Yo-Yo – Alex I. Conway

A spear of hurt and pain streaked through my being. I sat down on the kerb and sobbed, my head a dead weight between my arms. Warm bitter tears wet my sweatshirt burning a path. A passerby slaps me on my back and says something cheering I guess. Francesca’s betrayal was the last straw in the late decline of my life. All those wonderful movements we had shared together during our loving and passionate romance through our years together at college was marred by the sight of her kissing a man at the café. Francesca had been an exchange student at my university. The moment we locked eyes, we both knew we were meant for each other. Two years of pleasant courtship finally culminated at the airport where I proposed to her before she left back for LA. The most delirious moment of my life, that expansive, eye-twinkled smile saying yes. I had rushed back home to convey the tidings to my rather orthodox parents, wondering how they would react, but hopeful that all would go well. I remember that night like a horror flick poster. In my exigent desire to share the good news with my parents, I failed to notice the intense gloom pervading the house. My slow, barely composed speech was met without any reaction, if not for a slight drop in my parents’ countenance. I had felt it would be better in the morning, so I continued walking upstairs on cloud nine. The next morning, I was startled from my slumber by the incessant drone of an alarm far away. I woke up to find that it was 6.15. I walked down to my parents room, to find them sound asleep. Something wasn’t right. Imagine my dad breaking decades of strict regimen of waking up at sharp 6. Confused, I shook my mother. She was cold and stiff. I spied an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the bedside table. I ran over to my father’s side and felt him. His face was frozen in a contorted frown. I rushed to the phone and called up our family doctor who later proclaimed that I was an orphan hereafter. A strange buzz filled the air and everything begun moving slowly. I slid into settee and stared at the newspaper on the teapoy. A million questions were whirling in my head. I had killed my parents. The people who loved me most on this earth, fed me, taught me, cried with me, cried for me. And I had killed them. It was long before I focused to find my father’s photo on the front-page. I grabbed the paper and read. A horrible report about a raid being conducted at my home yesterday by the police and tax authorities, with a libel of public fraud and tax-evasion. The other accused, my father’s best friend and long-time partner was absconding. The next few days were a hazy chain of unsavory events. I had lost my parents, our business, our reputation, everything that had ever mattered to me. My only saving grace was my beloved Francesca. Her smiling face peered at me through countless people and her cool calm hands held my hands through the ordeal. She and her sister called up frequently. One day screaming from a nightmare where I push my parents over a cliff, and I decided I had to be with Francesca. I emptied my meager bank account, and borrowed some more and booked passage for me on the next available LA flight. My spirits rose with the airplane. Soon I would be in the arms of Francesca. I hadn’t told her I was coming. To see her face break into that smile of hers was worth anything. It was late evening when I stepped out of La Guardia airport. I picked up a bouquet of her favorite tulips and walked down to the café where she spent most of her evenings with her friends. I reached the café and scanned through the crowd, my heart pounding through my ears. Through the fumes and the smoke of the bustling café, I saw a couple in the far corner, twinned in each others arms. I smiled, finally happy with the world. The waiter approached them and they broke up, still clinging onto each other. My balloon deflated ad my head exploded. It was Francesca in that corner. The tulips slid off and I walked away, dazed and defeated, dropping along the remaining pieces of my heart. Here I am now, sitting at a kerb in a new land, with nothing more left to live for. Just guilt, pain, misery and loneliness. All my dreams revolved around my parents and Francesca. Now nothing. I might as well go with my parents. I walk into a drug store and ask for the same sleeping pills my parents used as a one-way ticket. I wander aimlessly, popping in pills one after the other. A little pup cuddles into his mother’s belly. I make my dying wish to go away in the arms of Francesca. I trudge to her condo, slowly feeling the pills taking effect on my system. I approach the lobby manager and ask for Francesca. He replies that Ms. Francesca isn’t in town, though her sister was in. He confirms Elaine’s knowledge of my existence and I waddle into the elevator. What the hell was happening? The door opens and Elaine peers out. I’m stunned. It’s the same girl at the café, who I had presumed to be Francesca. I had forgotten in my delirium that Francesca and Elaine were twins. I meekly follow her into the chamber impervious to Elaine’s condolences. Elaine explains that Francesca had left a couple of days ago to India to be with me, and reached there to find out that I had left for the U.S. SO she was returning soon. Shame descended on me as a pack of hyenas on dead carcass. How could I? I interrupt Elaine and tell her that I needed to be admitted to a hospital immediately before falling into a stupor. I awake to find myself in a cozy hospital room with tubes sticking out of me, and Popeye punching the daylights out of Blutto on the television. Elaine smiles and tells me that I was going to be alright and that Francesca had just called from Boston airport to say that she would soon be boarding a flight back home. Every passing moment inflates my spirit and longing to see Francesca again. I listen to Elaine noncommittally and watch the television, my mind far away with Francesca. Elaine goes to fetch breakfast and I begin to watch the morning news. Suddenly, a live feed of a burning building was shown. I recognize it as the WTC. Just as I figure out what is happening, the second plane slams into the tower..