In Continuum.

Berlin Wall

It was one hundred degrees,
As we sat beneath a willow tree,
Whose tears didn't care, they just hung in the air,
And refused to fall, to fall.

There is a friend of mine, whose life took a wrong turn into herself only months ago. In the wetter months of last year, I remember the serious case of sinus that I experienced, as I braved the cold wet weather outside with a good-for-nothing umbrella and a pair of ears meant for a friend in distress. I took leave from camp that day, unable to go back because of the incredible pain in my joints and back. Besides, the fever was climbing the charts and going back to camp would've been a suicide. The doctor was kind enough to give me an extra day of excuse, but I'm sure he never expected me to wander out of the house on a rainy day to listen to my friend's woes in a cafe near my place, which might have potentially worsened my condition.

But there I was, standing in a puddle of water as high as the sole of my shoes, waiting for my friend to show up. And through the soft veil of the rain that morning, she emerged from the gloom in her petite figure, that for some reason created a stark contrast with everything else. We said little when we met, but embraced each other under the shelter of the cafe that afternoon. A moment longer, and she would have broke down in front of everybody, or revealed to everyone the wall that she built around her heart. She was being led on, she was being abandoned. And in the aftermath of her failed relationship, she started on the construction of a wall around her heart.

And I knew I'd made horrible call,
And now the state line felt like the Berlin wall,
And there was no doubt about which side I was on.

'Cause I built you a home in my heart,
With rotten wood, it decayed from the start.

I remember the messages in the late night and the phone calls. She told me about that wall she built, the way she blocked out her families and even her friends. She would leave the cyberspace for indefinite periods of time and turn her cellphone, just to be out of reach from the world she knew. So that was how thick the wall was, the way it surrounded her and closed her in from everything else. And every brick was laid on top of another by her own hands, leaving not even a window in the walls to peer through. I was worried, and she needed my help. I couldn't bear to see her like that, so distant and so different from the person that I knew.

So together, we promised each other that somehow, we will remove the bricks and tear the walls down all over again. We weren't sure if we'd be able to make it, or how we were going to do it. But still, there was a certain sense of optimism in the air, a sort of hope that everything was going to turn out fine. We started from square one, and saw the first brick being through to the ground, and slowly we revealed her dying heart in the center of it all. Still alive, but barely so. Suffocating.

'Cause you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.
No you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.

In a few months, the walls were torn down, and the bricks laid in a hill of rubble around her heart. The new air filled her lungs, and she managed to breathe - something she hasn't done in a very long time. She smiled, and I was glad to see how my old friend stood up from the ashes of the past and decided to move on, and how I was in some ways involved in it. We kicked the bricks around like soccer balls, then smashed a couple of them to vent our anger and frustrations. But life goes on, and soon enough we were away from the destruction that was caused by our bare hands. But we were happy, happy for each other. And now that she is in a new relationship herself, away from that pile of bricks that once confined her to herself, I'm sure everybody that has seen her pictures are going to agree that she moved on, and she moved on well. But what happened to those bricks? The child asks, for there must be an end to the bricks, too?

My father, before going to the airport yesterday afternoon, showered me with idiotic questions as to whether or not I'd like him to find me a new girl. He claims that I'd like anybody that he deems to be fitting. But of course, the women that he knows have an average age of about forty and above, and I am not really hot about dating women twice my age. He then proceeded to ask me if I need any phone numbers, e-mails, or any forms of contact from his vast social circle. I merely looked at him in disbelief, and was surprised at just how serious he looked at the dining table. But of course, as it was later revealed, it was all a bit of fun and he was just trying to have me 'open up'. 'You've been too quiet these days,' he said. 'Saying less than ten words at home. Are you having depression because of the break up or something?'

Touche.

I braved treacherous streets,
And kids strung out on home-made speed.
And we shared a bed in which I could not sleep at all,

There was an article that I read in last weekend's paper, and it talked about the signs of male depression. And a little disturbing observation I made was how I vaguely related too all of them. Of course, I seriously doubt if I am going to need any professional help in this issue, or if I - in any way - need any mental and emotional attention. But it was just interesting how my Dad managed to notice those things in me, something which I have neglected. I guess more or less, things have taken their toll on me for the past few months, the way they snowballed over one another and surmounted into this giant mountain of depression. It's nothing serious, in fact it has been proving its worthiness in terms of writing. But still, looking at the root of this depression - you - it sickens me a little bit.

To answer the question of what happened to the bricks, you have to imagine a big white room with no walls. Just a big empty space, well lid and infinite on all directions. In the middle is a heart, a human one, and that represents my own in this world. I am standing next to it, feeling the life pulsating through the vessels and the veins, glad that it is still alive. Then an arrow pierced the center of it all, an arrow from far off. An archer was in the distance, firing arrows at my heart, mind bent on blowing it into pieces. And when the archer's aim was done, she fled down the rise with another man, to a place where they might live happily ever after.

'Cause at night the sun in retreat,
Made the skyline look like crooked teeth,
In the mouth of a man who was devouring, us both.

The paramedics came, in a wailing ambulance and medical equipments. They hopped off the vehicles and started mending the wound in the heart. They all looked like me, the paramedics, and some of them shouted at me, pushing me away from the crime scene as they worked. The arrow was pulled from the center, and as the arrow-head emerged from the bloody flesh, more blood spurted out from the hole made and the paramedics were drenched in blood. But of course, they complained little and continued to work on it. They stitched up the wounds, taking care of the little fissures or holes on every angle of the heart, and one of them stretched a giant band-aid around the heart to plaster things up.

By now, the heart was already pumping slower than before, and almost looked as if it was dying from every beat that it was making. The paramedics wiped the blood off their foreheads and shirts, but it only made things worse. I thanked them, and they were off into the seamless horizon in their wailing ambulance once more. I looked upon my own heart, and contemplated ways to protect it from yet another attack. I designed a Berlin Wall of sorts in my head, but I needed materials. I needed bricks, and I needed cement to put the bricks together. But it was an empty room, an indefinite space. Where am I supposed to find the materials I need for the walls?

You're so cute when you're slurring your speech,
But they're closing the bar and they want us to leave.

And you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.
No you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.

I noticed a pile in the distance, and I recognized it to be the pile of bricks I tore down from around my friend's heart. Yes! I exclaimed to myself. This is it! So I dragged the bricks to where I was one by one, and with the materials left from her own construction, I started building a wall on my own, around my heart. I left some space for air around the heart, leaving a single window in one of the walls for the view on the outside, and all the while I smirked at the irony of it all. The irony being, that I tore down the wall of a friend's heart only to build one of my own. Ha, the irony. The irony.

I confined myself within, looking through the window once in a while. People came pasing by once in a while, and some of them would peer into the darkness of my heart with much curiosity. Some of them went away after seeing me inside, while others were kind enough to offer me a book, or food, or perhaps their mere company on the other side of my Berlin Wall. Some people caught my attention, certain beauty in the streets. But the walls were thick, and the reach of my arm was short. Everything outside the window became so far away, all of a sudden. There wasn't enough courage to break down the walls that I built and dash to that person, to show my infatuations and perhaps my affections. It was too hard, too thick, and within these walls my courage dwindled and died.

I'm a war, of head versus heart,
And it's always this way.
My head is weak, my heart always speaks,
Before I know what it will say.

So you see, the world I see now is through this little window that I have built out of the bricks left over by that friend of mine, built with much cynicism and much hate. I see my friend and her new partner strolling down the streets at times, random strangers holding hands in parks and gardens, or parents holding the hands of their child in the middle. I have yet to see the archer yet, but as time went by inside the cell that I made for myself, revenge mattered little. Logic tells me, that perhaps someday you should break out of this state, and that someday you will work around things. I know, I really know. Which is why I have prepared a bundle of dynamites in the corner of my cell, to blow the walls down if it becomes too suffocating, too confined and too morbid for my taste. But until that day comes, I am comforted by the life of my own, the life that I built for myself.

It isn't a fancy cell, but it has everything that I need. At least it acts as a form of protection from everything else on the outside. The day will come, when I shall tear down the Berlin Wall that I built for myself. But what is revealed from the ruins shall never be the same as before. Because a nightmare doesn't just fade, it doesn't just go away. Even with the courage to face the world, a new life, it remains quietly in a corner, breathing and living, like a living thing. It will always be there, lying somewhere in the debris, just waiting for that next day to come for me to rebuild my wall all over again. It's a vicious cycle, it just goes on and on, round and round.

And you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.
There were churches, theme parks and malls,
But there was nothing there all along.