Fallen
PSA: Once again, the following probably won’t make much sense unless you have read the previous 2 chapters of the story. If this applies to you I'd suggest you go back and read about ‘Fate’ and ‘Do You Want Me’ before moving on. For everyone else, enjoy… and don’t skip the footnotes.
***
You know that part in the second Bridget Jones movie where she has a massive blue¹ with the man of her dreams and descends into a chasm of despair? You know, the scene in which she's stumbling around her dark, messy apartment in her PJ’s, under a duvet, clutching a half-eaten tub of ice-ream, clearly not having seen the light of day in well over a month? Yeah, well, when Sidebar Girl (SG) abandoned me to continue on the Australian leg of her round-the-world adventure, that was basically me.
Sure, there was the odd text message rally here and there, but nothing anywhere near the standard of communication our connection deserved. I was an emotional mess. Merely thinking of the fact that the love of my life was having the time of her life at the so-called Great Barrier Reef when she could and should have been with me, was enough to make me erupt into a crying fit.
As I lay there wallowing in self-pity; pining over the girl of my dreams, going a little bit more insane with every passing minute, my tiny little old Nokia 3120 suddenly started vibrating aggressively on my desk in the opposite corner of my room. Intrigued as to who it could be, I sprung out of bed like a jack-in-the-box and hopped towards my phone; skillfully navigating the obstacle course of pizza boxes and empty confectionery wrappers I’d assembled over the past few weeks. To my complete and utter shock, the caller was Sidebar Girl. What did she want?
Once conventional pleasantries and an acceptable amount of small talk had been exchanged, the beautiful Brit divulged her purpose for calling.
“So, erm, I've been thinking about cutting my trip short to come spend my last week in Australia with you in Sydney...”
I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. My prayers² had been answered and I was overcome by ecstasy. I felt like a giggly little school boy who’d just been kissed by his crush. But I couldn’t possibly let it show. So while my insides jumped for joy, on the surface I kept my composure; cool as a cucumber. 🥒
“Oh… right.” I responded. "Well, um… sure. I mean, if you need a place to stay I guess that would be alright. But I’ll have to check my calendar ‘cause uni is getting pretty busy and I might have some other plans. So yeah, how about I get back to you on that?"
For a second, I thought my act had thrown her off the scent. “Oh, ok. Well, if you’ve got too much on your plate maybe I’ll just stay up here…” she said playfully.
“NO NO NO!” I blurted out. “I want you to come!” My cover was blown.
Clearly knowing she’d won the little mind game, the girl chuckled and said “Great! I'll book my flight then. But you have to write me a song before I get there. Bye!”
The line went dead and I stood there like a deer in the head lights; paralysed by my inability to comprehend the gravity of what had just happened and magnitude of the task that lay ahead of me.
Back then it took months for me to finish a song and now I had but a week to create the most important composition of my life! There was no time to waste. So I swept the pile of uni textbooks off my desk in a manner that would’ve made Rob Lowe proud and began to write as if my life depended on it.
I had so much to say and no idea how to say it. The perfect words were impossible to find. I had to comment on her beauty, I had to capture the sheer extent of my feelings for her, that she was the girl of my dreams, and how I had so wholeheartedly ‘fallen’³ head over heels for her. The pressure was on, and I felt it. Yet slowly but surely — word by word, line by line — the song came to rest on the page like a precious jewel that had taken billions of years and immense pressure to form deep underground; finally brought to the surface with the labour of a humble miner.
I practiced the song until my fingers hurt and my voice went hoarse; tweaking words and phrases as I went. Each attempt would bring a new hurdle to traverse. As I stumbled over the same lines again and again, I began to doubt that I'd meet my deadline. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was going to come down to the wire...
***
God⁴ must have hit the fast forward button on time that week because it went in a flash and the day of reckoning arrived. She'd booked the last flight of the day — JQ0959 from Cairns to Sydney arriving at 10pm — so I had plenty of time to get in the zone. I could have a bit of a lie-in, have a good breakfast, maybe go to the gym, tidy my room, practice the song, do a little study, maybe watch a movie, you know, just keep things nice and chill until it was time to head out the airport and pick her up.
Great plan on paper. But in reality it went a little more like this: got out of bed around 6am after a sleepless night caused by a level of excitement akin to a child on Christmas Eve. Went for a walk to try and calm myself down. This and every subsequent attempt to subdue the boisterous butterflies in my stomach throughout the day failed miserably. Nothing could distract me from my looming date with destiny. Time ticked torturously slow; almost as if I was slipping into the event horizon.⁵ So I watched the clock wind down as far as I could before throwing in the towel about 8pm. At least I wouldn’t be late.⁶
After collecting the keys to my mate's beat-up Mitsubishi Magna I headed for Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport⁸. Making the trip in record time, I parked the car for an extortionate fee and rushed for Terminal 2; heart thumping harder and faster with every stride. We agreed to meet at the baggage claim but I was having none of that. I only had a few precious days left with this girl and I was going to soak up every minute. So I went straight through the security checkpoint and power-walked through the eerily empty airport, all the way to the gate to surprise her.
After another lengthy self-imposed wait, the flight finally landed and I moved into position. The plan? Hide behind pillar, identify when target disembarks aircraft, approach with stealth and invade personal space to provoke sensation of pleasant surprise. Perfect.
One-by-one I watched the passengers come through the double doors. Each time it wasn’t her, the butterflies flapped faster. True to form, she was the last one off the plane. Looking left first, then right — as if she expected me to be there — Sidebar Girl headed for the baggage claim. This was my cue.
Like Ace Ventura I carefully crept up behind her, but she turned and caught me in the act. I expected to implode under the weight of embarrassment but the moment I saw her face everything stopped — just like it did the first time we met. Exhausted from her long flight⁹ she fell into my arms and we ambled to the exit.
I remember the drive home: the empty roads, the gentle glow of the orange street lights, how soft her hand felt as I held it all the way to the door of my college room and how I only let go to open it. Before I even had time to drop her bags she burst past me, jumped on my bed and said “Right! Where's my song?!”.
Trying to hide the fact that I was absolutely shitting myself, I then picked up my guitar, sat down beside her and sung the song that you now know as ‘Fallen’.
1. Australian slang for “fight” or “argument"
2. Not ACTUAL prayers
3. Makes me think of this > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8mYLi3PGOc
4. Whose existence remains doubtful as far as I’m concerned
5. "To a distant observer, clocks near a black hole would appear to tick more slowly than those further away from the black hole. Due to this effect, known as gravitational time dilation, an object falling into a black hole appears to slow as it approaches the event horizon, taking an infinite time to reach it." https://bit.ly/3023O98
6. A Cardinal Sin⁷ in my universe
7. Who puts footnotes in footnotes?! Honestly. https://bit.ly/3gVl7Q6
8. This is the route I took - https://bit.ly/2OdFoE9
9. And most likely several consecutive days of heavy partying