Nomer MisNomer

Friendship, for a long time, only existed in thought. An outcome that I considered but couldn’t grasp. The nature or shape of it. Frames of vague faces, in the impression of a room, animated by silhouettes of filtered laughter. Unsettling but so close to clarity, like deja vu forgotten or dreams at once lost but formerly lost in. Something nearly missed but no longer familiar.

 

Friendship occurred to me in the shower today after using my friend's body wash. I didn’t feel guilt, or remorse. I only laughed, at its one syllable name and advertised abilities to attract women. Largely, it was that I now have friends which seemed surprisingly obvious. That I love those friends. Relationships can become so mechanical. Transformed by behaviours that become automatic and absent of instinct. That chug along and often require quite a lot of chugging to happily function. I learnt that lesson in first year, looking into the eyes of my ‘best friend’ as he spoke to me about women and boxing. Two topics that seemed dangerously proximate. So many years, passed with friends as temporary fixtures, characters living lives I saw past or reflected, too easily pleased and so easily predicted.

 

Change is a deceptive thing. Hiding beyond sight until it is subsumed within you. Like bones hollowed and renewed. Faces changed and transformed. A life that can no longer be accepted in appeasement and applause, by a self you don’t respect and an identity now lost. New friends arrive. Like the presence of birdsong, or wind which moves through you like the grass. That call for, unknowingly and only for a moment, movement towards an altogether different life.