Ephemeral

"You'll see her again... Sooner than you realize."

The words had been the source of light and comfort in his dark world - it was a promise of something he longed for from the bottom of his heart. Those words had a lingering effect on him - echoed on his mind over and over and for the time being, he believed those words like a drowning man holds on to a broken piece of a wooden plank. The words kept him going and made him look forward to the next day - he hoped. Soon enough he was breathing and chanting those words like a daily mantra. He put all his faith in those words and the words gave him the willpower to carry on with his life for the time being... without realizing that his life has come to a halt.

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He was no longer living - of course, he was breathing, eating, sleeping, and doing other chores but his every action seemed robotic and lifeless. To the people around him, he looked as his soulless body was moving about, no life no light. How empty he felt was visible through his emotionless eyes.

Words can make you and break you, heal you, or wound you more.

This much he knows is true. He was aware that a word from the one he was eagerly looking forward to hearing, can topple his world upside down in a good way or bad.

As much as he believed in them, it wasn't all that was said but in his awful state of mind, he forgot what was said and only kept what was felt needed. The lines that he supposedly unheard or forgotten as quickly as he heard them, had some bitter truth. There's a thing about forgotten lines, they're similar to jigsaw puzzle pieces - the meaning of the whole message remains a mystery. He found himself losing hope over the few words that etched into his heart.

"You'll see her again. What you reap is what you sow. She will suffer through her allocated amount of pain and then she'll remember you. She'll be back to you. Sooner than you realize."

The words of a friend - the same words in which he failed to perceive the bitter truth that would eat him alive, but he failed to keep it in mind. The days went by and his hopes diminish a little by little. The words that faded from his memory were coming to him slowly but disorderly. And, he gave up waiting - The proverbial "moving on" with all hurts, disappointments, regrets, and thoughts left behind. Then one day, expectedly, she stood there, on his threshold, disheveled and broken just as he was.

He could feel his friend's words seeped into him, letting them sink in. The words ringing to him like a church bell, so loud so consuming. The same forgotten words that had put him on the brink of insanity, now coming into fruition standing right in front of him like truth. In the past, he'd hoped when he sees her again, he'd be happy but now the reality is different - she became somebody he used to know, an acquaintance of sorts. Is that anger he feels? No, it's not it. Surprisingly, it was indifference, sympathy, and pity - the emotions he never thought he'd experience towards her but now he does.

He's done dealing with his pain.