Mer-May.

It's easy to get screwed up over love.

And it's really easy to have your soul crushed by big cities.

It feels like the further through my life I get, the less truly magical things happen.
I get suffocated by the fake, peoples "ism's", and the current wave of knee-jerk comedown emotional downhill slalom (if that makes any sense to you).

I go out, and I talk to the same bunch of people I will never truly know, in the same rooms, in the same parts of town, about the same bands, who we think is a dick this week, and not much else.

So I guess it's my fault.

I could die tomorrow, and no-one would even notice.
I know this because I have literally died three times already, and been brought back without too much residual brain damage.

And no-one knew (except my psychic Mother, but she's a whole other post).

It wasn't always like this though, because I remember.

I remember people I used to know, who have all faded with time, and have taken on a whole new vibe- like old polaroids left out in the sun.

I remember meeting people and feeling like "this is it".

And it was.

And I remember conversations I've had, or even better, times when I'd just listen.
And be so utterly and completely blown away, I will never fully recover, and I'm glad.

Yeah, you know it's story time!

I was doing my lunchtime radio show back in New Zealand, and it must have been forever ago, because I was playing 'everyday sunshine' by Fishbone, 'we cry out' by Warrior Soul',and 'there's no other way' by Blur, and they were shiny and new.

I feel kinda in my element on the radio. I don't get nervous.

I'm such a wanker, I feel more excited, like, "Ohmigod! You people are so lucky, when you hear what I have picked out for you, you'll shit your pants".

I'm awesome.

Scene: sun is shining through the huge studio window, and I'm looking out across the city of Wellington, and out to the harbour, and the snow covered mountains in the distance.

Cue protagonist: And in she walked.

She was looking for the office, so she could pick up the prize she won by ringing up some other DJ and answering the requisite question.

And this is what I'm talking about...the second we saw each other, we both knew we were in so much trouble. Good, good trouble.

I asked her for her number, and she gave it to me.
There was no need to ask, we didn't leave each other for 3 months after.
Not for one minute.

Not even for wee wees.

Background check:

Her name was May, and she had moved to New Zealand from Tahiti when she was 15.
She was French, and that helps a lot.
She had intensely brown skin, and green eyes, which is just the most orgasm-shudderingly excellent combination you could ever dial up and order.
She spent all of her spare time out on the ocean, surfing, swimming, and eventually drowning.

And the thing I remember most about her was her lazy smile.

It would start in the right corner of her mouth, like an idea, and spread almost all the way across to the other side.

But never all the way.

Oh.

And even when she slept, her eyes never stopped smiling.

She was scared of ghosts, like, really, really, seriously, oh-god-please-keep-them-away-from-me scared.

There are no ghosts out on the ocean.

I got really wet hanging out with her, and I have to say, I haven't really been back since. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe her ghost is out there.

That would be so great.

She had only ever had one boyfriend before me, and it didn't surprise me, because she was never in a hurry to do anything. I said anything.

If it was worth doing, it was worth doing slowly, enjoying every second and even millisecond, squeezing every bit of juice you could out of it, so that your life was like a dried up orange skin behind you.

Onward, onward.

She woke up one morning and he was kneeling at the end of the bed with a shotgun in his mouth. She wiped her eyes, and he wiped himself clean out of existence.

There are a lot of stories on this world.

Smells that remind me of her:
Jasmine in the summer, Sarsparilla, and surf wax.

There really is no exciting tale of how it happened.

We were out on the water, it was 6pm, and dusk.
Were out past the breakers, like, way out, almost halfway to Kapiti Island.
The water was flat for miles, and very very deep.
We were treading water, and taking in the view, all the way up the coast from Waikanae, and back down to the Point of Titahi Bay.
There was no sound.

I felt the water swell around me, and I swear to Christ a whale swam right under me, maybe 20 feet down. I slipped under to try and get a better look, but it was too dark- all I could see was its massive shadow, and feel the current it left behind.

I came up and was about to say "Did you see that?", but I was all alone.

First reaction: total disbelief.

Next: panic.

I found her maybe 30 metres back to shore, and 10 feet down.
Pure luck, it was totally black by now.
She wasn't warm at all, and she wasn't breathing.

No pulse.

I pulled her back to the rocks, and ran to the car to get my (first ever) mobile phone.
It was a Nokia, the size of a daschund.

She was the heaviest weight I have ever known.

We had drifted about a kilometre to the right of where we set off from, I swear I made it in a minute.

I called the ambulance, not really knowing what else to do, and then I called my Mum.
Mum already knew, and was sitting next to the phone with a cup of coffee waiting for me to call, but like I said, she's a whole other post.

I guess May just figured she'd tell me she was drowning later.

Or maybe she thought she'd try to swim back to Tahiti, and forgot to breathe.
She was pretty forgetful you know.

I miss her every day, every single day.
And I'm resigned to the fact I will never know what made this person who was better in water than on land (and she was devastating on land), go under, and stay there.

And even though it will never feel better, and I feel so sad, sorry, and guilty, I'd do it all again in a second if it meant getting away from life lately for a while.

When they put May in the ambulance, I brushed her long hair out of her face, and kissed her forehead, slowly, slowly.

And her eyes were smiling.









This is knifey, from 'the internet'.