After All

Big Fishes' Carnival at The Lake - After All

He had been hurt, but that wasn't a reason nor an excuse for him to hurt her. Then again, reason was of the most complicated and difficult for them to understand. None understood why he came to her. None understood why she nodded. None understood why he was furious, and none understood why she was crying. Only one word engulfed their mind: failure.


The following day was not unusual; he began touching the thick, black & white note to begin his afternoon routine. He had been trying to describe loneliness between the lines led by a big, beautiful letter 'G', but often found it difficult to describe loneliness without imbuing sorrow into the song. He wanted to show his beloved, with what he previously were destined for yet hate to the core, that loneliness wasn't painful nor sad. Just when he was about to fit into his current of imagination, a curious eye from the faraway entrance disturbed him. He grunted and slammed a key, and the eye was no more. Frustrated, he decided to take a break from the melodies which would be trying to harmonize with each other, and let the silence of the hall seep into his soul as he sat down and stared at his beloved in a frame.

"So you were free after all," she exclaimed, almost  stuttering, as she slowly approached him, he who was still swimming in his own nostalgia that she would never understand. He quickly slipped the frame into his pocket upon realizing that she was about to sit next to him, on the front row of the audience seats, where they could see nothing but the piano showered in light. Everything else was dim, as he wanted it to be. This was supposed to be an occasional chat they've been having the last two months, and it would be a fun and enjoyable session should yesterday never occurred. However, what happened was unchangeable, and thus their usual laughter was replaced with the silence none desired.

"It's already late," he mentioned, and she didn't need him to continue to know exactly what he wanted her to do, but she let him continue anyway, "wouldn't your beloved be worried?" She smiled as she gave him confirming nod, and proceed to stand up and walked along the path between the numerous seats filling the hall, stopping halfway to look back at him worrying whether it was the right thing to do: leaving without saying goodbye. When she saw him taking whatever was in his pocket without looking at her at all, she was certain that it was the best that she could do. Her beloved was waiting for her, after all.

As he filled the hall with wonderful tune for the betrothal the following day, he couldn't help but think about the finger he would put the golden ring on, and every time he thought of that reality always came back to tell him straight away that it would never happen. The gown, the ring, the kiss; happiness should be with him should The Lord desired so - but He desired his beloved instead. Thus as the blessed ones proceed with a new, fresh page of their life outside the wedding hall, he continued to shower the room with melodies, even if he was the only one to listen. Then she was there again, but that time was special since a silhouette was following her into the dark room.

He continued to sit still under the spotlight, melodies crafted just for his beloved still filling his eyes, though he could see beyond and witness that the two presence were somewhat not complementing each other. As the two of them finally leaving the hall, one of them chasing the other, he smiled at how beautiful a lover's quarrel was, while wondering whether she was the one making the unreasonable demand. She was never reasonable, after all.

He witnessed the accident when he went home.

The following night, she entered the hall with grim expression, although he could never really tell in the dark hall. He could, however, trace sadness within every word she uttered, straight from the greetings. He witnessed the accident, correct - not that she knew this - but he wanted to listen to her anyway; to see the incident from her perspective. She told him that they broke up. She told him that her beloved couldn't understand nor accept it. She told him she was so mad she ran without paying attention. She told him that her beloved save her. None of his assumptions were proven wrong. And then she cried. She was a crybaby, after all.

So he told her that there were things she took for granted that she should have treasured instead. He told her that her beloved was nothing less than a blessing to her, and that instead of throwing tantrums at every flaw that her beloved was willing to show her, she should have smiled at her beloved's every attempt at trying to be a good partner. He told her that her beloved was what she deserved, followed by those beautiful lines that slowly failed to make sense to both. But one thing was clear: she promised, from then on, to always be with her beloved, to see no other man in her eyes, to devote herself for her beloved. With this, he was satisfied.

The next day she didn't come, nor did she in the following day, on the following week, and just that easily a month had passed without them seeing each other. He was there, though, always trying to look for the loneliness-invoking tune that could, however, drive sorrow away. He perfected it, but as the piece grow stronger and stronger and described joyful loneliness even more vividly than before, he began disagreeing to it. He was, without her, lonely. He was just a man after all.

Then one day she came, much later than usual as she intended this meeting to be the last, only to see that he was done with his piece and thus, done with the hall as well. She knew his story, but only recently did she understand how it feels to fell in love with one that had left us all. He knew that it would be their last, and being the unreasonable person he had always been, he tried to redo what they had done and what they had done wrong.

"Will you be my beloved?"

She knew this would happen, but that day was different because she knew the right answer.

"I'm afraid I would have to decline," she said with a smile, followed by his.

And thus the grand wedding hall was closed for both of them, perhaps for good, for none of them had any use of that old building any longer. She would continue to live and love her beloved, believing that her beloved was waiting among those blinking stars just like his beloved. Then she left him, with a smile, for she liked smiling after all.

As he stared at the picture of a woman no longer his beloved, he wondered to himself whether he could only fall in love with those who were going to leave him in the end. He was always lonely, after all.