What does it feel like?
When the purpose in your life, the one thing that makes you who you are, pushes you to live one more day, quiets the fears in your mind, puts a hand on your shoulder and shakes you to reality,
Comforts you. Eases your pain. Simmers your frustration. Makes that stupid joke to get you to laugh.
What happens when part of your soul vanishes? In an instant, you blink, and its there. Then the next heartbeat, it's gone.
In the stillness after a gunshot, that presence is missing. As if the one piece of the puzzle that is your life has been lost.
The reality of that. The weight of that.
It's not perfect. It's not okay.
How can you go on when you're not whole anymore?
Day in and day out, I find myself walking. Pacing. Searching.
My first destination is always the Jazz Jin Bar. They play music every night, the patrons singing a symphony and guzzling sweet drinks through straws as if life hasn't changed. As if one of it's genuine regular's is still sitting at the old wooden tables, merrily singing along with them.
His love is still there. But his body isn't.
I feel that loss. Why don't they?
Then I pass by the convenience store.
I float into the market like a ghost. I can't focus on anything but the stupid and trivial ready-to-eat meals. In the haze of my tunnel vision, they are all I can think about. I aimlessly and carelessly teeter forward and almost knock over a display, then without any semblance of reality, I almost bump a mother tending to her child at the candy section.
But I don't feel anything from it.
I just want one of these 'gourmet' meals he loved so much.
I pause at the refrigerated display, and have to stop myself from opening a container and gorging down the food right then. Swallowing the sticky lump of rice, and tearing at the stale meat like it's my last meal.
Today, it feels like that.
Who am I kidding, every day feels like that.
I pick up a container but barely realize what it is that I bought. I go by the ingredients, a semblance of what I presume he used to buy. I can't recollect exactly if I have the same meal, and I refuse to think too much to protect myself against the depth of my pain swallowing me whole.
So I hand the cashier the change, then leave. My first snicker of the day is at the thought that he only paid 600 yen for sustenance on a 4-times-a-day-basis.
How did you live on this all the time?
No wonder you were so thin.
My thoughts gravitate back to how, despite his physical state, his mind and heart were strong.
He dealt with so much. His father's abuse, the pressure of his crime, the aftershocks of his murders.
As soon as I step out of the store, I lean against the brick wall beside the door and open the meal. I don't think, I just eat.
I'm desperate to feel closer to him. I need a connection. Eating his favourite meal can do that, right? It'll fill that gaping hole in my heart. I just know it.
But as I gorge, I still feel as hollow as ever. My stomach satiates, but my pain just grips my heart even tighter. Before I know it, tears are falling into my rice. The hope that was once there, is now shattered.
This isn't going to bring him back.
This isn't going to give me a connection.
Angry and raw, I take the plastic container and throw the half-eaten leftovers into the trash with a bitter scoff and all of my strength. I wipe my eyes and saunter down the alley, refusing to believe that I could be this stupid.
