A Porridge Life

Plain. Staring directly at me is a bowl of white, watery rice. Porridge.

Life's like the bowl of porridge in front of me now. It isn't even hot. The more I taste it, the plainer it is. Then once in a while, I'd scoop up bits and pieces of scallops.

My days have become blur and meaningless. The scattered pieces of scallops are like invaluable memories that cross my mind without my permission. Sudden. Unpredictable.

I take a gulp of sickly sweet honey. It makes the porridge saltier. I could feel again, for that brief moment.

Honey is like a drug. It promises so much, but there's a catch. The dream it gives only lasts a second and before you know it, you'll find yourself in the place you were before: sitting down on a chair you've owned for 17 years, under a light barely bright enough to show you the room and a fan that's creaking, as if it's mocking what you've become.

The more I drink the saturated cup of honey, the worst I felt. The sweetness lingers on the tip of tongue but as it went deeper, the more bitter it became. Now, the sweetness is no more, the bitterness is gone, what's left is the sourness of reality.

The bowl is empty.
The cup is empty.

The ceiling fan continues to creak. The light flickers a bit.

I looked in the mirror.

A round table with six chairs. On one of them sat a girl in blue, who just had porridge filled in a blue bowl, honey filled in a blue plastic cup. How come everything is so blue? Coincidence? No. There is no such thing as coincidence; only the inevitable.

I stared.

The same blue shirt I wore when I first told you I love you.

The same blue shirt I wore when I thought my heart belonged to someone else.

The same blue shirt that made me realised I only had one heart. One which never left your side.

***

One more night...