A Distorted Reality

This wasn’t where I wanted to be, at least not exactly. Wandering

about the deep blue room I watched the fish move around, in schools, alone,
drifting about in their synthetic home. The algae and the makeshift corals
seemed to glow with a shimmering iridescence, and so did the large, the
small and the microscopic fish that swam around with their own version of
grace.
As the room began to empty I grew uneasy. I checked my watch. It
was already nine. I wondered where he was, if this was a practical joke, if he
didn’t really exist. Besides, it’s not like we’ve ever met before.
The fish continued to swim about around me, distorting the way the
lights reflected on my face. The childish laughter died away as the group of
schoolchildren filed out of the room in their two neat lines. Their field trip to
the aquarium was over.
Nine ten.
Twenty-four.
Thirty.
“Excuse me, miss,” a custodian entered the room, calling out to me.
“We’re closing in thirty minutes.”
“It’s okay,” I replied. “I’m – I’m just waiting for someone. He’ll be
here soon.” I think.
The custodian nodded silently, and he proceeded to mop the floor
for about five minutes and then leave the room.
In my mind I could imagine seeing a flash of light, and then a large,
agitated fish would whip its tail and create a tiny crack against the
shatterproof glass. The pressure would then build up and a web-like pattern
would appear. I could picture this pattern growing larger and larger, with
the centre growing more detailed every second, until… BAM, the same fish
would slam itself against the glass a second time, shattering the supposedly
unbreakable glass. All two thousand gallons of water would flow out of the
small opening, which continued to break and shatter every fraction of a
second, and all the fish, large, small and microscopic, would swim out into
the large room, and I would be part of this phenomenon, being one with the
creatures of the sea, swimming amongst the glowing angelfish, clownfish,
fish that would otherwise end up on my dinner plate, fish that could be my
pets, of all colours and shapes and sizes…
And then someone nudged me. I realised that I had fallen asleep,
even though it was only for a few moments.
“Sasha?” I heard a soft voice. I rubbed my eyes, not realising what
was going on.
“Thomas?” I mumbled back. I had to blink once, twice even, until I
came to my senses. He was right there, standing right in front of me, wearing
the black polo shirt he promised he’d wear for distinction. It took a while
before I realised that my jaw dropped in his presence. Composing myself, I
stretched out my hand to meet his. “Hi… wow, it’s nice to finally meet you.”
He smiled at me as he shook my hand. I felt a strange rush surge
through my bones as I managed a smirk and stifled a giggle that would have
taken my breath away.
His skin was fair, his face pale as if it were covered with a blanket of
snow which sharply contrasted his short, velvety dark hair. His hair, which
looked as soft and smooth as a freshly mown patch of grass, was of a shade
of brown that was not as dark as a shot of espresso, or as light as a latte, but
was more like black coffee, roasted and brewed to perfection. His eyes did
not pierce, but they were not gentle, either. Instead, they possessed the right
balance of mystery and intensity that could dazzle anyone who dared to
gaze straight into them; one could get lost in those eyes, at least I knew I
could.
“I’m sorry I was late,” he said, and I could feel the sincerity in his
words. “So, shall we?”
“The aquarium is closing in five minutes.” I gestured towards the
door, and he followed, though I could sense through the reluctance in the
way he walked that he was really looking forward to taking me around the
aquarium, and that he was truly sorry for coming late.
As we walked out the door, I felt his hand clasp mine, and our
fingers interlaced. My lips subconsciously curled up into a smile, and I could
tell that this was going to be a long, wild night.
 He didn’t have a car, and so rather than hailing a cab we decided to
walk. The night sky was starless, and the streets were clear and perfect for a
quiet stroll.
But as we were walking, though we were doing so hand in hand, the
silence was the problem.
“I’m so boring, sorry,” he said, pausing. “It’s just the nerves, you
know. I’m usually a lot better at this…”
“It’s fine,” I reassured him. “I get it.” When meeting someone for the
first time, it’s normal to be nervous. I was nervous too. In fact, nervous was
an understatement, as if instead of butterflies my stomach was filled with
mice and spiders and other uglier and more frightening little creatures.
Maybe piranha, even. “I guess we should just – um – walk some more…”
The awkwardness was unavoidable. Oh, I was just so ready to kill
my friend Andie for putting this all together. This had been an odd idea from
the start. To some degree I had already been satisfied with being introduced
to Thomas through Andie’s video call and chatting to him about anything
and everything while confined under the parameters of cyberspace. We told
each other secrets, things that we wouldn’t tell people that we talked to in
real life. I found confidence in him, and he in me, and now the thought of
actually being with this person right now just gave me the most
uncomfortable feeling in the world. Some things were just better left… online.
We remained silent for a few more moments. During that time I
simply took advantage of the silence so I could take it all in, that thought of
just being there, in that foreign city, walking alongside the person whose
fingers were interlocked with mine. There weren’t many cars along the silent
brick streets, which I found unusual for such an urban location. Tall black
street lamps lined the pavement, and though each individual light was dim,
the collective radiance emanating from each lamp illuminated the light brick,
which seemed to glow with mild golden tones. It was a scene perfect for any
modern fairytale, from the setting to the lighting, so perfect that one could
even lay a soft piano track, like “Claire de Lune”, or Chopin’s “Nocturne”, to
play in the background and serve as the moment’s soundtrack.
Every so often I stole a glance at him just to make sure that he was
for real. To have a mutual friend was one thing, to talk to him through text
was another, to see his image stream through a small box on my computer
screen another. Having him right there, next to me, holding my hand as if we
had been together for ages was a totally different thing in itself, and the
feeling was unlike anything that I had ever experienced before. Then again, it
wasn’t like I had any experience to speak of, anyway.
Besides, I was Sasha. I was awkward little Sasha, whose online
façade of a humorous, witty blogger, fearless in expressing my thoughts and
opinions, actually concealed a neurotic, socially naïve young woman.
Impulsive Sasha, who decided to fly halfway around the world to meet some
guy that I knew so well, though I never had the chance to meet him in
person, just because I felt like it, and now, in my utter naïveté, I was, at this
particular moment, nervous Sasha. Anxious Sasha, whose fingers, unable to
move as they remained perfectly with Thomas’ like pieces of a puzzle, was
frightened to be here, and yet was also grateful that this particular moment
was actually taking place.
I noticed the way his facial features were slightly different from the
way they looked through his blurry old desktop camera. Up close and
personal the slightest details of his appearance were much clearer, better
than I’d imagined. Though he was no Adonis, the tangibility of his figure felt
like a myth had been realised.
It was inevitable, though, that, at one point, I would grow impatient.
And I did, and I wasn’t so subtle about it. I never am.
I parted my hand from his.
“Look, you said you were gonna take me around,” I said with an
impatient smirk. He scratched his head with an uneasy “Uh” and I gave him
a stern, teasing look. “Are you?
“At least do something, man,” I added. “You could at least prove to
me that all of this is real.”
And he did.
The next thing I knew was that I felt a cold rush through my body, a
feeling more intense than how I felt the moment we first touched. The rush
only lasted for a split second, though, but that split second carried with it a
level of gravity that made the thought of me drowning in a shattered
aquarium seem as frightening as seeing a tuna sandwich.
By the time the split second was over, the only thing that made me
realise what had actually happened was when my first reflex was to touch
my lips with two fingers wherein I felt the slightest evidence of warmth. I
stood there, frozen for a few moments, with the exasperation melted off my
face and replaced with a heavy cocktail of shock and relief that sent me into a
drunken frenzy.
At that point, I was just about sure that the night had surely, truly
begun. I took a photo of him, and the white flash was so bright it could count
as the only star in the sky.

After the ice was broken and melted away Thomas brought me to a
small, quaint little spot at a corner I wasn’t at all familiar with. Then again, it
was a place that was absolutely foreign to me, and he was my unofficial
designated guide. As we entered through the nearly dwarf-sized entrance,
he kept me close to him as I suddenly saw lights of different colours flash at
hyperspeed, and I heard music beating at an unimaginable frequency, and I
could hear cheers and screams as I began to catch sight of the crowd that
filled every tiny crevice in the cramped room.
My excitement quickly turned to discomfort when I realised that he
had brought me here. I figured that I’d forgotten to tell him that I had never
been to a club, ever, and that I had no moves to speak of, either.
“Uh, Thomas,” I mumbled, clenching his hand more tightly. “I can’t
dance.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Neither can I, but what the heck. It’s fun.”
He led me towards the crowd, and I followed with such a degree of
willingness, of trust, that was rather unsafe in these sorts of situations.
Though I never envisioned myself as a claustrophobic, there was
something about the crowd that intimidated me. The proximity of each
person to each other troubled me, as everyone seemed to just grind against
one another with or without knowing it. Even through the airconditioning I
could feel the tiniest droplets of sweat forming on my skins.
We stopped in the middle of the crowd, where at least seven people
– whether they were male or female or something in between, I could barely
differentiate – whose bodied clashed against mine continually, as if they had
known me forever. When I thought I was about to freak out, however,
something short of magical happened.
 The music continued to blare in my ears, but the repetitive electronic
beats, the looped rhythms that my mind memorised after less than a minute,
also had a hypnotic, calming effect. I allowed myself to get lost in the music
and, in a calm submission, found myself being carried away by the lights
and the sounds.
I placed my hand on his shoulder, he put his hand on my waist, and
we danced together as if we were one fluid body. I gave him an almost
unnatural level of trust which felt so wrong yet so right.
“I thought you said you couldn’t dance,” he shouted into my ear,
trying to beat out the loudness that surrounded us both.
“I can’t,” I replied, though I could barely hear myself through the
thumping. With white strobes blinking about in marriage with the green and
the purple streaks of light, the ceiling appeared to resemble auroras in the
night sky. I felt united with the cosmos as I swayed about in that single point
in time and space. The juxtaposition of three months worth of surreal online
communication and the reality of these moments was ineffably perfect. If it
was a dream, I was sure that I did not want to wake up. In the end I simply
let the music take over, and the rest of the world seemed to fade to black.

We both ran outside the club together, sweaty and laughing and out
of breath. It was almost unhealthy, being out on the street like that, with the
cold air breathing at our sticky, sweat-soaked backs. Even through the
soundproofed walls of the building the music continued to echo in my ears.
Thomas and I continued in our childish, euphoric laughter, as if this was
kindergarten all over again.
At some point, after some sluggish trudging about the dimly lit
streets, we came upon a vast patch of grass. Brightly coloured dots continued
to blink before my eyes, clouding my vision. Before I could process anything
else, Thomas tackled me to the ground, taking me by surprise. As I landed I
could feel his weight – his warmth – on top of me.
“What the…” I mumbled through slurred speech. My vision was still
impaired, and his face looked almost kaleidoscopic from my point of view.
“I promised, didn’t I?” he said in response. His voice assumed a
distinct clarity in my mind, as the music that buzzed in my ear proceeded to
fade away. “I told you I’d tackle you if you came.”
 My reaction came in the form of a high-pitched laugh, which was
followed by an abrupt silence straight afterwards. With him still on top of
me, our smiles faded as we both realised, simultaneously, the kind of
position we were in. Thomas rolled to his left to lie next to me, and we stared
at the curiously cloudless, yet starless, sky.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly. I took a few seconds
to think before I could reply.
“I’m just waiting for a star,” I replied sheepishly. “So that I could
curse at it for making us live so far away from each other. In a few days, I’ll
have to go back to reality, and…”
“Shut up,” he interrupted, turning to his side to face me. I turned my
own head to look at him, perplexed. “Don’t kill the moment.”
And then he leaned in, and he kissed me for a second time. This
time, as our lips met I ran my fingers through his hair as he placed his hand
on my nape. We sat up and kissed again, laughing as we did so. As his hands
playfully stroked my hair I felt gentleness in his touch, and I loved how he
treated me like a fragile object through his mild, paced movements. With my
assistance he threw his shirt over his head and, as the first star appeared in
the sky, we kept on doing what we did, as if we were both frozen in time,
doing things that were meant only for the imagination.

When I woke up, the sun had not yet risen. The light outside my
window was a muted yet bright blue, the way the sky would look like just
before sunrise. I was wearing an oversized pink shirt, my favourite night-
time garb. Staring at the familiar ceiling, a shock of horror spread through
my body. I remained in bed, mortified, my face frozen when I realized that
something was very wrong.
No, no, no… the two-letter word rang in my head repetitively as I
came to recognize that the room that I was currently in was my own.
Because, at the moment, I had no recollection of any plane rides or airports,
let alone how that particular night even ended. Eventually, I was forced to
make a painful conclusion.
Heartbroken and utterly distraught, I paced around my room,
though half-awake, cursing to myself and wondering what wrong I could
have done to deserve such torment in the form of a dream that was so
exciting that it brought a wish to life and yet such a torture since I had to
wake up and realise that it was merely a dream and nothing more. I cursed
at the ceiling, at the sky, for giving me a night that seemed so real that facing
the truth the morning after would be a painful realisation. I would have
preferred a lucid dream, so fantastical that waking up might actually be a
relief.
But then, however, I noticed something rather odd – and possibly
even a spark of hope – in the corner of my eye.
There, sitting on top of my desk, was a silver digital camera, the one
that I always brought around with me that night. I rushed to the table,
quickly grabbed the camera, turned it on and proceeded to browse through
the photos.
My lips successfully formed a smile as I checked one photo after
another, with each slide revealing an image of Thomas, or myself, or the two
of us together. It was relieving, aside from reassuring, to see that I wasn’t
dreaming at all. Perhaps my inability to recollect the feeling of being on the
plane home from London was simply a memory lapse, since I had been to
several planes and several airports anyway. I grinned at photos of us
smiling, outside the club, along the bridge, close-ups, long-distance shots.
Lying on the soft, moist grass. Low angles. His fingers through my wavy,
dark hair. The photos could be a storyboard for a film. However what
bothered me was the fact that Thomas and I were alone for pretty much the
whole time. A second thought which I found troubling was my inability to
recall even taking most of the images I saw before me. I suddenly started to
wonder, who could have taken all those photos?

I rose from my bed with the speed of sound, though at that moment
I no longer needed to prance about my room searching for answers. The sun
had fully risen outside, and the healthy warmth of a sunny morning
penetrated through my bedroom windows, illuminating the entire space that
I occupied. The first thing I did was glance at my empty study table with
nothing on top. No camera. I didn’t even own a camera.
I checked the clock.
Nine a.m.
Nine ten.
 Twenty-four.
Thirty.
I hopped out of bed and grabbed my computer. Turned it on.
Logged in. I opened an IM window with Thomas, who was still online
because of the time difference. Hi, I typed.
Hi, he replied.
He asked, so, ru excited? cant wait to see you in 2 weeks.
You can’t be more excited than I am, I typed back in my usual proper
grammar. I tried to avoid typing in chtspk at all costs, even though it seemed
like a mandate for Thomas to type in that way. Ripping my hair out in
excitement. Can’t wait!
He cybersmiled. It was a very wide smile, colon-D, if I was correct.
-- How will I know you’re real? I asked. Don’t stand me up in London,
okay? Freakin expensive dude.
Faith, he replied. just faith. and my black polo.
What are you gonna do, I then added, when we do meet? It’s gonna be
sooo weird.
im gonna tackle u, he replied with yet another smile.
I smirked to myself, and then to him. Soon after, I shut off my
computer, went downstairs, and ate breakfast, which consisted of a bowl of
wholegrain Cheerios and milk, a banana, and an epic dose of caffeine. And
then I proceeded to move on with my daily routine. Whatever I said or did in
the online dimension – what I blogged about, who I talked to, who I planned
to fly thousands of miles to meet – would always be no more than an
extension of my personality, but this was my reality. This was real life. This
was where I had to be.

-- Kaye Kagaoan, 2009 --