BECAUSE YOUR KISS IS ON MY LIST
Oscar awakes with the sound of drizzle pounding on the roof of his apartment. With squinted eyes, he rises, rolls up the window shutter, opens the window and stretches out his hand, attempting to forecast the weather of the day. Above him, to his surprise, the sky was filled with a depth of blue, occasional clouds drift here and there; he assumes that the drizzle had come down from one of them. Some distance away an ominous layer of clouds lay suspiciously low, like a pack of sly animals waiting for the right moment to snatch its prey.
For a moment he listlessly gazes towards their direction, and, as though regaining consciousness, abruptly closes the window and began his usual cleaning routine. Oscar had never been fond of the idea of carrying around an object wherever he goes, so later that day, upon leaving for work, he ignores the rain precaution and leaves without his umbrella.
As he boards the bus bound to the business district, the sky envelops itself in grey, and a great rain starts pounding on everything on the ground. A series of lightning claps as though the thundergods were pissed at him for having ignored their warning. Across the street, an old lady crosses the street with obvious difficulty, her body leaning forwards as she drags herself to the other side of the road.
People hustle about hurriedly through the sudden downpour, perhaps in fear of catching a cold. There are not many people around, but Oscar finds it surprising that not one person seems bothered by the pitiful sight of the old lady; perhaps not even one noticed her very existence. A bystander cat sits still under the awning of a convenience store, silently watching the scene with an indifferent look in its eyes.
Sitting on the window seat, Oscar looks up to the grey sky and figures it’s going to be a long rain. It is quite early in the evening, but the bus is oddly empty. On one side of the road, there is a giant lagoon, filled with beautiful pebbles of various colors, usually so still and crystal-clear on sunny days. But that day, under the stormy skies, it turned into a huge body of dark water, chaotic and unsettlingly mysterious. Oscar finds himself wondering whether he would have helped the lady cross the street back then had he not been on the bus. The thought filled him with nostalgia, and brought him back to a memory of a particular day two years earlier, in the final year of his student life.
“Are we going up?”, asked a girl whom he used to cherish deeply, as she looked towards the path leading to the top of a certain waterfall.
“Of course,” Oscar replied. “We’ve come too far to go back. Who knows what lies ahead?”
The girl adjusted her crimson beanie hat, and began walking towards the path to the top of the waterfall, her eyes fixed downwards as if being careful not to trip over. A heavy rain has just stopped, and the fog was clearing up. They walked through a field of green moss, still soft and soaked from the rain. The enormous waterfall fell gloriously in front of them; from a distance, its sheer proportion looked eerily out of place. The constant hammering of the waterfall against the basin produced a low, reverberating hum, and the terrain around it trembled ever so subtly. The earth breathed at the top its lungs. They felt like they were in direct contact with the naked force of nature; the ground beneath their feet overflowed with vitality, alive and restlessly moving.
As they climbed up, strange-looking birds flew up and around the wet black walls surrounding the waterfall. With a closer look, they could see birdnests hanging on the cliff ledges, all fragile and delicate, looking like they could fall along with the waterfall anytime. The girl thought it was perhaps their way of protecting themselves against preying animals. For a long while, they stopped and silently observed this scenery; the loud, pulsating sound of the waterfall and the birds’ wings fluttering against the wind forever engraved into their memory.
The long, winding path on the top of the hill led to a cliff overlooking the ocean. Some distance away, on an edge of another cliff, an abandoned lighthouse stood wearily. Although it was not raining, the sky was still enveloped in a thin layer of cloud, adding a further sense of mourn to the desolate landscape. Far down at the bottom, slow moving waves crashed at the cliff wall, one after another. The sky colored the ocean pale blue, and the horizon was nowhere to be seen. The wind had dropped dead, and everything was perfectly still.
That day, Oscar had a sea of words to say to the girl, however he had failed to communicate them. Beautiful allegories, he believed, always have a certain subtlety of their own; they feed from the silence that passes in between the notes of a song, or the fluttering sound of a butterfly’s wings. The precious silence that reigned the cliff which they share together that day was a memory he would treasure the rest of his life; no amount of words, no matter how meaningful, would have been able to replace it. And so he had decided to retain that sea unto himself, believing that there would come a time when he would be able to pour it all out.
That was the last time Oscar saw the girl. A few days after the scene at the cliff, the girl had suddenly vanished without trace, leaving only a memory of the pale blue sea. As if she had tripped over herself, and fell with grace into the depth of the waterfall. Slowly decomposing, rolling naked with memory.
“Perhaps it’s just their way of protecting themselves against the preying animals.”
Fifteen years have passed since then. Within that time period, not a great deal of things had happened in Oscar’s life, but he has somehow established a name for himself as a famous radio broadcaster.
The rain never seems to let up, and the bus runs its way through the storm. When the bus finally arrives at his bus stop, the heavy rain abruptly stops. The sky clears up, as though having a mind of its own.
Oscar gets off the bus and makes his way towards the office of Brava radio station. The clock shows almost 6 pm. He takes the lift to the seventh floor, makes a stop at the office’s pantry, brews some coffee, and gets into the studio. At six, Oscar goes on air and opens the radio segment:
“Good evening, dear listeners. Back with me, Oscar, to accompany you on your way home. The storm finally let up, so everyone probably have decided to leave work at the same time. Hope you don’t get stuck too long in the traffic! Wherever you are, take care, and drive safe,” Oscar said.
The sun recedes in a distant horizon. He broadcasts the song Kiss is on My List, hoping that somewhere, a certain someone is listening.
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Continued from part 1
Artwork by kokooma_.
