyone to listen.
Every day after the separation of souls, at exactly eight o'clock in the evening, he thinks how he feels too much to be considered normal or healthy. But he is no longer a person, but a lonely soul and believes that he can afford it.
Because surely Phuwin had already forgotten him by now. Without remorse, one step ahead of the other, one breath after another, one hand holding the other behind his back, as if nothing had ever really happened. A new dawn alongside a new life, Phuwin might say.
Perhaps he simply likes to think that way because, otherwise, it would mean that Phuwin was suffering alone, without his precious warmth, in the terrifying darkness of what used to be his home. With the rays of the evening sun hitting him, not stroking him as it should be.
His only love in the universe, distressed, irritated, enduring every tremor in his body, trying to open tedious curtains, old doors, useless bottles, new books, all under constant pressure. His precious treasure surviving alone, in the fearsome immensity of the city. Surviving on his unexpected departure.
He didn’t want to, and couldn’t, think about it. He swore to feel how his non-existent heart contracted from the very thought of thinking that, who was his boy in a time when he could still feel the comforting rough touch of logs, suffered and crumbled into tears with no one to hold him.
Something moved in a subtle way, he did not identify it, and kept moving forward.
Phuwin was like that, he loved to show in front of others a firm and resistant personality, always with ingenious and quick answers, without anything really hurting him. But in reality, his first choice was always to run into his boyfriend’s arms on the most intense and painful days.
Phuwin.
The simple echo of his charming name generating the usual, havoc everywhere.
One day he wanted to visit his bright closeness again, he wanted to know about his new life, if everything was already rebuilt again, but it was impossible. He was ironically scared to know. Because the reality is that he can no longer do anything from his position, nothing, but to admire and wait.
He never imagined such pain and despair, it was a little unreal.
He doesn’t understand how it is possible that never, ever, will he be able to place his forehead against his chest on some strange cool night in Bangkok. He does not understand how it is possible that never, ever, will be able to make him laugh unexpectedly on a rainy Sunday in the early morning.
It must have been a dream, some disguised nightmare; had to be something similar because reality creates knots on so many sides that he cannot explain.
An abysmal inhalation, three seconds, an oscillating exhalation.
That’s how he felt, Phuwin, like an old computer programmed, slightly defective, but with tasks performed automatically.
During the bleak autumn afternoons, Phuwin often thinks that one heart stopped beating, but two lives stopped at the same time. He found no meaning afterwards. And maybe the world was still spinning, his lungs were still getting oxygen, his heart was still pumping blood, but something beyond that was wrong.
Phuwin would do anything possible or impossible to have him back, no matter the cost or the irrational, he would. Because he needs him, more than he could ever imagine.
He hopes, with all his being, that this is just some bad joke, something one can laugh about loudly later with a slight pressure on the chest and sweaty hands.
Also, sometimes, he thinks that maybe it’s just one of those nightmares where you’re sadly conscious. When you can unusually perceive that everything is just a vile product of the imagination, but there is no way to wake up.
He has already done everything he can to wake up.
Hesitation, slight movements, heaviness.
Pond feels a sense of nostalgia, not to what his life itself was, he is no longer even interested in feeling the passage of everyday life and what it means.
Pond misses him, his smile brimming with sparks and desires, his eyes filled with millions of galaxies, his soft touch like feathers at night, the tiny and rumbling laughter, the confident movement of his body, the swaying of his hair, the burlesque and characteristic gestures. He misses him more than anything.
Pond misses Phuwin.
He misses him much more than the life that was unexpectedly taken from him on a Tuesday by sunset, one day before his seventh anniversary.