A Moment Like This

"Why won't you ever look back at me when you're walking away?"

Something I once asked someone a long time ago
when I am still allowed to ask her silly questions

Three days ago on a Wednesday afternoon, I saw a girl whose name I have yet to learn to spell. She smiled at me and so I smiled back, adding a slight decorous nod of my head in the manner I am accustomed to when I greet ladies. I had a half a conversation with her once, which should have been a full one had it not suffer an untimely and unfortunate interruption.

I am of the opinion that conversations are only complete if its participants have said their goodbyes. Goodbyes were certainly something we did not exchange.

Three days ago on a Wednesday afternoon, our paths crossed silently and marked an imaginary 'X' on the ground. We met at a single point, lingered at it for as long as it was needed to pass it, and began walking away from that point as soon as we reach it.

A strange sensation gripped me as I walked away. It felt exactly like the sort of feeling I get when I drop something very expensive and very breakable - that helplessness in the short heartbeat between the instant that object leaves my hand and the moment it hits the floor and shatters. I felt as if there's something I should do but I knew not what. In that second of hesitance and the barely perceptible slowing of the pace of my steps, I turned to look where she had gone.

I found that she had turned her head as well.

Our eyes met for the second time and, if it is even possible, for a much briefer period. It was broken when I looked away abruptly with a feeble attempt at nonchalance - as if being caught in the embarrassing act of looking back after someone is an inordinately frequent occurrence in my daily life. I felt helplessness washing over me, but it was not the same kind of helplessness I feel when I drop something very expensive and breakable. No, it was the type of helplessness I feel when I realise that someone saw me drop that very expensive and breakable object, and there's no chance in hell I can deny it.

I do not know how she reacted. Did she abruptly turned away sheepishly like I did? Did she stare after me as I quickly made my getaway, suspecting perhaps that I have been furtively observing her derrière? Did she in fact scratched her head in puzzlement of why a person who is almost a stranger - whose name she have yet to learn to spell as well - was stealing a glance after her?

I am going to ask her one day, in that conversation I meant to complete.

The artist of this piece got the idea when he was taking a bath with a special lady of his.

Once there was a girl I walked with often, and walked home just as frequent. When we reach her place and we say our goodbyes, I would stay there and watch her as she walks away. She would become smaller with distance with every step she took - and I would watch right till the moment she disappears behind a door or round a corner.

Now, I no longer walk with her.

If there's ever a reason to resent that three years I have walked her home, it is that she never once looked back at where she left me.

P.S. Right this moment is the 7th second of the 7th minute of the 7th hour of Saturday, the 7th day of the week,
on the 7th of July, which is the 7th month of the year '07.

Looking back,
k0k s3n w4i