Love

She moved out that afternoon, when the sun was shining brightly, although the temperature was minus ten.

I stood by the doorway and watched, somewhat emotionlessly, as she directed the movers. We had lived together for 2 years. Watching the boxes carried out of my apartment, I realized there was a lot of stuff you could accumulate over two years.

I stood by the front door, shivering in my thin jacket as the moving truck drove off. She pressed the keys into my hand and smiled. "Take care."

And then she left.

After that, I went for a walk. I realized that walking alone was different. For a start, there would only be a set of shadow on the ground. Your hands would probably be tucked into your pockets, partly due to the cold, and partly because there wasn't another hand to hold.

Walking for perhaps a hundred meters or so, I realized that something was missing. Voices. Voices, voices, voices. It was too quiet. Unnaturally quiet. I looked up, and saw the sign for the Metro. Why not, I thought.

I boarded the train, without checking which it was. I had time; I had no destination.

The guy opposite me was nodding to a beat, a beat that only he could hear, because it was coming from his headphone. And I wondered if the girl beside him was listening to the same song. I was about to shout out to them, to take off their headphones and put their mp3s on speakers or something, because I needed some noise.

That was when the two ladies beside me started their conversation. Or maybe they were resuming it. Maybe they had stopped when this guy me entered the train.

And I realized I couldn't understand a single word they were saying. Was it Greek? Turkish? I wasn't sure. But at least it was no longer eerily silent.

I listened to them ramble on for three, four stops (I lost count). Amazingly, nobody alighted, nor did anybody else board the train. Surely, someone living there would have to go somewhere right? Or perhaps, no one was living there. I imagined the area above the stations, dominated by trees shrouded in mist. I half wanted to get out and verify for myself.

The two ladies suddenly stood up. With their luggage. I hadn't noticed their luggage. Central Station. They alighted. At the very last moment, I sprang from my seat and leapt out of the train. I followed the two ladies up on the escalator to the surface terminal for the regional and international trains.

The platform was filled with people rushing about. For a while, I stood there, the only constant, as people came and left. Then I went to one of the platforms, chosen randomly. I stood there with the rest of the people waiting for their train, an imposter. An announcement was being made, and the people around me looked up, as if they could see the person making the announcement. As I laughed at their naiveté, I realized I was exposed. The announcement in question had to do with their train. There was to be a delay for 30 minutes. The girl beside me, with a beanie over her blonde hair smiled, and her gaze lingered somewhere on an imaginary plane on the cold frosty air, below returning to her book.

How could she smile? How could she possibly smile when her train was delayed? Wherever she was going, surely she was going to meet someone important, someone whom she had been longing to see? I wanted to grab her and shake her, demand to know, how could she smile?

Then I noticed she was reading a Murakami book. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Ah, I had read that before. There was a story about spaghetti in it.

Thinking of spaghetti, I realized I was hungry; I hadn't eaten since morning. So, I left the platform and the station, and the girl who smiled when her train was delayed.

I went for sushi. I knew a place around the corner. I had been there often enough to have struck up a friendship with the chef and owner.

"Hey! You haven't been here in a long time," he greeted me when I entered.

He was right.

I took a seat.

"The usual?"

"The usual."

"Mentaiko? You will be happy to even have decent sushi around here," the man at the next table was gesturing animatedly to his disinterested companion.

He caught me looking. I smiled; what else could I do?

"Excuse me, mister. Can I ask you a question?" I ventured.

He nodded.

"What is love?"

"Inedible shit that you can't eat."

My sushi platter came. I looked at it, weighing his words. This wasn't love.

"Everything all right?" the owner asked.

"Never been better," I replied, before tucking in with gusto.

Stepping out of the place, I realized I needed something. Dessert. Or maybe a coffee. I went to a café down the street, ordered myself a latte macchiato. I sat at my table, sipping my latte macchiato and feeling self-satisfied. The meal was good, the latte macchiato was good. I couldn't have done better, I thought smugly.

Then I noticed the unoccupied seat opposite me.

Just then two girls came in and took the table beside mine. They seemed to have been in the midst of a serious, heated conversation. They waited till the waitress took their order and leave, even managing to flash rather innocuous smiles in the process, before returning to their discussion.

"And I let him go…"

"Just like that?"

"I shouldn't stop him…"

"Excuse me," the waitress interrupted again with their orders. They froze as the waitress went about her job. Then she left.

I interrupted before they could unfreeze themselves. "Excuse me."

They turned and glared at me, as if I had spoilt everything.

"What is love?" I had nothing to lose.

"Love is when you let someone go…"

"Nonsense, that isn't love. You let him go because you don't love him enough. If you love him, you wouldn't have given up. You would have stayed to fight!"

I left them to argue among themselves and stepped out from the warmth of the café to the cold outside. I strolled along the main boulevard of the city, pausing now and then to look at the window displays of the fashion boutiques, restaurants and other fancy shops that line it.

I decided to enter a chocolate boutique. "How about some chocolates for the special one, sir? Valentine's is just around the corner," the smiling sales assistant asked from behind the counter.

"I just ended a relationship," I said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

She looked startled, and her face flushed.

"Do you believe in love?"

She looked even more startled by my question and looked at her chocolates, as though the answer was there, as though suddenly everything she had been told was the truth had been proven wrong.

She looked up, like an oracle done with her divination. "Yes…"

"Have a nice day," I said and took my leave.

I reached the university, and came across a student lying on a bench outside the main building.

"Hey, do you mind telling me what love is?"

Without even looking at me, he replied, "What is love? I have no time for such frivolous discussion! I am just here to get some sun, and fresh air into my system, and then it is back to the books. Talk about love? Please."

A few meters away from us stood a girl by the statue of the founder. She was staring at her cellphone. There was such a sad look on her face that I didn't have the heart to trouble her. I walked past her.

I was back in my neighborhood. A teenager was juggling a football at the football court.

"Hey!" I called out.

He looked up and the ball dropped onto the ground.

"What is love?"

He pondered for a while, before replying, "Love is when you are playing side by side."

He hooked the ball up and resumed his juggling, while I continued on my way, pondering his words.

I entered Ashes and Wine, a bar just around the corner. I happened to know the proprietress well. I walked down the narrow steps and pushed open the creaky door. She was behind the counter, wiping the countertop with a cloth.

"Business as usual?" I asked.

"It's a little early, but come on in," she smiled.

I took a seat. "A Macallan."

She nodded.

"She's gone?" she asked as she placed my Macallan in front of me.

"Thanks. Yeah, she left this morning."

"So everything all right?"

"Never been better," I said, taking a sip.

"Welcome to the club," she said.

"Maybe we have been looking for love in the wrong places."

"Maybe love doesn't exist in the first place."

"Maybe," I said. "Say, is there a place where people can go to become happier?"

"I don't know. I would like to know."

"Somewhere in this big city, there must be such a place."

"Indeed."

"I will find it, and let you know how it goes."

"That will be nice."

I went on my way again, stopping at the bus stop. The old lady was there, as always. Rain, snow or shine, come what may, she would be sitting at the bus stop, every single day. She seemed to be waiting for someone. But she had probably been waiting forever.

I suddenly thought about the girl at the station, the girl who smiled when her train was delayed. I hoped she got to her destination, because if I were the person waiting for her at the other end of the railway track, I wouldn't want to be waiting forever to no avail.

I reached home and pushed my window wide open, gazing out.

"Hey!" someone called out from the street below.

I looked down; it was my neighbor.

"Everything all right? You look so serious. What are you thinking about?"

"I am just thinking about what love means. What is love?"

"What is love?" he smiled. "Interesting question. I have never thought about it. What about you? What do you think?"

"I am nowhere near an answer. "

"…Midnight. Is it the end of a day, or the start of a day?"

I pondered his question.

He laughed, "It's just a matter of perspective, isn't it? All right, I am coming in. It's cold. Don't catch a cold thinking too much."

I gave serious thought to what he had just said. The lights all around were starting to come on; it was getting dark. And I had the answer to my own question at the bar. I shut the window and drew the blinds. I would tell her first thing in the morning. For now, I had to sleep. I hadn't slept properly for the past few weeks. I collapsed onto my bed and shut my eyes.

The place is the city itself. Do you see the flower, or do you see the bare tree? Do you see the crying girl, or do you see the smiling girl?

What about love? What is love?

I don't know. It seems to me a complicated thing, love. I'll think through, and tell you about it some time. But for now, I need to sleep.