friend,

it has been a while, but still your comings and goings haven't ceased to cause amazement, and envy, from me. every time you come back, eyes glittering with the new things you have discovered on your journeys, telling your tale with one smile, one look, one mute gesture.

and it seems that you have already accumulated a lot of stories, wordless stories that you architect into a sturdy monument of you passing down this road.

not so long ago i remembered us walking and talking above the din of the rush hour traffic. we walked on the same side of the road then. i tried to find the right kinds of pebbles for words that we can share and play with. but we could not, even then, agree on whose was smoother or rougher...

and in the middle of the sea, with the aid of modern technology, i once tried to trace the contours of your brain's ecstasy, trying to match it with mine. but in the end, my words were mere words, and the language that i use to speak to myself made you look for something more profound.

funny how the little circles that i travel around once crashed with yours, sending mine on a wildly different trajectory, on a collision course with people whom otherwise i would have never expected to meet.

and in those times when you come around, eyes filled with utter delight, telling your tales the way, the only way you know how, you make me smile as i finger these keys hanging on my side.

you see, i kept them, these keys, these words, my words. i thought that if i threw it all away, those locks, those doors that kept your smile could stay locked forever.

and even if in your journeys your have found other keys to unlock that door, i thought i'd keep them hanging by my side always; a memory that in one of your many journeys you passed this way once. and my words made you smile.

jeub