Neel: Guess which film I managed to get my hands on. Just guess…

Me: Glass of Rage?

Neel: Yes!

Neel: But no subtitles.

Jonai is typing…

Me: Spot on, huh. Glass of Rage at the film festival in 2001. It was impossible to find! I guess you got it off the Internet, illegally of course.

Neel: Of course.

Me: I know you too well. Too bloody well. J

Neel is typing

Neel: J I don’t know what I should do about that though. There’s such a long trail of heavy destruction behind us. J Putting in way too many smileys but I am not really smiling.

Sent at 12:00 AM on Monday.

Me: ??

Neel is typing

Neel: Just watched this movie called Amu by Jonai productions.:)

Me: Hmmm. It’s a nice movie. How could something called Jonai productions fail ;)

Neel: J

Neel: It’s been three years since we saw each other, ya?

Me: Listen, I have to run. Got work.

Jonai has logged out of chat.

Of all the things that remind me of us everyday — television shows, books, places, names, faces, terrible haircuts, shirts torn at the sleeves — the metro rides are the worst. I still brave the traffic and heat and dust over the metro-compartment time machine.

We’ve spent three years, stuck like an old vinyl LP that has stopped on some random phrase of a song, which suddenly has so much meaning on its own. Hammering the message into your mind with mechanical repetition.

“Darling you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?”