Overture.

2004 is the year of death for so many around, all of whom are related in a way and yet not really at all. Just finished clearing out the cupboard for the folks' office collection for Aceh. It's fucking depressing is what it is, and what shits me the most is how in less than 36 hours people are going to be partying the night away with stupid countdowns when the only real countdown is that of an epidemic setting in across the sea and the death toll rising far beyond 100, 000. So have fun headbanging and counting down on New Year's Eve; at least your year was worth the fracas.

This girl needs more than occasional
Hugs as a token of love from you to me

Terms of endearment only go so far before their meanings are washed away by perfunctoriness. Do you fucking get it? Just two weeks away but this feels so wrong it makes me sick and yet stupidly wanting more all at the same time. No one escapes the mind games.

***

I can't go on this way. I want to shower you with affection, I want to hurt you with a hail of indifference. I want to whitewash my past with you and start anew, I want to blackmail you with that same past and insist we start again. I want you to leave your telephone number on my caller ID when I am not at home so I can decode it as a confession of love forever locked within seven missed numbers. I want to call your handphone from a public telephone and keep silent hoping that you will distil the background noises: the carousel of children's laughter, the traffic growling on the sweaty streets, my palm greasing the mouthpiece, into one helpless sob. I want to hold you and let you go. I want to kiss you and push you away.