Keeping the Pieces, Cut.

The long, snaking queue for the ATM at West Coast Market reminded me of you, and I finally decided to cut up those snapshots you took, of both of us smiling like idiots at a blinding light in a made-in-japan camera trap.

I sat in my room. In front of the computer, my mind swathed in Romanticism, Modernism, Literature, Music. Art.

It was so much harder than I imagined, but when I finally closed the open blades onto that line, an imaginary one that I drew in between us, the cutting got easier. But I did pause, after i severed the first image. Initially, I thought we looked like two tourists trying to toggle a neoprint machine in some Kabuki Cho parlour. I was completely unaware that you had actually slotted in a coin, and thus the camera caught me at the point where i was staring aimlessly outside of the box. Now I remember, I was actually looking at the escalator, feeling very absurd then at the thought of feeding the hungry camera trap. But then you paid for it. So it was fine with me. And you. You really looked like one of those cheaply thrilled individuals who get high over spending ridiculous amounts of money on tiny, garishly glossy photographs. The cheesy smile on your face, which was pressed so close to me as I looked away from the screen, looked like a knee-jerk happy reaction to another of your cheesy, cheap thrills.

Cut after cut was made till the frozen moment broke away into 8 fragments. Then Mum had to enter the room. And ask me what I was doing. Please, I do not want to go through the trouble of explaining it. I am already annoyed, so fed up over the upcoming test on Monday which has rendered me the only one in my group of friends who is not enjoying their holiday already. Did you walk in on purpose, at that specific time? Or was it just another of your unannounced forays into the study room?

And so I put the scissors down and returned to Chekov. And i placed the cut pieces of you and me back into the pink packet, thinking that, I rather have cut pieces of You and me, than to throw them away.

Somehow, I feel so much better, to see You and Me, cut.