liyana,

You asked me once, what was the colour of the sky.

I have just completed another solo jump of skydiving couple of weeks prior to Christmas Eve. It was one of those crazy bonding sessions with my young and fool-hardy cousins back in Australia. I didn't know how they made me do it. (I supposed on the pretext of being cool and not to be called 'chicken' for the rest of my life). 

I would have told you that the colour of the sky was blue.

The same bright blue sky that I saw in the photo you sent me when you visited sunflower farm in Thailand.

I remembered you stood in the middle of rows after rows, vast acres of sunflower field. You were in blue sapphire summer dress. A perfect contrast to the overwhelming sea of colour yellow.

You loved sunflower.

You had them in our room sometimes. Perfectly stoic in the vase by your bedside. At times I felt it was a little imposing for them to be there when I got up in the morning.

I did not understand your craze. I said it has no aesthetic value. But the sunflowers brought so much joy to you. I tolerated them. And at times I gave them a stare when you were not in the room.

But these days, I saw these flowers more often. There was a lone sunflower that stood tall in the field nearby the airstrip, where I was fully clothed in my jumping suit and about to climb in Cessna for the jumping sessions.

It reminded me of you. All on its own, in the middle of nowhere.

I think my heart hurts. I wished I could pull it out of my chest and throw it away onto the concrete pavement. I could not afford to be thinking about you at 13,000 feet above sea level. I needed to be in this moment here enjoying this deathly fall. 

I needed to feel alive.

You have made me feel alive. You and your craze on sunflower.

Your blue summer dress.

Your stupid question on the colour of the sky.

Describe it to me, you said. Not knowing how heart-breaking it sounds.

chairil