His favourite word is "trois". It is French, and means "three", which in turn, they would sometimes say, "is a crowd".
His eyelids are relaxed in the warm breeze that is against the side of his face as he counts the steps of the stairs he is climbing until he forgets or loses count, so that he can start again from one and smile to himself when he repeats "three", remembering that he likes it in French and at how he is repeating his stupid amusement.
He recalls that she had once asked him about what was his favourite word, and if he tells her of how he's silly enough to count the steps of the stairs, she will surely smile the smile he likes of her to smile so much.
Sunday, 2 September 2007
Come escape with us this summer!
Do you want to go with me to the cafe? It's designer, and it serves iced coffee in a plastic cup. You can order an extravagant ice blended juice drink, like that of raspberry, or mango. It's exotic...kind of... You will like the taste of crush ice melting, underneath your tongue. I will get myself an iced cafe latte, like I always do on sunny days like these, when I don't know what else to drink. We will sit by the roadside alfresco, and watch the condensation drip and trinkle down from the side of our cups, and the ceaseless traffic scurrying by.
......
You know, I used to come to this cafe with him, and we'd sit at the opposite ends of a table, like this. I would smoke and write and rest my feet on the space on the chair between his thighs. Sometimes, I would read him what I wrote before and he would listen to me half-heartedly as he looked at me and wondered if it's appropriate to reach to me and touch my face and kiss me on my cheek, or to carelessly flip the pages of a thick english foreign affairs magazine that rested on his lap. I would look at him, and wonder if he was bored with my reading, but continue nevertheless...
We didn't use to drink cold drinks, you know. It turned out that he did not like to watch the condensation from on the cups to form rings of lukewarm water on the table. He claimed it would wet his magazines, or render the table useless, and I would not be able to write on it, like how I would sometimes like to...
He would drink expresso. It was quite funny, you know, as he was a rather tall and big man...and the way he would hold on to a tiny cup of expresso... I would nearly always have a grande latte... He would recommend cuppuccino...
......
After we parted ways, I had often asked myself, if I would ever find the summer reward you promised me? You used to say that you like to think of love like summer. It is never clear to me why you drew that comparison, but you would say,
" I promise you, once summer is over, your summer reward..."
Summer came and left and now it is summer again. Where are you right now? I am still right here. Now that we are no longer in love, are the things you said no longer true?
I have never tasted an expresso coffee. I never tasted cuppucino too. Would you recall that I had never ordered myself a cuppucino?
......
"Tell me, what is it? My summer reward..."
"It is a surprise."
"Is it big? Or is it small?"
"I won't tell you."
"Okay... but will you wrap it with a silver ribbon? I would like that. My summer reward with a silver ribbon."
......
Now, I sometimes drink ice latte, again.
......
You know, I used to come to this cafe with him, and we'd sit at the opposite ends of a table, like this. I would smoke and write and rest my feet on the space on the chair between his thighs. Sometimes, I would read him what I wrote before and he would listen to me half-heartedly as he looked at me and wondered if it's appropriate to reach to me and touch my face and kiss me on my cheek, or to carelessly flip the pages of a thick english foreign affairs magazine that rested on his lap. I would look at him, and wonder if he was bored with my reading, but continue nevertheless...
We didn't use to drink cold drinks, you know. It turned out that he did not like to watch the condensation from on the cups to form rings of lukewarm water on the table. He claimed it would wet his magazines, or render the table useless, and I would not be able to write on it, like how I would sometimes like to...
He would drink expresso. It was quite funny, you know, as he was a rather tall and big man...and the way he would hold on to a tiny cup of expresso... I would nearly always have a grande latte... He would recommend cuppuccino...
......
After we parted ways, I had often asked myself, if I would ever find the summer reward you promised me? You used to say that you like to think of love like summer. It is never clear to me why you drew that comparison, but you would say,
" I promise you, once summer is over, your summer reward..."
Summer came and left and now it is summer again. Where are you right now? I am still right here. Now that we are no longer in love, are the things you said no longer true?
I have never tasted an expresso coffee. I never tasted cuppucino too. Would you recall that I had never ordered myself a cuppucino?
......
"Tell me, what is it? My summer reward..."
"It is a surprise."
"Is it big? Or is it small?"
"I won't tell you."
"Okay... but will you wrap it with a silver ribbon? I would like that. My summer reward with a silver ribbon."
......
Now, I sometimes drink ice latte, again.
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