Back when 02

Maybe Lucifer wasn't evil after all

Maybe he or she was just the moon

Trailing after the earth who was set to be the 'creation'

Orbiting in the bounded force within a controlled track of life.

Trailing after what we call

the Almighty Sun

I wrapped up my short poem with the last drop of black ink from my pigma pen. The slightly rough feeling when the tip of the pen scratched on the surface of a piece of paper was what kept me physically writing and using up natural resources rather than going fully electronic.

Before I found out that writer was actually quite a decent career, I wanted to be an archeologist. I was so intertwined with the mysteries of Ancient Egypt stories. Their culture was like a novel - a tale to be told, a film to be seen, a photograph to be kept.

I trailed my eyes on the racks of history books about ancient cultures and realised my love for that had never really vanished. ( I mean I still write fictional books where characters are implemented in ancient egyptian cultures.)

These reminded me of the conversation I had with Youngjae a couple days ago. We went to this museum and there was an exhibition about astronomy in ancient beliefs. It stated the possibilities of the shapes of the earth in reference to the shadow the moon casted on ground. Even though the earth was believed to be flat, paleolithic ancestors knew we were living on something circular.

But that's not the point. When I read this theory where they called the moon Lucifer, I sparked this idea that humanity never actually 'know' (or knew) things for real.

We exist and we have proves. Yes.

But we make judgements upon which things exist and which do not.

We believe that for something to 'exist' it must at least have a physical form or formula.

But Mark was beyond every theory and textbooks I had ever flipped through so far.

He was like a hologram. A projected mind.

He can communicate

He can think

He can react

He can sense me

It was as if we can feel each other's existence without being 'together'.

*

I came home one night from giving special philosophical lecture in a university to find another 'vision' of Mark. The guy wore a very comfy looking t-shirt with casual grey sweatpants - seemed like he was as ready for bed as I happened to be.

His brown eyes kept looking through mine with this same old recognisable way of looking. Yet, no matter how familiar the stare seemed to be, I still couldn't manage to figure out how and why I happened to feel that he was a very 'everyday' material for me.

Not everyday as in now.

But everyday as in somewhen so long before.

I moved my lips without any voices,

"Why can I see you?"

"I don't know"

His lips parted to mime some words without having to actually cause vibrations in the larynx.

That's the new fact we learned about lately - if any of us speak, the vision of each other would be gone for a day or longer. 

It was like we were not meant to communicate.

...Not yet.

It was okay at first. It was okay the first time he disappeared completely from my sight for 24 hours even though the voice still remained.

But somehow I missed the feeling.

That feeling to be lost, you know?

It was clear blue sky but one second later a swirl of sparkling ignited rocks.

I missed wondering in these fluctuating eyes

*

So we'd been talking. You might wonder what it was like when we talk. It was pretty much like talking on the phone except we didn't need to hold anything. We just continue our normal activities and talk. Sometimes out loud, sometimes just thinking.

Today was another of those days we slipped our voices out and the visualisation got blacked out.

It was Mark who started the conversation.

"I have a question"

"Go on"

"Are you real. I mean. Do you have a life or is this just my weird hallucination"

It was quite a humour when he asked exactly the same question I asked myself every single day.

"My name is Bambam Kunpimook Bhuwakul. I am 24. I graduated Master's degree in philosophy for half a year already and I sometimes give occasional lectures to university students"

"Oh... Wow"

"What do you mean 'wow'?"

"Nothing. I just... Did not expect you to be so real"

Neither did I

"And you... Mark... Are you real?"

"I'm Mark Tuan, taiwanese living in LA. I'm 25 years old, studying diploma in astronomy. Part-time working as a guest lecture, too, actually. So how real do you think I am now?"

"Even more real than I expected."

A smile automatically appeared on my face. I guess it was my subconscious. Talking to him made me grin lightly almost all the time.

"Why do you think I'm in your head and you happen to be in mine?"

"Honestly, not a clue. But you know a friend of mine mentioned reincarnation"

Youngjae's face popped up the next thing in my head. He had been repeating this theory to me since the day I decided to tell them this incidence of Mark.

"Reincarnation? So you friend suggests we were involved in previous life?"

"Well, I mean, it sounds weird. Not total stupidity but very strange as you may think."

"No no, I think it's very interesting"

"You do?"

"You see. There can't be anything more weird than what we're doing right now."

"Lol true."

Then we had some kind of dead air. I did not think it could be called awkward since I did not feel awkward at all. It differed from all the pauses we had so far.

Normally if we had pauses, we continued on whatever we were physically doing in our real worlds. I was about to grab a cup of hot tea from the dining table when Mark started to speak again.

"My colleague once said 'sometimes there's this person you never really get over'. Do you think it has something to do with this?"

I didn't know what he wanted to say

I didn't think I was allowed to make expectations

I didn't think I was capable of giving any comments.

So I lightly joked around instead, even though i felt like I was about to drop my white ceramic cup.

"Wait. Are you confessing? Haha"

That question I asked was our turning point.

"What if I am"

And from then on, I started to feel his arms around me.

*

I woke up one sunday morning feeling warmer and cozier than I usually did. I blinked my eyes several times in order to adjust to the level of brightness.

That was when my eyes shot wide open.

Someone had his arms around me from my back. Without any useless hesitation, I turned my whole body around, facing that mysterious man. I turned around just to find he was no stranger.

It was Mark Tuan.

He had his arms around me. We were cuddling in my bed. It felt warm. Really warm.

And that's the problem.

We hugged a couple of times since that turning point conversation but honestly it never felt this warm.

I decided not to speak despite how much I really wanted to do that because if I do, he might disappear and this new thing would lead to nothing at all. I nudged him on the shoulder and Mark opened his almond shaped eyes.

I quickly put my index finger over my lips so he understood we were not meant to speak but to mime.

'This feels new'

Was the first sentence he mimed. We could not mime a very long sentence since neither of us were experts at miming.

'I know'

I looked up into his eyes and realised our faces were only an inch apart. I could even feel his warm breath breathing onto my nose. My body told me to run my hand on his face and I followed its command.

I could feel his skin. His jawbones. His nose. His eyelids. His lips.

We did not break eye contact until he started moving closer and I felt more nervous than ever. Our noses touched and I felt my chubby cheeks burning.

He reminded me what being shy felt like.

His gentle hand caressed the side of my face, trailing on to my dark hair. And he moved in even closer.

Closer... and closer...

Until our lips met.

Until we both closed our eyes.

It really felt like a real kiss.