The Morning Replay

I was sipping my morning coffee in a trance,  as I was, every single day of my adult life. It was during my coffee time that I try my best to remember what it was when everything that was happening around me did not look like a video, a large boring pointless series of videos. As desperate as I was to recollect an unattainable memories of my past, the kitchen alarm rang to inform me it was six thirty. It meant it was time to get out of my apartment for work. I dont have a very interesting job,  but if I still have any interest in this life, I would have hated that clock. Well instead, I finished my coffee  and calmly grabbed my bag and my keys. I left the room locked just like everyday at six thirty,  a morning where everything seemed like a replay.

I walked through the same hallway, just as I do everyday. I went past apartment 3C, where I should see Manang Lisa kissing her husband off for work. But just before I took the stairs, I realized the 3C door was open when neither Manang Lisa nor her husband was of sight. Then I heard fast and heavy footsteps. I dont usually turn around but somehow I did.

"Hey!", a voice called out like a warm summer rush. A figure of a man bursted out from the doorway of room 3C. He was running towards me. With such heavy footsteps, he was running too slow; and with that speed,  my heart shouldn't beat this fast. He stopped just two steps away from me. I absentmindedly stared at the movement of his hand as it moved upward and brushed his fingers through his shoulder length black hair. How nonchalant, I thought. Like a fun and reckless childhood memory.

In a short millisecond,  my gaze dropped to his throat. I noticed him gulp before he said, "I'm your new neighbor," and then a smile was drawn to his thin pink lips. I think my brows raised when I smiled back just as genuine too.

"I moved in last night," he said and took half a step closer to me.

My sight crawled upwards from his lips, past his cupid's bow and his familar freckled nose, to his bright excited round midnight eyes. Our eyes met. My thoughts ran wild, but i stayed still. Surrendered in his gaze. Momentarily paralyzed.

Maybe this was when the long stale dreary morning replay stopped. For a moment, the world was as quiet as if it had lost out of its utterance now that I was aware of mine.

I didnt know how,  but I managed to blink and said,  "They call me 'Ann' here, Tom. I missed you.  How's home?"