Rest stops along the way
As my lover lay in a hospital halfway around the world, I sit in a cafe kicking back with a few beers and smoking my brains out. It helps that I am with friends. Conversation flows easily from one topic to the next. I talk, I listen, I laugh.
Once or twice, I think about him. I know the room he is in. In it, there is a TV that plays a few channels. The volume only goes up that high. I wonder if he is sleeping enough. I wonder if the nurses are making sure he has enough blankets.
But for most of the night, sitting by the ever-busy Orchard Road, I feel fine. In fact, I am better than fine. I was enjoying myself. This absence of mind is rare, but it does not strike me as odd. Normalcy in the face of terror is a basic instinct, a method of control.
Throughout this journey, there have been, and will continue to have moments of grieving, of anger, of hope. It is a journey because it is precisely that; there must be rest stops before we gather ourselves to start the climb anew.