Alone in Amsterdam

Today the sky was grey again. The incessant drizzle, all morning afternoon and evening, left trails of lazy droplets on the windows that now shimmer like stars in this neon wilderness. There are people everywhere, stoned and thoughtless, walking, strolling, running, cycling, shopping, shitting, fucking their way through these circles of hell.

Sikan has been feeling very quiet today. The city was still shaking off its sleep when he awoke: grey, cold and the mist rolling off its dark black canals silently. The naked trees still and haunting through the late winter haze.

There he was. The city forced its early morning emptiness deep into his heart and perhaps even his soul. But such emptiness, that softfeather sadness can be like music: beyond human judgments of good and bad. And it stayed with him, all day.

She was gone though, after a week of bright midnight strolls, her smiles and her eyes which were like the universe and so easily lit up this dark dark city. Gone were the conversations, the highs and the laughs and the long lovely silences that he knew would make him cry when he remembered them in the time to come.

Now he was awoken to anonymity; to that sad yet beautiful feeling of solitude in a big city.Alone in Amsterdam, in this labyrinth of dreams and nightmares hanging by a thread, shrouded in streamers of mists and highs, he walks along the arc of a surreal night.The wet wind caresses his face and flows through his hair. And he misses her, and the walks, the long walks, and feverish conversations about everything and nothing, and the deep, dark mist in her eyes, and the flickering golden candlelight on her arms and cheeks that sent his soul spiraling into sadness every now and then.

(“But why?” she would say. And then she would look into his eyes and smile softly. But before the balance could tip over, she would look away, picking up a coaster to tear up, or play with her handkerchief and murmur, “I don’t understand you.”)

But can we ever really understand the language of eyes and souls and the true ways of this universe? Every second sparks off a chain of stories short and long in every direction. And we spend our lives negotiating plots in a whirlwind of beginnings and ends, and long dramatic speeches that define our own little novels. God knows how hard we try to be the author of our own lives.But there is nobility and wisdom also in acceptance, in being the absurd hero, to be Sisyphus walking downhill, lost in thought. For what is more beautiful than watching and feeling the human experience unfold in front of us, and feeling the divinity of each fleeting moment, whatever the last chapter may present?

(“We don’t need to go home.”

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“It’s not home anyway. I really wish I had my home here right now. It’s because I’m tired and high I guess.”)

Pause