Poems and Other Shit

When The World Was Ours - Short Story

Dear Laura

How are you? Well, I hope. Let me not linger too long on formalities. I know you were never one for small talk and empty words. I shall tell you about my adventures, because I know you do wonder, often probably, while you're standing under the shower in the morning or lying awake in bed; that was when you used to have all your great ideas.

Let me set the scene: We've been in India for the past two weeks. The air is humid, and we smell like the local food markets we strolled through with tourist enthusiasm - spices and fish and exotic ingredients. The people are a compliment to the beautiful scenery, once you bypass the slums and are away from the cities. We've been away from the cities for a long time, travelling in a little beat up tuk tuk we brought for an inconsiderable amount.

The children smile at us with enthusiasm, and when our tuk tuk breaks down, the local men come to our aid, rolling up their sleeves and fixing the problem. One woman invited us to her home, a little hut on the edge of a town, where she served us chai tea. Neither of us knew exactly what to say or what she expected. Maybe people here do that – they invite foreigners into their homes because they are curious, considerate and caring.

The roads here are a certain kind of anarchy. It sends chills up your spine, dodging trucks and impatient cars. There are no rules. The first day we witnessed three car accidents. It becomes apparent that two naïve tourists cannot escape unscratched. And we don't, eventually having a somewhat serious collision between two cars.

We're okay, thankfully. The already exhausted tuk tuk isn't. So we will leave India soon with a newfound appreciation for travel health insurance.

Anyway, I hope you are well. We're going to Fiji next week instead, and I'll write you.

Quin

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Quin,

Please stop writing me. I saw you the other month in the Mexican restaurant, the one across from the pub. You know the one. I walked right in, saw you, and I left. No more, Quin.

Laura

P.s. While the c/o address is for a valid Indian hotel, the postage mark is not.

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Dear Laura

I want to tell you about Fiji. The sand here is beautiful, white. You can hardly walk along the beach though without finding some sort of tropical shell, or without seeing a coconut. They fall right out of the trees and rot in the sand, there are that many of them.

Some of the locals scale the trees like skilled ninjas, and kindly throw some down to us. Once again, we avoid Suva soon after arrival, finding little comfort in the city, content to wonder down the coast, liberated with the freedom of having no destination and no itinerary. We make it up as we go.

The locals here make coconut and seafood curries. We eat hungrily. We haven't tired of curry yet.

One morning, I think that you walked along the beach. A young boy up a tree didn't see you, dropped a coconut right on your head. But you were okay, temporarily unconscious but otherwise okay. The young boy was extremely worried, and you laughed it off. You saw it as a moment to teach him about Newton's similar run in with an apple a couple hundred years ago, if I remember.

You had a bump on your head the size of a coconut, really, and a crippling headache you slept off. I said we should go to the hospital, but you were still reeling after our last visit, and besides you were fine. The coconut tree was only a small one. The distant hadn't been great.

But you had brain swelling.

To answer your last letter, I do know the Mexican restaurant, when we first met. You sat at the table in the corner, alone. I approached you. "I want to go to Mexico," you said. There was a world map on the table under a plastic sheet, like a table cloth. I pointed out Mexico, and everywhere else on my agenda of places to visit. Fate had thrown us together.

If you want, we can visit Mexico again together. I've been trying to keep the letters short, because your psychiatrist says it's better like that. I've been trying to keep them familiar. I'll answer any questions you have. I'll try and make everything clear.

Quin

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Quin,

I saw your mother in the supermarket the other day, in the isle selling cereals and dry biscuits. I asked her about you, and she said you're at home. Have been for the past three years. I don't know what subterfuge you've created out of me, but we were never anything, and we never went to Mexico. You're delusional.

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Laura,

I'm glad you saw my mother. She remembers it too. You asked her about me, and she'd told you I'd been home. Quit uni and worked for three years. Saving so I could travel. Shame that meeting was four years ago, and not the other day.

You have to believe what I'm telling you. It happened. We had this crazy idea to quit our jobs and travel, spend a month or so in every country we wanted to visit. We decided to travel unconventionally, take different roads and avoid glossy attractions and nice hotels. It didn't cost very much, not half as much as it could have. We had low expectations, and everything surprised us. It opened our eyes, how people could live and how they did live. It changed our lives, and it changed us. I suppose neither of us imagined we would return as we had.

Quin

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Quin,

You've twisted your reality. Your mother told me where you've been the last two months.

I've been married for five years now, I have two kids. What do you have? A handful of colourful pills and a collection of memories you stole from somebody else's online journal. I'll give you credit - some of them are actually your own. But you're not scoring any points by adding me into them. And I've been patient and brief with you previously because I know the psychiatric ward won't let you receive mail that's abusive. But you need to hear this – I am not who you think I am anymore.

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Laura,

Don't you remember? You left all that for me, and for an erratic lifestyle which I guess was just all too erratic in the end. We were somebody else with each other; what we used to be didn't matter. The world was ours, Laura. Yours and mine.