I was working, very late as usual, when like in life, I stumbled upon her again. It was like meeting a ghost. It was like seeing standing on Constitutional Square about to dart across and seeing across the road, the girl you should never have dumped about to enter a taxi going to a place whose name you’ll never know or have the right to again.
It was like walking through a door, the door of the house you grew up in, the house your father built and becoming a child of 12 again waiting to be called for supper, reading a comic book by flickering candlelight. It was like for a blinding moment, remembering oh so clearly what it felt like to be in love for the first time. What it felt like the first time to have your heart broken, seeing Susan holding his hand behind the water tanker at school.
It was all these emotions and more crashing into me all at once and me listening with a bowed head, glad I was in the office alone this night. No one to see my glistening eyes. To discover Jewel again. Jewel Kilcher.
What happened to me? How did I get here? The wailing innocence in Jewel’s voice returning me to places I have not been in a long time. “Do you love me like I love you or am I standing still?” Was I? “Cutting through the darkest night are my two headlights.” Where were we going? “You aren’t in sight.”
“Trying to keep the clip but I'm losing it here to the twilight.” “Do you want me like I want you?” I was gone with you like I will never be gone with anyone else. “Do you need me like I need you?” I will never stand by deserted taxi stages after midnight hailing phantom special hire taxis to come and see you again.
I will never sleep in abandoned kiosks amid the sweets wrappings locked out of my parents’ house again. “Was that you passing me by?” “Between fight and flight is the blind mans sight. And a choice that's right.” To go back and face them, to go back and face them, in the morning, to deny finally what had denied me from the beginning, to try and not see their leers and grins, “I feel broken down.”
“Or am I standing still
With the scenery passing by
Or am I standing still
Out of the corner of my eye
Was that you
Passing me by?”
