Smug Tom
For Mabella Rehastri.
This is a story of Smug Tom.
Everyone knows a person like him.
I bet you do, too. With his twinkling eyes, laid-back attitude, cheeky comebacks, and the softest dark hair you have ever laid your fingers on.
Everyone knows someone that can casually exactly hit the high and low notes of his own recorded song during live performance, someone that only uses one type of coat, someone that curls his lips when he reads the lyrics he just wrote, and someone that wakes up groggily and remains so until he sips his tea. You probably recognise someone like him, someone that treats his band mates with the same respect, love, and irritation that he has towards his own blood, someone that stays in the background during interviews, someone that makes a framed collection of his guitar picks, someone that sniffs food first before eating, someone that bases the beat of his song with the thumps of his heart, and someone that no one has to verbally elect to be a leader.
He has not always been like that, though.
He was once scrawny boy with half smirk-grin, smirking like he knew the extend of his charismatic guitar-playing did to the sea of underaged girls in front of him. His band mates had once dubbed him as "Smug Tom." He also used to walk with this slight swagger, and a piece of cigarette could be found perching on the side of his mouth. He never used it, though. Years later, he told me that it added a slight bit of mystery to his façade because by doing that he would not have to talk to anyone. Quite smart, he was. That kind of thinking, however, did not do well for his scholastic endeavours. His O Level was poor, and he overslept during his A Level. Poor Tom had to deal with the consequences of his shattered dreams. Music, as therapeutic and familiar as it is, has never been something that he sees as a potential field of work. He always told me that he wanted to be an engineer that was specialised in audio. He was going to improve the acoustics in international concert venues and opera theatres. Such a dream, it was. But then, he went missing.
We met again after I finished my degree and found a job in a few towns over (there was something, other than my job at the Gallery, in this town beckoned me). It was during Winter, but the Sun was out, kissing the icicles and snow away just for a day. I was not planning to go out that day, but it was warm enough to walk around in my worn out patchwork sweater. And there he was, standing in front of the laundrette that I frequently went to. The same laundrette that makes his coat smells like home. Love has a habit of popping in the wrong time. He was carrying a bag that I presumed to be hi laundry bag, later on he told me that being in a band required him to wear the same clothes months on end and it was the first time after the tour he had finally found the time to do his laundry. I gathered my courage to talk to him.
