Crush

“It's funny how the same word for the feeling of disappointment can be used for the feeling of attraction.”*

The Oxford English Dictionary states one of the meanings for the word crushed as “a strong and unreasoning, but transitory attachment.”

My first year at art school was boring to say at least. But it helped me to appreciate the fundamentals of lonely life. I took a bus with no real place to go. I watched the landscape slowly change as it clung to the last hours of sunlight, before leaving me to get another sleepless night.

It was an accident that I met a person, named “zuzax.” I asked why and what it meant. “It’s just a name.” This was so zuzax, always been answering in the simplest sentence, stingy with any redundant word. For once, I gravitated toward an unknown person. I’ve always wanted to meet a painter or a photographer. I thought it might be something to do with their ability to see beauty in everything, to then capture it, and hang it on a wall for all to see. I figured it invaluable to frozen a moment. zuzax drew expressively, took photograph out of the ordinary; what's more, wrote in a way that I couldn’t help ruminating every single word. It was not serious but hilarious even for a quite boring research paper. It was the first time my heart felt the other meaning of crush.

There was a place that I often went to by myself. It was just behind my office; close enough to still hear the screams and shouts of the tourist enjoying their shopping trips. But at the same time, it felt hidden away from them. I had arranged to take zuzax there, my secret garden.


Getting more company with zuzax(not quite often though), the time of the dates had done nothing to break the ice. The minutes flew into hours, the hours into days. And the days joined the fast rushing river of time. The bad news is that time flies, and the good news is that you're the pilot. Most of my shifts were now spent thinking about zuzax.

Once upon a time, I never wanted to know what love was. zuzax had broken the spell. I drew zuzax endlessly. Over and over. zuzac's pale, satiny skin, and delicate frame. In zuzax's eyes, I could see the world.

Every time I met zuzax, I wished I could've frozen time. I wanted to save that moment. To live in that moment for a week. But I couldn't stop it or slow it. And before I knew it, zuzax was gone. I have no clue how to be an intimate to share everything I saw, especially when I got an extraordinary scene. The more I tried to get close to zuzax, the more I felt zuzax getting far from me. I tried everything. I'd just become immune to be rejected. After sneakily gazing zuzax left, I felt like the last person on earth. And that was another acute crush.

*extended watching:cashback
Thanks sean ellis for coming up such nice words and movies.