I remember that our first meeting was close in time to the beginning of the universe.
You see, they taught us in academia that the world was born in one spectacle of a brilliant singularity. From the heart of an zygote of high density, high temperature nothingness there was a wild burst of light as the very fabric of being shattered in one chaotic and magnificent instance, mitosis and meiosis into fragments of pure light and imagination. Thousands of primordial dimensions sprung forth like billions of embers from a single bright hearth.
Perhaps my retelling isn't quite scientifically apt, but, see, it was one of the only lessons I'd retained from school, that tastelessly secular ordeal. The truth is that no matter how many times one attends the same academic drudge, a drudge is a drudge, no more and no less, and after the first few times hardly anything ever gets through (granted that anything ever did in the first place, which is rarely the case).
If this was indeed the proceedings of the conception of the universe, then I conjecture that the universe was born in wake of the acclaimed American fervor. From a highly dense state reality fragmented, broke apart into golden glints, laughter and euphoria, and the bubbles in champagne represented the newborn stars of the galaxy. People and things burst far and wide, curious eyes and fearless spirits. Nothing was more marvelous and chaotic than the height of American debauchery.
(Let the records show that this is not a anti-nationalist nor patriotic sentiment. Indeed my initial incarnation was American, but I do my best to distance myself from being called an American. Regardless of nation, I'm afraid that at this point nationality is quite the uncomfortable label to keep adhered on one's skin.)
The tragedy, though not quite tragic yet, commenced a couple of years before the the big bang. After New Years, one of those years in the 1910s, I returned to my campus.
I was still in school at the time. While again noise and fervor were installed with melancholic abandon, the weather had only grown colder. It is amusing how quickly the same environment can shift from accommodating to spiteful; the holiday lights were still up in my neighbors' yards when I left home. There was injustice and bitter submission floating around like ghosts. They'd lost the will, yet their limbs kept propelling them forward like a renegade rudder.
Winter often dons a dull and listless attire. It was an angry time. It was a four hour ride with seven stops between. My partner in the train, a woman who was meant to be college-aged but already wore a dusty veil of ash on her reddish pale face, asked me something about school that I hardly appreciated. She seemed nervous, which made her heavy features twist monstrously.
That evening, my room felt very foreign, so mostly I took to exploring the mundane contents of my desk with the vigor and uncertainty of a mourner sifting through the private possessions of a bygone companion. My bed was a strange accommodation, which sagged dejectedly and seemed misplaced in its corner of the room. Once habit overwhelmed unfamiliarity, those were again my desk and my bed.
Catharsis came in the form of a bleak-seeming early twilight, as the street lights turned on across town. I was restless, see, and the image of the quantum ghost (I will explicate in a later passage. If you are thinking that my nomenclature is tragically flagrant and morbidly ostentatious, you would be one hundred percent correct) had failed to leave my mind far too many times as I toiled away at nothing in the dark. I got on the street at ten PM. This was the area outside the city -- it was a spectacle driving out this way; many remarked on the abruptness of the transition from office building, boutique, and raucous splendor to the chapels and hills and cicadas. Along this way, there was a small-town-style family owned restaurant. It had never thrived -- it hardly served more than three or four parties at one time -- it was merely managed on a dream. In that regard, it was managed very well -- dumplings and noodles to tired businessmen and happy families. The only complaint to be heard was of the gas station just a few meters to the side, which caused the spots near the entrance to be constantly confronted with the petroleum aroma.
This day, for the first time in many years, entire rows of the parking lot were occupied, much to the satisfaction of the man behind the counter, who also happened to own the establishment. His wife was making a call, so his attention meandered to the floor of his restaurant. One table was occupied; rather, many tables, all pushed together in one corner of the place, were occupied. The man smiled as he watched, because it reminded him of how things were a few years back, when all of a sudden students from the city's university had taken an interest here, and returned weekly to chat and drink. This was short lived, but he enjoyed seeing familiar faces rushing from offices to Starbucks when he made trips to the city in later years.
I waved to him for another pitcher of tea as the woman next to finished showing pictures from her last spring break (which had been a while ago). It was a colleague I had never found particular interest in; now she spoke like we were old friends.
"It was nice," she said, smiling fondly as she put her menu facedown on the table. "It was very nice." She nodded at my left hand. "And how's Eveline?"
"Who?"
Oh. She was my girlfriend of two years. We'd part after three.
"Tired," I said. "Busy week."
"Say, I never noticed, but your eyes are quite the extraordinary shade!"
"Are they now?"
"They are. And by the way, I'm so glad you could join us."
"I'm glad I could make it," I say through gritted teeth.
"Tanda is here too. But you two never got along well, did you?" She gestured off to the side, and my eyes followed.
It was you, Crecencia. It was in that moment that I saw you leaning against the counter, looking away as soon as I looked at you, with weary eyes, coquette and indifferent.
That's right, I remembered the fights we'd had in middle school. I don't remember the reason -- the reason is unimportant -- but you'd pushed me down on some sort of blacktop, hitting in the face over something childish. When I opened my eyes, I saw yours; they burned with something strong, vivid, bitter -- a lemony sodium flame. You'd given me a bloody nose and I'd given you a scratched knee.
It is deranged to keep such a record, but those were the first gifts we'd exchanged. In retrospect it seems cruel and funny that they had to have been so misguided and violent.
Crescencia, it's difficult to discern where love begins, but perhaps I had already been doomed.
But apparently, we did not get along well.
"I'm not feeling up to it. I'll go home," I said, and left that day.
Perhaps you've noticed now that my memory is quite fragmented and ill-prioritized.
Perhaps you've woken up one stray morning to find that much of your recollection of your nocturnal daze had been cruelly whisked away?
Yes, think of this as but a dream.
"A famous city is merely a famous city before one defines it with his own tales," I was telling my cousin Jenny over the phone a few years after graduation, and assured her I would be fine alone for a day or two. I was better seasoned words at that point — I had become already a journalist, and had already quit at being one too — one can imagine the experience to be gained from such an exchange. And New York City was a strange place whose charm I came to understand at Fifth Avenue, under billboards that galvanized the sky. Working-men like me called it a primordial wasteland of wire, street-signs, and roads paved with their diligence. Tiring is what hedonists like Jenny called it, paying an upfront fee on the next wayward bus out, toting bags of tiring glory out of trashed hotel rooms. And I supposed loyal residents figured that's how their beloved city treaded on, as they watched the train come and go with that solemn hiss before it began its travel in a chaotic riff. I figured a few years in New York would make me one of the latter, and it was with a faint vestige of enthusiasm that I traveled to my cousin; after a cab ride I was met with Jennifer at a novel and friendly dessert bar.
"Fine," Jenny had sighed, "everyone's excited at first."
I was more curious than excited, but I appreciated her conversationalism.
She was seated outside, amongst a cluster of round tables and chairs full of people, in a red jacket and skirt with her hair combed up and around.
"I hope you haven't lost the keys already:" her first joking words as I sat down across from her, and a coffee mug was placed in front.
"I've got them," I said, smiling. "How was the drive?"
"Fantastic -- I hope you've had a good trip? How was your little exploration? You look invigorated."
"Entertaining. It's a big city."
"I thought you'd like it. Frankly it's too loud for me -- but truly I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it."
"It's nice."
"Nice. I thought I'd take you around the outlets and such today."
"I look forward to it."
"By the way, I've put together a little get-together in the evening — distant relative's birthday — if you're interested. Don't worry: a small one," she assured. "Nothing formal."
"I'd love to," I said, feigning a smile. Jennifer nodded in satisfaction.
In the evening I drove to Long Island to Jennifer's place, up on a plateau surrounded by lines of clever fencing and foliage. The backyard featured a low stage colored by spotlights, and a pool that glowed a fluorescent blue surrounded by chairs and tables, hosting dense clouds of young women and men smoking and drinking from champagne glasses, laughing and speaking in unintelligible cacophony.
"You have the strangest green eyes I've ever seen. No brown, just pure green. Or turquoise," A woman in a bright green dress lounged on a lawn chair commented suddenly, staring at me.
"Sage", a woman with a loud voice and large blue feather sprouting from her head corrected. "That's what it's called. Sage."
"Of course, sage. Where is your family from?"
"America," I tried to say jovially, "My mother's family is from Ireland--" I stopped after a rushed "hold on" as the woman darted off with the other girls to greet some young men who'd materialized at the poolside. They passed out cigarettes and cries for lights. Shortly the spotlights dimmed and heads turned as the party silenced.
A woman in a gold dress emerged with a microphone and sang; her voice was raw and sharp; she sang wistfully. I don't remember that tune, nor its words. Sounds escape me, and I truly wish they wouldn't. Unlike you, who always seemed to be born with a knack, I never had a propensity for sound. The song was about Forever -- I remember due to its narrative significance. This is a staple of one of those singularities, see.
Her lyrics began to lose focus as the crowd began its din once more. After the show the singer jumped off the stage and mingled in the crowd, her dress swaying and catching the lights from the spotlights, even unwed from them by quite some distance. I watched her flit around talking to people, navigating through the crowd and granting each individual a smile and greeting. She made her way by.
Her eyes were no longer cautious, no longer grim. They had forgotten the caginess of her younger years. It was a dichotomy which pained me. It was the same pride that burned in them, now a testament of refusal to admit that so much in her had died a long time ago.
My heart wrenched, and I wished I had been a couple of years earlier.
"It's been a while. A few years," I began.
"It has", Tanya yelled over the uproar, beckoning for a calmer place.
We shook hands, and took seats at a table that was cluttered with abandoned poker and wasted wine.
"Have you been to Jennifer's parties before?"
"No, actually -- she's my cousin, you see -- invited me over for a while."
"Oh? Where do you live?"
"Colorado. I'll be here for the summer, though."
"How nice! It's a great place, wouldn't rather be anywhere else. I live a little past here, a few miles down that road," she pointed somewhere behind her. "Did you enjoy the show?"
"Very much -- do you perform regularly?" She nodded.
"Restaurants and such downtown. Jenny invites me here a lot, too. Here and there. I can give you my number. Keep in touch and all that." She wrote on a napkin and I put it in my pocket. Tanda stood up.
"See you later Adam. Keep in touch." She got up and squeezed back into the crowd.
After midnight, I waited inside for the guests to drive away. The backyard vacated slowly, cups and trash on the tables and the spotlights still trained on an empty spot in the center of the stage. Perfume and the scent of liquor remained, heavy in the air. Jenny reemerged with a cigarette, pluming a thin gray ribbon that protruded her lip. She took a seat by the window to rest her head in her hands and sink the heels of her shoes into the hard glitter that washed the floor, and forgot to roll down the glass before breathing out into the tobacco. Her face was red and her hair was down.
"Did you watch the show? Tanda's," she clarified.
"Yeah. Talked to her a little after."
"Quite a voice, huh? I met her way back. She performed well. Sisters ever since."
I didn't mention that I already knew her.
"Were you watching?" I asked instead.
"No. I know that song she sang though. Overplayed on the radio, to be frank. Everyone likes it. Cliché, if you ask me. Don't like it much. I was keeping some people company in the house. I met someone new tonight, by the way. Did you happen to hear him? He was playing the piano," she said.
"I didn't."
"Oh, he was at the piano the entire evening. I guess you would've have heard it outside. Antisocial guy, I suppose," she laughed.
Her smoke ebbed at the edge of the closed window, meek and probing.
I attended several of Tanda's performances over the next couple of months, and she had a show some time later at a large cafe downtown. I met her afterward.
"How'd you like it?" She smiled.
"Fantastic, as usual."
"I'm glad! Say, you only had a coffee, right? It's a little early but why don't we go eat at this restaurant a little bit away? It's pretty far -- subway distance, but it's small, quiet, and my favorite." She leaned in closer to whisper: "The food here isn't that good anyway. What do you say?"
"Sure, I'd love to." Then I followed Tanda down the street. Shouts hurling across the street like unraveling spools of thread that tied each passerby together, mid-day light rode the roofs of the buildings and transformed rudimentary concrete into a bursting town of light, an unhealthy compromise of dull and enriching behind Tanda's form. The air was brisk, and I tugged at the collar of his coat, mechanically scuffing my shoes on the sidewalk, ankles bare between socks and pantlegs.
"Lucky you, any way", she laughed suddenly, as they started down the stairs into the subway station. "Experiencing life in New York for the first time. I think my first week was good. Can't remember. Seems like it was good, but all it is now is this faint euphoria. Like a dream I have yet to wake from."
"Memories are intangible", I said knowingly. Tanda smiled and the subway's light appeared and began growing. The mechanic turmoil of the wheels on tracks grew closer like an slowly approaching roar.
"I think things should be more straightforward," Tanda said one afternoon a year later at her favorite restaurant. The lights were dim there, and no music played. A few tables were occupied, and there were enough patrons to generate an ambience -- not enough to be overwhelming. Police cars whipped past outside, casting the room in temporary sweeps of blue and red. She started pouring pills out in hand, counting, and chugged them down with the beer effortlessly. I watched her severely as she did it, but she didn't take much notice. "It's not childish to hope for the truth, you know," she continued after a gasp. "Faith, what they call it."
"Noble," I commented dryly.
"Noble or ignorant," she scoffed, "Life's kind of cruel like that. Forcing nobility to come across as ignorance."
"Life isn't cruel. It's a challenge, for sure, but we're all storytellers at heart. We favor a certain type. That's what we do. "
"Your stories aren't like that, right? The ones in the paper. Yours inspire. Have meaning."
"It's not all that," I said.
Tanda looked out of the window.
"Let's go outside, Adam. The train's about to pass."
I followed Tanda to the end of the sidewalk, next to a station that blasted music from the office, and we sat down on the curb. She'd taken her glass with her, and took a few swigs now and then. And then the train made its round, vigorously storming across the landscape and leaving a remote echo as it passed, its thunder fading to a faint static. Forever, The woman's wistful voice carried over the radio.
"I'll be leaving soon," I said.
"But you'll be back next year."
"Not in the same area. I'll have a good job by then, too."
"Good luck then."
"You too." Then a pause, as Tanda swayed to the music. "You know Adam, I really did want to start over, but I feel like fate won't allow it. But I don't believe in fate." Tanda said convincingly: "I could do it, still."
"I have no doubt," I lied.
Forever, the woman on the radio sang. And with that, Tanda was satisfied. She went back to her ever-exciting city, a stage whose colors alternated by some strange and energetic regimen.
But sometimes the city at night spelled out a message about her fate, and she would hear that song.
"Please don't forget me," She'd say. Such a cheap lady. I loved her.
"I could never forget you," I'd say just as cheaply.
You were laughing hard as you tried to take a drink.
Sounds are the first things to escape my memory, but I still remember the clink of glass against your teeth.
You see, a couple more years passed, and you never woke up after that.
Some may ask me how I knew it was you in every incarnation.
In this cycle, time progresses and the world advances. Just as nothing is truly random, nothing is statistically perfect, see. Phenomenons do occur, imperfections made in threads by the hands of time. Nobody knows the root of our curse. There could've been renegade proton, a single misplaced quark. A slight miscalculation in probability — anything like that could've surely done it. There is a tangle in those threads made of billions of instances of probability, stacked up and woven like a rope. At the slightest mistaken tremor of the strings, some of the strands intertwine too deeply -- unable to be pulled apart for the rest of their tangible being. Singularities born from statistics, tied together by the inherent flaw in the universe. Both threads wear so thin that they fall apart together. Like that singularity, they splinter into fragments in one fervent, wild rapture.
That is how I know you.