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Lau Pat Sat Festival Market.




It was a long community table and the seat next to me was empty. It had been a year since i had been to one of these. A year of hopes and promises. A year of scarred hearts and broken dreams. And then i saw her.  She walked to the group, regal and stately, and sat down on the seat next to me. As she introduced herself, i thought to myself: her voice sounds foreign, but then everything about her was other worldly. Angelic almost. I saw him approach and observed him as he bent down to kiss her. I froze. And with me, time too stood still. Nothing existed, except him and her. There she was, right next to him, right where I should have been. Right where I used to be.
I clutched at my crumbling heart, and pinched myself to numb the pain, collected my shattered remains and rose to leave.
'Always carry a soft smile, like a Buddha', my teacher once said to me. I willed myself to invoke my inner Buddha, as i said my goodbyes. And then i gave my withering hopes one last look as i turned to walk away.
With my back to him, to them, I let Buddha retreat to a corner, and let my heart slowly take over my being. I was a spectacle, but then it was a festival market wasn't it? A million tiny little stars each with a thousand little dreams flowed down that face as I walked through throngs of people, oblivious to life, uncaring of stares, ignorant of sounds, or sights or smells. For it had finally happened. I finally believed what everyone had said to me a long time ago. It had finally dawned upon me. That we were never meant to be. And as that realisation trickled down, bit by bit, seeping into the depths of my mind and body, i felt a chill take over. I left this realm to journey to another while my physical being continued to stand right where I had stopped, right in the middle of the large courtyard.
And suddenly, albeit for a very small period of time, I was back in front of a shrine, praying fervently for the one thing that made me happy…..the only thing that would make me happy now…...him. I rang the bells with all my strength and the shrine reverberated with those sounds, in my attempt to wake God up and tell him my deepest desire, so he could make it come true. For that tiny amount of time, all around me there were vibrations, and you could feel love, as it traveled from wall to wall inscribing itself in the core of every pillar that stood in the shrine.
And the next second, I was back at the festival market, standing in the courtyard. My prayer wasn't answered and so breaking down, I grieved. For what I had, and for what I had lost. Again. But this time. Forever. Maybe the only kind of forever I'll ever know.

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