In Continuum.

As the Napkin Slowly Burnt

This is the moment that you know
That you told her that you loved her but you don't.
You touch her skin and then you think
That she is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me.
Yeah, she is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me.

That Starbucks, again. This country is too small to stomach me, or the memories that I am trying to forget. I don't even miss the memories anymore, isn't that cruel and ruthless? Things change, I changed. Even the Starbucks looked drastically different this afternoon as I sat there alone with my notebook opened before me while waiting for Samuel to arrive. A dinner out is great, and a free dinner out is even better. I am not quite sure why he decided to treat me to dinner at some fine-dining restaurant today, especially with his not-so-good waiter pay at a Japanese restaurant, his reputation ever since high school to be a rather stingy person in terms of money and the fact that he has a girlfriend to take care of. But he brought it up, so I was more than happy to accept his offer.

That Starbucks was different today, not only because it wasn't raining but because the mood was different. The last time I visited that place, it was pouring like never before and I remember the wet red and white tablecloths in the rain, unarmed against the wrath of the rain. And the people, running and hiding from the rain, squeezing under the giant umbrellas where I was that day, reading a book and pretending that I did not care. But alone today, everything was just different.

I spent two weeks in Silverlake
The California sun cascading down my face
There was a girl with light brown streaks,
And she was beautiful but she didn't mean a thing to me.
Yeah, she was beautiful but she didn't mean a thing to me.

The Caucasian man sat before me, probably in his mid-sixties or something, sipping carefully on his cup of coffee from a mug. The coffee dripped from one side of it, leaving a brown trail on the white porcelain. He didn't seem like he liked milk at all, and the opened packets of sugar littered the surface of the metal table. But he cared little about that, for he was there alone in his almost translucent white t-shirt and shorts, revealing his old skin folded in places and spots all over. He walked away from the table after he was done, in careful steps and almost as if he was afraid that he'd break apart. Alone, I repeated to myself as I noted this man's appearance in my notebook. And beside the word 'Alone' I wrote a question that I asked myself over and over afterwards: Me?

Girl, mid-twenties, sat to my left with a group of her friends. They looked like University students, talking about something inaudible to my ears as I sat there with Radiohead blasting in my ears. She was in a orange spaghetti top that looked like the peeled skin of a tangerine, which was completely unmatched by the sparkling golden shoes she was wearing. Her hands busied themselves throughout the conversation by pulling her shorts and top ever downwards, as if they were too small for her. The cleavage revealing, exposing herself to the two male friends at the table as they took discreet peeks down her shirt. She must have known, but didn't care. Was she trying to seduce somebody because she wasn't attached anymore? Was she trying too hard to please? Like me? More questions written, more questions asked. The phone rang, Samuel was calling. He arrived.

I wanted to believe in all the words that I was speaking,
As we moved together in the dark
And all the friends that I was telling
All the playful misspellings
and every bite I gave you left a mark

Basil Alcove, I have never heard of the restaurant before. Tucked away in the forgotten corner of the town, it was no wonder why I have never heard of it. It looked more like a street-side hawker center to me, but it really was a French restaurant, a high end one at that. We sat outside waiting for the food to come as we talked. I ordered some...duck, thing which name I cannot remember, with red wine. Samuel ordered a chicken...thing, and a chicken salad which we shared(He is a very big chicken fan). It's been a while since we last met, and we caught up a bit as the rickshaw riders went by along the streets with Japanese tourists, blaring their horns off and playing some horrendous Hokkien song. We rolled our eyes, cursed towards the annoying crowd of riders, and talked some more.

The blissful session of catching up was interrupted all of a sudden by a phone call. Samuel's girlfriend called, and he picked up the phone to answer to her something about how to charge the battery of his camera. He repeated the line "You charge until the red line goes out" about twenty odd times, and obviously she didn't get it. I mean, I think the action of taking a battery out and slotting it into the charger is a fool-proof action, right? I don't think anybody needs to be prompted more than twenty times about one action. But there he was, wanting Samuel to explain to her the procedures as to how one should charge a battery, knowing full well that I was at dinner with him. So there the chicken sat in his plate, slowly turning lukewarm and the candle by the table burning slowly away into the night as his voice replaced the conversation that we were having, frustrated and desperate.

Tiny vessels oozed into your neck
And formed the bruises
That you said you didn't want to fade
But they did, and so did I that day

I think it went well over twenty minutes, and he was still there on the phone being interrogated by her about who he was eating with, where he was eating, what he was eating, if there were a lot of people at the restaurant and if it was raining. Everything right down to the very last detail was asked and I wonder if the color of his underwear was asked as well. There I was idling at the table and eating up the rest of the salad while his body was turned away from me, whispering now into the phone and trying to comfort her - for whatever reasons. So I entertained myself, amused with the situation by playing a game of chess with the salt and pepper shaker, then drew lines through the mayonnaisse. I started poking the vegetables with my fork and tried to poke as many as I could. Then, the candle caught my attention.

I waved the napkin above the fire, as it shot up in the air, erected like a soldier at attention, wearing a yellow-colored uniform. The pink wax melted into a small pool of liquid, rolling around in the metal container as I shook the table gently underneath. Then the napkin fluttered over the fire, and I watched as the soldier leaped upwards towards the napkin and grabbed hold of the edge. His yellow fingers crawled upwards from the edge and proceeded inwards, always leaving a black trail behind. I was mesmerized, and watched as the napkin kept burning and Samuel's voice became more and more worried.

All I see are dark grey clouds
In the distance moving closer with every hour
So when you ask "Is something wrong?"
I think "You're damn right there is but we can't talk about it now.
No, we can't talk about it now."

No offense Samuel, but your relationship with your girlfriend is probably the reason why I am reluctant to get into yet another relationship myself. As much as I meant every word I said in the last entry, if a person comes to me now and confesses, I am going to completely freak out on the spot. The truth is, though I am unattached I am also, unavailable. Single, blissful, carefree. Besides...(I censored out this part).

As I saw the white napkin slowly burnt, I saw the hope and wishes I had only a short while ago disappearing into the air around it, into fireflies that flickered and was gone. I blew out the napkin and laid the carcass on the white dish before me. I almost burnt down the whole restaurant, and was lucky enough to not have caught the attention of the owner. But as I stared into the yellow soldier, still standing erected and then at the black ashes in the dishes, I added another mental question to my notebook.

The lighted candle and the burnt napkin.

Which is me, which is really me?

So one last touch and then you'll go
And we'll pretend that it meant something so much more
But it was vile, and it was cheap
and you are beautiful but you don't mean a thing to me
yeah you are beautiful but you don't mean a thing to me