monologues

Same taxi pool. Same route home. Only you bought one withered red rose from a girl in veil who sold flowers for .05 Euros two years ago.

What time was it two years ago? 23.00? And what time was it? 20 minutes ago?

A withered red rose. The prize for loneliness. Where is the veiled girl now? Probably already away in a village in Indonesia celebrating Eidul Fitri.

Same taxi pool. Same car. Same push on the gas pedal when you dropped them off, Yuska. What was it? Up to 30 km/hour without changing to the second speed? Getting your engines roaring.

You were trying hard not to look back and you succeeded. Never knowing what direction the two-years-ago was heading and the 20-minutes-ago was heading.

The two-years-ago? You don't know and you don't want to care anymore. But the anger and the pain live on.

The 20-minutes ago? That's more complicated.

Was it the same taxi that the two-years-ago and 20-minutes-ago used? Probably. What a coincidence.

Different taxi pool. The 20-minutes-ago guy kissed me. 3 months ago. On my birthday.

And the thoughtful gifts you gave them, Yuska. What? A wallet to replace the old, weary one for the two-years-ago and a rosary for the 20-minutes-ago?

A rosary. You bought it in Notre Dame de Paris. In the same church where you prayed for his happiness.

Did you mention about your happiness too?

Surely you said that watching him being happy would make you happy too, right? One of the oldest cliches. And yet, you feel that feeling in your guts. Not butterflies. Probably some are butterflies. But what are the others?

Did the lump of stone you tried to swallow earlier make it down your throat and into your digestive systems? Are the systems trying to digest it now? Is it the one? That feeling?

Forget the two-years-ago. You didn't even cry for him.

But you did for this 20-minutes-ago. Like the night when Mommy Dearest knocked the teak door of your room terrifyingly asking why you were crying eventhough you tried to die the sobbing down by pushing the pillow to your face?

Like tonight. When you cried while speeding down the driveway. Going somewhere between 80 km/hour and 120? Asking for guidance from a fairy tale character created from the minds of Hans Christian Andersen.

The ever-so-lonely Little Mermaid.

A character so familiar to you, right? A character you often identify yourself with, other than the ugly duckling. What did the Little Mermaid do?

Did she got lost in her dreams? In her fantasies? In her love?

She gave everything she had in exchange to a human life, to just see and get a glimpse of the human male she had longed for. And when she did see him, she had to give even more.

Sure, there were options. To claim the love that she might have never had, or just go back, knowing that the little scars would still be there for the rest of her long life.

But instead, she wished her human male and his wife a peaceful farewell and kept the wars inside her heart. And ended her life. The Gods, as wise as they are, turned the princess of the sea into the princess of the winds.

Princess, were you that gentle breeze that kisses my sweaty forehead on hot sleepless summer nights? Princess, were you that wind that helped my airplane stay flying safely to Paris and back? Princess, were you that cool air that nano-secondly dried my tears after the 20-minutes-ago left?

How many times are you going to repeat Gracie Hart's line from Miss Congeniality 2 of knowing "how it feels to get hurt and feel your heart get ripped open because you finally took a chance on that relationship and it ended up confirming your worst fears that you aren't worth loving or worth caring about"?

Or Ultraviolet's view that "these moments, as beautiful as they are, they're evil when they're gone"?

And yet you went all swooned up when you saw Lake House or The Simpsons when Seymour Skinner got it going with Edna Krabbapel.

You went all swooned up when you listened to your friends talking about their relationship and wondered why you had none.

You can listen to Anggun's Juste Avant Toi 200 times and still go back to zero when you put on Frank Sinatra's Embraceable You and realized that the only one you can slow dance with is your imaginary friend.

Your imaginary friend whom you created out of loneliness and despair. Nobody would know about this thing.

The 20-minutes-ago. Will it be the last time? Did you really mean it when you replied to his thank you message? How about the jealousy? Will you keep the war to yourself? He has too much to think about. Your nagging will only make it worse, right?

Like Tori Amos, you that that "it could be / a life-long thing / but I didn't know that we / we could break our silver-lining" and that you're "so sad / like a good book / I can't put this / day-back / a sorta fairy tale with you".

Another picture with you inside the frame. Slowly (or fastly?) fading. Until you're there no more. Isn't it always like that with you?

Fading.

Until you're there no more, Yuska. No matter how intense you deal with self-mutilation or self-mangling or self-slicing. It's just going to help you fade away quicker.

Fading.