There’s an ulcer between my bottom lip and gums; the thin flap of skin just so happened to be inflamed and anything that touches it sets hell fire to all the nerves in my mouth.
The rest of this post was made in a hazy, bored melancholy. Excuse the poor writing.
A few days ago we had a surprise farewell party for Zach. He’s the guy who brought me around to meet my block while I was in a dark place, a coming-out-of-my-shell kinda deal. His sister arranged for a surprise party, and I hastily constructed a card out of bronzed paper and crude drawings of a wineglass, a USB cable, the bottom edge of a macbook and a soldering iron.
Mostly stuff that I associated with him; the bottle of warm wine he had in his room, the short cable he borrowed from me and forgot to return for several weeks, his macbook that he’d bring down to my room to ask me questions about MA1505 and CS1010 and the tinkering he said he’d do in his spare time during NS.
It was a quiet affair, groups of friends from his past, NS and Uni days and his family just settling to have an overflowing cornucopia of a dinner to celebrate the existence of this quiet, handsome person that none of us felt like we knew enough about.
I would wring my hands and stare at the ground nervously at the presence of all these strangers, laughing cautiously at jokes that I didn’t understand and willing my watch to turn more quickly.
As the night dragged on, we talked about relationships, how irritating GF was and oddly enough, religion, and Zach said nothing at all like his usual self.
Before we all left, Zach’s sister quipped about how they used to… Be in something that was traumatising.
Imagine being lied to your entire life and realising that whatever you believed in was of greed and sin…
The beer only made the butterflies in my stomach stumble more fervently, playing a slot machine of jumbled words and mismatched sentences. “I’m so sorry!” and dropping jaws were the payouts.
I felt a mixture of pity for him, disappointment in my ignorance and burning curiosity, that lingered on my lonesome way home.
Before sleeping, I shot a message to both Zach and his sister, thanking them for a wonderful day and promising to keep in touch.
The next day, I laid in the back of my parents’ van as they ferried me around, carrying out errands. I knew the medicine would clash with the beer; my lethargy was unending and my mood was sour.
I hope it was actually the beer though. Can’t bear to blame myself forever for being a shit friend.
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