From Indifference

(circa August 2006)

If you’re a philosopher, a physicist, or an artist, or a nonartist for that matter, when your being depends highly on things apart from you, you would always be haunted by the fear that you might cause hurt, or death even, to the very thing from which your life draws sustenance from. Say, him, for instance. These things, I am able to say, because of my inability to have him, of my being away from him today, this very moment. For if he were beside me right now, would I still be needing to have these words out of me? But yes, it does not mean that I would have to be in this state for eternity. The basic principle of algorithms—yeah, this here would still be the things in my head, but they have to exist also in reality, lest I end up condemning existence as too idealistic and thus having no need of things tangible, which would be utter blah, and thus, yeah, this here is a plea. Yeah, could he be my third miracle?

I never knew her misery was because of something else, nonexistent, at least in my world it is. Thus, I could not, and would not be able to, understand her when she traps herself in that world where none could ever enter—none but those already there. Thus, her silence; I never realized it was never for contempt that she refuses to utter words. It is that her solitude alone becomes too much of a confusion already that she fears my starting to exist would bring her more perplexities, and worse, she might inflict me with the very thing that causes her much heaviness.

There would never be a time when she would refuse a beer, well, except the time she was taking antibiotics . . . for her asthma, maybe. This had turned out to be more psychological than physical actually. There was a time she had been feeling so bad, she had wanted to grab whatever escape was at hand. No smoke possible, she thought, maybe a walk would help, and to where? Well, she could go buy an antibiotic or two. Killing those little microorganisms might be something so microscopic, she would not add so much to the “unwanted” things of this world. She thought, maybe, if she tries to really focus and think about it really hard, she might actually feel the small organisms in her body dying, and might actually feel some changes.

Her quasi-insanity never ceases to amuse him greatly. Some would think of her quirks and little obsessions as too absurd, considering the greater things that abound this planet, but hers was really too bizarre as to cause more entertainment than otherwise. For one, she surrounds herself with people so diverse that you would actually realize the sense of her indifference. That was her word—she had called him indifferent. He actually is not sure of what she meant by calling him so, but he knows if he asks her, he would be amazed by the story behind it.

She was indifferent, and she knows it. He was too. Maybe that was one of the things that made him a little peculiar compared to the rest of the people she met; for sure, he would not tag her weird, as obviously, he was too. What makes her mind really lose it is her sense of extremism—this she got from reading some philosopher, she forgot really, maybe it was along the lines of Sartre, or not. Anyway, she had learned that since there is really no unwritten book on how to go about life, maybe she would just try to live as she could, all things she so far know considered—and that would be saying something. She had read that one must act as though it would be okay if the next person beside her could also act as such. “But hey,” the antithesis inside her mind interrupts, “but that person next to you could only do exactly what you do if she were exactly like you.” She heaved out a sigh; she was hoping to come upon some form of certainty at that point.

For some, the day was about to end, but not for him. It was not just starting too. More like, it was just that time of the day when most were bound for other places already, moving to be exact, and he wasn’t. Not that he was complaining or anything, it was just a passing thought. For one, he knows in a few minutes, she was bound to where her friends would be—that being any place that suddenly pops up her mind, and most often than not, that place would be one where he was not around. He’s not so numb not to notice that she seems to be avoiding him lately. Or maybe, it was only because before, he really never minded where she would be at any one time. Fate really has a strange way of turning things in directions inconceivable before. All he knows is that there would be more beer tonight, and yeah, for her too.

Pain can come in a variety of form. The greatest thing about pain is that for a moment, you are given freedom from fake emotions. Pain, unfortunately, is one of those that allow not a roomy space for sentimentalities.

Her indifference—such a used-up word already to her, yet she keeps on rubbing it still in the insides of her brain, not knowing until when. She cannot afford to be completely erratic. She allows herself little forms of idiosyncrasies but not one she is certain could not be bound by that greater something she wants to stay indefinitely.

And when I finally tried to see if truly the world knows how to ease my certain pains, sh*t! For I have been disappointed. It would seem that fate carries me indeed, and though I could undeniably be inflicted with pain that goes away, the cure is just not always at hand. And it is those moments, when all is real, that blind me from whatever would be next or what might have come before. Pain could make one be as close to death without dying. And what makes it all the more excruciating is when time moves with fate, as though in unison, almost looking as if they are even amused by a useless pain that is just so real but poses no obvious purpose.

She saw him again. She realized she really gets wasted on purpose when he was to be around as so to numb her from whatever his close proximity might bring her. He saw her too. She was really all spaced out, but at least she felt no pain all weekend, at least that’s how she remembers it.

When he looked in the mirror today, he can’t help but again think, he was getting old. He was asked once if he could remember things, her. He said yes, he remembers her when he sees things that could easily be associated to her. Yeah, he remembers her. How could he not. How about her, what thoughts might be keeping her mind busy? 

She cannot imagine, she can no longer remember, how it was like when he was still nonexistent in her world. And to think that the first time they met was far from momentous. He was just there, same table, opposite her. Even her memory of his girlfriend then was totally different from the real one. Although, she can clearly remember his face, some things he said about his hair, and the guy she was with at that time. It was always this way, she noticed. She smiled to herself; she remembered the name she and her friend had come upon to call such phenomenon—frog princes. She now sees, frogs become princes when you kiss them. And she decided, she won’t be kissing any more frogs in the near future. One prince had gotten her to such a state of misery that she finds the need to breathe.    

She’s been asking for a sign. The problem is she forgot what the sign would say; would it be a yes or a no. Nah, actually she remembers. And yes, she feels that to forget him and completely erase him off is, well, not so right. She had lunch with her friend right in front of the place where he was working. She felt weird, and all of a sudden she was to be his stalker? Well, she seems to be around when he was scheduled at a certain place. She did say she was not going to stop hearing him play.