That moment when the feeling of someone touching you, brushing against you in passing even, makes your heart beat faster. What do you call it? When you have to clear your throat so you don't suddenly sound like a man castrated before puberty? 'This woman!' You blurt it out, drawn like a flying insect to those lights some restaurants like to hang from the ceiling. 'This woman! Hmm! If I grab you…' Ehn? 'Grab who?' But you know she's not really angry. 'You this man…' Not with the way she's smiling and twirling curls. 'You fit?'
It's as old as the hills, you see, this dance. But, tell me, is it still as entertaining as it once was? I remember…when you had to go back to the hostel first, to take a bucket bath and wear fresh clothes, before heading out to G.H., at the gates of which you would then linger in supplication till you found someone willing to go in and call her out for you. Now? You send a message on whatsapp: 'Meet me in the Common Room'. Follow her on Twitter. Befriend her on Facebook.
Ah! Do you remember when it took three months to get a reply? Do you? When you tore out the middle sheets of your higher education notebook and bought a brand new biro, so you could explain in detail how she made you feel? Wrote the date carefully at the top right-hand corner? Counted each day that passed like the rest of your pocket-money for the term? I remember the first Valentine card I ever got. Yes. Shaped like a rectangle, colored lilac. Do you remember? How you found a quiet place to read it, away from the prying eyes of those god-forsaken amebos in your class? And your heart jumped to see the sheet of white paper inside, folded neatly and covered with her spidery writing? She replied!
Not like now. My brother, my email-box is always full. But hardly anything gets read more than once these days, not when there's an endless Universe of Internet pages out there. Back then… Ah…Back then, the sun strolled like a man with little to do, and – I swear – the moon was a lot brighter, because you could read a love letter by its light alone. And so you did; and every time was like the first time. Do you remember? And if she made the mistake of including a picture…Chai! My sister, you won't understand. Not with the way we have hundreds of your personal pictures on Instagram now. Ehn? There was a time when being handed a single Polaroid spoke volumes. So, you pinned it up on the inside of your locker and watched it like a feature length movie.
Or should we tell the stories of whispered conversations, of how some people cracked parental security locks on rotary dial telephones, then cuddled up on sofas in sitting rooms downstairs – late in the night, lights all off – with receivers pressed tight to their ears? And that was only if you were lucky enough to have one. Yes, I know; it's hard to comprehend it now, a world without smart phones to vibrate in your pocket every time he calls. Imagine. What if you had to slip out the back door, scale the low hedge, all to negotiate with your neighbor's son for time on their telephone; a 20 minute-window, in the evenings, when you could receive that call you would have spent the whole day thinking about? Love was an adventure like that, you see, before Skype, when you had to take night-bus if you really wanted a face-to-face.
Ah! My baby, I still love you like that o, even though the world is changing around us. Yes. I used to trek across town to see you. Now the effort seems too much, the one it would take to get up from this couch; so I think of sending a text instead down to you standing there alone by the kitchen sink, 'Please, bring some water when you're coming up.' No, ah, let's not go there, to that place where everywhere is too far and everything is too hard. Sometimes, love is in something as simple as this, coming downstairs. Flying a hundred miles just to find out what happened. I know, she will look up and start complaining, 'Ah, no, you didn't have to. Why did you? Don't bother, don't worry…' Don't mind her. Very soon, you will see, she will start to smile in her sleep.
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