What I was waiting for was something extraordinary. Kick your heels together, throw your head back and laugh hysterically kind of extraordinary. Yet the moments lived so far have brought kick your heels together, but no laughter or whiplash, or hysterics, with no heel clicks or neck back; moments leading to either one or two of the things mentioned above, but never a combination of all three.

These days, seeing something extraordinary is harder to come by. Albeit the summer has been short, but brutal. It started late and with no gradual warning, collapsed off a cliff into intense burning temperatures. A week of bush fires and sweat, and uncomfortable sticky skin glued nooks on every body. Hot air rising from the dusty tar made eyes water, and air so swollen with heat; you had to swallow deep to catch a breath. Then from nowhere, summer left, merely a week after its ferocious invasion.

Maybe I had been dreaming. Delirium is easy in that sort of heat. But I walked out one day to hear the muffled sound of leaves orchestrated by the wind. They were mostly brown, with memories of green along the edges, and the potential of yellow in the making. Perhaps summer left subtly like how the day breaks, smooth and expected. But I had been looking down all this while, watching my feet slip into sight and disappear, one after the other, taking steps. Only realising that autumn had arrived when I saw my feet in a puddle of leaves and was awaken by the sound of its crunch.

These days, I have stopped looking up. And time is not fluid, or consistent. Some days slip by in seconds; other days take too long to fade.

Maybe the strange man I met on the tram had the right idea. The kind of strange you try to avoid, and pray in your mind he’ll leave you alone. He came to me and said, “You are really beautiful”. I gave him a slither of a smile and not too much of anything for him to latch on to continue. But again he said, “You have a very pretty smile”. From his eyes he tried sober, but I saw only high noon. Clean cuts on his arms made more raw from scratching. Yet his presence was not alarming, from beneath his voice was a softness that spoke of truth and kindness. I replied with a pitying smile.

He said, “I want to find at least twelve people a day, and pay them each, a genuine compliment”.

These days, it is getting harder to be convinced. A young lady passed him by and looked down on him with disgust. He said, “She’s in a dire need for a compliment”. And just like that, the strange man on the tram gave me my first laugh of the day.

To be truly extraordinary, an event must fuel immortal feelings. When my father died, I came as close to a heart attack as someone my age could experience. I searched through a lifetime of photographs with panic-stricken urgency to find a photograph of my father and I. My heart cracked to find the most recent image was dated almost more than two years before his passing. And in my mind, years from then, my memories of him were of a man that never aged. Later on still, they became memories of a man I could hardly hear; his words of advice I could barely remember. Knowing that I had kissed his cheek ever since I can remember, but the exact smell of his skin was lost, when I searched to find his clothes had not been worn.

Sometimes, you make a vow that you will remember every single moment of an extraordinary event. You promise to hold in your memory that first kiss, your graduation, or that incredible sunset; the most perfect sunset you have ever witnessed. You studied every single colour the sun spilt across the city, watched as the sky’s cheek blushed in the waning light, the big-bellied clump of trees rippling like orange velvet. The beautiful distortion of a view you’ve seen a thousand times – its exact beauty you may never adequately recollect, but know, with precise intimate detail the feeling of.

And then, that one person finds you.

Warning: your heart may feel elated in their presence.

When I met her, it felt like the feeling you get, stumbling upon the voyeuristic chance of catching a smile between strangers. I laid in bed smiling. I fell in love after a single kiss. And “I love you” cascaded from our lips without pride or complexities; as sure of itself as day follows night.

Our love did not last – she loved me for as long as she loved me. I still search my bed during endless nights not knowing how to find her. She turns to face a person who is not me; her hands still reach out, even if not for mine. But when I am reminded of a time feeling her breath on my neck like moonlight on water, or the unexpected kisses – I click my heels together.

The world is dizzy – we are constantly reminded by the tragedies of our time. But the chase is on, waiting for something extraordinary to happen, again. Always looking up, and looking around.