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I wanted to run away with you...

It was during another Sunday when he looked at the clock and saw that it was 1:09 in the afternoon. There was nothing to do so he had stared at the books lined up on his desk and the pieces of scratch papers slipped behind two of his small journals. He sat back in his swivel chair and gazed up at the ceiling for maybe a minute or two before he leaned forward and rested a cheek against the coa.r.s.e polished wood of his cramped table.

”It sounds like oblivion.”

The deafening emptiness of concrete reality against his ear had reminded him of a Sunday in an alternate universe, where he was walking alongside the highway with a mischievous, musically-inclined girl from a university eight train stations away from his own college. She would have commuted and would have met with him outside his condominium or maybe stay in the convenience store next to the building where she would buy a bottle of water. He would have fetched her and escorted her to the streets and they would have wandered around until they reach that cafe where they had tea once, on a different, much long ago Sunday. They would have talked about their summer and she would have complained about the start of her semester the following day and he would have boasted about his starting a week after. They would have looked out the window and would have commented on the sun high in the graying clouds and would have wondered if it was going to rain or not.

”Let it rain,” she would have said and he would have nodded.

”I'd like that,” he would have replied. ”But do you remember why we're even here?”

She would have smiled sheepishly to herself before she would have raised her cup to press her lips against the rim and not really take a sip. Instead, she would have hummed against the gla.s.s and then she would have put the cup down and laugh. ”Why don't we take our time?” she would have suggested.

He would have looked away from her and would have turned his attention to the life outside the homey shop. He would have thought that he didn't want to be there any longer if she still wanted to let time drag on without acknowledging their real intentions. ”I think we took our time for much too long than both you and I expected,” he would have explained quietly without ever looking at her and her crestfallen expression.

”You're right,” she would have said in defeat.

”Shall we take this somewhere else?” he would have replied a bit coldly as he would have stood up to walk ahead of her to the door. And she would have followed with her attention glued to his back and her words of optimism lodged painfully down her throat because she would have known that it was that Sunday and she would have to watch him go all over again.

I wanted to start again with you...

It was already 6:35 in the evening and oblivion was on repeat, like how it always was ever since the 8th of December the previous year. He had relapsed and had pa.s.sively daydreamed about what could have been and had dazedly tried to imagine the future but it was terribly blurry and he wasn't feeling well enough to shed a light on it. He simply wanted to feel alive and over-thinking, he finally understood, killed him more than if he was already dead. It was a far too meticulous activity and though he was particular with most of everything he did, for once, he didn't want to be.

He glanced at his bed right beside his desk and found that his three suitcases were taunting him and ultimately reminding him that he had to move and, truly, just move. He had stuffed them with foreign books and a couple of random country guides that he didn't really need (at the moment) but bought anyway. He was terribly impulsive, and she had admired him for that.

”I should...”