No more.

21Mar09

Lutfi (the older friend) recently discovered Breakfast at Tiffany’s (the film) and is a gushing fanboy now. That movie had an odd aftertaste for me – Akram would call it saudade. Saudade it is. For some reason, I’ve been putting off re-watching BFaT for more than a year now. Gushing Fanboy made me want to revisit it. After only 3 minutes of a scene in the middle, it all came rushing back. Tristez, saudade, all the verbs they use in bossa nova. And spewing out came this short. There’s not enough style or prose or plot for it to be anything more than a late night ramble.

This is for Lubna, who has been writing vignettes about Him and Her, two people sufficiently soaked in anonymity that anyone can relate to them. I want to be Her, and sometimes I feel I am.

‘I think it’s in our natural longing to provide, to look out for someone who expressly wants to be left alone.

For me, it’s you. And for you, it’s that stranger on the street. That child unborn to the prostitute you observe behind the wheel as the traffic light halts you red. The girl who broke your heart and told you that it’s not you, that it never was.

You feel, intuitively, that it’s a lie. You know you will hurt. Caring is masochistic – I don’t blame the ones who do not feel. They’re probably better off than we are.

You like black cappucinos and I like romances that are screwed from the start.  I like sad endings for aesthetic and sadistic reasons best left untold, but you are that secret idealist. You order a regular capp with skim milk despite being lactose intolerant, because we grew up believing you have to suffer to deserve happiness. You take extra foam and I take in you.

You listen when I talk, even when I don’t ask you to. You listen so well when I ramble on that now, words tire me. I’ve barely written in days, that’s how wretched I feel. I can’t blame you for listening to me, in more ways than one. And I can’t blame you for not caring either. I know the difference, and you do apathetic listening so well. You’re like a stranger I carry in my pocket. I never knew you, perhaps never will, and perhaps I don’t want to.

We all want someone to love, someone meek and small and needy. Maybe that’s why women have babies, and men have women. Once babies grow up they become pubescents who begin to remind you that they don’t need you anymore; once we commit we forget how we got there in the first place.

I’m numb now. If the weather were cold I’d feel it less, I think. You cannot know how I suffer. It’s nothing you’re not familiar with. It’s that tired, stretched feeling inside that makes you feel your heart is too small for large things. Spectacular things like you. Wonderful things like you and me.

We may never stand a chance to Doubt.’

Chega. Chega, meu coração.
P.S:- Lubna, sorry for being so, you know. Depressing. 

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