The day I met you was a day of magic. Both of us strangers, going alone
to see the same movie. It was magic that led us to the same movie
theater, magic that made the projectors experience "technical
difficulties" just at that moment. It was magic when we both turned to
each other and saw that spark of recognition in each other's eyes like a
light in the dark, magic when you smiled at me and invited me for lunch.
It was the 5th of February, and a day that marked the most beautiful month
of my life. Because you were there, and you were with me. I can still
remember the way your eyes would get that smoldering look when you watched
me, and I can still remember you saying we were like random stars in a sky
stretching forever, stars that Fate hand-picked to collide into each other
and become soulmates.
And yet, at the end of two magical months, you left. Without a word,
without a single glance or goodbye. You disappeared. I desperately tried
to find out if you were all right. You wouldn't answer my calls, you were
never home. In those moments, the magic that you brought with you into my
life...vanished. It was only a month later when you finally had the
courage to face me, even over the phone.
You had become a stranger to me. You couldn't have been the one who had
so captured my heart that I let myself fall in love with you that day when
I met you at the theater. Even then, when I didn't know you, I recognized
you.
You reached in and tore my heart apart so quietly. And after that one
call, you disappeared again, leaving me to deal with my pain. I hated so
much to feel that wrenching pain, hated that it made me think my heart
would never stop bleeding--and yet...yet that pain was the only thing that
let me know I was still alive.
After all this time, I still carry you in my memory. When I remember you,
it is with a flash of bittersweet. But it is not the day that you
left, nor the days afterward until you let me hear your voice for the last
time, that I remember. That Pong was--is--a stranger to me. No. When I
remember you, I remember the magic that was all around us that day we met,
the 5th of February. I remember the sweetly nervous way you asked me out.
The way we looked at each other as if we'd finally found home. And I know
that in that one moment at least, we weren't strangers.
Mallika
