When I Die

Requiem

I must tell you all this before I lose it again...


I could begin with pain. I could begin with fate. I could begin with misery. I could begin with death. Instead, I'll begin with the truth.

I'll begin with a smile.

A smile that is frozen in my mind; a sepia-hued, black and white snapshot of a moment etched in my heart.

         It was the first day of our final school year. It was also the end of our vacations. Sonya, Steve, Ronnie, Wally and I had just returned from Kanha (a forest reserve) the night before. We were high on spirits, low on energy.
         Most of the old schoolmates were there in the classroom. The entire morning (half-an-hour, actually) was spent talking about vacations--who went where, who did what; whose ass got busted smoking his first cigarette; who discovered the truth about the birds and the bees (yes, there were two guys who found out the real deal that summer, even though it sounds unbelievable that a guy wouldn't know all about sex by the time he's fourteen) and so on.
         I sat on bench number three, second row from the door. A guy was bragging about holding a cobra in his hands. Sonya on my left, was grabbing at my shoulder saying something I couldn't comprehend. I was thinking about how the Kanha guys had fooled us. They'd told us that Kanha had Pumas. Real, live Pumas. We didn't see so much as a Puma footprint.
         Miss Roy, our English teacher stumbled in. I knew her well; she'd taught us english about two years back. Everyone settled down.
         "Today is the first day of your final year," she began.
         Cheers.
         "You will be in a big college somewhere next year."
         More cheers.
         "I'm sure you just can't wait this year to get over and--"
         A voice. Someone was standing in the classroom's doorway. "May I come in?" that someone was saying. She wore a white cotton dress. That is the first thing I always see in the snapshot. In her hands was a yellow colored notebook. She was standing there with a calmness I'd never before seen in my life. Miss Roy nodded, and the girl came in.
         She walked slowly. She walked with elegance. She was walking towards me.
         Her long hair seemed to dance in the wind, even though there was no breeze.
         Her face. Here, the snapshot gets blurry. No matter how hard I try, I could never describe that face. Her face was alive. And so beautiful.
         She sat on the seat in front of me. She sat beside Ronnie.
         By now I was mesmerized. Her hair fell lush on her shoulders and her back. And a sweet smell drifted from her towards me. One side of my brain told me that the sweet smell bit was just literary lovey-dovey mushy mushy bullshit; another part told that part to stow it, take a hike; the smell was real. She was real. This was real. So real. Surreal.
         Miss Roy had started to speak by then; I couldn't hear her.
         I was someplace else, where teenagers usually go when dreaming about mushy love. Somewhere in the background, I heard Neil Diamond singing, "Hello..."
         Miss Roy was suddenly at my bench. She was calling my name. In about one-hundredth of a second, I realized that a] I hadn't heard whatever she'd said; b] I hadn't written down anything, if she had dictated anything; c] The pen (a Pont Royale, a gift from my grandpa before he died) which was in my fingers wasn't there anymore. It was lying on the floor; and d] Rahul (another classmate) had once said that if Miss Roy caught you wandering away in her lecture, life got very, very, very bad. He'd had first hand experience.
         I looked at Miss Roy. She looked at me. She started to say something, then stopped. She smiled. If I was ever glad that I'd had a good rapport with all the teachers in school in all the years I'd been there, this was that moment. I smiled back; it must've looked clumsy. She turned around and walked back to the blackboard.
         I picked up my Pont Royale. It was broken. The darn thing had hit the ground exactly on the nib. The nib was split into two. I might still have it lying around somewhere in my little box of goodies.
         For about five minutes, all of my attention was on the blackboard, on Miss Roy's face, and what she was teaching. Five minutes later, I was back in dreamland.
         Then, a flash of light, a bell ring, and a hasty jerk back to reality. The lecture was over. Miss Roy was gone. Wally was pulling me from the backseat, asking me to tell Javed about the Puma we'd seen. We'd agreed between us that we'd tell everyone at school that we'd seen a Puma. Nobody likes to say that he'd been suckered, after all.
         It was then that she turned around. In superslow motion. Her hair swinged and her bright face danced in front of me. "Hi," she said.
         What really sealed that big bond titled 'CHIMP LOVES THIS GIRL' was her voice. Smooth. Rich. Mellow. The kind of creamy voice that sings to you.
         Mr. Brain was screaming, "Say something!" inside me.
         Miss Tongue had gone on strike.
         "Please, Miss Tongue, help me," said I.
         "No," Tongue said; "not today."
         "Please! I'll do anything."
         "Chocolate. You'd have to give me lots and lots of chocolate."
         "Yeah, okay, sure. Now just start working again!"
         "Hi," I said aloud. Miss Tongue's definetly a sour-pants. My voice sounded like Donald Duck blabbering wildly, as if Mickey had shoved an injection up his posterior.
         "Camille." She smiled.
         That smile. So close. So haunting. So magical.
         "And this funny fellow is KC," Ronnie said.
         For the life of me, I never actually knew why they all called me KC. Just like I never knew why a lot of things happened in my brotherhood. At that moment, I mentally slapped myself for not speaking my name out loud.
         Right till the day she left, she called me KC. Nothing else.
         "You're new here, aren't you?" Ronnie asked her. Amy was still looking at me. Maybe she was figuring out if I was a total looney. I figure she didn't think so.
         "Yes," Amy said. "We came to India a week back."
         "Where from?" I finally managed to speak.
         She looked at me, amused. "USA."
         Hail Jesus. Hallelujah. The London Symphony Orchestra began playing in full swing inside me. An American. Hell yeah.
         "I'm from America too," Sonya said.
         "Me too," I added.
         She smiled at Sonya, then looked at me. "Really?"
         And I felt like a little kid; trying to prove my Americanness. As if it was absolutely darn essentially important to make the truth known. "Yeah, really. Honest. Ask me anything. Want to know about Arnie Swivelbacker? Ask me anything about 'em. I saw all of his movies, you know; right from Hercules In London to Terminator. Just ask. Ask me about baseball. Ask me about--"
         "Okay, okay." she held her hand up.
         "He's a nutcase," Ronnie said. She was laughing.
         They both looked at me. I can imagine how I must've looked--like a diabetic caught eating a cupcake. They both burst out laughing. I never heard anyone laugh with so much joy. Never heard laughter so vivid and vibrant. Never heard laughter to innocently resonant.
         That's how we first met.

         Three hours into the day, and it felt as if she'd been a part of the brotherhood since times immemorial. It was during the break that Sonya came up with the name 'Amy'. I don't think anyone has ever called Amy by her real name since. Every time we called each other, it was, 'Hi, could I speak to Amy please?' or 'Hi, this is Amy, what's up in looney land?'
         When she left, I kept gazing in her direction long after she left. Sonya saw me staring. She knew what was going on in my mind. She always knows it.
         It was a glorious, glorious day. And an even more glorious night. The daydreams came back with full force, pumping iron and stardust. And the night's blanket provided a nice warmth for them to bask in and amplify. Mmmm, Mmmm. Those dreams still come back just as easy.

         About four weeks later, I had my first OFFICIAL date. Not just my first official date with Amy, but my first official date with ANYONE. And let me tell you, teenage bullshit or not, there were big earthworms doing the macarena in my stomach that day.
         In the movie hall, I don't think I so much as glanced at the movie more than three times. I was watching her. Man, that was amazing. Every move magnified. Every word she spoke was pumped in my auditory nerves amplified by a factor of hundred. Every time her eyes met mine... the air charged up with electricity.
         That was such a good day. I dropped ice-cream on my shirt, I remember. I also remember not giving a damn about it.

         We talked a lot. We talked so bloody much, and so often. We talked about anything. And let me tell you, there's nothing else like strolling on the beach at 6 in the morning, casually holding hands and talking about oysters and the sun and the universe and music. Nothing. Absoultely nothing.
         I was oblivious to the world. I didn't give a damn about what any one thought of it. I was in love, dammit. I was in love. Every love song I ever sang was coming true. Every sappy romance I ever saw seemed to spill over into reality.
         Amy was a Goddess. Yep. Had to be. Amy was everything. The be all and end all. The sun rose for her and set for her. My stars grooved around her. Her words were my life force. Her smiles, my music.

         When you're having a real ball, time flies by so fast you hardly even notice it. It was my birthday. This was special. Grown up land, here I come. Amigos, better hold on to yer bunkers; KC's gonna rock the town. I was finally in the big league. I was finally growing up. Hair had popped up on my face. Zits too; they were a part of the package.
         Freedom. I'd be free. Really free. No more child talk. I was free to say 'bad' words when I wanted to. Suddenly, saying Shit and Jerkoff and Bastard and Fuck You was normal.
         That night, the brotherhood gave me the biggest surprise of my life. Till about nine in the night, no one showed up at my house, they'd not even called to wish me. And suddenly, my birthday began to seem like a slob. I'd called up their homes. None of them was home; as if they'd all decided to collectively dump me out that day.
         Then Wally called me. He told me to go to Max's house. Said something had happened. I had a pretty good idea that maybe they were gonna put up a nice little party for me.
         When I got there, I was amazed. To say it was grand would be like saying that space is big. Space is way, way, way, way, way bigger than big. Some of my schoolmates were there. But I don't even remember anyone much, other than my brotherhood. Those lovable little rascals.
         They'd decorated the whole darn thing, complete with atmospheric lights and candles and stuff. Sonya'd plugged her dad's Hi-Fi (probably taken from her home without her folks's knowledge) and it was pumping out music. It was all something right out of a movie. Picture perfect.
         And then there was Amy. Looking so lovely in blue. So lovely.
         When I cut the cake, Sonya took the first bite. She always has. Then Ronnie. Then Wally. And then, shivering a bit, I took a lump of the cake and held it in front of Amy. She ate it, smiling.
         She gave me a little memento--a farmer sitting on a rock, playing his lute. I have it on my computer desk right at this moment.
         Then she kissed me. A soft peck on the cheek. And just like everything else, this too, was in super-slow motion. That kiss serenaded my sleep for many nights after that. Man, that was something.

         About two weeks after that, Amy and I were sitting on the little bench at the side of the road (the same road on which I later met an angel--it wasn't the same bench. Or was it? I can't be sure).
         We were talking about something I can't remember. But I do remember that she'd held my hand. I do remember it had felt so good. So good. I also remember her saying that it was a real swell thing that she'd met the brotherhood. And a real swell thing that she'd met me. I believe that. I said so.
         Amy was so calm. So composed. So frighteningly comfortable with everything. Amy was so beautiful. So beautiful at anything and everything she did.
         In that moment, I remember thinking, I'm going to spend the rest of my life with this girl. I'm going to love her forever.

         Then the farewell party happened. And all that came after that is--well, blurry; seen through tear-fogged eyes. Like a distant echo of a song you never want to hear.

         It all seems like it happened yesterday. Maybe the past is not the past at all, but a continous present. The past is a present that lives in our mind.

         There are so many memories of her that live with me everyday. And now, memories are all I'll ever have of her.

         Amy's sister sent me an email yesterday night.
         She told me something I wish to God I'd never heard. She told me Amy is dead. She said she and her mother were the ones who didn't.

         Amy is dead.

         I've been loving a ghost.
         It's too much to bear. Far too much. Even after all this time.

         Her sister said that she knew... and that Amy often wanted to write to me, to the brotherhood. She didn't tell my why she didn't. She said Amy died in the earthquake. And by then I was crying. Crying so much that I couldn't read what she said. Sitting in the shitty room, looking at the wall-clock--not at it, but right through it, one hand choking the mouse, the other numb, I cried.

         I've been hiding away all this time. And the one thing I keep thinking is that it's not fair. Not fair at all.
         Not fair on me. Not fair on her. Especially on her. I loved her, and she paid a price. Don't tell me anything now; I'm sure of it. Every one I love suffers. Every one.

         I cried a long time. And now the crying's stopped. No more tears to cry.
         Things could have been different. Things should've been different.
         I used to wish that if only I'd get to see her face just one more time.
         I'll never see her face again. I'll never see her smile. I'll never hear her laugh. I'll never feel alive. Never.

         It hurts so much. So much.

         I used to believe once that there is a heaven. I want to believe in it again. I so desperately want to believe it. I want to believe in heaven for her. I want to believe that she's up there, free from this world.

         If you are up there, Amy, give me a sign. Something. Anything. I need it now.

         Maybe we'll meet up there. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't care. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't take away any of the love.

         The first time I saw you - I'll never forget that moment. It was magic. I know.
         Your smile - I still see it. I don't even have to close my eyes.
         Your face - oh God, how I want to kiss you. To hold you close and never let go. Never.
         The dance - having you so close to me, so close; so mesmerising, so beautiful.
         I don't know why you went away. But I do know that if you were here, you'd be alive now. And we'd have been so happy. So happy.

         I want to believe that even if it was just for one year, or one month, or one week, one day, or even for a single second, I want to believe that you loved me. It's the only thing I've ever had in my life worth anything. Nothing else ever mattered.

         It's been left unsaid for a long time, but I'll say it now. I love you. Can you hear me? I've always loved you. I love you so much.

         And that is the one thing that is true. The one thing sacred. The rest fades away.

Today I'm singing of you, my love. I'm singing for you. Will you sing along? Just this one time? Please?

Singing of love,
         KC.

In loving memory,
Camille Dawson,
1983-2001

For every single memory
Has become a part of me.
You will always be my love.