A Beautiful Doom (Part 1)

Everybody gets lonely in one way, or another. Here, I am walking along a crowded street, watching passersby around me. I am wondering what they are thinking. Are they always present with their mind or are they secretly wondering too, just like me?

I am trying to keep up with my friends who are all walking ahead. This is the way we are, we race even if we are on recess, we cannot stop.  I wonder when I did turn to be such a person who forgets how to slow down.

I look around me, at the sea of foreign tourists dragging their cigarettes and drinking Chang. There’s a fat and short  man handing out a Tiger show flyer underneath a martini glass-shaped neon light. Everything around me is so far from innocent. I am far from my innocence.

I am looking for you. For fate brings me to your city. A place that I know to be just quick getaway or a usual business destination, especially for ad people, like me.

I should anticipate Bangkok will be on my fly-to list, sooner or later. The respect and reputation of Thai film directors and production house are high. Big businesses and  the ad agencies rely on the professionalism.

But I still have doubt if I ever be ready for this city.

It is best that I should not talk to you, but I like to gamble. So, I sent a private message to your Instagram account which I have unblocked just an hour ago. I wonder what you might think if you know that I am here.

You are the one who bid me goodbye, and in a way, invite me to your city. I want to know if I am always welcomed to you, or if looking for you is entirely one big mistake.

It is a surprise to find you, sitting casually on the reception area of the hotel lobby, right after I sent you a message. You don’t look like you have ever changed.  You are still a lanky guy with eyes fixating on your iPhone like everything around you doesn’t even matter.

“Hi,” I say and you reply with “Hi”, and ask me how I am doing. I say that I am fine but I am thinking of what would make you accept my invitation. All I know that you have been avoiding me too. I don’t care about this social media thing nor I care about my reputation in the digital realm, but it was hard to know that you don’t ever want to speak to me again.

All I have was the recording of your voice, you wished that you’d see me in Bangkok. I wondered why you recorded it, you could just type the message to me instead of sending me your voice. Could it be that you wanted to make me miss you? I think I know the answer. You feel much more confident when you talk. In the other hand, I  feel much more confident when I write.

But now, the wall between us has diminished. There is no past, there’s only present. You follow me to my room. I don’t feel any flutter in my heart, not yet. But, I wonder if you are staring at my backside and looking at how tight the jeans that are wrapping around my legs.

I see you, examining the room. You touch and ring the glass chandeliers that look like droplets of rain, hanging from above the low ceiling that almost matches your height. I wonder what’s on your mind right now. I look at you from the clear glass partition that separate the bed and the coffee table and chairs.

“I am just grabbing my purse.” I wave my three-year-old leather wallet at you. “Let’s go, find something good to eat.”

To be continued