Eulogy

Disclaimer : the following is a complete fabrication. Any resemblance or resemblances to persons alive or dead is probably coincidental

He turned away from the window. The sun was setting on the horizon, the last dying reds and golds hanging low in the sky, far in the distance; a solitary tree stood in the foreground, sillhouetted against the sky in the vast fields that lay beyond the windowsill.

"What was she like?" It was the question that nobody had thought to ask - or dared to ask - or, perhaps, even cared to ask.

"Tall. She was tall. But there was more to it. She had this look in her eyes - words don't begin to describe it - it was sort of a challenging look. Not a mean-spirited come-hither look, or a pouty break-me-if-you-dare! look, but a good humoured, clean-spirited taunt : Come on then! Say something funny - cross swords with me! A teasing, sparking twinkle. An effervescence. An intelligence. If you get what I mean."

"But whas was she like ?" his confidant asked, unmoved.

"Fun. Fun to be around, fun to talk to, fun to watch. She had an incredible sense of fun, and humour. She bubbled with it, and it showed; in her speech, in the things she said, in her body language. Not a lot of people appreciated it, I don't think. I mean, sure, people knew she was funny, but that was it. So often today people try to subvert others, to quash humour, to jump on the flames till they die out." He paused reflectively. "Some of them want to abuse you..." He murmured, trailing off.

"She was very human too. She was fraught with misgivings and insecurities, she worried about her life, about where she was headed, she pondered aloud a lot, and she voiced her fears. But not in the normal whiny way; she didn't speak her misgivings in a way that brought others down. She did them humourously, occasionally self-effacingly. Always light-heartedly. Of course she always maintained that I didn't know her darkest and worst sides - despite our years of friendship."

"Do you still miss her." It was asked quietly, dispassionately.

His eyes lost their focus as he looked somewhere into the distance, somewhere far from the reality that was his present-day existence. He reached for memories buried so completely that they were but shadows tucked deep into the crypts of his mind; shadows that fell tumbling out into full-colour if he pulled at them hard enough. As he sat in the twilight, gazing out the window at the nothingness beyond, he remembered her, as a teenager, punning compulsively with that familiar twinkle in her eye, and he remembered the way she used to laugh. He remembered her as an almost-woman seated across a table from him, at night, with her back to the light as he haltingly spoke himself to her - he was never vocally adept when his courage was failing him.

He remembered her in the light of day, eating with a pair of chopsticks with her right thumb bandaged; he remembered the many times she told him about her new and wonderful (to him) faraway life, and how all he could do was sigh wistfully and say, you're so lucky! perhaps, someday...

He remembered her as a woman-child, turning back awkwardly in the car seat next to her mother, to say farewell; he remembered the way her hair had spilled wildly over her face and shoulders; he remembered those wild eyes, the teasing twinkle gone and replaced by something far more sober, more personal, something sad and wistful, but far, far more than words. He remembered how unkempt she had looked -- and how wonderful.

He remembered a multitude of hairstyles; a million different goodbyes, a few surprised hellos!, countless hours of laughter, apologetic I-should-go-nows. He remembered sunset over a lake in a park, and over a harbour. A too-expensive restaurant, a foyer along which she strode hurriedly towards him, rather-extremely late. A candle, Grace by candle-light. A lunch, and giving cheery advice abut returning for NS, and trying hard to mask the unwarrented - and illogical - jealousy and dislike within. Dinner at an unstable round table which rocked with excessive elbow weight. A toy shop, filled with old-fashioned toys...

Do you still miss her.

"No, of course not" he said.