Habib Qureshi

Now that I think of it, I think it was raining when we first met. Although maybe it wasn’t; there’s no way of knowing at this point. But I distinctly recall tiny raindrops filtering through the memory. Is this a false imprint conjured by my mind to lend legitimacy and precision to how it feels to have been there? Is this a cinematic veil, summoned for effect? Or did it actually take place? It doesn’t seem to matter now.

It seemed bumpy right off the start. A few misunderstandings; a half-hour delay, and a carrot cake. But we talked, and it wasn’t even that long into the conversation that my mind started wandering, navigating its way through glimpses of a future in which she existed as the primary subject of my endearment; in which diapers, minivans and midlife-crisis were subscribed to without fear: it seemed worth it. I knew it was.

What was it that dragged me across all these fields of possibilities that I ended up here? What circumstance or force commandeered me through the millions of people I could have known and loved, so that I ended up here: in the exactness of that moment, with you? Was it something we shared? Our sense of humour? The music that sailed between our souls? Or were we so specifically damaged that only each of us was the only thing that could fix either of us?

But something went wrong, horribly wrong, and now you’ve been consigned to being just a memory; the only world in which you are free to exist, but where your existence is constrained.

Would you remember me? Or the raindrops? This is my only hope. Because if you remember me when I am gone, I would have entered the only heaven that existed.