I was traveling America with him again.

We were at the beach, walking along the shoreline.

it was warm and slightly humid with salt breezes from the sea.

Apparently it was somewhere in California.

As the dusk closed in, it was slowly getting dark around. 

We were talking about where we would be heading next,

and I was vaguely thinking to go down south.

As we walking, a neon sign of  "In'N'out Burger" came into our view 
standing at the roadside at the sudden.

As soon as I found it, I shouted that 
"Look at that! We gotta have a dinner right there!". 

That classic William-Egglestone-like vintage sign immediately reminded
me of good-ol' 1950s American diners I'd seen in some old magazines. 

However, I immediately had to add that 

"...Well, I know we're already so sick of those greasy foods.."

because we've already had tons of those kinds of snacks since we came here.
and we laughed. 

I tried to take pictures of the sign, unfortunately it was too dark 
for my film camera to take pictures at that period of time,

so I asked him to take picture instead of me.

He's got this nice brand-new single-lens reflex digital camera this time.

We kept walking under the arcade for the entrance of the diner,

He unexpectedly told me to buy a ring. 

He had already worn one, which was gold and ornamented, 

shining in his slender finger, which I thought was quite unlike of him, 

because he was not at all that kind of guy who wore those 
rather conspicuous, almost showy rings.

Well, I'd never seen him wearing ANY accessories, 

besides his wrist watch anyways.

"Did you like that kinds of thing?", I asked.

"I thought you'd prefer more plain ones." 

"Do I? No, I like this one.", he said and smiled.

Looking at his clean profile, I thought his look hasn't been changed at all

after more than 3 years since we stopped seeing each other. 

As we getting out of the restaurant, 
I came across a group of people, one of who looked like a girl named Hannah 

who used to be my friend from high school in Missouri. 

I never expected to see her in such a place, all the way down in California. 
So I almost unconsciously touched her shoulder 
to speak to her when she passed me on. 

Then I found that it was a wrong person; 

it was just a random high school girl I don't know.

That stranger said, "Oh, Do I know you?".

and I woke up.

Thought of the letters, "Come back for sure, 2011", 

which I put on the last page of small photo album of our graduation trip 
to America for 10 days, I edited and gifted for him on his belated 22nd birthday. 
That phrase is attached under the picture of 
Elliot Smith's famous figure 8 wall in Silverlake, Los Angeles. 
It is one of those numerous graffitis on the wall written by his fans, 
and it says "See you in heaven, Elliot".
Now, I do not have a word accurately to name this feeling. 
Or, it might not to be something called feeling. 

It is something far beyond.

It is beyond any narrative, or the tragedy I can make up for my consolation.

It is rather a sensation, which descends on me 
strangely mixed and tangled with all those episodes and dialogues,

landscapes and sceneries we had seen together.  

Still so vivid and specific in detail while it is insubstantial as is almost surreal.

Being so abstract and random, yet so horribly actual and concrete. 

Desperately familiar and intimate but cannot be seized. 

That keeps attacking me. Again and again.

Just like the great wave beating upon the shore.
That feel. Only him and I had shared before.
Now, I became physically the only one on earth who knows all those.  

Thinking of that fact, I find myself desperately alone.
Completely detached from any sense of time and space,

Feeling I am the one left in the whole universe.