Somewhere across the seven oceans, there’s a mountain called Everest. Plenty climb it every year but there’s nobody like Jay. Jay is young, agile, and sharp. Jay could run fast, he felt he wasted his energy all his life running errands for his other people and now was the time to efficiently utilize his youthful stamina. Jay calls me from the base camp at Everest before his climb starts. He’s chilly, his words shudder as they come out of his mouth but there’s still a childlike sense of wonder in him. “It’s incredible how I can call you from here, with how fast the world is changing, someday I’m definitely going to send a hologram to you.”
I roll my eyes, six months apart and that’s the first thing he says? But I keep calm, “Yeah, technology frightens me. It makes me feel like you’re there even when you’re not. And that’s not always good.”
“I guess! I’m just so excited for the climb, I can’t think straight!”
“I want you to be here soon, stay safe out there.”
“This sounds like something someone would say when they’re about to hang up. Please don’t! I don’t know any of the guys here and I don’t want to make small talk.”
“Uh..ok. So what’re you doing right now?”
“I’m eating Instant Ramen, it’s like the only thing available here.”
“Really? Me too, I just made a packet for myself. There are no groceries left, I didn’t want to go shopping alone.”
“Yeah, it’s the only lukewarm edible item around me, everything else is icy and looks the same.”
I pretend to laugh but I’m wondering why you didn’t remind me that shopping alone is a part of adulting. You’d say that for the little while I had known you when you were here, it was excellent banter material and ironic as you’d still tag along for shopping every time.
“I think my toes froze.”
I’m holding back the urge to tell you, “I told you so!” I warned you to take the blue bag, with all the sleeping pills you’d need because you mentioned that one time you told me you stayed awake for a week in New York because it was just too cold to sleep. The blue bag was now lying on the counter in front of me, yet another thing you forgot.
It’s late where you are, you should be asleep by now but you’re still on the phone, eating ramen and trying incredibly hard to strike a conversation.
I gather the courage to ask you, “So…don’t you think you should hang up? Your phone bill is going to break the bank. You’re so far away!”
“I don’t care, it’s just money. Plus, I need someone to talk to, and who better than my girlfriend?”
This makes me chuckle since we hadn’t talked for 2 months and the last I had seen you was 6 months ago when I dropped you off at the airport. Promises were made. Not like it matters as much anymore, it’s no big deal.
My ramen is still piping hot and I move the fork to wrap the ramen around it. I stuff my face and slurp on the soup dripping from the ends of the noodles. I know I look grossly uncivilized eating like this but Jay can’t see me and the closest living being is in the next room, most probably sound asleep right now.
I don’t think I even remember what he looks like. And no, I don’t blame it on him or anybody else. We only dated 3 months, we met only once a week while we were dating. We’d go out to watch Japanese horror movies and walk back home till it was dark and cold enough for me to be scared of running into a ghost from the movie, and you’d laugh and tell me how precious you think I am. You’d cook for me and ask me to help out, which usually meant being the DJ for the Bluetooth so I could watch you bust out a move while you seasoned the pasta. We would talk about the job market and discuss Marxian theories while we binged on some Netflix, and you’d leave midway to attend to phone calls from your family, leaving me and an air of discomfort and confusion behind.
Life gets busy, I get it and so does he. But the obvious physical and mental distance between us made me wonder. Maybe we were too understanding? Maybe one of us should have questioned why we’d meet just once a week? We called ourselves a couple, it felt so real.
You had declared I was the love of your life just a month before you left and asked me to move in with you. Suddenly, you were too close for comfort. We’d go shopping together and get the fanciest chocolates and the freshest fruits, pretending to know each other’s taste. You’d pick strawberries from the fresh fruits aisle and I’d go pick some gluten-free cupcakes. We hadn’t even talked about our likes and dislikes before, we had only known each other for 2 months. I knew obscure facts about you that make you interesting, thanks to the concept of courtship and yet I couldn’t answer simple questions about you.
When somebody would ask me what you do, I’d just tell them what you were doing right now, which was trying to climb Everest. I had no idea where you work and I hadn’t cared enough to find out. And with this thought, I heard you yelling my name from the other end. “Are you there, babe?”
“Yeah, I just zoned out for a minute.”
“That was strange, what’s going on these days? I haven’t talked to you for so long!”
“Oh, not much. Just busy with work.”
“That’s nice, babe. Ahh… dammit! My ramen’s all icy again, disgusting!”
I knew you were trying to drag the conversation just enough for me to talk about how I miss you and how life has been so lonely but I didn’t have it in me and I couldn’t keep up the facade. So I hung up using my work as an excuse.
And that is exactly when the doorbell rang. I went to check who it was, and there he was, Diego, peeping through the eyehole instead of me, checking if it was the neighbor again. Diego didn’t see anybody outside and assumed the neighbor’s kids pranked us again and then he came closer, pulled me towards him, and gave me a peck on the cheek.
“Good morning, Mister Diego!”
“I still don’t know why you tease me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Stop calling me Mister Diego, I’m not your boss outside the office!!”
I smiled and Diego headed towards the kitchen to enjoy some hot ramen.