You are so familiar. We suffer a mutual block. It is inside our minds somewhere. You say it is because we are too wired. I want to ask what you mean. But I don’t. I just type: Haha. That’s what we do in this world of virtual communication. Wear a frown and tap at a smiley and then tap send. Sent!

This is who we have become.

We listen to our music. This was my music first. And then you placed your claim over it because you had a man-crush on the singer. You said this was your favourite voice. Mine, too. The raspy sadness. In our darkest hours, we imagined he serenaded to us. This voice was first mine. And now, the ownership is taken and shared. He becomes our mutual lover.

It is all too incestuous.

You take something away from me everytime you barge back into my life. First I think you came back to give. But, your role in my life is intact. You are the recipient. I, the giver. My sole role in this life is to be the giver. 

And that is fine.

It doesn’t matter that you think this is too entangled. That you think we have to steer away from our own respective nemeses because there is no other way out of this rut. There isn’t. We both know that. And we walked right into it that day, as we navigated the roads ahead of us, dodging the jaywalkers.

We walked right in.

It is what people like you and I do best. Keep tripping. Because we seek some sort of madness for our sustenance. If we can’t find it within ourselves, we seek it elsewhere. Or maybe we spend so much time inside our heads that we need some external madness so that the inner madness can remain submerged, if not drowned completely.

So, we drown the external noise out with the drumming inside our head.

This city is so noisy. I say I like peace. He says he couldn’t live in a quiet place. I like peace, I repeat. I like quiet, you say. And it is like we formed an unspoken pact of silence. And it is the yearning for quiet that binds you and me, even as we engage in meaningless chatter.

We’ve been looking all our lives.

You and I, we have moved from city to city, searching for what they call ‘peace of the mind’. Pretending like peace is something that exists only in the cities. And in humans. We searched for peace in every friend we made. Every single relationship.

All our husbands and our wives—all of them in their own lives now.

But those we have loved are always a part of us, you say. You say you will never unlove the women you have loved. Of course, I nod. The terrible things we do to ourselves in the name of love, you say. I know, I say.

The terrible things we do in the name of love.

We spent the day tapping at our desks. Fidgeting on the keyboard. I need some music to blast my ears, you say. I am listening to Sweet Child O’Mine and I want to say I love the intro riff on the guitar. But I say nothing and continue typing. I notice from the corner of my eye, your head swaying a little. I figure you’ve found the music that blasts your ears.

You seem so familiar.

We have been telling each other that from the moment we shook hands. I’ve seen you at so and so. I’ve seen your work. Jabberjabberjabber. That’s an easy connection in today’s world of networking.

Growing ambitions that inflate like an arching sky. Such introductions lead to the kind of conversation you have with strangers you meet at events. You know you have to make some conversation, even if it doesn’t make any sense. So, so engage in small talk.

The problem is that sometimes small talk also makes sense.

It makes sense when you are familiar. You are familiar because you are just like me. I see where you’ve been. It’s the places I’ve been in. I see your selfishness. It is familiar because I’ve dealt with that in my past. I read fear in your eyes. Fear of attachment. It’s like your eyes mirror mine.

You are familiar.

Because you and I are stoic-fragile. From our own respective universes. We cross each other’s path one brief day. And it’s like the moment sprung to life from memories to kick me hard in my guts. To remind me that I’ve been as scarred as you appear to me. We have healed only because we know there’s no healing and we keep ourselves open to wounds.

It is a festering wound.

This one called life. But in the corner of your eyes that mirror my fears, I see laughter. You point at the picture of a chilled-out old man, sitting on the road with all his belongings scattered about him in an organised disarray. He laughs like there is nothing else he’d rather do. I’m going to be like that when I’m old. How are you going to be when you are old? I want to say, I want to be a clown. Stooping, my glasses sliding down my nose and my laptop constantly making some noise. I want to say, I want to make people laugh. At me. But I think you see that without me saying so.

You are my brother. In my sins. In my salvation. You are so familiar.