Tomorrow and a Day

Tomorrow and a Day

“So we beat on…” he echoed, closing the book. He tossed it aside, and it landed on the patchy grass with a soft thump. He lied next to it, staring up at the vast blue sky, noting how the billows of cloud seemed to arrange themselves into the shape of a giant star right above him.

She scolded him, “Hey, don’t treat one of the greatest books like that. That line you just quoted is one of the most epic and memorable lines in history.” She took the book and dusted off the bits of grass stuck to its cover.

He shrugged, putting his arms behind his head and crossing one leg on top of the other.

“Chill, A. It’s just a book. Scraps of paper glued together to make us temporarily forget the unbearable monotony of our pathetically insignificant existence.”

She rolled her eyes upward, sighing. “There you go with the nihilism…” After setting the book carefully on its back in the grass, she went back to typing on her laptop.

He continued to gaze at the clouds slowly drifting past him on the sky. He thought to himself,

Some things are just meant to be passed by without a second thought. Like me.  

He closed his eyes, scrunching them up as if almost in pain at the thought he just had.

I wonder if I will be remembered. If she will remember me, and this moment right now. If anyone, I want her to remember me.

He suddenly sat up and turned around to look at her. His eyes wide and slightly crazed looking, he announced,

“I want to have sex.”

She looked up, startled, her fingers suspended above the keyboard.

“What?”

He continued,

“If I said I were to die tomorrow, would you have sex with me? Right now, on top of this hill?”

She stared at him, not comprehending.

“Are you saying you’re going to die tomorrow…?”

He stared back for a moment, frozen.

Then, he started laughing. Spurts of laughter came out of him like fizzling bubbles from a soda bottle, and he clutched his stomach, squeezing his eyes shut until tears came out.

Concerned, she reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

“C, are you okay?”

He stopped laughing, her touch alleviating the hurricane inside him.

“I’m spectacular. Just spectacular.”

She pulled her hand back and said,

“Fitzgerald does have that effect on people.”

“Yeah,” he muttered and laid there on the grass, listening to his heart rampage on.

-

Your eyes are like the creamy white sea foam afloat on top of the sandy black jagged rocks of the beach you dream of. Your hair is a parade of leaves that, when disturbed by the wind, fly like wild fire into your face. Your voice is drizzle on the sidewalks on a sunny day and your laugh dances like glittering snowflakes on the first day of snowfall. Your dance –

He crumpled the sheet of paper he was just writing on and tossed it into the trashcan besides his desk.

“Cliché,” he said.

“Trite,” he noted.

He wondered aloud, “How exactly does one go about writing a love letter, anyway?”

He sat there, pen in hand, for a while before getting up and saying to himself,

“I need to take a walk.”

He took his jacket from the rack, and stuffing his hands inside the empty pockets, he went out the door of the apartment. As he walked down the streets of the lonely city, he drowned himself in memories long gone.

When I am gone, I wonder if anything will change here.

He passed by a wall painted over by indelible graffiti, the colorful letters shocking his senses back into normalcy.

Nope, nothing will change. The city will still beat on.

After half an hour of wandering around several blocks, he made the trek back to his home. When he got back, he took out the crumpled piece of paper from the trashcan, smoothing it over.

He continued writing,

Your dance undulates like the pulse of the forbidden night, and in the dark, desolate madness of the colorless city we live in, you are the shining star, an effervescence that overtakes my senses and brings me back to the living where I am painted the color of you.

He paused, thinking for a moment. Then, he started to scribble again.

I hope you remember me. Even when everyone else forgets, I want you to remember me. My existence and its effect on you.

Please, A,

Remember me.

He finished the letter, signing his name with a flourish, and folded it neatly into an envelope. Labelling the envelope’s front with “For A,” he placed it on the center of his desk, obviously visible to anyone who might stop by his desk. Getting up, he turned off his desk lamp and taking one last look out the window, at the starless sky, he whispered to himself,

“When tomorrow comes, today will just be another day.”