28: Ode to Misery

Her name was Fiona, and she was the most popular girl in school.

The first day she set foot on campus, every single person - girl or boy - fell in love with her.

On the second day, everyone's grades reached an all-time high.

On the third day, everyone wanted to always be around her.

On the fourth day, everyone missed her when she didn't come to class.

On the fifth day, everyone went all out looking for her - in every nearby house, mall, arcade, nook and cranny.

On the sixth day, everyone called the open-book exam difficult.

On the seventh, everyone hated Fiona.

The following week, she came back. She had gotten thin and bedraggled - so unlike the girl they had first met.

But no one noticed. They were too busy hating her to care.

Saddened, Fiona left and transferred to another school.

29: I Hate Vegetables

Teary-eyed. That was how I was when Andi left.

I didn't cry because I swore not to, and I didn't ask her to stay because I knew she didn't want to.

What else could I do but to shove everything down my throat and clamp my mouth shut so I don't throw it all up on her feet?

It was like back when I was being taught to eat my vegetables - broccoli, for one. My mother, who had gotten exasperated over my staunch refusal to open my mouth wide and let the choo-choo train or the whee-whee airplane in, forced-open my jaw and packed the stems of smooshy, furry green things in. The WHOLE plate of it. Which was a LOT.

I was going to throw it all up after, but she kept her hands around my face, keeping my mouth shut and forcing me to get it ALL down.

I remember the tears that welled up in my eyes.

I wanted to get it all OUT, not IN. But my mother had other ideas.

When she finally let go, I wailed like the three-year old that I was. Something I want to do so badly right now.

Then again, I'm no three-year old anymore. And emotions - I just found out now - are easier to get down than those hell-sent broccoli ever were.

This actually brings me back to that inane cliche of a quote I read at a stationery once - When you love someone, set them free. If you're really meant to be, you'll still get back together in the end.

I used to think it was a silly quote, but right now - when all that's left of Andi is our photo sticker stuck at the back of my cellphone - that ridiculous saying is the only thing I can grasp onto for hope.

A ceaseless hope that I know is just stupid and illogical, but nevertheless continues to exist - and I cringe at this - in my heart.

Fuck love for making me this cheesy.

And fuck that guy for whisking her away to Never Never Land where all things are warm and fuzzy and cute and... normal.

"You'll always be my bestfriend," She said with a smile as she waved and boarded the train.

The hellspawn Bestfriend Card. Couldn't blame her though. I used it a hundred times before too. Why I have a lot of male friends, no one really thought so hard to figure out.

If I told her I loved her more than just a friend, she would have laughed out loud, I'm sure. Would've told me, "Of course! We're like sisters, right?"

Stupid broccoli. Why won't it just stay in my stomach? Where it's safe. Where I'm safe. Where we're safe.

I watch nth train come into the station today; the way I've been doing these past few weeks. And as the doors slide open, I scan each and every alighting passenger's face with bated breath; hoping against hope that it's her, all smiles and ready to jump at me with a hug, screeching in her high-pitched voice, "I changed my mind! Fuck that guy, I'm staying here with you!"

Ah, a girl could dream.

I shove my hands into my pockets and try to ignore the coldness of the air creeping into every inch of my being.

I turn my back from the now-closing up train and join the horde that just got out. I really don't mind the pushing and shoving.

After all, this is the closest thing I have to not feeling alone.

30: My Sun

"He's coming."

The raspy whisper held such fear in it that Alden froze in his place.

Everything had been such a blur. Looking back, his memory could only provide him with hazy bits and pieces of the beginning - the raspy-voiced woman pulling him by the hand, the dark figure advancing towards them from behind, the bruising force by which the woman shoved him with, and the stuffy heat of the closet.

"WHERE IS HE?!"

He remembered hugging his knees inside the closet.

"I don't know."

"I SAW HIM! WHERE DID YOU HIDE HIM?"

"If I knew," The woman began, strength slowly rising from her quivering voice, "Do you really think I'd tell you where he is?"

There was a strained pause...

...and then a loud, resounding slap.

He remembered trying to fit his little head into the cracks of his tightly conjoined knees and shivering uncontrollably as he vainly tried to drown out the sounds of violence with his voiceless crying.

"TELL ME WHERE HE IS!" Slap, slap, slap. And then POUND. "TELL ME!"

Mouth thankfully pressed on his legs stifled the scared sob, and the gift of memory chose to remember only what was necessary.

He remembered her whimpering, sobbing... but not wailing.

There had been wailing, but it had not been hers. That much he knew.

He remembered slick liquid finding its way inside his little sanctuary, but he didn't realize then what, or whose it was.

The door of the closet burst open, and for the first time, he remembered seeing the light of day.

Alden raised his hand to shield his eyes from the searing sun rays and kneeled down to the headstone on the grassy mound. Lovingly, he brushed the stray grass the wind had blown in, and read the inscription for the nth time in fifteen years.

For the life you gave and let live.

He patted the headstone for the last time and lay down the bouquet of sunflowers.

He stood up and walked away; with a sad smile and a silent thanks to the woman who had once saved his life.

Vignette#1

"'Ma, hindi dapat mamatay si Manong."

I opened my eyes, turned to the direction of the voice, and found a little girl. She was probably around six or seven years old with smooth, dark skin, long hair, and pretty little lips that always seemed to be pouting. She looked up at a woman who was the spitting image of herself, only older, and frowned.

A look of worry crossed the older woman's face, as if unsure how to respond to the girl's last statement.

I stood up, watched as the older woman kneeled down to the girl's eye level, smoothed the girl's hair, and heaved a deep breath as she opened her mouth to explain.

An explanation I didn't get to hear because of a group of youngsters that brushed past me.

I turned to the direction they were heading - behind me, and studied their pretty faces from afar. I know I've seen them somewhere before even if I couldn't place them at the moment. Artistas, probably? I thought to myself. They look harried, worried - one of them was even close to tears - as they walked briskly along the white halls, and met with another cluster of people at the end of it. A man wearing a white lab coat - a doctor, obviously - was speaking before the cluster, and everyone in the cluster was listening to him in rapt attention.

Interest piqued, I sauntered over to the cluster. Surely, they won't mind, or even notice, an usi like myself, hovering nearby, hoping to catch some juicy chismis.

"We tried. For 45 minutes."

And the rest was drowned by hiccupping and sobbing. I saw one of the older guys - the one with salt-and-pepper hair - clench his fist, even as his face remained impassive. I felt sad for him, knowing somehow, that it were the poker-faced people who felt the most heart-wrenching emotions.

If only I were one of the people in that cluster, it would have been him I hugged first. If I knew him better, I'd say that in the cluster, he was the person most burdened.

...if I knew him.

I blinked. Something had caught my eye, and I rubbed at it furiously. I heard the doctor excusing himself from the (drama) sadness, and brushed past me, leaving a trail of cold wind in his wake.

I looked up, and saw the cluster huddling even tighter and tighter. Salt-and-pepper guy unclenched his fist and pushed the door that was right behind where the doctor once was. The door slammed right back into place, almost as if it were angry itself.

I glanced at the cluster of people that he had left, at the door that was still slightly swiveling back and forth, back at the group, and then at the door that was now slowly quieting down.

I shrugged to myself, and decided to take full advantage of my being an usi and followed salt-and-pepper guy into the room.

The little girl had prepared me for it, of course. I knew someone had died. But who Manong was...

One of the nurses was holding a white sheet by its edges and pulling it up and over the body that lay there. Salt-and-pepper guy motioned for the nurse to stop, and she set the sheet down and excused herself from the room. Like the doctor, she brushed past me and left a trail of cold wind in her wake.

But, unlike the doctor, she had given me the benefit of a hasty glance.

Salt-and-pepper guy was blocking my view of the dead person's face, and for all the usi in me, I didn't think it proper to intrude his space during his moment of grief.

Especially now that I could see his shoulders visibly shaking.

And then I heard the door slam shut behind me.

Someone had entered.

"Fancy seeing you here."

I ignored the speaker, thinking that the statement was for the salt-and-pepper guy.

The speaker cleared his throat.

Salt-and-pepper guy didn't even seem to hear it, so I turned around to see who it was.

"Hi."

It was young man, his face unlined, his smile reaching only until his cheeks because his eyes were the saddest pair I've ever laid *my* eyes on.

Like the earlier group that had brushed past me, it felt like I knew who he was.

Something deep, deep inside me knew who he was.

"Hello."

It was like meeting an old friend after a very, very long time of not seeing each other.

"You were talking to me?"

He nodded.

"Oh."

Though, like an old friend you've just seen again, you can't be sure that he really is *your* old friend...

He reached out his hand. "We need to go now."

...until of course, he introduces himself.

I glanced at his outstretched hand,

And paused.

He must have noticed the hesitation. "I never get why you people want to hang around watching all these happening. Actually, I never get it why you people have to go on like this."

"...what?"

"Crying."

"Oh." I tried to process what he was getting at. "It's only natural, I guess."

"I don't think you people really understand what 'natural' is."

"...well."

I didn't know what to say.

"You can't stay here, y'know." He continued. "It's not... natural."

I sighed.

"Let's go."

"Now?"

He nodded, and I sighed again.

I took his hand, and he lead me towards the door.

He pushed the door open, and for the last time, I closed my eyes.

Freud Rocks

He stands there, smiling from under his umbrella, as though unwary of the sky weeping from above him.

He beckons, and you contemplate whether you should join him, or stay under the fast-disappearing safety that the store awning is providing you.

No contest, really.

You convince yourself (in under three seconds) that this is the fastest way to get home in this sordid weather.

You step out of your not-very-shielding-shelter, into a puddle (The streets are quickly disappearing under sewer water.), and then finally, under the protection of his umbrella. He laughs at you for getting queasy over walking in sewer water, and you say your thanks. Part in sarcasm, part in gratitude. Thank God he thinks the queasiness is because of the rat-pissed water.

And now the challenge begins.

How do you actually navigate through the flooded streets under one, small umbrella without maintaining a *friendly* distance?

You don't.

Gathering all your Freudian defense mechanisms to the surface (with Repression and Rationalization leading the pack), you let yourself wade closer to him. Close to the point where one of your hands is resting on the messenger bag slung behind him, and your shoulder is touching his left arm. So close that even if he shifted hands in holding his umbrella, part of your upper body is still very, very close to his.

You draw your breath.

(And you're glad the thunderstorm manages to mask the sound.)

He suggests you hold the umbrella. And you do.

He says he'll just let you have it, and he'll just walk with his jacket hood on.

You refuse, and insist on holding the umbrella up for the both of you. You tell him you refuse to get guilted over him getting sick.

He obliges. A tad reluctantly, you note.

But he obliges, and the two of you are huddled under one umbrella, so you really can’t complain.

(You could imagine your Freudian defense mechanisms having a party inside you. With Repression and Rationalization hosting it.)

A few steps and a couple of curses dedicated to haphazard drivers, the two of you reach the other side of the street.

He puts his arm around you, and your heart... miraculously stays still.

(How wonderful that your Freudian defense mechanisms remain sober despite their party.)

You tell yourself his hand is there just so he could lead you away from cracks, potholes and the like.

And he does that exactly.

(Repression and Rationalization do excellent work, really.)

He removes his arm the moment the two of you get over the obstacle course that is the sidewalk, and you start wondering why - as cliché fiction goes - your heart didn't skip a beat.

Then comes the epiphany. You aren't in a fairy tale, and he isn't The Prince.

(Or at least, that's what the pack leaders tell you to believe.)

You wonder what his girlfriend would say to this.

Then again, his girlfriend never seemed to be the jealous type. At least, not in the three times that you've actually crossed paths with her.

He tells you trivial stuff as you walk through Underwater Streets. You nod in all the right places, encouraging him to talk. He does. He's just so easy to read sometimes. He continues with his mini-stories, and you continue with your mini-reactions.

And then he says, I had you hold the umbrella 'coz you'd get drenched more if I held it for both of us.

And you wish you could feel a lot more than you're feeling now.

Why can't you ever just enjoy the moment when you're *in* the moment? Why must you always feel... nothing?

You're pretty sure you'll feel everything only after the moment has passed, and all your Freudian defense mechanisms have gone to bed.

Which is the worst, really. Having to deal with all that in one instant.

You reach the end of the street, under yet another store awning. He stops to take his umbrella from you, pauses to assess your situation, and then smiles.

You'll be okay here, won't you? He asks.

You smile your best smile, and nod.

You really can't have him stay, anyway.

He nods back, and walks off to the train station. You purposefully look the other way.

He's not yours to have to stay.

My Sunshine

for my writing comm Writer's Block, with this as the writing prompt:



I watch her from across the street.

She is a ray of sunshine, as always. She smiles at the guard as she exits the coffee shop after getting her cup of coffee, at the girl who waits at the bus stop the same time every day with her (The other girl smiles back. Who wouldn't? I know I would.), and then at the bus driver as she boards his bus.

Once her bus has rolled along safely, I fold up my newspaper prop, stand up from my waiting shed bench, and walk off to my own office. Tomorrow again, I console myself as that hungry, longing feeling starts welling up inside me. It's only five minutes since she left my sight and yet I already miss her.

Not to say that I stalk her, I don't. Oh God, I don't. I'm not a stalker. It just so happens that we're within the same area at the same time. If I was a neurotic idiot, I'd think that *she* was the one who was stalking *me*. (But she only glanced at my direction maybe once or twice. So I highly doubt it.) I mean, for the past half-year or so, I've always stopped by at that bench to read the morning paper every day since Paula left. It was my way of coping. My bench moments gave me a sense of calm and peace, a place and time to retreat from the chaos of the world.

And then, three weeks ago, she moved into town. If she had not tripped over at the coffee shop door and spilled her steaming cup of coffee all over the shoes of the matronly lady at the sidewalk, I wouldn't have noticed her.

Who wouldn't, anyway? Half the streets' eyes were on them at that moment when the matronly lady screeched at her. I could see her veins throbbing, bulging in her neck, threatening to burst any moment. (I half-expected them to.) I could hear her screams from across the street, calling the other all Godforsaken names from Adam. I understood the matron lady's wrath. I mean, like she said, coffee stains *are* murder to Italian leather.

And then I turned my attention to the 'clumsy girl'. She was biting her lip, and looking down at the matron lady's brown-and-white shoes. I thought she would cry, but she didn't. Instead, she looked up at the matron lady and smiled. She smiled. Her cheekbones went up, her eyes twinkled as they crinkled. She started to speak, had begun to talk animatedly and then laughed. I couldn't hear what she was saying, and I so wanted to. Especially when I looked back at the matron lady and saw that she, the erstwhile screaming banshee, had also began to titter with laughter. The younger, perkier one then rummaged through her huge, white bag and handed out a card to the matron lady. Her business card, I presumed. The matron lady took it, chuckled, and simply walked away. At one point, even looked back to wave back at her. The younger girl smiled, and waved back. And then she went back into the coffee shop. When she came out, she took careful measure of her steps, minded the cup in her hand, and managed to step safely into the sidewalk without harming anyone. The guard behind her had said something, and she looked back at him and smiled.

She smiled.

And I couldn't help but smile myself.

She smiled at the people who stood there with her, and then turned to look across the street. But even before she could turn her smile to me, the bus had arrived to block our view of each other.

And so from that moment on, she and her smile became my early morning ritual. I still bought the morning paper, but I neglected reading it now. Buying it now had a different purpose in my life. Now, it wasn't just to alienate me from the otherwise chaotic world, but to actually aid me in connecting to it.

In other words, I needed something to make it look like I wasn't just looking at her.

It's been like this the past three weeks.

I arrive at my office and greet the building guard with a wave and a smile. He does the same. I hear a comment from behind me, saying that I was in a pretty chipper mood today. As always. It's one of my officemates. I laugh. I know what he meant. I wasn't ever the one to be nominated for Mr. Congeniality.

Officemate asks who is it that's making me this happy lately. And my mind immediately goes to her. Which in turn, makes me feel sheepish. That's just crazy. I mean, I don't even know her name.

Which is weird, I think to myself. I've been watching her for almost a month now, and yet I don't even know the most basic thing about her.

By the time we get to our 15th floor office, my mind was set in finding out her name for myself.

The next day, I forego the bench and I go up to the coffee shop barista to ask for her name.

What, it wasn't like I would go up to her and actually ask *her* for *her* name. What would I say, anyway? "Hi, I've been watching you the past three weeks, and I was wondering. Can I have your name?"

Paula would rise from her ashes to kill me if I did such a thing.

("I left you specific instructions on how to pick girls up, and you come up to her with this?!" She'd say, no doubt.)

Anyway, her name is Clara.

Pretty name. Clara. Cla-ra. I let my tongue roll out the 'r' in her name slowly, savoring every rattling sound it makes. Cla-rrra.

Wait, that's just plain freaky.

I stop myself from saying her name out loud for the nth time that day. But that didn't mean her name stopped running through my mind the whole day, and that a smile made its way to my face at every single moment.

I'm going crazy, I think. Going about my day like this with Clara occupying every single space in my head when she doesn't even know I exist in this world. Talk about unrequited love.

Wait, love?

I'm in love with Clara?

That can't be, I tell myself. How can you fall in love with someone you only see from ten feet away, and whose interaction with you exists and happens only in your mind? That can't be love.

But, I tell myself, if it makes me actually go up to her and talk to her, then probably, it *is* love?

And so the next day, I forego the bench again and wait *in* the coffeeshop for her. The baristas were giving me strange looks, seeing as I came back and forth from the restroom a good five times before I finally settled in my seat. I look at my watch. 7:30 AM. This is right about the time she comes in to get her coffee.

And she does, like clockwork.

I watch as she smiles at the baristas. (Her smile is even more awe-inspiring at this short distance.) The baristas smile back and immediately work on her order. She orders the same thing everyday, as I had thought.

While she waits for her order, I watch. While she takes her order, I watch. While she turns around to head for the door, I watch.

I clench my fist and resisted the urge to punch myself in the face to wake myself up from the spell of simply watching her.

I watch as she glides past my table, and turn her head to me.

She smiles.

And I... can't help but smile back.

I unclench my fist and watch her sail through the door. (She's an expert at it now. A far cry from her earlier mishap.) She smiled. I thought to myself. She smiled at me.

I can die happy now.

("Die, and I'll kill you, idiot." I can still hear Paula in my head even after all these time.)

The next day, my redrafted plan of introducing myself to Clara failed. Again. This time though, it had nothing to do with *my* shortcomings.

She didn't arrive.

She didn't arrive for the next couple of hours that day. Or days that week. Or weeks that month.

The shadow re-emerged to make its home on my face yet again. The building guard was the first to notice, and then my officemates. Officemate pestered me with details on how and why the light of my life broke up with me. I'm still amazed at myself for not having punched him at that time.

I board the bus three months later, going home. And looking out to the window like I was making an angst-ridden music video, I saw her.

Clara. I called out through the glass window. The whole bus turned to look at me, but I could care less. She was walking towards the direction where my bus had just come from. I continued to call out for her until the bus stopped, a couple meters away from where I last saw her.

I scrambled for the door, shoved a good few people out of the way, unmindful of the hexes they left in my wake. I could still see her back (I know it so well from watching her come into that coffee shop.), and that huge, white bag of hers (Her favorite one. The one where she took her business card out from that episode with the screeching banshee of a matron lady.). It was rush hour, and the crowd was so dense (in all meanings) I couldn't almost breathe.

In what seemed like an eternal shovefest, the crowd finally cleared, and only then did I realize where Clara had taken me.

I looked up and saw the sign. Goosebumps prickled from the nape of my neck as I entered the wrought iron gate. There wasn't anyone around. No one was even guarding the gate. I saw a flash of white in my peripheral vision and instinctively headed in that direction. I stopped where the green Bermuda grass was spotted with white, fluffy things.

I went down on my knees. Dandelions. I thought to myself as I lifted my misting eyes to read the headstone.

Clara Mendez. January 18, 1980 to February 15, 2008.
Let perpetual light shine upon your soul the way yours have shone on ours.

I blinked away the tears, rubbed the gooseflesh behind my neck and heaved a deep breath.

No wonder she didn't arrive.

I looked up to the orangey sky and offered her a silent prayer. Of thanks. Of love. And smiled.

I could feel Paula looking from behind my shoulder. And I could feel Clara too, somewhere, somehow, smiling down at me.

I picked a dandelion up from amid the grass and blew at it.

I watched as its spores flew towards the setting rays of sunshine.