The Room

The room has grown cold.

Everything in it, still is the same, still in placed. The colour lavender, my favorite, mixed well with grey, his least of favorite colour.

I remembered how we fought over what colour to be put as theme of our room. He insisted to be black, and I sarcastically replied, “Nobody died in this room! And neither both of us are gothic!”. Then he replied me to have it themed on light black, which I responded with laughter. He looked at me, a little upset expression. He never liked me to laugh at him. I hugged him immediately, and told him how silly he was as there’s no colour such as light black.
Still hugging each other, he said, “How unfair it is, darling, for black not to have dark or light. White got broken white, but nothing as such broken black. How unfair! And look at your colour, there are versions of dark purple, light purple, lavender, fuchsia, violet, amethyst, and God knows how many more of purple out there!”. I smiled to your complaint, then said, “Black is a colour, darling. It doesn’t matter to me that it doesn’t have the dark and light versionof it, what matter to me is, it’s your colour, and you are the most colourful person I have ever met, and ever loved.”
He then kissed me. The unfinished room was warm for the first time.
Fifteen years have passed since then.
There have been many stories shared in this room, included how we finally painted grey as he didn’t want to compete with our gothic teenager twins.
The room was painted dark for many years. But I never felt as cold as how I feel now towards this room.
My eyes catch the present of his study table, which is placed right in the centre of our room. Right in front of the bed. The oak wood of the table gives an earthy look, the kind of style he liked, combined with black leather chair. I see his pen was still lying there, which has his name written on it. I remember he got the pen from our Chinese friend who didn’t like his idea of putting this table right in the centre of the room. She said it would bring us bad luck. I immediately looked at his expression and knew exactly what he was thinking. He looked at her as if she was speaking Chinese, didn’t understand a word about it, and he never moved the table.
I asked him once, why in the centre, darling? He said, “So my love, when I write my talks, thesis, speeches, I can see you lying down sleeping in front of me. And that scenery of yours, would add peace into the chaotic mind of mine”.
And I never asked him twice.
I almost forget that I have been holding a bouquet of black roses on my hand. I’m supposed to place them in the vase on his table.
He liked plants, green ones like bamboo. But I started buying him black roses ever since we were dating. He fell in love with it immediately. He then started to put them here in our room on his table and on his desk at his office. For the same gesture, he started buying me purple roses too, the dark purple ones, the dramatic ones. And the day when our room was ready, I started to place them on my dressing table. They always made me felt pretty, not only the colour is gorgeous but the note he always wrote, without failure, every single time, “You are my purple, I lavender you very much.”.
I don’t realise my tears are rolling down. How I miss this room with him inside it.
This pretty room is broken, so am I.
I walk towards the windows. They are on his side, the left side of where I sleep. I see the sunlight embracing the room, but sadly it is not his light. That’s why perhaps, I don’t feel any warmth out of it.
My left eye catches a glimpse of his coat hanger, placed right in the corner. His dark blue coat is still hanging there. I touch it, and bring it to my nose, to scent him. Arabian oud, his scent.
I feel tired suddenly. Just want to throw away the whole sadness I have in me. I sit down on our bed that grown colder, no matter how warm the blanket is, he has gone. He left this room, the sanctuary place of ours, forever.
As I whisper to myself, “Look what it has become without you, darling!”. It is more like obituary room than a bedroom, so cold, that I could feel its coldness freeze my heart and my mind.
Everything in this room is in light colours, but I don’t feel the lightness anymore. On the contrary, it used to be in dark colour, but all I felt was warmth, light, and happiness.
Perhaps our Chinese friend was right. Study table in the centre of the room could bring us bad luck. As it feels terribly bad without him here with me.

But I wouldn’t move it, not because it doesn’t matter anymore as he has gone forever and couldn’t ever come back, but I would want to keep having the image of him, sitting on the chair, writing in our room. But from now on, it wouldn’t him who look at me anymore, in fact it would be me who would stare at his image through the broken heart of mine. With a broken hope that perhaps this room would have its warmth again, perhaps it could be more than just a room, perhaps it could be our sanctuary, again.

-Lan-