death

An old friend died in a motorcycle accident yesterday. we lost touch after secondary school, but i would meet him now and then bumping into his cheery self on the streets. maybe i didnt know him that well.
He was 21 this year, my age , but now he's dead. back then he was 16, my age. we were indestructable , we thought we were wise, we had a long way to go. now he's dead.

After secondary school, we all went out own way. you keep procrastinating meeting up with as your social circles and lives situations start to run off tangent. It took his funeral for all of us to meet again. met alot of my friends from my past. some looked different, others just the same. i think i heard, " what a shite circumstance for us to have a reunion " at least ten times from about 7 diff mouths, some people love to repeat themselves.

we talked about the past, we joked as we remembered him. talked about him like we were waiting around for him to show up and we were just poking fun at his antics in the mean time. we really were pretty innocent then, many of us had gone to hell and back with burns to show for it since.

i didnt think i would be sad when i went into his house to his body for the last time. his flat was packed with police officers ( he was in the force ) soldiers, family, school mates, friends from the different patchworks of his life. his home was really packed. almost body to body, the walls were heavy with the weight of concentrated sorrow. i wonder what was in everyones minds. People feeling sad for diff reasons. some of them must have been feeling sad for his mother who was beyond consolation or comfort. some were probably mourning the fragility of life, and the cold hard reality of death rather than him.

it came our turn to squeeze to the front and see him. he was wrapped in a burial shroud with his face exposed. only then did it hit me that he was actually dead. he looked pale and unnatural and his face had to be reconstructed because of the accident. i tried to think of him smiling or him laughing, or angry. tried to forcefully conjure a living memory of him but all i could see was him in the shroud, dead.

After that i left, i didnt want to see him get buried. For awhile now when i am freshly awaken from sleep and if i think about him im sure ill think he's still alive for those few moments it takes the mind to sharpen itself for waking life. I took the lift down from his house and i felt terrible, heavy and black. the lift doors opened and i saw an old friend crying. i asked him if he was heading back and if he wanted to take the train with me. he said he was waiting for Alfian's girlfriend. I didnt know he had a girlfriend. i left before i could see her.

reading what ive written earlier i suppose this the point for some kind of summation or conclusion, but of course theres none, the wheel stops for awhile then it starts turning again.

goodbye alfian
ill miss u