disjecta

I woke up this afternoon, with the sun shining on my head, burning it up, and I realized that I had been sleeping for a very long time, since the evening before. What had made me so sleepy? I tried to remember if I had any dreams when I slept, and only vague snatches, fleeting images, came to mind. I could not form anything coherent with all those pictures in my mind. I looked around my room, and found that nothing had changed since the evening before. I was still in the same red room, music was still playing off my laptop, and the pile of clothes that was strewn in one corner of my room was still there. Everything was still the same, I was still in the same place, and the only thing that was not in my room when I was sleeping was myself, for I had dreamt myself into another world, into another realm, not knowing where I was, but still, nevertheless, by force of wakefulness, pulled back into a consciousness one calls “reality”. I sat up in bed, my legs dangling over the edge, trying to recall what plans and arrangements I had for the day. Yves and Lillian. They were already waiting for me at the café. I was late, yet again. But then again, I thought, they would be expecting me to be late, given that we’ve known each other for so many years. They know that I’ve been late for most of my appointments with them. In a sense, I have not disappointed them. It was a perverse thought, but true nonetheless. How would it feel to have disappointed a friend, to have let a friend down? Here, I was merely living up to expectations, something that people have expected me to do. And so I have done it, yet again. Again. And again.

Now what? I move along these streets, it seems as though I’m wandering, but somehow I am in control, and that I am confidently making my way towards Yves and Lillian. When I see them, I must come alive. Yes, we all carry on our shoulders the memories of the past; they cause us to slouch so badly, but there’s the whole impossibility of trying to hide it from the rest of the world, for all of us are one and the same, each trying to appear different to the other.

I heard Lillian’s voice the moment I entered the café. “As usual, you’re late, but that’s expected of you. Want to sit down first and slow decide what you would like to drink?”

“No it’s ok,” I said. “I always have the same thing here: a double espresso.” There’s some certainty and assurance in statements and claims like this. It helps us go on living, knowing that there are indeed constants around us, even though they may be last minute constructs.

After I had gotten my drink, Yves said musingly, “How nice if we could do this everyday.”

“I doubt I’d be able to do that,” replied Lillian. “It’s hard for me to stay still. Once in a while is fine, but not on a daily basis.”

“And you would rather cook or do the housework if you found yourself idling even for just a moment?” I asked Lillian.

“Anything it takes for my mind to stop wandering,” said Lillian, tapping her right forefinger on her temple. “Too many thoughts spoils the brain.”

Yes, that’s right, I thought. How could such a cliché have escaped me? After all, clichés once had meaning. I could try to focus and concentrate on doing things, and not have my mind wander about. I have a choice in deciding what goes through my mind. It’s all about control.

“Keep talking then,” added Yves. “Silence, especially in a group as we are now, tends to fester without any words. What then? If we did not talk, and spent the time just sitting around with each other, sooner or later we would just realized that our friends are sitting right beside us. You see, the mind can wander, only if the anchors of reality are drawn away.”

We fell silent, as if Yves said something… no he didn’t merely say anything, it was more like a command. How long have I remained silent over the past, the past which is always there somewhere? It’s that silence, that lack of noise, dialogue, music that tells me that everything’s still there. Everything I’ve ever seen, heard, felt, experienced. I know it’s a crazy thought, but what in this world isn’t beyond anyone’s imagination? I look over Lillian’s shoulder and see a father playing with his little daughter, propping her up on his lap. The little girl looks very happy. Father used to carry me on his shoulders when I was small, until he stopped one day. Too heavy, he said. Too heavy. She squeals at the smallest of gestures made towards her, excited and smiling with joy. The father beams with pride at the little one whom he helped conceive. Father told me that he was proud of me on the day I graduated from the university. But I suppose that he has been proud of me on more than one occasion, and to tell, all I had to do was to find that sparkle in his eye when he looked at me. And I think I see that everyday.

“How’re you?” asked Yves suddenly. Who was he talking to? Me?

“You mean Luce?” said Lillian, looking at me. Yves nodded his head.

“I’ve been fine,” I replied, downing the rest of my espresso, forcing the black liquid around the sides of my mouth, as I cringed a little at the awakening bitter taste. “Work’s boring, as usual, but I don’t complain. It keeps the food on the table for me. I earn money so that I can spend it on clothes.”

“Settled into the monotony of work life so fast? You’ve barely just got out of school,” Yves said, looking around him at the same time. “If I were you, I would take a good long break for a couple of months, before settling into this lifelong venture. Starting work, going out into the workforce, to me, means that I lose a hell lot of freedom. I imagine myself being thrown into this machine where I’ll merely become part of the gears and wires and what-not, helping to produce and produce and produce. Produce what, I don’t know.”

“A part of a machine…” I repeated musingly. I didn’t know what I was producing. I thought of myself only as a human being that was individualistic, capable of thought and feeling. I didn’t think of myself ever as becoming a machine just as Yves had mentioned. But perhaps I had already become one.

“So you’re saying that I’m a machine too,” said Lillian. “I wonder what I produce.”

“You produce the past,” replied Yves, referring to Lillian’s work with antiques. “Overpriced memories, and blasts from the past.”

That’s right, I thought. The past. That’s what I produce. Maybe that’s why I don’t dare to sleep at night anymore. I try to stay awake, and perhaps limit myself to just afternoon naps. I don’t dare to sleep at night so that I don’t dream. That’s what I produce when I sleep: dreams. But where, or how, do dreams come about? I think that they’re made of memories from the past. But they’re all a jumble of distorted images, somehow they just get managed to be fitted together like an ill-conceived jigsaw puzzle, that sometimes have an uncanny representation of things that might have yet happened. Could there be anything more?

“Yes, speaking of your work, Lillian,” I added, “I remember the last time you were telling me that your bosses were winding up the business.”

“By the end of the year,” replied Lillian. “After that, I’m a free woman. I can do whatever I want. I don’t even know why I’ve been in this for the past few years. Thought I cannot completely say that I hated it. There’ve certainly been good times.”

“Crude absolutes,” Yves said. “Be careful of them.”

“But what are you plans after this? I’m sure you have something right?” I continued, ignoring Yves. “ Maybe you should go for a holiday. Somewhere exotic.”

“If only I can find a man to bring me,” said Lillian. “That would be nice.”

“That would be free,” quipped Yves.

A man? I thought. Since when did I last have a man in my life? I thought Lillian wasn’t interested in men anymore. After that last… What was his name? I couldn’t remember at all. I didn’t think that I should ask her again about that whole incident. He suddenly disappeared, as though there was a rapture and he was taken up into heaven by God. Lillian herself could not explain what happened. Everything happened so suddenly. I thought of myself, and where I was now. Indeed, I’m happy, I’m not complaining. Who needs a man? Perhaps not now. Perhaps not now… “Really? You’re back into men?” I added, hoping to appear a little surprised at this revelation. “I thought that you had taken a short hiatus.”

“I’m just wondering, fancying, have fun with my imagination,” returned Lillian.

I began to see white. Everything around me seem to become brighter and brighter, until I could see no more but white.