Diazepam

One of our professors once told us that a Noh play often starts with a dead character. For minutes on end that character would sit utterly still until people in the crowd start to fall asleep. Now and again there would be a gesture from the deceased, a sleight of hand, a turn, a bow, and then finally the character would start telling the story of how he or she died.

I died from heartache, or rather, my heart stopped beating – just to be a bit more precise. To put it bluntly, it started from cardiac arrest and then overworked itself. This impairment started roughly five years ago. And now thank heavens I am dead. So there, I have divulged the reason for my demise, it’s your turn to watch me waste your minutes and do vague gestures. But since I am dead why waste the living’s time, don’t you agree? If you haven’t decided to do something better yet, then let me tell you the story that led to all this.

Of all places, fancy that it started in the music room. I didn’t hate music but my art lay more on the visual side. I was just sitting rather still so that the humidity wouldn’t get the better of me. For those who thought that I was sad or sullen, they would’ve imagined that I was casting that sidelong glance because of a sultry thought. For me, I was just catching a glimpse of my reflection on one of the glass cabinets – one of the things that you do when you get a new haircut.

“Hey, Kat, something wrong?” asked one of my duped classmates. I shook my head and made a gesture to mean that I was just sleepy. Okay, my name isn’t Kat. If it was I’m not sure if I can live with that – pun not intended. Imagine how I would introduce myself, especially since I like felines.

Going back. A chair pulled up near mine. Daniel, the new kid. My brows furrowed a bit. Did I really seem that friendly?

“Hey, is there something wrong?”

I wanted to really laugh, the kind that would make people turn and cause wagging heads, but I kept quiet and shook my head with a smile.

“You’re cute,” continued the mild annoyance. “What if I court you?”

Should I consider it insolence, or flattery? Was it a question that I should dignify with an answer? Surprisingly, drowsiness always put me in this detached, meditative state where all conversations just resound as echoes. I laughed softly. “You must be joking.”

“I’m serious,” said the new kid with that admirable smile of his. “What if I do? What do you say?”

“Ay, bahala ka,” I chuckled. “I’m too young to think about those things.” And honestly, how can you answer that kind of question from someone that you haven’t talked to for more than five minutes before?

Another chair pulled up, from beside me this time. “Hey, Kat, do you know about…” Now this one conversation, if you can actually call it that, came as a blur about anime samurais, chopped bodies, and blood splattering everywhere. There were also the continued questions from the first boy about being a boyfriend, memories of ex-lovers and even more courting. The two voices did not seem melodious at all, it was like listening to a wannabe rock star that tried to bring classical music into the ‘new’ age in a very disconcerting manner. Exactly the type that would make you wonder why you didn’t keep painkillers in your bag.

I couldn’t remember if I walked out of that room with a smile, a blank face or a frown. I couldn’t even remember whom I walked out of the room with, if ever there actually was someone. I could only remember the glass cabinet, the two boys and the old electric fan blowing with an ancient sputter as it tried to remedy the humid day. I could also remember that I didn’t want to smile and walked on with a nagging pang of guilt over my shoulder. You see, when you are dead, these are the memories that would linger; the ones that made you think twice about your life. All the other details are sadly funneled down the Styx.

“Daniel talked to you again, right? What did he say?”

I looked at my best friend with the sincerest smile that I could manage and then lied, “He told me things about Jay. You know, updates.”

My best friend nodded, obviously frustrated with the lack of news, or if she suspected my atrocities, with the lack of details. I wanted to drown myself in a 2-foot deep tub of water and die a horribly embarrassing death. There are just some things that happen, I wanted to say, you try your best to be a good friend but sometimes you betray your best buds just by sitting quietly on one corner of a useless classroom. I wanted him to like you and get to know you, went this guilt-ridden unspoken monologue, but fate has lots of tricks up its sleeve doesn’t it? Honestly, I had no hand in all this.

I wasn’t much of a talker, and up to now I still haven’t developed the taste for uttered words. If someone would so much as bother me with a Ouija board I guess that all that they’ll get from me are yes and no answers, even if their questions are not answerable by yes or no. One of the events that reinforced my distaste for conversation happened accordingly. There was Paco, my best friend, the new kid, and myself. Being a high school student in a co-ed school, with a shy friend beside you who wants to know who her heart’s content desires, the conversation went like so, with me initiating it:

“Okay, guys, just for fun I’ll tell you who my crush is and you tell me yours. Deal?”

Of course they agreed. I confessed that my eyes are set on Jay, that doleful artist who was so kind as to chat with me during that art contest that only had me as a female contender. So much for affirmative action. Okay, the cat was out of the bag. Paco did his share by divulging, red cheeks and all, that the girl whom I believe half of the male population in our batch admired was his dreamgirl. My best friend, hiding behind that trusty handkerchief of hers lied that she liked an obscure upperclassman. And then the new kid said during his turn, in this unfazed manner of his as he looked at me, “You.”

If I had already known how to speak Nihongo then I would have said a resounding, “Dame da yo! Watashi no tomodachi wa anata ga aishiteru! Doushite shiranai?” But I didn’t, so I said with the best poker face that I could manage.

“That’s unfair, tell the truth. Telling someone who’s here that she’s the one is the oldest trick in the book! Tell me you can do better than that. Come on, spoilsport.”

He smiled and told me that he wasn’t joking. That’s the problem with new kids, I believe, its either they don’t speak or they don’t have tact. I turned away indignantly, holding fast to the conviction that it was an excuse and then glanced at my best friend who sat there, quiet and flustered. I guess she wasn’t exactly expecting that kind of answer. Well, that makes two of us.

Perhaps those were the events that started the cardiac pains, for there were several moments thereafter that caused me to have shortness of breath and fits of palpitation. If I had taken the heart pills I wonder if I had died the same way. Well, there’s no use crying over spilled milk, unless if you’re a cat that is.

Retreat. Last chance being in senior year to go out somewhere far with your classmates, have all expenses paid by your parents and with a permission slip secured by your school – a neat package that offers the privilege to not wear uniforms. Everyone was excited, everyone swearing that this time they’ll never cry. Perhaps I felt the same, but gossip, or so I gather, kept on ringing in my ears, keeping me from meditating on my life and that god-forsaken instrumental music that they have been playing in retreats for the past several decades.

The funny thing is Aquinas, Tennant, and most self-righteous scientists would insist that there is some divine order in the universe that directs everything towards the course in which they are meant to end up in – with humans as the zenith. Despite the cacophony of problems that arrest us each day — unruly, dastardly neighbors, and disjointed rules regarding stupid traffic violations and what not — according to these great personages there is an infallible endpoint to which everything attains rationality. I find it funny, and despite being dead, I constantly hear myself laughing because of this.

You see, if this is true then there is no order at all to begin with. Disorder is order, and being such the two words lose meaning. If their logic proves true then keeping yourself healthy has no point. The idea of living a clean lifestyle is to avoid catching long-term diseases that they attach capital letters to (such as the Big C) and thus live longer. Rubbish. According to the infallible divine order, mortality is the rule and when it’s your time, it is your time because that’s the way the divine Chi grooves; or else the entire webwork of destiny would get entangled and Armageddon would break lose. So instead of every single chronically doomed soul falling into the bowels of the underworld in one go, well we just die incrementally. I can attest to that. I mean, I’m dead aren’t I? So much for the ultimate plan of the universe when you’re already pushing up the daisies. The point in this is, I did nothing wrong. I actually felt like a pedestrian waiting peacefully by the bus stop when a manic driver suddenly decides to go 360 degrees and hit the waiting shed instead of the old lady crossing the street with the ‘Danger! Don’t Cross!’ sign.

So here’s what happened. All I wanted was to go to a retreat. In so many hidden ways I was a good person but there is always this nagging feeling that I’m one skip from damnation, and despite all of the incredulous people that chuckle when I tell them I think about being a nun – it was true at some time. The thing is, instead of the divine groove favoring my salvation, as I have already said gossip got the better of my attention. So here’s how the play rolls:

Characters: Myself – student wishing to take a true Christian, save-my-wretched-soul retreat, but ends up reading the book of revelation.

Daniel – the persistent new student; Casanova; the Devil.

Jay – my true love interest but lives in another world parallel to our own.

My Best friend – unwitting girl that always ends up on the wrong side of the equation.

Adversary #1 – unwilling nemesis to someone who has no idea that she has a nemesis.

Adversary #2 – much like the best friend but in a more peripheral status, usually of the opposite gender.

The Villagers™ – brings in the props, spreads the word, fans the fire and consists of the over-all collateral damage.

Plot:Love triangle, circle, square, oblong (as long as there’s a shape and with more than two players involved); unrequited love, unrelenting suitor, unwilling lady, and unknowing best friend (other ‘un’s’ may be included according to the season, weather, logistical capacities and measure of freewill present among the characters)

The Villagers™, henceforth referred to as my classmates, told me about a very interesting predicament that was taking place. It appears that the Adversary, henceforth referred to as May, wrongfully interpreted Daniel’s friendship and assumed that it was actually going to go somewhere. Daniel, being blunt, told her otherwise. There were some metal tube banging, crying, stolen glances and disdainful looks thrown here and there. Besides this, as I have already told you, there was the issue of my best friend which I truly adore but in turn likewise adores Daniel. Finally, there is the issue of Daniel bugging me about these ‘would you be my girlfriend?’ questions while at the same time asking me about Jay.

So imagine all of the characters that I mentioned above being present in my soul-searching retreat. Yes, there was ample reason to pray and listen to the awful music. It was a shame that I only decided to consult the heart doctor after the events that transpired in that retreat occurred, perhaps my hands wouldn’t have shaken so badly, I would’ve breathed better and thus would’ve been less nauseated… hell, I could’ve been more lucid. So this is what happened.

So after the inspiring talk, and expertly avoiding much of the spittle that was thrown about across the room because of the emphasis that the retreat masters wanted to put in certain quotes, the drill followed the appropriate schedule. They told us to walk around, reflect, contemplate, be quiet, and find our center. I obediently followed instructions, and being pensive 80% of the time I easily found a spot which allowed me to look at the grass and think about everything that’s happening in my life. But my contemplative bubble burst as I looked a large pair of shoes with a person attached to them stopping in front of me.

“Here, have this,” said a voice and I thankfully received tart, or whatever morsel of sweet pastry that was. I wanted to say ‘thank you’ but the shoes walked on. Have you heard about minor strokes? The small killers that come before the big one; much like the choking waves that precede the calm and occurs minutes before the tsunami. At that time I haven’t, which was too bad because I didn’t know that I was already experiencing them. It didn’t help that Catholicism, especially my school’s brand, basically molds you to become overly conscientious. What made it even worse is that all of these things were occurring in a be-nearer-to-your-God-and-be-steadfast-bearers-of-the-Divine-Word function. I had a whiff though that something big was going on because the little voice in my head was asking him if he wants to stay. And then it was as if there was a bargain that offers you two tickets for a movie for the price of one, which incidentally was offered when you are all alone. Thus you had to watch the same movie twice to get your bargain’s worth. I think Alanis had a song about that one. There was a snack break – which simply translates to the same walking around and find your center routine but reflection was optional.Samurai and gore boy, henceforth referred to as Joel because the former label is far too-long and misleading, came up to me and asked me how I was. Because of my impending salvation bid I engaged in some idle chit chat. Joel was honestly fun to talk to. He was intelligent, unusual and had the strangest variety of humor – one that borders on the macabre and obscene – but sadly he was adversary #2, the protagonist of another story. Credit has to be given where it is due though, especially when you’re dead – or else you’d be more than grateful that you’re already dead when they recite eulogies for you. I must say then that Joel made me think.

As he talked his voice trailed away, though this type of fade was not one that ebbed away peacefully – it was more than a disgruntled halt. I turned to my shoulder.

“Kat, I have some updates for you.”

“What are you now, a reporter?” I said, immediately buffering the retort with a friendly grin.

“It’s about, Jay.”

Although my brows only furrowed ever so slightly and a miniscule smile crept from the corners of my mouth, it definitely didn’t require a rocket scientist to know that I was definitely caught off guard.

“Excuse me,” I said to Joel, half-regretting that I actually had to say those words. “This’ll just take a minute.”

“Jay’s our roommate,” said the devil with the most admirable smile of his “it’s fun bullying him.”

Words of indignation flew about but amidst all these he kept that smile, obviously amused. His next words explained why. “I’m going to tell him about you – ask about what he thinks of it.”

“What do you mean about me? You can’t be… Hey, Daniel –“

“I’ll tell you about it later.”

The devil left with that smile again, and Faust couldn’t be more flustered. Imagine yourself just seconds after selling your soul to the devil and only after which did you realize that the typos in the contract got everything that you wished for wrong. Like instead of ‘heart’ instead it said ‘hearth,’ or instead of ‘part’ it said ‘fart’, and so instead of the creepy yet cheesy deal, “May I have his heart forever – and till death claims its toll we would never part’ imagine what you would get instead. Imagine that and your soul forever suffering in hell with Mephisto gladly allowing you to bring your wish down to Hades; a much coveted fireplace and methane explosions.

If only Mephisto knew that I was considering making the creepy yet cheesy deal with him in mind, would he still have played with our deal and would he have been so anxious to bring about my death so that he could claim another soul? The answers are lost to both of us now – dig them up six feet underground if you want to.

Again there were questions from my best friend. I was not lying when I told her what we really talked about but of course the deal was sacrosanct and thus not to be a matter of conversation. Yet the unspoken part of my diatribe kept running in my head. With all honesty I felt the weight of guilt on my shoulders but never had I realized that there was actually another being that could feel that there was a heart beating quietly within my chest. That was a feeling that I wanted to cherish and… no different from smoking … a simple need and habit began to take its toll on my body.

—–

My dear reader, should you be a lady there would be no need to further elaborate this, but should you be of the opposite gender let me describe a ladies’ dorm room. Too many varieties of lotion, perfume, soap, powder and other such subtle tools for vanity linger in the air like a thick, colorless mist that is sure to induce migraines and sleepless nights. Surviving that, one would get the impression that the Huns are about to attack. Save perhaps the war drums, the cacophony of gossip, singing and other such idle sounds can shoo off any impending army of males – and believe me, neither Hague nor Geneva can do anything about it. At that time perhaps it was too much for me. Heaven knows that if I could hear that same measure of noise from where I rest now, my neighbors would call the gorgons. So I invited my best friend outside to get some whiff of fresh air and some sanity. I was already planning where to sit, where to contemplate, where to think of the next good picture to describe in the story that I was writing. As you may have already deduced, something went wrong. There always has to be something like that.

“Ei, Kat, got a minute?” said a pair of hands that suddenly found their way on my shoulders.

I tried to get a better look at the devil to tell him that, hey shouldn’t we be making pacts when there are no one else around?, but with his hands on my shoulders as he towered behind me I couldn’t exactly give him the knowing glance that may at least hint of this reminder: “Daniel, what are you doing?”

I glanced down and found my best friend struggling with her shoelaces. She was taking too long for a respectable young adult to finish with the knots.

“But I’m with…” I tried to protest but was cut off.

“It would just take a minute,” said the Devil to my best friend, then to me “See? She says that it’s okay! Come one.”

So there I was, as if a cartwheel being led around the hallway and then down to the ‘save-your-soul-and-think-about-your-life’ pillars near the fountain. Then finally there we were, alone, face-to-face.

“So what’s so important that you had to-”

“I asked him.”

My eyes flew wide open. If there was a rule in high school life that was probably the one that he broke. My being wanted to protest. Surely, I felt this surge of indignation swell up my chest, blocking all the airways in my body. I didn’t want to ask what the response was, for my curiosity would betray the resentment that I harbored, and yet another somewhat alien side of me felt that I didn’t want to know, lest the answer be good it would break the Devil’s bond with me.

Somehow I wanted the visitations.

“Do you want to know what he said?”

I wasn’t shaking my head nor was I nodding in feverish delight. Although it may seem that I was simply purposefully avoiding to give any answer, the inability of my muscles to move and my tongue to produce any sound was not voluntary. I asked a deceased doctor a few tombstones across mine about it and he said that for sure it was one of the major symptoms of heart failure. How helpful it was to know something like that after I have already died. At that time my silence was a puzzle even to myself.

“Well, I’m going to tell you what anyway. Hey, are you okay? Why are you frowning like that? Are you angry? Hey, don’t be – no, you’re not? Well, okay, I asked him about you and he said that you have a nice voice. Yeah, he said ‘voice’. Well, you do have a nice voice. And then I asked him if he had any plans on courting you. Yeah, I asked that. He said not at this time, but after senior year maybe… hey, why are you so silent? Are you angry? Why? What? So what do you think?”

Literally the cat got my tongue. If it wasn’t beginning to get dark maybe I would’ve started looking for it. But how should I put in words what I was feeling? What was it that I was actually feeling to begin with? Imagine all the trouble that I went through and it appears that the Devil wasn’t trying to bargain for my soul anymore. A simple person would be happy, salvation is within reach once more but I wasn’t that person. For the devil to give up on you, that’s something.

“Hey, are you okay? Aren’t you happy? Hey, where are you going?”

I walked away, still without saying a word. There was this terrible cold and numbness spreading across my body. I couldn’t move my limbs properly and it was as if I was floating on air. But still what was the sensation? I don’t know. Paralysis? Shock? Relief? Whatever it was, it rid me of my appetite and my taste for conversation for the entire night. More sharing… ever more sharing, baring your soul and innards all throughout the night. If it wasn’t for the students being so self-absorbed with the fact that they are literally divulging every single secret that they had – thus they didn’t have the ability to listen what any other person was saying – then perhaps come the end of retreat all of us would be so bare that we would be stark naked. I can’t pay an iota of attention to the psalms that the retreat masters read, nor the ‘interesting’ life stories that they imparted with us. There was this terrible numbness that hung over me and around me that I simply couldn’t shake off.

Did I tell you that I am a writer? It’s funny though that at this moment I’m doing more talking than writing. I always thought that my words were more composed when I don’t actually utter them. But please, humor me on this one. The point in giving this little trivia is that at that time I was writing a story. I would pretend that it was an epic, and truly believed it was so but although I had the entire plot perfectly scrambling across the twisted pathways within my head it was so difficult to write down something that you have not even experienced. I was stuck with a bit regarding a fountain wherein the two protagonists would meet, exchange doleful glances, and then part ways without a single exchange of words. The clincher is, the moon and night was too magical and enchanting – one wherein the moon really trimmed silver lining at the edges of lifeless objects, making them stir and breathe with life and boring lawns would suddenly transform into a pearlescent sea, that there was no need for words although they were much warranted. I was struggling to write that scene, and that night I saw exactly what I was looking for.

We were led to the small courtyard wherein there was this less than noticeable fountain. To my surprise when all the lights in the retreat house were turned off and we were simply standing there, a hushed and clueless ring of impressionable youths, it was as if the world that I was writing about slowly unraveled my dreams into reality. It was more than perfect.

It is one thing for an expectation to fulfill its highest possibility. For example, if I wish for a DREV987 bike – if ever there is such a thing – and I get the exact thing for Christmas, then the gift is perfect, but when something that you have simply conjured from your imagination appears before you, the very presence of the thing causes vibrations to run like quicksilver through your very being. It is as if you dream something into reality. The very reason why I refuse to forget everything that occurred during those days and nights that we spent there is that I refuse to forget about that fountain. And whenever I felt the sting those times caused that simple image serves as my sheath. Despite the small respite that it offered though, inevitably, the ailment that I harbored that resulted from dealing with the Devil ran its course.

I was never the same, ever. I would always look at the ring that the Devil gave me as a reminder of our bargain. It was a confusing little thing for someone who does not have a one-track mind. Mephisto didn’t notice apparently, with all his cunning and wickedness. I wore it sometimes, but sometimes I forget that I even had it. And with each day that my heart grew weaker, the world got colder, emptier, and more reticent. It was as if all the clocks and timepieces were broken. The days went on too fast even though the minutes took hours to pass. The Devil dutifully hung around, but I could not remember if his tenacity waned or if I simply grew more distant. The Adversary, Joel, believe it or not, take the bid as well and to be fair he was surprisingly poetic for someone who had a fetish for watching films where bodies were cleanly sliced up. For that he truly touched my poetic heartstrings – the choice of words I mean. But he received the same honest answer, “Not now, please. Things are a mess. Can you wait?”

Things really were a mess – that I could be completely truthful about. You see, flying saucepans, kettles, ashtrays and bullets did not offer the same comedy that all those funny movies promised. Whenever such a scene enters into my daily drama I would postpone taking my heart pills. For some skewed reason, I had this idea that if my heart wasn’t working properly during those times then I wouldn’t overwork it. I read from somewhere that our hearts have a finite number of beats installed within them when you get the package delivered. I didn’t want to waste any from unneeded episodes of palpitation. The funny thing in skipping your legitimate drugs though is that the very act of forgetting becomes the habit, and because of the royal mess that I found myself in at a regular basis at that time I can no longer remember when I did and did not take my meds. On that one fated, sorry day of realization, I found myself with a heart that was already too broken to be called a heart.

All of those cheesy songs that rhyme about hearts getting crushed by this girl or that guy are somehow overrated – coming from someone with conclusive experience on the matter. Your heart does not break completely with one single blow from a demented cupid but rather, heartbreaking is a slow and constant process of disfunctionality of one’s heart processes until the tipping point comes and it becomes broken beyond any warranty clauses. Like silent little cracks within a poorly-made building’s structure you won’t know the problems during summertime, but when the rain comes all that you’re left with is the indoor shower. That’s why when the first chance of using it came I didn’t know that it was already broken before I offered it.

Do you know what the only use of a broken diamond is? To chip or polish other diamonds. And you know what bored, overcompensated housewives would always whine about, “Diamonds are forever.” I guess that was what happened when I finally redid the ‘Not now, please. Things are a mess. Can you wait?’ script that I always had up my sleeve for someone far from being the Devil or the Adversary. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t sued for offering something that wouldn’t pass any quality control test. That was the first reminder that I had regarding my failure to take my meds conscientiously. Of course, I would not dare to admit this to my doctor. Little did I know that the period that I allowed this to continu

e has already accosted me too much. The Adversary, the Devil and Etcetera Etcetera had come and gone but it was already too late. Who was to think that I only had a few days left when I finally decided to go through my medicine cabinet? I mean, even I didn’t have a clue. And then, Bam! Dead as 98mph swatted fly could be. Quite a pointless story, isn’t it?

For the final question, I guess it might be something that has been bugging you from the very first time that I decided to speak and waste your time. What is the real difference now that I’m dead? You see, there is some truth in the echoes of things past remaining in spirits. A vengeful spirit relives the dreadful circumstances of its life and thus goes about wreaking havoc. That is the emotion left to it. A lonely spirit, who perhaps has died as a result of some deep sense of misery – the Criers as I would always like to dub them – would go about moaning and groaning beside windows or beds or stairs… whichever strikes their fancy. The emotion left to a wandering spirit cannot be that of joy or contentment, if that’s the case then all that’s left is to go to that white light. The emotions of a spirit cannot change because since the unfortunate chap is already dead there can no longer be some epiphany or great change that would come about to modify its worldview.

I died because I stopped breathing… my heart ceased from beating. Henceforth that shall be the state that I’m left with. I can tell you the entire story wherein the different circumstances of my eventual passing came about, and how Friend, Little Boy, Memnoch and Cheeks played an integral part in it, but it wouldn’t be any fun to tell a story about a character that can no longer change. I can only tell tales now from purgatory and purgatory is not somewhere far flung with piñacoladas and those little umbrellas. No tickets, no passports, no Visas – it’s right here. Contrary to public opinion, the dead walk among you and worry about Value Added Tax like everyone else. Just as I do. There may be some interest in the stories that we tell, but the sad truth in this is that nobody would dare tell us how long we have to linger in purgatory – or if there really is a heaven or hell.

Since there isn’t much point in lying though I can safely say that the dead won’t lie to you. This story is real. It is the story of how my passing began. Pray for me, will you?

A Part of Me

You keep on falling

In this hole

I never meant to dig.

Floundering,

then rising…

Plummeting,

then soaring…

Scratching the edgeless walls,

of this guttural darkness,

as black as perspiring wells

of summer twilights.

You keep on falling.

In this hole

I never meant to dig.

Unceasingly becoming

a part of me.

3rd Letter: Without Addresses, Without Recipients

He stared out the window; his eyes as blank and lifeless as a copper coin. Outside the sky was burning like a purple flame. The molten orange washed down the mountain ranges and disappeared into the shadows of the deep valley. No wind blew and it was as if everything was held still to watch the sun set, but below him vines crept up his window to escape the coming of darkness and found there a dimness greater than the waking evening.

One by one the bottles scattered on the floor lost the reflection of the sun’s dying rays, and as the glint of the last beam was extinguished, all of them vanished amidst the carpet of crumpled papers slumbering on the wooden planks.

He watched the last ember exhale and wrung his hand around the neck of another bottle. He rocked it gently. When he heard no splash inside, he put it back down. Seconds ticked away, minutes passed, but he looked at the mountain ranges as if there was still something to see. All that was left there were humps of shapeless giants against a blacker sky. Skyward, one by one the stars lit up and the moon unveiled itself from the clouds. He looked up.

The moon.

He remembered the moon.

He was lying there on the grass with his arms embracing his shoulders ever so tightly because of the cold. The moon was staring down at him that night and it was so bright that he could not see the stars. Everyone else seemed to be asleep but the cold would not let him. It was seeping in his combat boots and scouring every inch of his skin despite all the shirts and socks that he had on – not to mention his camouflage jacket.

He strained his ears and heard nothing but his beating heart and the whistling of the wind. There had to be something else he could hear or else he’d go mad. He rubbed his hands once again.

And God, this damn cold. It was so hot just this morning.

He turned to his left. Roger seemed to be sleeping so soundly. How could he? He turned to his right and saw Rizza dozing off just the same. So much for the best bivouac of his life. He sat up. There had to be salvation. All around all that he could see were lumps scattered across the grassy mountaintop. Unstirring. Oblivious. Could it be possible that he was just imagining all these discomforts? Perhaps he was going mad.

Then he heard a sigh.

He turned to the sound and saw her sitting up as well. When she saw him she smiled faintly. “It’s quite cold,” she said softly, her voice shaking. “Can’t sleep too?”

He returned the smile, took off his jacket and then handed it to her.

He banged his head on the window. The memory faded. He found another bottle and took a swig. He honestly believed that the warm beer tasted like paper. Did it, or did he just can’t go beyond the scraps lying on the floor? Crumpled letters with no addresses and no person to send it to.

With broken sentences with-

…broken phrases

…and broken words

…and broken thoughts.

He took another swig and then decided to gulp it all down. The alcohol did not hit him the way it used to. He couldn’t remember how long it has been since he lavished moments of sobriety, or distinguish at least which were the moments when he was in or out of drunkenness. He wanted to lose the feel of his limbs and his fingers and for his eyelids to fall shut, but the traitorous alcohol would not pin him down. He knelt down on the floor and looked at the bottles, looking for the dark one. The clanking hurt his ears and the shuffling of the countless balls of paper too.

His fingers finally touched something smooth. Ah, there you are. He unscrewed the cap and took a taste. So much better. He took a couple of gulps and closed his eyes. He laid his head on the floor, grasping a piece of paper in his hand and hoped for a dreamless rest.

Shafts of light escaped from the moon and slid inside his window. The radiance filled the room with a drop of blue luminance. It touched the paper gently, as if it was able to decipher what it contained despite the splotches of beer, saltless tears and deep etches from a heavy pen.

“Anon,

Do you know? I cannot feel anymore. Or else I cannot feel anything else any longer. There is this endless hole at the center of my chest. It consumes everything: the mornings, the afternoons, the evenings. Because of it no sound can reach my ears. It sucks up the light that fills my room. It has consumed all my tears and it would not give them back. I am hollow because of it. I cannot speak, I cannot move away. It has taken all of me and now it is all I have. Without it then there would be nothing else and I would disappear.

It is all that I am now. It has devoured all my other memories and left only those that conjured it in the first place- memories of you. Memories that scathe my waking hours, making me smile at their first seconds and writhe with despair piece by piece every moment afterwards. Memories of you haunt me at every corner. In every place, every object, my thoughts lead me nowhere else but to visions of you. I can’t help but see you everywhere. Your memories are haunting me, killing me slowly. But now the tortures that you cause are all that I have left. Without my grief I am nothing.

Wallowing is my stake at cowardice, but I cannot pull myself to the other end of the river any longer. The current pulls me with such strength that to fight it would be futile. To fight thoughts of you would be futile. They pain me and yet this pain is bittersweet, because in that reverse haven I have you. You and nothing more, nothing else. And if I stay in this limbo you would linger forever.

I feigned courage to make you believe that I can survive life without you, knowing that you somehow felt something for me. But when I poured my feelings out in the letter that I sent to you before you went away, the truth is I poured everything and left nothing to myself. I was so sure that you would return my love and patch up the hole in my heart. But you did not. How could you not do so? Now I am nothing. Now I am no one. I am a drowned person. Drowned in this bottomless well in my chest; drowned with countless bottles of forgetfulness. Drowned too deep and only you can find me. Only you can pull me out.

This means then that I’m drowned forever in this hollow body. Drowned because this is the only way that I have to be forever with you.”

2nd Letter: Raphael

The morning was a rush. Her family was, as usual, running late for their flight to San Francisco so they were constantly running about like headless chickens, phantomly clucking about the time. She, on the other hand, had all her luggage arranged and was more than ready. She was simply waiting for them to tell her that it was finally time to go.

She went back to her room one last time; her beloved sanctum that would soon be abandoned to accommodate distant cousins and relatives that would stay to look after their house. How she would be missing this place. As soon as their dad arranges for them to live with him, the stay may become permanent. Their family would be whole again; whole but far far away from home.

She sank into her bed and remembered just how soft it was. Oh, how she’d lie there every night, wide awake and unable to sleep, then she’d take that precious picture that she had stowed away from a friend’s wallet and hold it close to her. At that moment, everything would simply be alright. She took the same picture from her bag and looked at him. He was smiling there, smiling for her only.

From the sala the frantic voice of her mother called for her, telling her to hurry – please damn hurry – so that they wouldn’t miss their flight. She obeyed and headed out towards their van.

###

The insistent buzzing of the speakers that nagged the passengers to board their respective flights was deafening, especially since her mother was doing her own broadcasting, scolding them for nth time for being late. She didn’t want to speak, savoring the small breath of peace in her silence. It had just been just a day since she left school, but it had seemed as if an eternity had already passed.

He hadn’t called nor replied in some way. It must’ve been just as she had always feared. You’re so stupid, Julia.

“Julia! Julia!” she turned and walked towards her mother’s direction, her head downcast. “Stay close would you! Go off daydreaming again and we’d never get on that plane!”

She looked up, saw the vein at her mother’s temple throb and just turned away. There was more than enough of that kind of stress for a day. Loose conversations and farewell wishes flitted through her mind as she tried to preoccupy herself with the thought of living in another country instead of thinking about her mother’s haranguing… and about the letter. She tried to envision the spear-shaped leaves of spring-time trees lining those boulevards, of the foreign stores and the tourist sights, but the memory of her hand guiding her pen carefully as she wrote on that piece of paper kept on bobbing up in her mind.

She decided to place her gaze elsewhere and look for a more tangible distraction. So many people walked around, so many lights, so many things moving and moving around… and then she saw a familiar face, and everything seemed to fade.

He was walking; looking for something; searching for someone… they were so far yet so impossibly close. She couldn’t speak, her voice caught in her throat; she could only stare at him as he walked. Then finally, he looked towards her direction. When he saw her he stopped and stared. At that moment she wanted to go to him, but he just stood there, looking at her. Not moving. Not speaking. Just seeming like an austere statue looking at her looking back at him. He did nothing and she was left to stare at those eyes that she’d miss so much.

At the far end of her consciousness she heard monotonous announcements fill the air and vaguely felt her mother pulling her away, taking her into the boarding hall. Everything, every sight and sound seemed to slip inside a vacuum, infinitely making no sense. She closed her eyes and felt herself allow her mother to snatch her from the aching that was dampening her thoughts.

Farther and farther away from him she went, and within her sudden oblivion all that she had hoped for was the simple sound of someone calling her name, and she would run to him, but the sound never came.

She drew away and still he just lingered there. So utterly unmoving that the image of him stuck out like a splotch of grime amidst perfect white sheets in a picture that was littered with people hurrying across the halls, walking here and there towards coffee shops, lining up to get in boarding halls and scanning booths with multi-color displays for toys and confectionary presents.

Finally the monotonous announcements ceased.

###

She settled on her window-side seat while inwardly battling with the tears that were vainly trying to escape from her eyes.

“Is there anything wrong?” her mother asked, now thankfully calm and suddenly once again more parent-like.

“No,” she said and absently rubbed her eyes, pretending as though dirt was caught in her thick lashes, and then averted her glance to the small porthole. “Just missing my friends, I guess.”

“Hey, sis, I almost forgot. I took the mail before we left, there are lots for you,” her sister said as she unzipped her bag and handed her an inch-thick pile of letters. “Mom was so psyched out that I forgot to tell you about it.”

She smiled absently and took the letters. Neon envelopes, characteristically colored according to her specific friends’ tastes, hurt her eyes. She shuffled through the others and found that some were pastel, most baby blue or baby pink, and all of them were scented. That’s why when she saw the simple white envelope with a simple print of her name she took notice. She took the letter out and began to read it.

While her eyes went across the words she was smiling yet crying at the same time, and when she finished it she just couldn’t help but let tears stream down from her eyes.

She stared at the letter that was slowly tearing her heart into irreplaceable pieces then gazed with incomparable regret at the sight of the airport turning into a miniature rendition of the actual place as the airplane zoomed up into the sky. How so plainly it reminded her that she can no longer turn back; that she had not turned back when she still could.

“Dear Julia,

I hope that you’d read this letter on time. I feel so stupid to not have at least told you what I feel for you and I know that I’ll always regret the time that I wasted without telling you all this.

I admired you from the first time you sat there next to me. You were almost perfect. I loved watching your eyes sparkle when you laugh and how you smile so brightly. You’re just so beautiful, almost too beautiful for me to grasp the reality that you were real. But now I know that even if I had my eyes closed all this time I would still feel the same way, because I saw your beauty outside as well as inside. I saw how beautiful, how real you are, that I need not think why I have fallen so deeply for you.

Later on I realized that you had your flaws. Yes, you had your crazy moods, your baggy-eyed mornings, your silent tantrums, your bad hair days, but somehow I have seen beyond that and now these are things that could only make you more endearing. I cherish them because they make you more real.

This is quite hard to explain. My heart beats for you; I have no other words for it, but in this strange way, I feel you in there. When I’m beside you, when I utter even the beginnings of a single word, when I wouldn’t even dare to hold your hand but dare to think it – my heart seem to beat faster and faster, filling my veins more and more with this unexplainable passion.

I cannot define what love truly is, but I guess that it cannot simply be a feeling of need and want, because you’ll live even if you do not have these things. Merely needing and wanting leads to selfishness, because they only aim to satisfy a person. I must admit that I need and I want you, but why do I seem to feel that I would die in a life without you in it? That it serves something beyond satisfaction. Maybe that’s love. Maybe it’s something that gives us a gift beyond existence…it makes us learn how to live.

Then I guess that I do love you.

What you are is the reason for the pulsing of my beating heart…and that made me so afraid. I know that you’d be going off to another country after this school year. That crushed my hopes, so I held back, thinking that if I tell you what I feel I may not be able to let you go anymore or that I may have to face the reality that you simply do not love me. I mean, who am I beside you? But despite this thought I was so horrified when I looked into your eyes and thought I saw there tenderness when you looked back at me. Knowing how it could possibly end and what frustration a false assumption could bring, I harbored the fantasy that I would be beside you always in that small classroom…that my dreaming would never cease. But my dread grew and the more that it grew the more I realized that I’m falling helplessly deeper.

Time passes. I know that it’ll never stop moving and I know that the time when you’d have to go would come. But I just couldn’t live with the thought of me not telling you how I feel. I would be willing to endure what pain there is of accepting the reality that you may not feel the same way, but I know that I cannot endure waking up each morning and feel nothing, because my heart had stopped beating.

All that I could say is that I love you Julia. Beyond time, beyond emotion, beyond words, beyond existence…I love you. When it really began, when I realized it, why it is so, I have no way of knowing, but know simply that I do.

If you love me, meet a happy man at the airport tomorrow and he’ll tell you never to go away again. He’ll hold you tight in his embrace and tell you the most honest thing that he knows…that he loves you and that he’d never leave you. But if you do not love me, just cast down your eyes and grieve for a broken man who, at least for a moment’s time, saw himself in the eyes of the one he truly cares for.

Regret nothing, Julia. Whatever choice that lies within your heart I shall accept, for it is from you and it is who you are that I’ve come to love.

Raphael’

1st Letter: Hidden Pages

He dumped his bag on the waxed floor and slapped his thick mathematics textbook on an unoccupied seat. With a sigh, he sat down on his own battered armchair.

The classroom was nearly empty. Understandable since it would only be a few days until classes end, and most of the better students had gone to early vacations. Apparently his seatmate too, Julia, seemed to be one of the early vacationers. Probably that’s the reason why- to his utter dismay – his friend, Arcee, was the one who gave him back the textbook he lent to her.

He tapped his fingers on the crisscrossing vandalisms and took another look around. There were at least fifteen people left – fifteen and not a single person more – all nonchalantly waiting for their teacher to come back from the faculty room and hand out the make-up tests. Each one of them wore a dazed look and none bothered to speak, acknowledging the inconvenience of still having to be there at all.

He shook his head disdainfully.

Perhaps it was pointless to have come after all. And why does the day just have to be so painfully slow? Outside the sun burned mad at the cradle of the cloudless blue sky, causing the electric fans to overwork themselves till they burn out. It was a comfort then that it was a windy day; the summer breeze teasing the sleepy leaves back and forth now and then.

A fleeting thought of dipping in the icy crystalline waters of a certain luxurious beach resort crossed his mind, and it suddenly made the burden of attending these last few days of classes all the more insufferable.

Just as he was about to rest his head on his arm to attempt to take a nap, a vagrant gush of wind blew across the windows, causing the pages of his book to flutter open. He hurried to shut it and save any loose pages from falling out, but a stubborn piece of paper eluded his hands and fell to the floor. He stared at it at first then picked it up. With a curious grin he flipped it open.

A letter. To add up to his surprise of the alien object, for some reason the letter was addressed to him. A pang of apprehension suddenly built up in his stomach, a sickening feeling of the world suddenly turning around and around, and for the first time he felt amazed to see his own name. He thought twice before reading it, but his insatiable curiosity proved to be the stronger urge. With a gulp, he unfolded it and began reading.

“Dear Raphael,

By the time you have read this letter I’d probably be gone. I didn’t have the courage to give this you myself, so I tucked it in your book. I just felt that you deserve to know how much of a great person you are. You really are one of the few people that made my days here really worthwhile. You’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met. You didn’t have to cheer me up when I was down but you did, just by being there next to me.

To all the nonsense that I bothered to talk about, thanks for listening and enduring. It made me know that what I feel actually mattered, and what I think about is worthwhile at least. When I was alone, even though you’d just spurt out some sparing remark or even just cracked a little joke to cheer me up, thank you so much for going out of your way just to make a smile come to my face. Even though it may not seem like such a great effort for others, it really meant a lot to me. You don’t know the happiness of knowing that someone wants to make you smile brings.

For laughing when my jokes were really corny, thank you. A smile like that warmed my heart and completed my day. For reminding me not to do something wrong, thank you; the concern in you saved me. For the little moments we shared, I can’t thank you more than enough, because now those memories have become my lifelong treasures.

Especially, I thank you for being who you are. Finding someone as special as you was the most amazing thing that has happened to me. Nobody is perfect, and I wouldn’t want you to try to be anything but yourself. I’m willing to accept you for everything that you are. Your bad habits, your moods, your faults and your limitations, I’d really want to know them. I know that I’d be willing to accept them and love you more for them.

I wouldn’t ask you to make me someone special for you, can you just be there somehow and I promise you that I would love you. Believe me when I say that if only I can do so, if you’re down I’d comfort you, if you’re sad I’d make you happy, if you’re hurt I’d make it alright. Just as long as you need me I’d be there and even if you don’t, know that I care for you. Even though I’m hurting, I’ll still love you. I love you for who you are, who you were and who you’d be. Even if your future may not contain me my love would still endure. You have become the reason for my imagining, for anything that I know can make me more complete.

Still, I don’t expect you to feel the same way. Love by force isn’t love at all.

I know it might not make sense that I would do this now. I admit that I’m just able to gather enough courage to write this down because we may not see each other again, and so I wouldn’t have to face the possibly hurtful consequences of my actions, but I hope that because of this you may be able to keep me in a small place in your heart; just enough to keep the memory of you and me alive in there. Though it hurts me to be away from you, I guess it’s only fair for me to go because deep in me I had loved you selfishly. I loved you without giving you the chance of knowing, and that is one of the most unfair things that a person can do – to not allow someone to know that they are loved.

Raphael, do you know that it had hurt me to look at you, wanting to keep you, wanting you to be mine and when you stare back I see nothing in your eyes that promises the same feelings? Though it was heart-breaking I know that I’m the only one to blame, because it doesn’t mean that you have to love me back no matter how much I love you.

Maybe if only you had seen what my eyes meant when I looked at you sooner, and looked back, I could’ve given you my everything, but I guess some things are just not meant to be, so I just endured the pain of knowing I’d never be able to keep you.

Just remember…I love you for the pain, I love you for the joy, but most of all I love you for helping to complete me, because all that I am is you.

Love,

Julia”

Even though there was nothing left to read, he couldn’t let go of that piece of paper. A blank stare that bore through the letter snatched his consciousness from all motion. Was there a mistake? Perhaps there was a mistake. Never in his wildest imaginings did he think that something like this would be given to him. He did not even dare to fantasize anything that came close to this. It seemed too much to ask. And from her.

She was that girl who sat next to him, that popular but admirably simple girl in their batch. She was the girl that almost all of his classmates hopelessly revered for her saccharine beauty and her unpretentious kindness. She was perfect and without saying it out loud so many seem to gauge themselves and knew that any attempt to be beside her was useless. And she gave a letter like this to him? Confessing her feelings to him? But he was a mere surname that their teacher barked out each painstaking class session. He was just him.

He stayed that way for the longest time, frozen with disbelief despite the sweltering heat. Then he took out an envelope from his bag and held on to it tightly. It was a letter, a confession of seemingly hopeless love…

From him to her.