Faust Writing

On a rainy night at the racquet club, I had dinner with Jason. There were only a few days left before I head off to college. The full blow of that thought hadn’t hit my mind yet; I tried to keep it away. I hung on desperately to the glorious days of summer, trying to meet with as many of my friends as possible to keep that feeling of security alive. 

We had a fancy meal of steak and mashed potatoes. The pitter-patter of rain was barely audible outside as we talked under the candlelight, friend to friend, student to student, brother to brother. We talked under the eaves of the restaurant when we were finished, about everything: the social scene, the future we had planned for ourselves, and any remaining high school drama that still remained unspoken of at the time. We made promises to each other about the goals we wanted and hoped to keep them. The night passed in an almost magical scene - the rain, the emotions, and the final goodbye.

Fast forward a few months:

I found myself sitting in the corner of a restaurant by myself. I am two months into college. The time was 10:34 PM. I was alone as all my friends were out at an event. Already, a few buckets of sweat and tireless hours studying for exams, a few parties, events, and a broken relationship had gone by. My order soon came. Steak and potatoes. 

My mind was triggered back to that rainy night that seemed like years ago. That same feeling of nostalgia came rushing back and I wondered where the time had gone. All the promises we promised each other led me to wonder if they were being kept. Two months seemed so long with the twists and turns of college life, almost as if I were reaching into a past, trying to hold onto some moment that grounded me, and yet coming back empty-handed, or at least, with the sand falling through between my fingers:

Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, is trying to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too confused and chaotic; scarcely can I perceive the neutral glow into which the elusive whirling medley of stirred-up colours is fused, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate for me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste, cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, from what period in my past life.