It was my birthday. I could not wait for you to accost me a very great birthday. I had a hard time to opt which clothes to don, what cap to wear and which bag to complement my habiliments. I felt very much elated to see you and to celebrate this eminent event with you. I wanted to fetch you in your house but you didn’t want to. So I did not insist. Excitedly, I went outside the house to grab a taxicab. I knew I would arrive in our rendezvous early. That was something new to me. Well, you knew that I always came late. But not this day, I was assuring you.
I did not want to make you wait for me. That’s the reason why I was prompt. But I had squandered so much time waiting for a taxi to come. I was really excited to see you again. Words were not enough to illustrate how exhilarated and desperate I was to see you. All I could do was smile.
My trance was disrupted when my phone commenced to ring. Hoping that it was you, I never did hesitate to answer it. All my hopes were gone when I learned that it was the school I was applying for college. When the phone call broke off, I abruptly put it back inside my body bag. And from that same bag, I procured a copy of the poem I composed for you. My eyes were fixed on that small parchment. And so I failed to notice a car going straight to me.
Realization hit me.
In lieu of a taxicab. . .a racecar.
In lieu of having a ride, I was slithering.
In lieu of a mall, I was in the hospital.
I could imagine you now, still waiting patiently in the mall where we would have met. Different images struck my cognizant mind. I could hear the loud screams of a boy beseeching for help. A surge of pain ran throughout my body. Tears were trying to escape from my closed eyes, but they could not. Gore oozed from my maimed skin. I knew I was barely breathing. I knew I had ephemeral time to live. I knew I wouldn’t survive this. And I could still feel the copy of the poem in my grip.
The poem I wrote was about how I would feel if you abandoned me. But it was the opposite of the reality which was how you would feel if I abandoned you.
I was very eager to communicate with you. To apologize to you for not being able to come to our meeting. To entreat you not to become sad over my demise. To let you hear that poem only from me.
And. . .
With my last gasping breath gone. . .
I was sure that. . .
In lieu of a birthday celebration was indeed a lamentation.
