Deja vu

He should be happy. That’s what his friends had been telling Jim since the previous day. “But is there any reason to be?” asked Jim. “Yeah. It’s your birthday.” They answered him. He was silent then and asked himself instead, “So what? Does it necessarily mean I have to celebrate? What the heck?!” He became an eccedentesiast. Honestly, Jim was an expert in faking smiles, fooling us like he really extinguished the loneliness in his voice and the sadness in his face. Everything about him seemed to fall in its proper place once his thin lips formed a slight curvature below his philtrum.

When he left after dining with his friends during lunch time that day, he strolled alone around the mall, window shopping. Feeling lost, he just meandered, letting his feet lead him to anywhere until he reached the bookstore where he first met her, Jhanna. Jim sincerely missed her. He tried to reminisce everything that happened between them from their first meeting to their last evanescent communication months ago which just augmented pain to him.

At a not so distant corner of Fully Booked, Jim saw her, searching for books at the Teens Fiction section. He wanted to talk to her but he fought the urge to approach her instead, he just checked his phone, as if expecting that she would text him. He was satisfied to just see her. Before she even glanced toward his position, he had already walked away.

Last night, Jim tried to reach her through calls and texts trying to make her remember that it would be his birthday the next day. But she was out of reach.

And it was lugubrious and disappointing. Last year, same month and day, Jim waited for her birthday greetings but unfortunately, naught reached him. He waited until the hands of his grandfather clock hit twelve midnight. But still, no greeting. He waited the next day, no greeting again. That week, he waited. He waited until the month of January left the calendar. Until realized that he was just waiting for nothing. He was really hurt.

Tonight, he kept controlling himself not to expect any greeting from Jhanna. Because for sure, tonight would totally feel like a deja vu. All the waitings in vain, all the pain.