the memory of her came to him occasionally, it wasn't constant -- sometimes there were days, even weeks or months when no recollection of her existence interfered with his own. but eventually it always surfaced, usually triggered by something completely irrelevant that had nothing to do with her. it could happen in the queue of a supermarket or in the midst of bench presses, and sometimes it came to him when he was thinking about some work-related matter or staring at the telly.
the memory was always the same. her face, pleasant but not exceptionally beautiful; her hazel eyes slightly glazed by the decent amount of alcohol she had consumed. her loud laughter and her raspy voice, even if he had forgot most of what she had said due to the equally decent amount of substances in his own circulation. her hands that appeared to be in constant movement and, oddly enough, her neck that had seemed to be the most vulnerable part of her. but above all her presence, the way he had known where she was in the room even when she had been out of his sight, and the undeniable and unquestionable feeling of something being shared whenever she wasn't.
the memory consisted of these unorganized flickers of her, these small specks of her being, and condensed into the one sentence he did remember, spoken by her as their loud, merry group had parted ways that night. it had been agreed between them then, with that sentence, without any regret or frustration that they had met in a wrong life and in wrong time. in this one she was married and he was gay, and that was that and it was good, and there was absolutely nothing either one of them would have wanted to change in that.
and yet, when two weeks later he learnt the news about her death he couldn't help but grieving her, much more than the level of the impact she had had on his life would have given reason for. he had been shattered, had felt that something very primal, very intimate had been robbed of him in the most violent way; and when his friends asked why he was so devastated over the loss of someone he had met only once, he didn't have the words to give them an answer.
perhaps the memory of her was so precious to him because it was all he had and ever could have; reality or time would never touch it. and even if he never dreamt of her, never pictured scenarios that could have been but never would but always stuck to the things that had actually happened, still the validity of her would never alter or colour those experiences. she was the only person who would stay with him as she had been on that night, and with that he could stay like he had been as well -- could still feel the connection, the certainty, and the acceptance; the mutual agreement the level of which he hadn't experienced since.
perhaps it was so that the absoluteness of her memory was what had kept her with him for all these years. perhaps, had she lived, the awareness of her existence and life somewhere else would have slowly erased her from his memory. or perhaps it is so that the impact of another on a life is not measured through the tools provided by time; perhaps the meaning is created by something else entirely.
he didn't know which it was; all he knew that the memory of her rested on him like no other.
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