Murray’s

When we met, we were in a semi-crowded bar with the lights dim down low. I was searching frantically for someone to connect with. Just so I wouldn’t be left standing, alone and empty. She caught my eye as if I’ve met her before, from a place somewhere across the sea. I told her bold and shamelessly, “Do I know you? I feel like I’ve seen you before.” She said no. I insisted, “You didn’t go to Berkeley?” Her hair was short and her demeanor indicated she was Western, but I was wrong. She grew up in China and never left, never even heard of Berkeley. I can’t explain it but something about her drew her to me, or me to her, who’s to say. It’s as if I met her from a past life and now I get to say Hello again.

Later in life, she told me she thought I was weird. That our first encounter left her thinking I was out of my mind. Thinking about it now, she was right. Our meeting, and what would become of it, was something beyond my mind. Beyond what I could imagine or predict. Because in the end, she would be the one to save me in such foreign land. When I was on the brink of death.

We’re far now, separated by land and ocean and time and space. And when I told her goodbye…. I guess you could say I’m still out of my mind.

We walk differently now. Sleep differently, talk differently, eat differently, see differently, smell differently, drink differently, touch differently, feel differently. But she still believes in destiny, and so do I.

I told her bold and shamelessly, “What if we become so different, we don’t even recognize each other anymore?”

“Then I’ll be the one to say Hello first next time,” she comforts me, “..in the next life.”