Friday, March 22, 2013

A different kind of sunset

A year and half ago, roughly speaking, at a hip restaurant full of old short wave radios, a man in a sports jacket and scrubby face asked a woman - "Do you still write? I used to read your stories. I liked them." A woman stared at her food, it was Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, and said, "What stories?"

This woman had lost a decade of her memory, and was trying to figure out her past. She was vulnerable and confused. She wanted to find her past, so that she could see through the fog, and into a future.

She embarked on a journey with this man, whom, to her surprise, gave her what she needed at the time, and inspired her to write again. During the subsequent months, she learned a lot about herself and discovered a lot of new things about her, as well as the old. Her memories were coming back to her, little by little, thanks to this man.

She wrote stories about her journey with this man, who seemed caring and loving and she felt instinctively, from time to time, even loved her, and for the first time in many many years of her adult life, she was able to feel, and consequently to write again. Along the process, she fell for this man. It was a gradual, unexpected process. But she fell in love.

She envisioned a future, a snow covered path, northern lights, them holding hands, they'd be frail, but they'd be together. In her creative process, she had confused her imagination with her realty. She built this man up in her world, and she felt in love with whom she wanted him to be, and not who he was.

This man, who initially was just a friend, who was open and willing to share his life with her, became increasingly distant, secretive, absent, dismissive, and ultimately, withdrew.  But she pressed on. She declared that she loved him, and she'd love him until the end of the day. Little did she realize, the end of the day was near.

You see, one day, one day when she woke up in a sunny wine country looking forward to her return, to be reunited with him, she received a text, it was simple, it says, "can we reschedule?" It had been two months since she last saw him, and in those two months they exchanged affectionate emails and she thought he had still wanted her and missed her, but instead, she found herself to be just an appointment, a cancelled appointment at that.

In the proceeding days, and weeks, she cried, she wanted an explanation, and she wanted to know what happened. She reached out to him. It was met with silence, absolute silence.

One minute, he told her that he missed her and how lucky he was to have her in his life, one minute, he was gone, as if he never existed.

This was never how she intended the story to end. She wrote many endings, none of which was this one.

This was a sunset. A sunset that did not include him, hand in hand, with her. There was never going to be any stories.

She wrote hundreds and hundreds of stories, in two different blogs, this being one of the two, during the times they were together.

But it's time. It's time to close this chapter of her life, and let this part of her life be buried, just like her previous stories, written from a decade ago, which this man told her at that evening, that he had once read, and liked.

"You must find those stories. They were good. I used to read them." That, shall be the only thing she'd remember about him. The night before when everything re-begun.

You see, this is the story about a sunset. A different kind of sunset. But a sunset nonetheless

This is the last and the only thing you shall read on this blog.

Goodbye my dear voyeur readers.

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