I was browsing through my backup cd's, looking for digital resources I had stashed away when I came upon one of my old scribbles. It was written a little over 7 years ago and I can't really remember what had driven me to write the prose, but sure as hell it was one of my more melodramatic pieces.
At any rate, if you'd like to find out what im fussing about then read on.
THE LETTER
Friday, November 30, 2001
10:14:48 PM
Dear Friend,
You may still be able to remember up to now the first time we met down the old walk-path at the hill. I told you then, that first time I ever saw you, that the view was good at that place didn't I? Indeed, I loved the panorama and I loved the feelings that just sitting there brought to my senses. I loved the way the scent of tall grasses assailed my nostrils as they swayed in the dimming light, as the mountains slowly swallowed the sun. I loved the feel of the solid earth as I sat on the mass, its dirt clinging to my old faded denims. I loved the whisper of the winds as they told me the stories of the many lives they've witnessed, and I was glad that the winds had witnessed mine.
Haven't I told you that life was beautiful? I have, haven't I? You even looked at me with so many questions in your eyes. I knew you were thinking I was crazy even if you hadn't told me so. The questions that were written all over your face did the speaking for you. I still remember it was as if your mind touched my heart and whispered what you thought of me for I remember a strange feeling of your thoughts. Then you told me you went to the hill to be alone and to think about your disordered life and wasn't expecting me to be lounging around and on the grass as if I lived right there. I had wanted to say I wasn't expecting you either but thought better of it.
Yet I'm glad that you came that day before the sun had totally hidden in the darkness of the coming night. I was glad you were there, like the winds were there, to witness my life as you let me witness yours. Wouldn't you even consider that day to be the start of our unexpected friendship? Maybe yes for the following day you were there again, and had arrived before I did. You waited for me, didn't you? Yes, you told me so, too. You waited for me because you wanted to tell me something. Indeed, you told me much that day and all about your life. How you hated it so much that you wished you were never born. How you wanted to be just a stone, to not be able to feel or think about anything at all. You had wished for a lot rather than live. You told me how you wished for all your wishes -- desperately.
I remember your somber eyes as your mouth threw away words that accounted for your whole being, your whole life. They reached out for something you knew you would never get hold of -- nonexistence. So I told you then that you would have not been able to do anything about that matter for you were already there. You already existed and nonexistence was no more a choice of yours than it was for those not existing at all. You didn't speak afterwards and we just watched the sunset in amazingly lurid silence until we went off to continue with what we were supposed to be doing.
A week passed after that day and I didn't see you in my everyday life at the hill. Oh, I wondered what happened to you. I thought that perhaps you had tried to reach your dream of nonexistence, so I began to worry a lot.
When we again met on the old walk-path another week later, you looked even more somber than the first time I saw you. Your eyes were puffy and red, signifying the tears you've dried from them. I asked what had happened to you; you told me nothing had. So I waited until you spoke again, and that was not until I was about to leave you and you were still staring into nothingness. Perhaps you didn't see but only felt me leaving for your eyes seemed to have been mesmerized, held captive by a space with no time. Honestly, I was reluctant to leave you all alone as I understood you were in a state that was mostly dangerous. Then you asked me to stay with you for no reason at all. You told me you just wanted to have company, to feel a proof of existence beside you. Soon afterward, you started to shed tears so I offered you my shoulder to cry upon. My soothing, I guess, was not very effective as your tears went on flowing from your eyes and your cries slowly grew stronger in every passing moment that you grieved. I was at a loss of what to do, truthfully. I have never seen a man cry like you did. How was I supposed to act when that crying was on my shoulder? Honestly, it was an experience I got to live only once. I was astonished; I would have not been able to believe it if not for the realness I felt at that time. Yes, the pain I felt for you was real, the loneliness and despair were all too real that they almost swallowed me whole. I was afraid I would have wept with you but that would make us both defenseless, wouldn't it? So I thought that I would just have to keep my composure until you were ready to guard your own.
Yes, I did that. Yet it took you hours, up to know I don't know nor am I willing to count how many, until you stopped crying. That night, as I went to bed, I felt hot tears running, slowly trickling down my cheeks. I didn't know why but I felt like I was feeling that pain you felt, brought to you by the life you hated so much. I even felt like I was sharing the despair you were going and had to go through. Believe me; it was beyond my own belief. I wasn't able to sleep; I tossed and turned on my bed, tangling my sheets, trying to calm myself down.
That was the reason why I wasn't there with you at the hill the next day. Yet I didn't tell you anything when we next met. I didn't know how you would react if I told you something as astonishing as that. However, I noticed on that day that your cheeks had a little more color than the usual, a sign I thought that perhaps the crying had lifted even a bit of the burden you felt. Still I couldn't help but notice your eyes. They were still as desolate as the first time I'd seen them. They were still reaching out for that something they knew was unreachable so I had to ask you if you were fine. You told me you were with a forced smile. It may me glad that you were able to do that, smile I mean. It was the first time ever that I saw your lips curve to a beam although it didn't quite reach your eyes. I can still remember that to today. Yes, I do, for I even smiled back then we waited, as usual, for the sunset. That time though, we were no longer controlled by silence. You spoke of your everyday accomplishments as I did of mine. You told me how you've grown to love the hill, and that with it was I. You said you thought that perhaps the hill would just be that, a hill -- ordinary -- if I hadn't been there to share it with you. Of course, I was dearly flattered and very glad to have heard that from you. Such appreciation equaled my valuation of myself so I smiled again for you.
The following day, you were there again before I was, and I had greeted you warmly. You returned it in the same manner, if I recall correctly. That day, as I remember, was when we started to walk around the hill. It became a routine for the following days that came, you there before me, me greeting you, you returning the greeting, we'd walk around, and then we'd sit on our usual positions and wait for the sunset when we were tired.
Somehow, I felt more at peace when you were there than when I was alone waiting for the light to disappear from the sky. Perhaps it was by some twist of fate or perhaps truly destiny that had found us together. Who knows? Do you? Most probably not. If you did, I guess you would have told me. Or would you?
It doesn't really matter now. I believe the only thing that matters is that, through that span of time, although just a few months, I had considered you to be a friend, a dear one. I have never felt so in rhythm with anybody else before. We were much the same, living in dreams. Yet you were that which embodied the dreams of those who suffer, reaching for the unreachable, dreaming the dream of the hopeless. I, on the other hand, was made of the dreams of appreciation for I believed that the soul was meant to enjoy the pleasures of life. It seems as if this difference is a whole world apart. Yet when you see it more clearly, they are both still dreams and one would be meaningless without the other, like light would not be defined without darkness and darkness would mean nothing without light.
Perhaps this is the reason why we were brought together, to share to each other what it would be like to be the opposite of the other. Yes, you shared with me your life. You shared with me the agony though you spoke none to me and I wanted so much to share with you my joys. I don't know nor can I be sure that I had done so. For in our following meetings, you were back to being forlorn and growing more and more doleful in each passing day that I saw you. I didn't bother to ask anything; I knew you would tell me nothing. There were a lot of times when I'd notice the color being drained from your cheeks and I'd feel like the colors of your life were slowly being drained away, too. Somehow it felt ironic that I still waited for you to open everything to me.
Again perhaps, my waiting was due. I know you remember that day when you again cried on my shoulder. Sobbing, you spilled them out, all your aches, anguishes, sorrows, and pains. From your mouth, the sufferings were flowing verbally; I felt as if they were endless. You told me how all the things you did went awfully wrong and then you couldn't face the consequences of your errors. You told me how people put you down whenever one of these wrongs occurred, which was very often and almost always and that you could no longer carry on. I grieved with you when you told me you almost tried to kill yourself by what seemed to me like a hunger strike. It may sound funny now but believe me it wasn't funny before. I felt all those malevolent anguishes and I didn't have a clue how to make you feel that I did and I wanted to help you. So I simply hugged you tight and cried with you. If you remember that, I hope I had made you feel that I cared. I remember clearly as we wept together under the dimming sky, I told you words that I still could not believe I was able to say. I did tell you things, did I not?
Yes, I remember saying that everybody would go through a lot of hardships and that it was indeed very normal. I said that whatever happened was a test to the soul, and that you would simply have to trust yourself to be able to go on with life. I told you then that there were a lot more to life than pain and suffering and hatred, you just had to find them, and in time you will be able to find the joy. Then I had hoped that you had found it in me, in our friendship, and that if not, you would just need some time to be able to do so. I had sincerely hoped that you would be appreciative of what life had to give and that you find joy in that, facing the challenge instead of hopelessly giving in without fighting. Truthfully, I had hoped that I would be able to teach you how to do those things. I still hope so up to now but I hope even more that I already have.
The day following that dramatic scene, you were still looking pale and dismal. It hurt me to see you unable to pull away from the shadowy experiences inscribed in your mind that hurt you badly. I wanted to take away the pain, but I didn't know how to do that. Watch you as you try hard to show me you were enjoying things was the only thing I could and the only thing in my mind to do. Oh, I truly wished I were able to help you as we, for the uncountable-th time, watched the sun being slowly gulped by the shadows of the mountains far away from us.
Our following meetings had been like this, you trying hard to show me you were happy while I just watched, looking at your effort yet still knowing that you were suffering. If I'm correct, it had been more than a week that our situation was like this until the day when I could no longer bear seeing you try to hide your sadness away from me any longer. I had hugged you and cried, hadn't I? Pretty funny if you thought of it, that I was the one trying to help you out and then I would just cry.
Perhaps you hadn't even a clue then of what made me cry. Let me tell you then that I wished so much to make you happy and I tried what I could so that you were already suffering to hide the sad look in your eyes just for me. You were trying hard to smile for me, just to show me what I wanted to see from you and I never considered that. Yet I am thankful you did for it made me realize that you do value our friendship. It made me cry harder. Then you were trying to comfort me without any idea how to because you didn't even know the reason behind my tears. Now, isn't that quite ironic? Maybe it didn't seem to be at that time. I hadn't told you the reason until now, I believe.
As we parted then, I had realized that you were beginning to appreciate something in your life -- our friendship. That is if my assumption was correct. Still, I was glad enough that you were finally seeing things differently for something that had happened in your life, a view that was no longer bitter.
The next day, I'm not sure if you were looking more blooming or it was just I. We walked around like we usually did but this time something was different from our walks. You were more ardent, speaking about things that you saw as you went to the hill. You had even showed me a thin branch that you had brought that, as you told me, tripped you while you were walking then used it to ward off the other things that were on your way. Haven't you told me that you missed it because you were all too eager to get to the hill and it made me smile? You smiled back, didn't you? And I remember, too, that as we sat waiting for the darkness to come, you had told me with a smile, in your exact words, these: "Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for everything."
Frankly, you had touched my heart deeply with those words. I never believed I would have heard those words coming from you though I had really wished for them. If I am right that was the start of a rather more colorful life for you. You had begun to appreciate a lot of things like our friendship, and the existence of the twig that tripped you. You no longer hated such existence because it caused you harm. Instead, you had learned to make use of such existence for your own purpose. Then at last, I thought, you had found joy. You were now at peace with things around you. No longer did you wish to be nothing and had begun to wish you would someday be something. Truthfully, I am happy for you that you've finally got the things that you needed.
Yes, you had looked blither in the days that followed. Your cheeks had more color in them, and your lips began to always curve in a smile. Your eyes no longer held the arms that reached for the unreachable for you already had in your arms those that could be reached. I guilelessly watched you grow into a new you.
Now that you're finally, perhaps, content with your life, I must say sorry for I never returned to the walk-path down the hill again to see you and to watch the sunset with you. I must apologize for not keeping you company as the nights started to greet you.
Perhaps my purpose in life had been completed that day when I saw you smiling, your eyes showing happiness more than ever before. Perhaps now is the time for I think it is due to let you know this.
For sixty-five years, all my life, I had waited for death to conquer me. All those years were spent in anxiousness. Why you may ask...
Since I was born, I had a malady that would surely kill me. Doctors had told my parents that I only had a few years to live beginning from my birth. Miraculously, I had survived for many years, although death was still there just looming over the horizon of my life. That is why I was always there at the old walk-path down the hill, waiting for the sun to set in my life, waiting for the day, my day, to end. I honestly never expected to have lasted this long so I did everything I dreamt of doing in my expected lifetime. Perhaps I had wanted to accomplish everything I wanted done before the malady strikes to take away my existence. I did things in a hurry and had accomplished them fruitfully. The hurrying left me forty years of waiting...left me to sit by the old walk-path down the hill to wait for my time to come. I'm not sure, however, but I believe I was actually waiting for you to come to me so I could give you a hand at things before my life would be spent. Now that I've done that, I have helped you; the time has finally really come for me to rest. My waiting is done.
My doctor gave me just one more day so I decided, even in my weak bed-ridden condition, to write this letter for you. Perhaps, as you read this, I have finally fallen into a wake-less slumber. I only want to leave you this message:
Thank you so much, dear friend. Thank you for sharing the waiting with me. Thank you for giving an old man company while I waited for my time to come. And now that it is very near, I grow more thankful in every passing moment that I was able to experience, even if just shared, the life of someone who has got more to live. I love you so much, my friend. Remember though that even if I am not there at the hill with you physically, my heart will always wait for you to be there to once again accompany me while I wait for you in the afterlife where we can be happy for eternity. I must tell you now that I wish that old walk-path down the hill would hold a very special place in your heart for it has in mine. Take care of yourself for me, dearest. Goodbye.
Sincerely and lovingly,
Your friend from the old
walk-path down the hill
