Mind Tricks

That night was so cold that if you could feel your face, it would've stung. The car was parked right behind you but you had no intention of getting back inside. Your ears were probably the only heaters of your body that were switched on. They matched your bloodshot eyes like a perfect outfit, and they were the kind of red that made roses look lifeless. You turned to look at her but you could only see half of her face. The wind struck again and her hair veiled even more of it. The sea looked like diesel and the reflection of it in her eyes made her pupils seem even darker. But she wasn't looking at the sea. She was zoning out, as if whatever that's in her mind was projected onto the scenery in front of her. She was not troubled. She was thinking. And the thought does not include you. But you weren't too troubled either. It felt good looking at her looking at something else, taking in the scent and color of her hair that you could not name. She passed you the crooked joint, from which you took a few puffs. And you were vacuumed into the story of the boy whom you once heard from your mother –

It was a warm afternoon in Summer and he was standing in the damp sand, water washing off the back of his feet. And next minute he was sucked into a whirlpool. When he was pulled out from the ocean, he was already filled with the gold that took him in.

You thought she called your name in a low whisper but it was just the splashing waves hitting against the rocks underneath your dangling feet. The picture in your mind of the story that your mother told you was gone in an instant – all the whirling sunlight, the shining dust that lost hold of the boy's feet, the glitter on the surface of the sea. Everything became pitch-black. The ocean looked like diesel again; its edges a jagged blunt blade, persistent and cold like memories. The story was brief, but you imagined the boy float to the surface and you imagined hearing his muffled scream under the shimmering water.

Sometimes we could use up all our luck to meet someone, so that we wouldn't have much of it left to make them stay. It was her turn to smoke. You passed her the joint but she was too wallowed in her own world to take hold of it. But you just kept your posture of holding it next to her. You didn't feel the need to call her. You didn't want to touch her either because she felt a lot like heartache. There were 2 billion songs written about it, and you thought they sounded very much like the muffled screaming of the boy. There's a voice in your head and that was what it was telling you. We call our impulses "our first voice" and our hesitations "our second voice". Our impulses are irrational thoughts, and so we often confuse our hesitations with rationality. Sometimes our second voice pretends to be logical when it can just be cynicism in disguise.

Another gust of wind hit the shore, and her eyes came back into focus. She took hold of the joint and smiled politely, dismissing the short period of distraction. She was lost in contemplation and it was a thought that was not of you, and would not let you in unless you learnt to love enough.