"The Carpal Tunnel Of Love"

"So he said "Would it be alright if we just sat
and talked for a little while,
if in exchange for your time
I give you this smile..."

Today, I made the decision to change my location to somewhere slightly more local, and therefore more relatable to my audience, in Arthur's Bar, the Griffith College student bar.

I bought my cup of tea and my pre-packaged "freshly baked" danish pastry. As I sat in my usual spot (by the stools and the long tables), I noticed a young man sitting opposite me. He looked nothing short of miserable. He gave the impression that the end of the world had entered one side of his soul, and eternal pain the other, and both had met with an unbearable crash, right in the middle.



Tears were streaming down his face, free falling onto his newspaper at an alarming rate, which I knew he wasn't even reading, as it was upside-down. His face crumpled into what I can only describe as pure agony every 20 seconds or so, as if he were brutally reminding himself of whatever it was that was crushing him. His shoulders shook violently, his eyes and cheeks were fiery red, the rest of him seemed so white, I thought him to be quite ill.

He would look at his phone every couple of seconds. From the angle at which I sat I could see that he was reading a short message over and over again, and each time he finished he would bury his face in his hands. He was in utter distress, so much so, I also began to feel sad. His pain was palpable.

His phone rang. He picked it up straight away.
"DAD!" He roared down the phone. "She's after breaking up with me! I'm going insane! I don't know what to do, I can't find her anywhere. I didn't run after her at the time, I didn't want to seem weak by following her, but I feel worse than anything you could imagine. I'm in bits. I don't know what to do!"

He explained the situation in between treacherous sobs, and rattling gasps for breath.
"I should have gone after her, I was just trying to keep my pride. I know this wouldn't be happening if I had just done the clever thing and fought for her instead of walking away. She thinks I don't care! I told her I didn't! I'm about to crack up, I don't even care how much of a show I make of myself. You should have seen how it ended, I just left her there! At the bus stop!"

At this stage I was nearly brought to tears myself, and had actually decided not to write about this chap for my blog, as the entire fiasco was making me feel so heavy, and really quite down.
I decided to go for a walk.

I left the college and turned right to go into town. Surely an hours walk into the city centre and back would cheer me up, after all, this wasn't even my problem...

I got as far as the 122 bus stop.

There, sitting on the plastic seat, blonde hair stuck to a clammy, red, sobbing face was a young girl on the phone to someone, pouring her heart out. I knew straight away it was the girl the boy had been crying about in the bar, because before I even reached the bus stop I heard her half screaming, half crying about how someone had left her there when he was clearly in the wrong and he didn't even say anything. Also, she added she thought he had gone to the bar for a drink, so I was nearly positive that I had made the right connection.

Her story was, if possible, even more heartbreaking.
"I do everything for him, you know I do. You see how much money I spend on him. How many people I cancel on just to spend time with him. How hard I try to look nice for him. How tolerant I am of all the girls he knows I don't like but he talks to anyway. I told him he'd have to change, otherwise we'd be finished, and he just walked away, he didn't even say sorry! The bastard!"

I went to walk past her as she was hanging up from whoever was on the phone, but in her love sickness, her madness, her moment of desperation, she reached out to me and begged me to stop for just a second. "Please, please" was what she said to me.

She said she had seen me around on campus, and everyone else she knew properly had gone home for the weekend. She needed somebody to stop her losing her mind, and wanted to know if, just for a little while could I please, please, please wait with her for her bus, if I wasn't in a hurry to be anywhere. Having seen how both her, and he who was presumably part two of this story, were dealing with this dilemma, I knew that the sadness being dealt with was serious, and so I said that of course I had a moment.

So I sat. And I listened. And I successfully (but all the same barely) hid my own tears from this young woman as I was snatched into this story, that I had actually been trying to relieve myself from no more than 15 minutes before hand. I listened, and I listened, and I listened.

I listened to how she had loved him from the moment she had properly spoken to him.

I listened to how it gave her endless pleasure to spend time with him, and see him happy.

I listened to how she watched, and held her tongue as she saw him speaking to girls they both knew wanted him.

I listened to how he flirted with everything that had hair past it's shoulders.

I listened to how he never said thank you for anything.

I listened to how he never told her she was beautiful, even thought she always made sure to look good for him so that he'd be proud.

I listened to how she had given up many things for him, and he hadn't praised her for it until she actually had to ask him to.

I listened to how he would joke about breaking up with her and not notice the tears that would well up in her eyes.

I listened to how she said all this (and more) to him, and that she ended it with a request that he might change, and lose his bad habits, for fear of losing her.

I listened to how he shook his head, looked her up and down once.
and walked away, saying he couldn't care less.

And then all that was left to listen to were sobs. Deep, gut wrenching, genuine sobs.

The 122 came promptly. All I could say was, "It'll be ok! Feel better. I'll see you around campus."

I was no longer in the mood to walk into town. And I sat at the bus stop even after the girl had left, trying to get over what had happened. As I felt a raindrop on my head, I looked up, and saw the young man running to the bus stop at full speed. It was getting quite dark at this time, and headlights were flashing into his face every time a car passed, which was roughly every half a second, so no wonder he couldn't distinguish between me and her. No wonder he just saw the blonde hair, and made his assumption.

I was shouted at to stay there, but I got up straight away, for fear he was building his hopes up to think that I was her, and she had been waiting for him.

I had never seen anyone more disappointed to see me in my entire 18 year old life. His entire frame slumped the second he saw he had mistook me for the other girl. He was still crying, but it was made worse by the fact that he was also gulping down the air trying to catch his breath after running.

He began his sentence with;
"Have you seen..."
But I knew what he wanted to know, and so before he finished his sentence I replied;
"She got on a bus."

He turned, staring in the direction of the road. I could do no more. This was all so intense. I muttered that I was sorry, turned on my heel, and went to walk back to college.

Who knew that, when observing the human race and their habits, one would get caught up with their subjects. So much so that this would become more than a blog due for next Monday. It would become an emotional, dramatic, true story of two lives that should have been happy moulding together, and a third left to accidentally walk in on the carnage, and feel awful as they were unable to pick up any pieces.

"And it's you,
And it's me,
And we're sleeping through the day.
And I'm five years ago,
And three thousand miles away..."