A Moment of Silence. The Return of The Kingmaker.

"Well, good night," I murmur, "Goodbye."

The words are met with an incoherent mumble. A 'yeah', perhaps - or maybe an 'mmph'. A brief pause follows. I'm dimly aware of the all-too-familiar jumble of sounds that one associates with hanging up - the echoes of clutter, of hands fumbling and searching for that little button with the red telephone.

The ensuing click could well have been a knife - severing connections, severing ties. I rest my arms on the railing and gaze out across the third-floor balcony; over the clubhouse swimming pool, across the headlights of passing cars, taking in the mass-rapid transit carriages that thunder past the tracks, roaring like lions above the throb of the heartland evening.

A mist of tears threatens to overwhelm my vision; I stab fingers into eyes to still the sensation. Deep breaths, I think. I take them - three great, heaving, sucking breaths. I will not give in.

Seconds pass and turn into minutes. Finally, I feel brave enough to move on. And so I do - move on.

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So it was, that on the 13th of May 2010 - on my birthday, no less - we ended a relationship that first began on the 9th of June, 2007.

So, where do I start? Certainly not with descriptions of how it happened - those are best recounted to personal confidences.

It's the peculiarities that interest me, really. Like how quickly I've gotten back up and dusted myself off - that intrigues me, especially in light of past experience. Or how steady my nerves were going into this final conversation - as though guided by an invisible hand, and a voice issued from my lips but with words not my own. Most of all, I'm astounded - and admittedly, troubled - at the level of calm I've been experiencing. I find myself in constant worriment that the peace of the present guises shock and numbness, thinly veiled and waiting to ambush when I awaken.

On these times, I touch my heart and look inwards. And strangely enough, I feel kinda good. I feel... right. If there's such a thing as fate, I'm guessing that this cuts close to what it'd be - it's almost as though things were meant to end this way, and that I was meant to learn from the experience. And indeed, I have. There's no bitter aftertaste, no singed feelings and repressed anger in the manner of past relations. Nothing. Just peace, and the knowledge that it was an invaluable three-year experience that turned me from boy into man.

I should caveat at this point, however, that I will still behave like a boy whenever I see fit. I had drinks over the weekend with my close friends, the Good Doctor Don included. The doctor and I indulged in some cigarettes - these days, a vice saved only for select occasions - and he observed a person sporting a striped polo with the words "Music is my life" emblazoned across the back.

"Check it out man. Music is his life," said the Good Doctor. I dragged, paused for a brief moment of study, and concluded that I had just wasted 2 seconds of my life. "I can tell he's not very talented," I replied dryly.

The Good Doctor laughed. "You're an asshole," he said, "But I'm glad the old you is back."

I'm not so sure. I don't think its the old me who's back; neither do I believe he ever truly left. I'd like to think that while I was busy learning to be a man, he too was on sabbatical, struggling to learn and to grow in kind. And perhaps it is this long-awaited reconciliation of halves, this reunion of inseparable facets of one's soul, which has rekindled the lion's heart to step once again into the darkness and embrace a universe of possibilities.

The King is dead - long live the Kingmaker. May his reign be long and enduring, and colored with the passionate shades of all that is fucking awesome.