In Continuum.

Square Sixteen



Tears you see on my face, you do have something to do with
Fear starts creeping up when you have so much to lose
Your love waits you while you're cheating
Lightning strikes you when you're moving

There was a time when sadness had a refuge, when there was a place for it to go. Like the secret clearing in the middle of the woods, or the pages of your diary. Always, there used to be place where we both went to when the words said could never untangle our frustrations, when the touches of our lips tasted more bitter than sweet. It was a place I remember only by heart, and the place which I shall never visit again. But it was a place - at least for me - when we were truly happy, and sad altogether.

The number sixteen, I remember it was a floor the elevators never reached. It was the place we went to when there wasn't anything left to do but go home. But there was always that reluctance, that hesitance to take the stairs down to your place. So we'd go up, up to the top of the block and stare out through the narrow windows. Outside the air always smelled so crisp, so brand new. Untouched by the poisonous fume pouring out into the streets from the exhaust pipes of cars, we were safe where we were, protected and far away. Despite the neighbors of yours living just a few steps above us, their doors were always locked and windows always shut. In the quiet hours of the night as the soft breeze tenderly blew, we'd tell our secrets and speak our woes. Upon the dirty steps while leaning against each other, that was how we spent the last moments of the night, counting down to the inevitable goodbye.

The light you see in my eyes, you do have something to do with
Play the game namely love, play it like you have nothing to lose
Horse loves you when you move with him
People hate you when you're changing

The lift jerked to a sudden stop, and the lights above flickered all of a sudden, and then black. The elevator got stuck somewhere in between the fifteenth and the sixteenth floor, and the fan above the ceiling boards stopped whirling, giving the silence around me a sudden amplified quality. To be in the midst of it all, I tried to reach for the penal of buttons, feeling them and counting under my breaths until I reached the emergency button, painted yellow and placed at the top of the buttons. There was a loud ring from somewhere above my head, and the lights came back on again. I was - in fact - stuck in between the fifteenth and the sixteenth floor, and with a final jerk the lift moved up to the latter and allowed me out. Despite the momentary confinement, I found myself out of breath and shaken. But the growling in my stomach was more pressing, and the headache from the shaky bus ride was in dire need of a comfortable bed to lie on.

So I dashed out of the lift doors and took the stairs up, since my house is only three stories above where I was. It has been a while since I used those stairs, and the air smelled of old wood and dust for some reason. The lights came through the holes dug through the concrete walls to my right, making orange circles on the side of the staircases with the railing. I climbed and climbed, feeling the dust gathering on the tips of my fingers as I held on to the railings tight. But at the top of the steps, I peered down at the distance that I have covered, and then the scenery outside through the carefully shaped holes on the walls. I saw my school down below, in front of it the red running tracks with soccer players running about on the fields like tiny white ants. Beyond the school, the condominium with the penthouse, a man stood at the balcony with a woman, pointing into the distance and leaning against the railing. I followed the man's fingers, and my eyes trailed down the road, and followed the silver car until the circle dug in the wall rid me of my vision. So I sat down at the top step where the sound of children screaming from the eighteenth floor could be heard, and then the smell of food being prepared in a neighbor's kitchen could be smelled. I sat there, and started imagining.

Don't let the dress trick you
I love you less now that I know you
I won't count the scars again
I love you less now that I know you

I was on a bus, bus 53. Traveling down the familiar roads and streets, the old familiar ones. The red lights came on timely, and the pedestrians took their own sweet time to cross the road - as usual. The same crowd gathered at the bus stop, the one right in front of the train station, and a school boy accidentally trips into the bus bay. Further down the road, the bus turns and it came under the shelter of the viaduct above. A short distance ahead after another traffic light, the bus turns right again and follows the flow of cars down the road until that sign, that white color sign that pointed towards a NKF branch. Turning there, the bus followed the straight road down, the playground with the spider webs passing on the left, then the clinic, followed by the park that your father does his evening jogs at. Oh, the new set of traffic lights at the front of your house, the one fifty meters from the next one, the one that amused us so very much when the machineries were brought in, only months ago.

I got off, for some reason still afraid to be seen, still afraid to be caught. But the purple anti-ultraviolet papers had no silhouettes waiting by the window, nobody waiting for you to come home, because you weren't coming home, or you probably were already. The light from the living room could be seen from the streets, and I made my way up the walkway with my hands stuck in my pocket and to the lift lobby. I looked around for your father, and the coast was clear. I breathed a sigh of relief, and took the lift all the way up to the sixth floor where the lift stopped. The old red paint still stained the ground outside the lift, and the old furnitures were piling up again. Your old neighbor watched the evening news with a bowl of porridge in her hands, and the red lights from the altar shone dully but constantly in the dimmed room. The clothes fluttered in the evening wind, swaying this way and that from the bamboo poles, the sound of the fabric brushing against one another almost echoing down the empty corridors. Was that the sound of a lingering kiss? I asked myself. Of course not, a voice said. And the voice, sounded just like mine. Of course not.

The glow you see on my face, you do have something to do with
Fear starts creeping up when you have so much to lose
Your love wait you while you're cheating
Lightning strikes you when you're moving

The Goodbye Stairs, the point of no return. I have never ventured further than the top of the stairs, but today I was able to. Because you weren't there to stop me, you weren't there to tell me that your mother might see us together, or your brother coming home from work. Your neighbor has yet to fix his doorknob, still relying on the metal bars on the gate to open the door. And the button to the doorbell is mounted on the wall, the plastic turning yellow and a thin layer of dust on top. My finger hovered above the button, picturing your face at the door, or perhaps your mother's. But this time, if it is the latter, at least I wouldn't have to lie. I'd say, "Your daughter's friend", and be proud that I spoke of the truth. She'd call for your name, and then eye me through the corner of her eyes like she did when we met for the first time.

The doorbell was pressed, the ring of the bell coming from behind the brown wooden door of yours. There was a scrambling of footsteps, somebody approaching the front door. My heart pounded, unsure of who it was going to be. But there I was, exposed to the coming person's scrutiny, but too late to run away all at the same time. The locks were undone, the presence of the person behind the door felt. And with a sudden gush of wind blasting into my face from inside, the person revealed herself to me. It was you, standing there, for the first time from within your house and I from outside. You smiled - somehow - and I did too. The sound of the traffic below disappeared, the voices from your neighbors were gone. You said your mother wasn't in, and your whole family too. So with your arm hooked around mine, I whispered once more - and for the last time - shall we?

Don't let me wonder away
I love you less now that I know you
Don't let the dress trick you
I love you less now that I know you

I opened my eyes, and faced the dimly lid stairwell on my own again. The shade of orange on the wall became darker, the sun was setting with every second that went by. I must have sat there for a while, because my hip bone was hurting and the air grew heavier for some reason. But then I realized, at that moment, where we were supposed to go in that vision of mine. Back up to the sixteenth floor, back up to the place where we never had any woes, but only tears of joy and the ones caught by each others' palms. Caught, and not fallen on the cold hard floors. At least we had each other, but not now with me standing alone on the top of my stairs. But still, I was on the sixteenth floor of my own block, and all I could do was to imagine, to picture how it'd be like to be on the sixteenth block of our personal refuge, our sanctuary - now shared with somebody else, somebody new.

Remembering the tall dark window without glass, and the view from there out. My house glittered in the distance, three dark towers with glistering lights from lighted living rooms. I pointed into the distance, smelling your hair in my face. But I smelled nothing of that familiar scent, but that of old wood and dust again. I coughed, the sound of it echoing down the stairwell and bounced off the hard concrete grounds. I miss the times on the sixteenth floor, and that place was so comfortable for you, for me, for us. But perhaps still the same for you, but never for me.

I packed myself together and climbed up the remaining steps. The remainder of the climb was hard, and my knees started aching from old injuries again. The stomach continued to growl, and my mother must have been waiting impatiently on the sofa with her pink apron on. I had to get home soon, I had to get home fast. And with that thought in mind, I squeezed out the melancholia that crept up the steps and into my mind of the sixteenth floor that I was own, that I once known, that I lost all over again.