Prologue
Hometown Glory filled the spaces of my dark room with a melancholy and nostalgia as Adele’s reflective voice rang through the grey walls.
Isn’t it just surprising how a voice can have tremendous effect on you and your surrounding?
Bringing my legs together to my chest, I put my chin between them and gazed out of the slightly fogged window at the endless, blurry lane; waiting for the first snow to touch the ground.
I feel cold. Cold and hollow.
The cream coloured sweater that was woven by mum over for a tough few months, was large enough to reach my mid-thighs, but it hardly warmed me. I wonder why?
Was it because I was under-dressed?
Or is it because the winter inside of me is endless?
Maybe I should just put a blanket on my bare legs.
My phone beeped, disrupting my thoughts and pulling me into a reality filled with gloom and hollowness.
“Wanna hang out?”
I smiled. It’s just three words. Three welcoming words indicating that the other person is interested in having you in their company. But I feel nowhere near being social. I just wanna stay alone, like always.
Pressing the power button off, I threw my phone lightly as it landed on the mattress with a soft thud.
Releasing a tired sigh, my creasing eyes fell with sadness on the photo frame kept at the farthest end of my desk - it’s a picture of a girl and boy smiling at each other. The girl with her ever brightening smile had her arms latched around the guy’s shoulder while the guy held her as if she was the most delicate thing in the world. Both of them looked into each other’s eyes as if they belong there - not a irritation, no discomfort nor a single pain, just plain serenity and happiness, reflecting through their kind orbs.
They resemble of yin and yang - with their bodies pressed against each other. The guy’s fair skin glowed under the bright light while the melanoid on the girl looked so ethereal as if Gaia herself has painted her with the gorgeous colour. Her dark hair - much like the dark clouds before a thunderstorm, fell in a frenzy wave behind her as the guy flashed her the most beautiful gummy smile anyone could have ever witnessed.
But you might have already known at this point that - yin and yang are not the compatible equivalents. They maybe the two halves of the same shape, but they are not supposed to be together. They are heterogeneous. They can’t mix and emerge as one.
They are separable.
What a shame!
Feeling utterly alone, I hugged my bare legs tight as if to compress the body heat from escaping into the cool, crisp December air.
The evening settled into a depressed one and the distant street lamps were starting to heat up to glow for the rest of the night.
The darkness cloaked around me and I feel small and claustrophobic. Hugging my knees tight, I looked at the hazy evening sky outside - filled with barely any colours and warmth.
Sometimes, I wish I were an eagle - that I could just spread my grand wings and soar up in the blue sky, higher and higher until I could feel the air thinning; the adrenaline keeping me alive and pushing me to my limits, amidst the white clouds and the blazing light of the sun, aiming for the height and the unbroken horizon until I could feel the the air being sucked out of my lungs.
A sudden flash of a particular guy with ebony curls and gummy smile broke the trance, and memories of that man resurface down my memory lane like a rushing torrent - his dark hair floating under the soft summer breeze as he let his head to fall back on the cushion of my thighs. Taking a strand of my dark hair, he twirled it around his forefinger. His eyes moved up, travelling to my eyes then to my lips. I felt like the world was mine again, and with a happy sigh, I let my head dip forward to let his lips touch mine.
A sudden choke made me realise that tears were falling too thick and fast for me to think. The cluster of emotions were clogging my memory and suddenly I found it hard to breathe.
Wiping my tears with the back of my hands, I brought the heel of my palm to rub a small part of the foggy window clean, casting a lonely gaze on the deserted street which was now illuminated by street lamps.
Where did it all go wrong?
