So there was this girl I used to know who
would send sad-sad stuff to my email
at 5PM in the evening. I will
call her: My five PM Girl.
If I were to take out a quick inventory today
of all the things she emailed to me
over those last few months, I could mention
the following three items (the last
three) –
One sad story
One Sad poem
One sad song
For the life of me, I cannot say with
100% certitude, the exact event, or the
set of events, that triggered her on an
email sending spree.
Maybe, it was something to do with me:
something I wrote, something I said, or
maybe something I left unsaid.
I once sent her a short story: The 100%
Girl by Haruki Murakami. It was about a
short story — of two 30 year olds, who
were 100% match for each other, only for
both of them to fall sick and lose each
and every loving memory they had of each
other.
Shortly, afterwards, I received an email:
a short story on knaves who pretended
to be knights and about a working girl
miserable because of the many unwanted suitors in her
life.
Then, once, while I was travelling deep
South, trying to nurse my broken heart (I
still don’t know what broke it; or who
broke it; or the exact day it broke) the
5PM girl sent me a link to a sad song (it
was 5 PM).
The song was about unrequited love: guy
meets girl on the subway, falls in love,
comes to know she is already taken,
doesn’t let go (because, oh!, he has a
plan). The song ends with the guy
realizes the futility of his love. He
takes takes off his shoes, watch, and
dives off a bridge into a river. It was
kinda sad.
Sometimes, when we met, she would look at
me, and say: “Why so sad, Amit?”.
I would mumble something about the
weather, some vague illness, centuries old tiredness, but never the truth: that it was the meeting and the leaving her that left me sad…
The Contrarian View 