I Will See You Again

It’s been a long time since you last saw each other.

Since that grey November day when you said goodbye, the Hostile Environment immigration policy putting an ocean between you. Two years or three, who’s counting? You’re still in contact, you’re connected. Modern technology is your saviour. You get to hear his voice, see his face on the screen. No touch, no hand to hold. No skin to caress. No one to dance salsa with.

So you dance alone.

You look up and see the same sky, the same moon. You play the same music and think about each other. I will see you again, he says.

The pandemic, the lockdowns, it makes no difference to you. The world opens again, it makes no difference to you. You dance salsa on your own. In your living room, after dusk, lights off, headphones on.

I will see you again, he says.

He repeats it often. It has become a chorus.

When you parted, you both agreed to see other people. You have dated, here and there, you’ve had many good dates. But no one measures up. No one is like him, because there is no one like him.

And you know it’s same for him.

I will see you again, he messages.

Life goes on. With every day, it goes on. Everything is good, except there is no him, because he is so far away. How does it work, with someone in a different hemisphere?

I will see you again.

Will you? You don’t remember when you started losing hope.

You go on another date, you think they’d make a good life partner. You ghost them. It’s never what it was with him.

What of it? You have long got used to dancing on your own.

When people ask you about your love life, you shrug. Nothing to tell. You don’t talk about him to anyone. Most of them forgot you were ever together. They don’t ask about him. They’re as uncomfortable discussing immigration as they ever were.

You don’t listen to Buena Vista Social Club anymore. What’s the point, when there’s nobody to share it with? Chan Chan, the signature tune, has faded away.

Winter is long and lonely and wet. The scarf you wrapped around yourselves, on your walks in the park that last autumn, lies at the bottom of your wardrobe.

At last, a new spring arrives. Time of optimism. So they say.

His message changes. I will see you soon.

You halt in the middle of the pavement, staring at your phone, people bumping into you.

You put the phone back in your pocket. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s only one changed word, that’s all.

Yet there is something in the air, something that could make you believe that it was not all in vain.

The next message reads: I will see you very soon.

A variation on the same theme, you tell yourself.

One day, you’re in the city centre and the music is playing. Music often plays in the city centre, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Except, this time it is different.

Latin American music is unusual in this part of the world. You feel the almost forgotten stir in your veins, it’s been such a long time.

And then your hear it. Those unforgettable, unmistakable four notes. The signature tune, so familiar. How could you be such a fool to think it would ever fade?

Compay Segundo composed Chan Chan from a melody he heard in his dream, Wikipedia tells us. Your phone screen flashes with a new message. Turn around.

You turn around.

“Estoy aqui.”

He is here.

You fall into each other’s arms. You stay like that for the whole song. “How?” you ask. “The Home Secretary is a literal Nazi. How did you do it?”

“There are ways,” he says.

Chan Chan ends, followed by an upbeat, contemporary Latin pop song. He takes your hand. “Let’s dance.”

He is back. And you will never dance alone again.

Author’s Note: This is a continuation of my older story Love / Amor, though I wrote it so it can be read separately. I can’t remember exactly how I came up with the idea of giving them a happy ending, but what finally convinced me was the departure of Santiago Cabrera from the Star Trek Picard series. His character got a happy ending in-universe, but I am disappointed I will not see him again in Season 3. So I wrote this.

Link to the Wikipedia article on the song Chan Chan mentioned in the story.

And finally, Chan Chan itself:

ETA: To clarify, this is not salsa, when I talk about them dancing salsa I mean that to an appropriate music.

An Awakening

She arrived one day, an unremarkable day by all accounts. We said, welcome, and that was it. New people were coming from time to time, we had got used to it. She settled in with the community without any major difficulties and soon, she was one of us.

Until she started talking about her ideas.

At once, everyone stayed away from her. No, no, no-no-no-no, they shook their heads. We can’t have that. Unacceptable.

Some were disgusted. “Ughhh, what?” and “What is wrong with you???” were some of the reactions.

Some screamed. Some cried. No kidding, they really did.

Not me.

As soon as she began talking, something stirred up in me. I listened. I wanted to know more. I was excited. I got goose bumps.

“If you want to know more, you can follow me,” she said.

The decision would be mine to make.

I could have gone back to the others, or I could have followed her. I didn’t have to think about it long, for I knew what I wanted. So I followed her.

I have not regretted it once. The possibilities that opened in front of me would never have had opened, had I not followed her.

They don’t know, of course. They remain in their place, afraid. They could see, if they only made that choice to open their eyes. Because if they do, they’ll know.

It’s curiosity that beats fear.

Written for the prompt on OLWG, No. 3 – “so I followed her”. Thank you for reading.

The Conclusion

The Observer picked up the cup and drank. The coffee was lukewarm by now; it had been a long day. Still, they drained the cup and placed it back on the saucer. Outside, the smooth glass surfaces of buildings reflected the blood red of the setting sun. It was quiet in the boardroom, the only sound being the humming of the air-conditioning unit.

The Observer straightened the stack of papers on the desk. They cleared their throat.

“I have made a thorough study of the matter,” they spoke in a determined voice with perfectly accented English, “I have consulted every party involved, perused every piece of material related, and I hereby conclude that, contrary to the previously held assumption, immigrants were not stealing jobs from the native population.”

So Much For Nostalgia

It’s always like that when you go back there. The place where you spent your childhood. You immerse yourself in the memories as the years come flooding back; you and your friends are climbing the trees, playing hide and seek, chasing each other in the little grove. The grove is still there, so are the houses, but strangers live in them now, and the old playground has been rebuilt. You used to have a sandpit. Kids these days have no such thing. It was a different time back then, with no smartphones, no video games. The summers you spent outside, returning home only to eat and sleep. You didn’t need technology to find each other, because you always found each other.

But things have changed now, you’ve all grown up and lost touch. Everyone moved away. You don’t come back often, you’ve got more interesting places to go, but sometimes, just sometimes, when you’re in that mood to visit the ghosts of the past, you make your way there, careful to avoid people. You don’t want any intruders.

And then, once your cup of reminiscence is full, and you’ve seen everything you needed to see, you walk away. Return to the present. You take your smartphone out of your pocket and scroll down the updates. You answer emails. You may video call your favourite nephew when you get back home, he’s excited to tell you about the new things he built in Minecraft. You listen attentively, and end the call hoping to see him soon. You get your Deliveroo app on, make an order, and, when it’s delivered, you settle down in front of Netflix.

No time like the present!

I Fall In Love With You Every Day

I fall in love with you every day.

I fall in love with you every morning. It helps me get out of bed.

I also fall in love with you every time I’m having my breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, they say.

I fall in love with you multiple times throughout my workday. There is no regularity to it, it may come at any hour, any minute. One thing I know for sure is that it happens when I’m not concentrating. And you can bet there will always be a time when I’m not concentrating.

I fall in love with you when I’m preparing my dinner, and then again when I’m eating it. I fall in love with you when I drink coffee or have a snack. I drink a lot of coffee and I eat a lot of snacks.

Then I fall in love with you when I watch a movie or an episode of a TV show, and I have to press pause, so I get to experience that moment again. When I’m reading a book, I have to pause my reading to fall in love with you, before I can continue.

To be sure, I fall in love with you while doing even the most boring tasks. Doing my shopping at the supermarket, or cleaning the house. Washing the dishes, always when I’m washing the dishes it is the best when I fall in love with you.

When I exercise I fall in love with you too, and it helps me exercise better. And that is a good thing because exercise is good for you.

The weekends are the best, of course. They give me plenty of free time to fall in love with you.

I fall in love with you every day.

You see, I need to.

Because if I didn’t, life would become unbearable.

Written for the OLWG prompt. Thank you for reading!

The Camera Smiles

It has been sitting quietly in its bag for months now, untouched. The bag, covered with dust, has blended so much with its surroundings, I no longer see it. It’s become invisible. The reproachful look of why you not love me anymore is gone. It has given up.

You might wonder what it’s been like for it, the emotions it has been through to end up in this state. First there would be confusion, what is happening, why am I not being used? Then fear. Has she found another one, a better one, does she not need me again. Then anger. After all I have done for you! Followed by sadness. So this is how it will be now. It ends with—nothing. Just emptiness.

Look, I swear it’s not my fault. What was I to do, with the year we’ve just had? Nowhere to go and nothing to do. Better people than me have succumbed to hopelessness. It’s not my fault.

Or so I tell myself.

There is always something to do, it used to tell me then, before it stopped talking to me.

I think it might be dead. Even though it’s never been alive because it’s not a living creature. It’s still dead.

It’s a tragic end.

Then comes that Saturday.

It’s winter and it’s cold. I open the window in my living room to get some air in. The flock of starlings have finished their weird loopy team flight thing they do and settled themselves on the tree next to my house.

And all at once I know. I know I have to get that dusty bag and open it and get it out.

So I take up the dusty bag, open it and get it out.

The lens cap got stuck, I struggle with removing it, but eventually I do. I point the lens at the tree and take a picture of the starlings. I take multiple pictures. And not just of starlings.

It’s alive. It’s alive!

And finally, the camera smiles.

OWLG prompt

Daily Dystopian

You have now settled into the routine. You get out of bed, sit at the computer for seven hours, working remotely, you chat with your colleagues on instant messenger, send and receive a hundred emails daily, watch the senior managers’ speeches on video. You eat and drink anytime you want. After work you do a bit of cleaning, then go for your government-permitted short walk a day. Every other day you do your shopping at the supermarket, never not worrying that you won’t be able to get all the stuff you need. Toilet paper has become a precious commodity, nobody knows why and nobody asks anymore. Other than that, you stay at home. Just like everyone else. Your cat is your only companion. You catch up with family and friends only by technology. Books and streaming services are what’s keeping you sane. Just like everyone else. It’s been a while since you’ve seen the city centre. Last time you were there, it was already emptying, more pigeons than people. You wonder how the pigeons will survive now, with no people there dropping crumbs for them to eat. Out of your window you see magpies and crows, unconcerned about the human world, they go on flapping their wings and cawing. You watch TV a bit, then go to bed and in the morning it starts all over again.

You’re used to it by now. It was not the apocalypse you expected, but it is the only one in which you think you may survive.

They Laughed

They laughed. It was a good joke.

Truly you couldn’t blame them. They were tired of constantly hearing the same thing on the news. Look, it was a mess but the vote took place and that was it. The will of the people had to be honoured. What else do you want to do? It’s dragged on long enough. It was time to move on. Even though the new leader was a bit of a clown, he could get it done. Done and dusted. Got out of way so they never need to hear about that thing ever again.

Little did they know that those were the first days of the apocalypse.

Ode To A Passport

Over the years, you’ve not thought much of it. You’ve always just had it, because you had to have one of those. After all, it is a necessity for most people. But it’s not a thing that anyone spends a lot of time thinking about. Not most people, at least.

The first one you ever had was not like the one you have now. Later it changed again. And of course, you need to regularly renew it. But it’s still yours. It will always be yours.

Sometimes you considered changing it to a one issued by a different authority, but you never did. Too much effort. Unnecessary too, though ultimately advantageous. In the end, not important enough for you to go through with the change. So, you let it be. Lived your everyday life, focussed on other things.

Then it happened. Something very ugly, hateful, monstrous. Accompanied by sadness and anger and depression. For you it was tied to that thing, the thing you didn’t ever think about, just like other people never thought about theirs. Now more and more people started thinking about theirs, just as you started thinking about yours. Yours would work against you; that was sure. But you still didn’t change it. You were determined you would not change it, ever.

Everything was horrible. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. No silver lining on this cloud. Just a sense of a loss.

But you still have that thing that was always yours.

And then, one Friday night as the clocks strike eleventh hour, it becomes your most treasured possession.

A Good Hunt

Weekday night, your usual routine. Pick out the outfit for work tomorrow, prepare breakfast and lunch. For breakfast, you decide to fry two slices of bacon medallions. Once that’s done, you leave the medallions in the frying pan on the stove to cool down, before you put them away later.

So you potter about a bit, watch a bit of TV, then you go back to the kitchen to take care of the breakfast. You walk to the stove and—there is only a single bacon medallion in the frying pan. The other one has disappeared.

Gone.

Without a trace.

(Does bacon even leave a trace?)

You sigh. You suppose you’ll have to replace the missing medallion with something else.

In the living room, your cat is unassumingly licking her paws. It was a good hunt.