Ceramic Dreams - 1. Chapter 1

I buried my dreams in a teapot. Admittedly, it was an unusual resting place, hardly one for remnants of a youthful past steeped in joyful todays and hopeful tomorrows. They ought to be nestled in a poetry book, kissed by words of love and effusions of rebellion. They ought to be tucked under pillows, their soft rustle a lullaby during the coldest of nights. Instead, they were entombed in a common ceramic teapot, whose squat stature painted a bygone style, whose hefty weight belied ingrained fragility.

The teapot sat on the topmost shelf in my studio. It had been almost two years since I had last opened it. The lustrous blue lacquer had dulled to a matte midnight blue. It was covered by a fine layer of dust - a shroud weaved through months and years of stoic solitude. When the rays of the rising sun hit it, thin fissures could be discerned over its surface, mimicking the faint cobwebs spun around it. Once a trophy of intimate victories, these days, it was just the shrine of my own helplessness and delusion.

The few visitors I received rarely noticed the teapot - except for my mother. Her eyes sought and inspected all within reach. Whenever she visited, she would drift through the studio, daintily stepping aside the clutters like an errant breeze. She was a whimsy little creature, my mother, always restless and never staying put.

As a child, I saw her as a foreign woodland elf who had fallen in love with my normal human father. I believed this exuberant need for adventure was as much a part of her as her stick-like stature and her soft rustling laugh. As I grew up, I realized that she had simply molded herself to a home life with a husband who constantly had to move for his job, whose notion of settling down was confined to the stretch of one or at most, two years. I was much older when she confessed, in a rare moment of drunken candor, that she felt suffocated in her own home. She resented my father, who was fifteen years older than her, for having married her when she was only seventeen. Each time we moved, it was a welcome excuse to leave her prison and explore the world. She had come to revel in this nomadic life.

But I hated it. We were just a bunch of fleeting wanderers with no ties to this world. Each move was a farewell to the mundane, the precious, and the priceless alike. Like dregs of tea leaves, all we had amassed were left behind and we were simply expected to move on. But how could we when the colors of those left behind had blended into our very souls? When their tastes lingered on our tongues, and their fragrances still haunted our dreams? I didn't want to be like my mother. I didn't want to be a drifting kite slave to an erratic wind. I wanted to live. I wanted to root myself into this world and build my place in it. So lest I floated away, I anchored myself to my quixotic dreams and clung to their ceramic shrine with all my might.

"Look at the cobwebs on such a pretty teapot," my mother complained on a Sunday afternoon after she dropped in unannounced. "Clean it, use it. It will please your grandmother's soul. She gifted us this when I got married to your father." The teapot was out of reach but her gaze scrutinized it, nonetheless. I remained still as she spoke. I feared that if I moved or brought myself to her notice while she was talking about weddings, she would- "So, have you thought about the marriage proposal I mentioned last time?"

But it was too late. I sighed and rose from my seat. The usual song and dance started and I already knew how this would go. "I'm still young, Ma."

"You're twenty-two! I got married when I was seventeen. You can't stay like this your whole life, living on your own in this tiny apartment, eating junk food every day."

"I'll let you know I cook fine."

"Don't talk back to me!” she snapped. Then, with a huff, she carried on more gently,” It's not just about cooking. A nice girl will give you the companionship you need. If you don't like this girl, that's fine. We can find another one. Your father's colleague's niece has just finished school. She’s such a nice girl. If you wish, we could talk to them."

"Ma, no!" I rubbed my forehead as I left the living room for the kitchen, hoping she didn’t follow me there.

"I'm not saying to get married to her tomorrow itself.” She sat down in the living space but kept her eyes pinned on me. "Meet her, talk to her, and if you like her, we'll see. If you don't, no harm done."

"I said no. Just drop it. Will you have tea? I'm making one for myself."

"Yes. But make it like I do - with extra milk. What, you are still using the stove to make tea? Just like your father, stubborn as a mule. There's a teapot right here and you are keeping it as an ornament. See that's why you need a wife - to knock some sense in that dense head of yours."

I simply rolled my eyes and placed the water-laden pot on the stove. It was pretty ironic coming from her; she had that teapot for almost twenty years and she never used it. She simply kept it as a display prop for her middle-class family. For all their differences, one matter my parents always agreed upon was maintaining appearances. Making sure everyone saw them as a happy little family was their own stilted love language.

"God help me. Everyone's children are settling down and only mine has set his mind to be a hermit. Are you even listening to me?"

I didn't deign to reply to her. It was better to let the whole conversation run its course. Anything I said would be turned back against me and we would only end up shouting at each other.

"Even your old friends are getting married. You know, that close friend of yours, ah I forgot his name, the one whose uncle was a photographer. He lived in the house opposite our old building."

Hundreds of bubbles blinked from the metal bottom. They swelled and rose to the top, growing more numerous and agitated like a crowd of lost faces trapped within the pot.

"He always came to our house with that big camera slung around his neck."

The face-like bubbles broke the water's calm surface. Their cries rose in the air as a fog of steam, enveloping and muffling all. The water churned and surged, erupting in a painful and seemingly endless frenzy. I tipped the spoonful of loose tea leaves with a hand that trembled ever so slightly.

"Well, he's getting married next month. Your father heard it from one of his former colleagues."

The tea leaves writhed helplessly, caught in the torment of the bubbles. Some leaves sank to the bottom, some danced defeatedly to the wails of the churning water. The few that escaped were held by the iron-hot side of the pot, seared and alone.

"Can you believe that he didn't even invite us? He used to spend so many nights at our place. We fed him, we welcomed him as one of our own."

The turbulent water turned a reddish-brown as the fiery agony continued. Its loud rumble, a deafening cry of pain, filled the kitchen. The heat and the smell became unbearable. Unsteady, I leaned against the stove counter.

"If not us, he could have at least invited you. You two were so close growing up and-"

With a crash, the pot fell to the ground. I cried out and instinctively cradled my burnt hand to my chest. The painful throb echoed through my heart.

"What- Oh my god! Are you okay? Did the tea burn you?" My mother rushed to my side, tenderly taking my scalded hand into her own.

"Yeah, it did," I whispered, "and it hurts so much."

My mother made me place my burnt hand under running water before drying it, treating it with burn cream, and wrapping it in gauze. She spent the rest of the afternoon by my side, fretting over my state, concern shining through her wide eyes. She didn't broach the question of marriage again and instead, endlessly talked about mundane topics. She left at sunset after extracting a promise to call her the next day.

I spent the night working in my room. I poured myself over messy balance sheets. These dizzying arrays of numbers, for all their coldness and rigidity, were predictable and certain in their conduct. They were my sole escape from the haunting ceramic dreams which had consumed all other parts of my life. I ran through the maze of numbers, trying to outrun the teapot's specter looming at the back of my head, swathed in shadows and urgent whispers, calling me, coaxing me out of my stoic obstinacy. But I refused to face it. I was scared that a tiny creature might have made its home within my dreams.

**

The teapot has been part of my life for as long as I can remember - always present but never used, not until I moved out from my parents' house three years ago. It was raining that day. The drumming of the downpour against the closed windows drowned the hubbub from my anxious mother and exasperated father downstairs. I stood in my room, feeling as bare as the walls now stripped of my self, a stranger in a cold space that had been so intimately mine for the past years. Two full closed boxes laid at my feet with a third one of unwanted items to be discarded left open. It was surreal and honestly humbling how my life could be folded, cataloged, and neatly placed in these carton boxes.

"It will be weird when you won't be here," he said from the doorway. I smiled as he entered. His long hair was damp from the rain and his wet shirt clung to his tan body. He ran his fingers over the wall, tracing the lighter-colored squares where the movie posters had once been. My breathing mimicked the invisible line he traced, rising and falling with his rhythmic movement. And such we danced in silence. All had already been said, cried, planned, dreamed, laughed, and kissed in the past few months.

"What's this?" I asked as he stopped and removed a thin packet, protected in a transparent plastic bag, from his pocket. The white envelope was a bit rumpled but the folds remained crisp, revealing the unseen gestures of his long thin fingers behind - delicate and intentional.

"A surprise," he replied with his soft lilt. "I was going to mail it to you but my uncle wasn't at home so I managed to finish it last night. Open it later, when you are alone."

My fingers brushed over his as I took the envelope, my heart savoring this sip of softness we could afford in this open room.

"The truck is here," my father shouted from downstairs.

"Shit, hide it," he hissed. I sought a place to hide the envelope in my hand but the main boxes were closed and my backpack was downstairs.

"Here," he handed me a teapot from the half-full box.

"What? It's a fucking teapot!"

"Put them in it!"

I had barely managed to shove the packet in when my mother entered and found me standing in the middle of the room with an old teapot in my hands.

"You're taking it?" She beamed.

"Uh, yes. I thought it could be handy. I'll put it in my backpack."

"Give it to me, I'll wrap it in a newspaper."

"No, that's fine. I'll do it myself. We are coming down in a minute."

The sound of my mother walking away faded into silence. His hands enclosed mine over the teapot and his face a hair's breadth away from mine.

"See you in six months." He smiled.

"See you in six months." I smiled back.

The promise interlacing our voices washed over us, binding us to this very moment, with the ceramic vessel and the dreams hidden within as solemn witnesses. I didn't know how I would be able to wait for six months before he joined me in the city. It seemed eternal and unbearable. Six months till all we wished for would become true, six months till I would see him again.

In reality, the next two years would be filled with hundreds of calls, dozens of letters, and several visits - all unanswered. The next time I would see him would be three years and three months later.

**

In the months following the news of his wedding, I ambled through life mechanically, held by a single thin, almost delusional, thread of hope. I was scared that if it broke, I wouldn't be able to put myself together again, destined to live forever as broken jagged pieces. And then I saw him.

He saw me before I did. I wished it were otherwise so that I could have had the choice to turn back at least. He stood in front of a coffee shop while people swerved around him. He raised his hand in greeting when our eyes met.

"Hey," he said as I plastered a smile on my face in front of this man. He looked different. The long hair was gone, leaving behind a visible widow's peak. His face was elongated and thin with cheekbones pressing through the skin. He looked wrong, as if sculpted by an artist who had only a threadbare, superficial idea of the person he was. Where was the soft lift in his voice? Why was his smile so crooked?

"Hey." Often at night, when confronted with my own laments, I fantasized about the moment I would eventually meet him. I appeased my rising frustrations with indulgent daydreams. I would fall to my knees and raise my hands in atonement for any and all unknown errors. I would walk past him, ignoring him and my crying heart as he begged for my forgiveness. I would grab him and make him answer each of the thousand questions plaguing me.

"So, how are you doing?"

"Fine, you know, the usual." But I only stood still, a numbing coldness spreading through me. "And you?"

"Great, great," he replied and after a small pause, he casually added, "Married now. The wedding was last month actually. I wanted to invite you but I couldn't remember your number or address."

"Congrats on the wedding." Three years ago, I could hear the truths in his silence. Now, I couldn't even discern the lies in his voice. I edged further to the side, allowing the passersby to move more freely. I envied their purposeful walk as I unraveled, unmoored and lost.

"Thanks." He looked at me again with that crooked smile. "And you? Found anyone yet?."

"Yes, I have." I looked him in the eyes. The lie came out so softly that for a moment, I thought he wouldn't hear me over the din of the crowd. But he did because he averted his eyes and pretended to re-adjust the straps of his shoulder bag.

"Good, good," he replied as softly, turning instead to the passing crowd. A silence – as stilted and awkward as our conversation – filled the immense space between us.

"So? Still doing photography?" I wished I could take the question back when I saw him momentarily freeze. But then he laughed. It was an unknown huffing laugh that I couldn't decipher.

"Nah, that was something I just dabbled in for fun. I guess, we all outgrew that phase of our life," he smiled, turning towards me. I never thought I would ever hate a smile of his.

I was acutely aware of myself – the heavy watch weighing on my wrist, the tight tie around my neck, the stifling heat from the asphalt. The thousand questions bubbled in my throat, ferocious and wild. All the emotions I had bottled for the past three years were on the verge of erupting in the middle of this crowded street. I needed to leave. I couldn't face him. I turned away. As I started walking away, he said from behind me: "It was nice meeting you."

I bit my tongue. The rising bitter emotions pooled into my mouth. I tried to swallow them back but before I could, they escaped with one forceful utterance: "Why?"

The coffee shop's door opened momentarily and a cloying scent filled the space while I waited for his answer. I could hear his shuffling steps. I couldn't discern if he was leaving. Maybe I should have turned but I wasn't brave enough to face him. I wouldn't have been able to bear the pain on his face or the indifference.

"It's a cruel world out there, especially for men like us. You can't even imagine," he began, his voice closer, softer and more anguished. "I guess I was too weak. But- but that doesn't mean I didn't love you. I truly did." He took a shuddering breath and the tremors ran through my heart. "I'm sorry."

He brushed past me, his touch burning through my soul. I stared at his disappearing form as foggy and distorted as before. In fact, everything looked distorted. I barely registered how I made my way back home. All I felt were the tightness around my chest and the shallow breaths.

The sun had set by the time I reached home. I mechanically undressed myself and dropped onto the bed. I felt myself swaying as if adrift on swirling waters. I stared at the vapors of the moonlight filtering through the half-open blinds. But all I saw were two faces, old and new, overlapping each other, colors and features blended into one tangled blur. I couldn't discern where one started and the other ended. I screamed, my voice scraping through my throat, coarse and cruel. A delirious urge grew inside me, clawing its way through the frustration and the pain.

I lurched to my feet. Holding the walls for support, I staggered towards the shelves. For a moment, the whole room spun and I believed I would fall through the glass shelves. But the ferocious urge wouldn't let me die - not now. I gently took the teapot within my shaking hands, backed into a corner, and slid to the floor.

My shallow breaths resounded through the silent moonlit room. I cradled the teapot within my lap, tenderly wiping away all the dust and cobwebs. I caressed its dull blue walls as if I were rubbing a magic lamp. But my wishes had long been entombed into said ceramic coffin, forever unanswered.

My fingers stroke the closed lid, surprisingly warm to the touch as if the day's sunlight had infused life into it. My vision blurred with tears and taking a deep breath, I opened the teapot. A musky scent wafted out. My chest twinged in pain as I plunged my hand into its heart and removed the yellowed envelope. The paper's crinkles groaned and I gently opened its secrets. A sob burst out at the sight of the photographs. He had taken up photography during the year we were together and we took these pictures the week before I left. I never got to tell him how much he had improved or how much I loved them.

The photos had long been burned into my memories and seared into my soul. Yet, my heart still skipped when I looked at them. My thumb traced his surprised face in the first one, memories long buried rushing to the front. The moment the self-timer had gone off, I had entered the frame and had kissed him on the cheek. I momentarily closed my eyes and I could see him trying to be angry the following moment but his wide beaming smile had betrayed his feelings. I could still hear his amused chidings.

The second one was blurrier. One could barely distinguish our faces but our proximity said all. We stood next to each other and our shadows behind, larger than life, were blended as one. The third one was my favorite. I was hugging him from behind, my head resting on his left shoulder. His face was angled towards mine and his hands were on mine. He looked so happy, so luminous. The ghosts of his warm touch and faint scent haunted me in this cold room. I stared at my face in the photo. I had forgotten how young I looked. When did I last smile so openly? When did my eyes last shine with such bliss?

I showered the photos with tender kisses while my body racked with sobs. I mourned the innocence of those days where we truly believed in a just world. I cried for the sincerity of our dreams which we weaved in hushed whispers and laughs. I wailed for the sanctity of our love which deserved its joyful tomorrow. We would have fought together for that tomorrow if he had believed in us, if he hadn't abandoned me. If he was weak, I would have made myself strong enough to protect him. If he was scared, I would have shielded him, reassured him.

Now all I had were husks of the tomorrow we dreamed of together. For years, I believed I had buried the dreams of the two of us in this teapot. But the truth was that he was long gone. His lingering scents on the photos had faded to nothing. His delicate folds on the envelope had eroded to hundreds of crinkles. He wasn't even the man in these photos; he was just his distorted twin. All that was left in the depths of the teapot was me. For three years, I brewed within these ceramic walls and I never realized how bitter my life had become.

I brushed away my tears with shaking hands. I smoothed the creased photos and dried the wet smiling faces on my shirt as tenderly as I could. They shouldn’t be marred by today's reality. Their love deserved a happy ending and the only way was by leaving them in the joyful past. My shoulders shook with sobs as I rose and staggered to the kitchen. I kissed the photos, my hands painfully clutching them and refusing to let go. I closed my teary eyes, tore the photos, and then tore them again, again and again. I bit into my hand, my muffled cries resounding through the kitchen as I crushed the pieces under running water. A sharp pain ran through my body with my mouth filled with the taste of blood and my hand with the mulch of my dreams. I collapsed to the ground and threw the gray soggy mush into the bin. I curled into the fetal position as I cried myself to sleep. The dreams I buried in the teapot were now set free.

**

In the following weeks, I drifted from one instance to another. My feet erred aimlessly through the days, eyes searching for the unknown in crowds. My clothes became so voluminous they carried me through the gusts of life. During the day, I kept wiping the invisible gray stains sunk in the bones of my hands and at night, I washed the blots of dead dreams marring the sink.

My mother was pleased when I served her tea from the teapot on her next visit. She was far more pleased when I agreed to meet a girl of her choice. She hugged me and reassured me that she would find the most perfect girl even if she had to roam through the whole country in her search. I simply nodded.

"You are happy, aren't you?" She sat next to me, taking my face into her hands.

"I am, Ma," I replied with a crooked smile. "I'm very happy."

She beamed. She launched into a list of girls she knew, though apparently none were good enough for her dear son. I listened in silence. If a single tear slipped through the thin cracks of the teapot, no one noticed.