tell me about it

Presenting: a series of vignettes I wrote for Valentine’s Day 2006. Here’s Part the First.

I used to see him around the area, now and then. He was always in his school uniform. Tall, fresh-faced and gangly. Caught somewhere between a boy and a man - too self-aware to be a child but too self-conscious to be a man, you know the type.

No, he doesn’t live here. I’ve seen him with his girlfriend, you know, Ling’s daughter? Ling from the thirteenth floor, with the potted plants outside her door. I thought it was cute, love at that age. They were holding hands and giggling. Young love. It’s all about blushing at each other, late-night phone calls, earnest heartfelt declarations of forever and ever amen. Stolen kisses under the staircase. Lucky stars, folded paper hearts. Fond memories.

But then I saw him today in the lift. I guess he was coming down from the thirteenth floor. I didn’t know where to look. It’s embarrassing for boys to be seen crying at that age, isn’t it? So I just kept staring at the numbers flashing. Eleven. Ten. Nine.

I thought I’d heard wrong at first, so I kept quiet, but then he said it again louder. And it wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it. That really got me. The anguish and the pain and the desolation. I’d forgotten how my first broken heart had felt, but seeing him like that, I remembered.

Poor boy.

“No, it won’t always hurt this much,” I told him, but he bit his lip and turned his face away, so I just patted his shoulder awkwardly.

“You’re still young,” I said comfortingly. He nodded wearily. Shouldered his bag, wiped fiercely at his wet cheeks with the back of his hand. Walked out of the lift when the doors opened, and I didn’t stop him. I mean, what could I have said? How could I have known? I didn’t see him again after that. Until now, of course.

It’s really sad, when things like this happen. Such a young man. So much promise. If I had known…maybe I could have stopped him? I thought he was going home. I didn’t know he was going to go across to the next block. Didn’t know this was going to happen.

Such a pity. So sad. Are those his parents?

No, don’t look.

Don’t look at the body.

-copyright by J. Pan