I’m coming Home…A tale of goodbye and Hello

Opening his jet black folder, a piece of paper flutters to the floor, wondering what it was he bends down and picks up the fallen piece of paper between his dainty fingers. Straightening up, he brings the paper up to his line of vision and realizes it’s a letter written in neat slender strokes.

Wondering who slipped the letter into his folder. he makes his way to his favorite spot on earth, the roof of the building. Seating on the narrow wall marking the end of roof, he dangles his feet over the edge of the building and starts to read the letter:

Dear Malique ,

How are you?

I hope you’re doing great, how’s school and everything? *chuckles* never mind I know how much you hate school so don’t bother answering that.

Malique, don’t be so stressed about life okay, it’ll get better soon I promise. Just hang on tight.

I slipped this letter into your folder while you were lying beside me yesterday, you looked so cute and peaceful. I didn’t want to disturb you when you looked so serene and totally at peace. So instead of telling you this I decided to write it to you.

Besides I don’t think I would have had the courage to tell you all this face to face, my courage would have totally failed. This few weeks I’ve spent with you have been the best days in my entire life and for the first time in my life I felt grateful to God for actually bringing me to earth, when all I’ve ever done was curse at him.

Meeting you was sheer luck, and I bless the day I found you. Listening to your voice and hearing you sing always brought such happiness and calmness to my weak heart and actually made it beat ever so strongly.

Seeing your rectangular smile always made my lips tilt upwards in pure joy and watching you imitate others especially when they came into my room to check on me always made the changing process a little more bearable.

You brought such light into my life, such brightness I never experienced in my entire life. So as a gift I decided to write you this. I know how much you hate corny stuff but I’m still going to do this anyways.

Hope you like it:

Having you in my life.

The world has become a cold and dreary path.

Life has become a flower bed of thorns; I walk through with bare feet.

Its edges sharp and unforgiving like a Warriors sword piercing through the feeble skin of the soul.

So many burdens has been placed on my tiny frail shoulders.

I have collapsed under the weight of the world.

My mast has let down its weakened sails and my anchor has become eroded from its never ending drag through the turbulent seas of life.

My eyes has lost its shine, once bright like sun on the first day of spring after a cold and harsh winter

They now glimmer dull like the previous black pearl lost at the bottom of the deepest oceans.

I’ve loved and lost so much, my heart now lays beneath its own charred ashes, a heart once burnt fiery and bright like a dragon’s raging roar.

I’m a like a floundering sailor lost at sea, with no way home, drowning amidst the dark waves of misery.

All hope lost.

All will to live completely gone.

Suddenly you appear like a blinding light forcing its way into my hiding place

A place I’ve created for my withering soul to rest

Because. I don’t want world to see as I don’t they’d understand.

Yet you remained an unrelenting ray of hope in the midst of this darkness,

When everything’s made to be broken,

I just want you to know who I am.

You have become my Island of solace.

Though the path to you is littered with thorns, thistles and burning embers lying therein,

I’m willing to tread this path

Because having you in life, what is a little more suffering to a person that has lived in the flames of pain itself.

Having you in my life, I’m willing to shed a few more tears.

Because what is a few more crystal drops to a person who has cried an ocean of tears.

Having you in my life, I’m willing to die one more death

Because what is one more death to a person who has lost a piece of her soul to each second of every day.

Having you in my life, this heart that has long forgotten how to embrace other hearts has been reawakened.

And even if I receive injuries and my tears fall like the rain,

If only my heart can beat once again like the Warriors drum,

I’ll give up forever just to be with you for a moment

I’ll give up forever to touch you,

Because you’re the closest to heaven I’ll ever be.

And I don’t ever want to go back home,

Because you’ve become the only air I breathe.

And because I received these blessings,

I can experience real happiness

I can find the sincerity of my lost smile.

Having you in my life, I would forever sink into the abyss that is you to never resurface.

I hope it wasn’t too corny to you. See I even put in the effort to write this in fancy cursive writing and you know how much I hate putting effort into anything. Even when the doctors tell me that I need to put in more effort and will into becoming better, I just nod my head and do nothing about it.

At this point, Malique already had crystal drops in his eyes because he knew who the writer of the letter was. Taking in stuttering breathes in an attempt to calm his raging emotions; he looks up at the sky and notices how beautiful the sky was this particular night.

It was littered with bright twinkling stars strewn across the inky blue canvas, beaming down at him. The whistling air was currently playing with his brown locks and bending it to its playful will making it brush across his wet eyes before blowing it back upwards in silent acknowledgement to its puppeteer.

Malique wondered how the world could look so beautiful and peaceful at this moment, when his heart was shattering to a thousand pieces in his chest.

He wondered how the night could look so tranquil while his emotions were struggling to jump out from its confines in his caged mind.

Malique thought the twinkling stars and whistling air were mocking him un-relentlessly.

Gathering the last of his courage, he lifts the letter back to his eyes and read the final scribbles.

‘My dear Malique, I hope you can live happily for the rest of your life. Make sure you find yourself a nice young lady in the future, settle down and have your own family of little Davids with dainty hands like their father.

I’m so sorry for being a selfish coward who couldn’t even tell you a proper goodbye and has instead chosen to write a measly letter. I hope you can forgive me, you know I’ve never being a strong girl.

Which technically isn’t my fault though; I mean what can you do with a weak heart with shallow stuttering breaths.

I would be gone by the time you see this letter, because the angels have come to take me home. You remember that time you met me for the first time on our rooftop, I was actually there to meet my creator as he had already sent his messengers to bring me home. But when I saw you on the edge of the wall, I begged them for a little more time because when I looked into your eyes I saw a glimpse of my own heaven and I couldn’t go home to my creator without having a taste of it here on earth first.

They agreed to my request as they didn’t have any choice because I blackmailed my creator by telling him how much I deserved this little time of happiness. As I’ve only known sadness my whole life.

My heart beat like the warriors drum whenever you were by my side, you became my strong heartbeat, I was able to see the world through your eyes this few weeks and experienced. true joy.

But now it’s time for me to go back home, Sephira, Kohinoor and Jamil came to tell me that when you were with me yesterday. I wonder why I have so many angels assigned just to me. You know when you complained about the weird tingling at the back of your neck yesterday, that was Jamil blowing air on your neck. Just in case you are wondering who these guys are, they are the angels taking me home.

They are really nice you know, they broke the rules by letting me stay back for a few more weeks, Kohinoor looks really stoic but he’s actually really cheeky, he was the one that upturned your bag the other day while Sephira looks like a creeper instead of an angel. He has twitchy eyes and big ears. Kohinoor is the only responsible one amongst them; he has really wide eyes that even widen more whenever Sephira and Jamil go to bother other patients in the hospital. Jamil. is the one that keeps them all from breaking each other’s necks.

But I still really like them, they make me feel at peace whenever you’re not here.

Hey hey hey don’t pout okay!

Malique chuckles quietly as his mouth was already arranged in a cute pout.

‘You’re my absolute favourite and you brought eternal peace to my aching soul. So don’t get jealous okay?

I have to go now, my hands are weak, my breathe is short and my eyes are sleepy. I told Kohinoor. to take me away in my sleep after you leave the hospital room tomorrow.

Promise me you would be happy after I’m gone.

I’ll miss you your rectangular smile.

I’ll miss your dainty hands.

I’ll miss you.

Until we meet again.

Your rooftop buddy.

Wordlessly Malique takes out a pen from his back pocket, flips the paper dotted with tears over and starts writing:

Dear Rooftop Buddy,

I’m going to make this short.

How dare you leave me behind, how dare you leave without saying goodbye.

I’m not going to get angry at you because I’m the real coward here, I was going to leave you first but apparently you beat me to it , I wanted to tell you goodbye first.

I absolutely loved your letter and I’m glad I gave you happiness in the last moments of your life.

You don’t know this, but you brought happiness into my life in my final moments too, I only held on for this past few weeks because of you, I stayed because I wanted to experience heaven with you before I leave this hell called earth.

Your tinkling laugh lit up my entire universe, and made my heart dance in absolute Joy.

The reason I stayed over at the hospital yesterday was because I knew you were going home today, and let me tell you, I know Jamil too. He follows me around whenever he leaves your hospital room and though I can’t see him, I know he’s there.

He’s here with Sephira to also take me home.

I know they always hover around because I can feel them.

You see I also asked them for more time to spend with you.

Apparently when two people at the point of death have coinciding wishes, the creator grants them one last wish.

I experienced joy like I had never experienced and I have you to thank for that.

Because of you, I was able to find the sincerity in my long lost smile.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to miss me for too long because I’m coming home to you and we can make little Maliques up there together. Little Maliques with dainty fingers and tinkling laughs.

So wait for me.

Your dear Malique.

Malique places the paper on the narrow wall and puts his pen atop it.

Standing upright on the narrow ledge with his back facing the quiet Seoul, the wind carries his soft voice as he falls back into oblivion.

‘I’m coming home’.