He killed

so that you may live!

watch this space...

billy and the purple cow

billy doesn't smile. he doesn't talk to anyone. it's not that he can't talk, he just stopped talking ever since his mommy died. when he is at school, he goes about the activities quietly. his classmates have learned to accept that although he plays with them, he just wouldn't talk.

one day, the teacher mrs. bell and her assistant take the children to the toy museum. the children take in the exhibits with excitement and each child wishes he or she would have such and such toys. at the very moment billy sees the purple cow, he smiles and points it to the boy next to him. the boy laughs because who wants to play with a purple cow? the other children laugh, too. billy shrugs his shoulders and stays where the purple cow is displayed. 

"hello, billy." billy hears someone say. he peers closely at the purple toy cow and sees that it is smiling at him. he rubs his eyes in disbelief and when the purple cow tells him "boo-yah!" and laughs, billy starts to laugh, too. when he passes the gift shop, he hears a "psssst!" and he sees the purple cow standing on top of a heap of toys with a 'clearance' sign. "buy me!" it says. but billy only has four quarters in his pocket. the manager sees billy and asks billy what he wants to buy. billy looks at the cow then shows his four quarters to the manager. the manager smiles, goes around the counter to the cash register and rings in a sale of $1.00. billy puts the four quarters on the counter and takes the purple cow with him.

"what do you want to do?" asks the purple cow. "i want to see my mommy," replies billy.

outside, there is a sudden downpour and mrs. bell and the children have to stay in the bus shelter and wait for the rain to stop. it does not take long and the sun peeks through the grey clouds. billy turns around and sees the most beautiful rainbow he has ever seen. he looks at the purple cow in his hand, it is smiling at him. billy smiles, too, and he turns to mrs. bell and points at the rainbow. "look, mrs. bell," billy says to everyone's surprise, "there's a rainbow!" mrs. bell and everybody was happy that billy is talking. billy looks again at the purple cow in his hand, and he hears it say, "your mommy is in heaven, billy, and she's smiling at you through the rainbow." billy smiles and waves at the rainbow! all the children start to wave at the rainbow, too!
- © vikki summerfield 2014

chaos in my mind

"Sometimes I think I hear voices. Sometimes faint. Sometimes loud."

My family doctor eyes me coldly before she asks "Is everything okay at home?"

I answer "Yes."

"How about at work?"

I answer "Yes."

"Do you have financial problems? Is money short, things like that?"

"Don't we all?" is my reply.  Doc looks at me as if to say, just answer, so I say, "Only when I have no money." Doc rolls her eyes.

"Are you with someone? Are you concerned that you are getting old?" I take a deep breath and gave a sigh. "Yes but no, and no but yes."

Doc shares her head, purses her lips and wrinkles her nose. I don't think she's catching on to my humour.

"I'm seriously thinking that you are suffering from depression," she declares after a while.

"But, Doc, what about the voices?"

"What about the voices? What do the voices tell you?" she says this with an obvious annoyance in the tone of her voice.

 "Well, sometimes it's telling me about Virginia Woolf."

Doc looks at me like I have three eyes and five noses.

"You don't know Virginia Woolf?"

"Of course I know Virginia Woolf, I read her in college. Is there a history of mental health issues in the family?"

"Hmmmm...." I scratch my chin and think. "None that I know of, but who knows? Although a long time ago," I continue, "we had a neighbour who was hauled off in a straight jacket." Doc shakes her head again.

"Were you related to that neighbour?"

"Hell, no, 'twas just a neighbor. Never even knew the name, I was still little then. Although it could be a relative. You know, my tribe's elders were all very secretive or they were in denial about most things, especially anything about mental health or illness. They didn't like being ostracized." I shrug my shoulders as I say this.  Doctor stares at me like I should be put in a straight jacket myself. She types something on her computer, prints it and hands me the paper - it is a prescription for Larozapam or some damn drug that probably would make me fall asleep and forget about being alive.

"That should help you calm down and get to sleep better." She stands up, hinting the consultation is finished.

"Buff! and here I thought I just have ear infection or some damn thing."

I leave the clinic and thank the nice perky receptionist on the way out.

analyze this

The last three mornings, I woke up at exactly 6:27 on the clock, from the same dream.

I am walking on flood water, my feet are tired, which means I have been walking for quite a while. Strange thing about the flood water, it is clear; clear like tap water. I hear the jingling of coins and I look around and there are dimes and nickels everywhere.

In the first dream, I hear a voice and I turn my head. I see Benjamin standing against a wall. He's wearing a faded army green golf shirt. I do not see his face, yet I know it is him. I wake up.

The second time the dream repeats, I see Benjamin again. This time he turns around and looks at me. I call his name. I wake up.

This morning, as I go through the dream sequence, I resolve to not wake up so I know what happens. Benjamin's face is serious. He is not his usual self. Benjamin always smiles. Facing him, I touch his arm, the lean yet strong arms that once held me when we were young. He smiles at me, briefly. Why the sad face? I ask. He turns his head and just like that his image fades away from me.

I did not want to open my eyes; I willed myself to go back to sleep. I could see the clear water, it is cold. I could hear the jingling of the coins. I could see a shadow, Benjamin's I reckoned, walking away. I heard a loud ringing. It was my phone. I looked at the digital clock on the table by the foot of the bed. 6:27, the red letters almost fading in the bright morning sunshine.

In the shower, it came to me. A realization. A recollection. It was the same dream I had dreamed when I was still a young girl, barely ten years old. I stood in the middle of the bathtub, water running down my skin like tiny rivers. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to look back at that dream. Was there more that I forgot?

I finished my shower. As I stepped out of the bathtub, I jammed my knee on the edge and I almost lost my balance. I grabbed hold of the towel rack. For a split second, the whole bathroom spinned and I thought I was going to have vertigo yet again. Then it dawned on me: I saw Ben in my dreams eight years before I met him. Why would I have to remember this after fifty years?

My best friend in high school, Carmencita, and I did an experiment for a year. We recorded the times we thought of each other when we were not in school. We kept a log in our notebooks and would compare them the next day. She used her wrist watch, but because I didn't have one, I depended on the radio or the little cuckoo clock on our kitchen wall. Our logs showed that we thought of each other at almost the same time, sometimes a minute or two off. We also logged what we were thinking at the time and ninety percent of the time, we thought of the same things.

Could it be that I have been thinking of Benjamin a lot lately? I couldn't understand why. I didn't want to attribute it to my age. Or maybe he's thinking about me.

I am wary of going to bed, I don't want to dream the dream if it's a harbinger of things to come.

 

a family portrait

Cristina barely smiled when I walked in. She pretended to re-arrange the stack of glass coasters on the coffee table. I walked towards her. She straightened up and looked at me like I was a complete surprise which of course I wasn’t: they were expecting me. I extended my hand to shake hers, “How are you, Cristina ?” I said.

She limply took my hand, like I was some kind of a leper or something.

“Fine.” Despite the 35 degrees heat, I felt her coldness.

“Okay,” I said, pretending to ignore her icy reception. I looked around the small living room, examined the furniture and the frames hanging on the walls.

"Who should I shoot first?" I laughed to emphasize I was joking.

Benjamin looked at Cristina as he took her hand and made a shooting gesture towards his chest; his lips in a playful smile.

“We can start with Cristina or me first or both?” he said, more like a question rather than a statement.

“Good. Both of you stand right there,” I said even though I felt a small fang of jealousy gnawing inside. I tell myself I musn’t feel jealous. For God’s sakes, they’re married! I was just the ex-girlfriend, I reminded myself.

I asked permission to move the coffee table to one side. Benjamin quickly did it for me. I got them to stand together with the sunlight coming from the window to their right. It gave a soft shadow on half of their faces: Benjamin enthusiastically smiling, Cristina stretching her lips feigning a smile.

I took a few tentative shots and checked them on the monitor and showed them to Benjamin, who gushed at every shot, but Cristina showed no interest at all. I set up my tripod on the opposite end of the room and gave instructions to the two of them: smile, look at him, look at her, your arms around her shoulder. At some point I took Benjamin’s hands to put on Cristina's shoulder just enough to make his fingers visible in the photograph.

After several minutes, Benjamin left the room to get the grandkids. I sat beside Cristina on the couch.

“Cristina , I’m not your enemy nor am I here to take Benjamin away from you.”

"I know," she said.

"Couldn’t we forget about the past? Or, try forgetting it for a while? I’m really here as a friend. I really want to be your friend, too, not just his."

She looked away, I thought I saw a tinge of guilt but when she spoke, in her halting English and Tagalog, I saw the hurt in her face.

"No, you’re not the enemy," she said quietly. "I am." She pointed towards her chest, her heart.

"I don't understand." I felt quite puzzled.

"He might have married me, but I know he never stopped loving you. You’re always there between us." She turned to look outside. "I feel it, I know it." Outside the roofs of houses nearby seemed to spew steam. Manila was searing in 35 degrees heat.

"Ben and I are just friends, that’s how I feel about him. Honest."

"But that is not how he feels about you. He thinks of you every time. He tells me in more than words. He reminds me by his actions. I know when you’re near, even when he doesn’t know you’re in town. You are like an impending storm in the horizon. You send the breeze of your presence just before you show up. You have this effect on him that I never understood. That I could never equal, that I could never match."

I deliberately did not say anything, trying to digest what I just heard.

"And yet," she continued after a brief moment, "I want him to be happy and if that’s what makes him happy, that is enough for me."

"You are lucky," I said. "You have him. You bore his children. You make his breakfast every morning. You lay beside him in bed every night. For more than half of your life. I never had that. All I have is memories of us when we were young. And there’s not a lot of those memories."

"That maybe so. How would you feel when, in a moment’s passion, your lover calls another woman’s name?"

I pulled my upper body away from her, my one eyebrow arched upwards, and examined her face. “You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

"All of our thirty five years together, Cynthia."

I sat beside her with my mouth open. I did not know what to say.

Just then a little boy more or less three years old, came rushing in and ran straight to Cristina's arms. She took him and hugged him and kissed him then hugged him again. The boy stared at me and smiled. I saw Benjamin’s smiling eyes in him. I got up and checked my camera. Cristina now smiled as I took three shots. Benjamin came in and sat beside her and the boy slipped from her to Benjamin’s lap.

“Smile!” I said, peering into the eyeview finder of my Nikon. Benjamin and the little one both smiled. But I was surprised when Cristina stole a kiss on Benjamin’s forehead as I pressed my shutter.

A Secret (revised)

I didn't know she was home. The apartment was quiet. Her bags weren't in the usual place beside the sofa, and I thought I was alone. I sat on the sofa and settled my feet on the ottoman, shoving a fresh issue of Architectural Digest to one side. There was an eerie quality to the quietness, but I supposed it's the gray of the skies reflecting through the windows.

I shut my eyes and for the first time in so many days, I felt I could fall asleep. I was on the verge of this sleep when I thought I heard faint sobbing. I opened my eyes and got up. The sobbing came from Jeanna's work room. I walked slowly towards it and the sobbing gradually became more audible. It was Jeanna.

The door was ajar and I pushed it open. I saw her kneeling down on the floor, in front of the lowest drawer of the tallboy, the drawer that was always locked and only she had the key. Her head almost touched the floor, her back to me, her shoulders moving as she sobbed. I heard her speak, as if in prayer. Then I heard the words "I love you! I will never stop loving you." I noticed she was hugging something.

"Jeanna?" I reached down and touched her shoulder. "What's wrong, darling?"

She jumped in surprise. She turned her face towards me, eyes red, face wet with tears. Then I saw what she was holding: an old frame. It dropped from her hands in her panic. The glass broke into small pieces. I reached for the light switch and flipped it on.

The photograph was old. In the photograph, a good looking man with dark blonde hair and crooked teeth, was smiling. This was the secret hiding inside that locked drawer. I looked at Jeanna. She had wiped her tears and her eyes blazed.

"What are you doing here? Do you not know how to knock?" There was no mistaking the coldness in her voice. She was a different person than the Jeanna I knew as my wife.

"Well," I started. "I heard a noise, sobbing really. I didn't know you were home." I could feel her intent gaze as I spoke, my eyes focused on the photograph on the floor, at the smiling man. "Who is that?"

She darted towards me. I heard broken glass cutting into flesh, her feet. There was blood on the floor. Her eyes still blazing, she started to pound my chest with her fists. "You have no right!" she yelled. "Why can't you leave me alone? You have no right to see me like this! You're not supposed to see me like this!"

She pounded and pounded and I let her. Only then did I understand: all these years, there's a man in a locked drawer in my house who actually had her affection, her heart. All these fifteen years. She had it well hidden in that locked drawer. I respected her privacy and even when she had left the drawer keys dangling from the lock that one afternoon in May, I fought the temptation to open it and find out her secret. Yes, I had often seen her, on her knees, staring inside that drawer. To me it looked like she was saying some kind of devotion to a hidden diety. But she said she loved me, so many times, and I believed her, even when sometimes I knew the words were empty.

She stopped pounding and fell on the floor. The pieces of broken glass unkindly cut at her knees, her legs and her hands. She wailed as she looked at her hands, blood running like crimson rivers down her arms.

"Who is this person, Jeanna?" She reached for the photograph, palm right smack on the man's face, now all bloodied. "Goddamnit, I demand to know who this is!"

"No one," she yelled. "No one!"

"But you're crying because of him. Why?" I thought of the "boyfriend from another lifetime who had died"; at least that's what she had always told me. What was his name? Erick? Jandrick?

She held the blood-stained photograph to her chest. On the floor, broken pieces of glass scattered like diamonds and rubies.

"I loved him so much. He was the only one. HE IS THE ONLY ONE," she muttered. "And now he's gone. He died last night."

It doesn't make sense.

"I thought you said Jandrick died a long time ago."

"No. He's been alive all this time."

And I thought I was competing with the memory of a long ago dead boyfriend.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. That was when I felt the stab in my heart. It had been there for a long time and I only noticed the pain now. Maybe it was I who had died a long time ago and I just didn't know it. It was then I realized our marriage was a farce; or maybe there was even no marriage at all.

I left the room. I pulled out an overnight bag from the hall closet and went inside the bedroom. I threw in some clothes. I refused to stay in this house of pretend love and dead emotions.

As I opened the door, I heard her say, "Where are you going?"

I looked at her and said, "When I come back in two days, I want you out of here. Bring the photograph with you."

I started to leave. "And oh, yes, you should call your lawyer."

I walked out and didn't look back.

it's just another new year's eve

The text message came at almost seven this morning. "Happy new year," it said.

I knew who sent it. My mind went back to that last morning that Benjamin and I went jogging by the seaside, the sunrise shining on Manila Bay whose waters sparkle under the blue sky.

We were sitting at one of the restaurant tables one morning after our jog. He was well aware that it was my last day and we sat and chat a lot longer that day.

"What if it had been us?" he said, lips smiling, but his eyes almost seemed sad.

"You would have left me after a few years," I replied.

He turned, the disappointment evident in his face. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I could never have children. And you men want to have children." I stretched a leg to another chair nearby, avoiding his gaze.

"You know I am not like that."

Did I hurt his feelings? I thought not. He was simply declaring.

"I know you're not. But your life wouldn't be complete without children," I said, briefly glancing at him.

"When you love someone," I heard him say, then he corrected himself, "When I loved you, it was unconditional."

I straightened up, leaned across the table from him and looked at him square in the eye. "Do you still love me?"

He made a brief chuckle and joked about the seriousness of my face. I eased back into my chair. We laughed together while he fiddled with his Blackberry, put on a song that was part of a file I gave him the day before, then placed the Blackberry between us on the table, Eydie Gorme blaring, competing with the sounds of the waves and the drone of the people around, along with helicopter sound above and the traffic behind us.

"I'm constantly thinking about you." He mumbled something else.

Our eyes locked for a moment before we burst into another giggling fit.

"I heard that. Rockin' solid, man! I heard that!" I said in between giggling and breathing.

His face suddenly became serious.

"Is that true, what you just said?" I asked, my voice uncharacteristically softer and lower.

He looked at me and smiled, a sad smile, I reckoned.

"What does your wife say about that?" I asked.

He stretched his legs as he relaxed, took the Blackberry and put on a Lani Hall song. I Don't Want You To Go blared between us.

disappointment

Why is it that you do not make my heart beat faster now that we're together?

I swear we are two different people from last spring - when I was so excited to hear your voice, when I missed you when you didn't call or text me, when just the mere ringing of the phone filled me with anticipation and imagining it was you calling.

You touch me and I shiver - from disgust. I force myself to reach out and touch you, caress you, but inside my senses are revolting.

You're not who I have built up to be in my mind. You do not sound like him. You do not smell like him. You do not speak like him. You do not feel like him. Him. The you who I thought I love.

When I take my clothes off, I feel shame. My body looks good, my skin feels smooth, but I feel shame when you touch me. When you kiss me, I want to vomit. When I down the cocktail, it is to cleanse my mouth and to blur my senses so I could have physical contact with you.

So when you have said that it would make things difficult for both of us, inside I rejoice. When I withdraw my hands from your neck, I rejoice. When I grab my clothes and cover my body, I rejoice. You are still holding my arm as I walk away to put my clothes on. You think you may have offended me, but fireworks go inside my head. I feel the elation that the protesters showed on TV upon learning that Ghadaffi has died. That is how bad it is being with you. That is my measuring stick being there alone with you.

I laugh so loud after I get out of the room and close the door. Good thing the pool is only a few feet away. I am still laughing when I dive into the water, and water enters my mouth and nose, my head aches but I am happy. Ghadaffi's dead, and I don't love you.

I feel so happy that after two laps, I jump and pump my fist up in the air!

"Yes! Yesssss!!"

I think that you know how I feel. But you don't want to admit it to yourself or to me. I love you in my own distorted way, only I want that thirty thousand miles between us. I love the idea of loving you, the you I knew forty years ago. You are no longer that you. And it is that you that I hold dear and won't forget. I'm sorry that I came for you but instead found somebody new.

Thank you for setting me free. Please don't call me anymore.

how it should be

You're standing on the other side of the street, smoking your nth cigarette. You look up at the balcony of the big white house when you sense the french doors open. Someone walks out and the clothes lines criss-crossing the balcony move. You see a pair of hands picking out the clothespins and you hear the sound they make as they hit what you suspect is a plastic pail, little thuds. A clothes pin is gathered then thrown on the pail. You see one hand now, holding a rag and running it through the length of the clotheslines, one at a time. Your heart flutters as you see the top of the person's head, black hair clipped into a tiny pony tail. You only see the back of the head, the clip is black, plastic. You hear a voice, you relax, it's not HER.

The gate below opens and you hear chatter of female voices. Your heart flutters some more, you inhale the last of the cigarette stick you hold in your hand. You adjust your wrap-around sunglasses and pretend you're not looking, that you're looking to your left, at the oncoming traffic, but your eyes are actually looking at the gate.

Then you see HER. Deep red blouse, loose enough that it sways in the gentle morning breeze. Long skinny black skirt. Bare white legs. Silver coloured flat shoes. She comes out of the gate, one hand clutching her shoulder purse, the other holding a large bag with a famous logo. Large sunglasses that reflects everything around her. You cannot see her eyes. For a while you thought she was looking or staring at you. She stops right outside. You see her lips stretch into a shy smile.

You pretend to look away and ask yourself, can she see me? Is she smiling at me? Then you look again. She is still standing there, on the other side of the street, just outside the property's gate. Your heart flutters once again. You know she's looking at you.

She crosses the street, towards you. A taxi passes by, then another. She stops in the middle of the road when she thinks a vehicle is not about to let her through. She finishes crossing the street and walks towards you. You slowly put your hand inside your jacket, pull your gun and before she could say a word, you pull the trigger. Shoot her. Right through the heart. You see her slowly fall, down on her knees, hand clutching her chest, the purse still on her shoulder, the large bag on the pavement.

You walk away, dial a number on your cellphone. You hear it ringing. A voice answers. "She's out of the way." Then you hit the off button. A passing bus slows down and you get in. You relax.

facing my demons - 8

We all have demons that at some point in our lives we must face.

"There's no couch!" I say, jokingly, to Dr. Allery, a rotund woman in her late fifties.

"No. No couch," she smiles. "I don't want my patients falling asleep on me."

She motions me to a leather swivel chair. It feels soft and smells new and I see the reason for the absence of a couch. The cold air and the comfortable chair make me want to fall asleep.

She pulls a thin dossier from her side drawer and opens it. She adjusts her reading glasses so that they sit atop her nose. "Hmmm." She smiles. "This is very interesting," she says as she taps her well-manicured fingernail on the paper in front of her. I had sent her a long e-mail, three pages of single spaced text with small font, explaining the circumstances around which I would like to see her for a consultation.

"Tell me about your father," she says after a while, taking off her glasses and putting them on top of the dossier and leaned back on her high-backed leather chair.

I squint my eyes, not understanding why she would want to know about my father when I needed to understand why I had buried Richard's memories and get upset over them after thirty-some years.

"I don't have a problem with my father." I am telling her the truth in the context of my present problem.

Dr. Allery nods and smiles, but says, "What was he like and what was your relationship with him like?"

facing my demons - 7

We all have demons that at some point in our lives we must face.

I had a recurring dream since I was seven.

In the dream, I am swimming in a large swimming pool with very blue and clear water. Once in a while I would stop and I could see, beyond the trees lush with green leaves and their fruits, the blue waters of Laguna de Bay. The pool slopes down the hill and I wonder how the pool water does not flow out at this sharp slope. Someone jumps on the pool and I am in the middle of an endless sea. There is no land in sight and despite the calming blueness of the water I panic. I try to swim until I get tired but I do not give up. The sky changes from blue to gray as dark clouds gather and a fierce wind blows. I panic some more. Sometimes I feel a force pulling me under but I fight it because I know I must keep my head above water. The force gets stronger. I see Richard swimming calmly a few feet away. I try to call him but no sound comes out of my mouth. When finally he looks at me, his eyes look angry and he swims away. I swim, too, frantically now, but towards the opposite direction. Now I could see the outline of mountains and trees. And an island. I swim towards it but no matter how hard I swim the island just seems to move away. Suddenly, I hear a voice.

"Here," and I see a large white hand.

Just as I am about to grab it, I see Richard, now on a small boat but he is not looking at me.

The force underneath me swirls and I feel myself sinking. I call Richard's name but he turns his head away. I desperately grab at nothingness and the water starts to pull me down.

"Take my hand," I hear the voice again. The voice belongs to an old man with fair skin and a beautiful, engaging smile.

"I can't," I say, but I grabbed his hand anyway.


I forgot about that dream until one day when Richard and I had just finished making love and I remembered it. Richard did not appear in the dream until we started dating. In my culture, we had the belief that dreams were the harbinger of the opposite things to come. He told me he did not believe in dreams and he attributed it to my strained relationship with my father. The conversation was forgotten promptly. It would be months before I would have met Dave and the dream would come back two more times.

facing my demons - 5

We all have demons that at some point in our lives we must face.

Richard had called earlier during the day wanting to meet that night. Dave was out of the country on a business trip. Richard sounded reasonable and reconciliatory over the phone. I already knew from one of his friends that he was leaving for the States in a few months. I agreed to meet him after my Law class and he came to pick me up at the university. He drove a white Volkswagen Beetle, his brother's, he said. Was I hungry, he had asked. Let's go somewhere special, he said, not waiting for my reply. We drove in silence, the radio blared some dancey tune. I felt tired, working full time and studying with a full load in law. I looked out the car window seeing the city in a different view from the low passenger seat of the Beetle.

I was not expecting it but at the same time I was not surprised when Richard drove the car through the open gates of one of the middle class motels that we used to frequent. The food there was good and the rooms were immaculately clean, and each suite had its own carport. Up to that point, I still had a soft spot in my heart for Richard. And the guilt I felt for being unfaithful to him was very strong. I had been blaming myself for everything. I thought that was how things should be.

"Why do we have to come here?" I asked, not moving from my seat.

"Because you like the food here, remember?" he said, and there was a tinge of tenderness in his usually impatient voice. I thought it strange. He got out of the car and said, "Come on."

I stayed put, trying to think. I had cheated on him with Dave, if something happened to us that night, would I be cheating on Dave? I did not hear the passenger door open, all I felt was the abrupt pulling of my arm.

His face was grave, he wasn't smiling. "Come on! Let's go inside!"

Although hesitant, I got out of the car. He was holding my right upper arm rather tightly and I asked him to let go. He started to kiss my neck, his one arm around my waist. "I love you," he said. "I love you. Don't you love me anymore?" I started to cry, from the guilt. From confusion. From fear.

I went with him inside the motel suite. I sat on a chair by the formica topped dining table in the ante room of the suite. The air conditioning cold and darkness of the room seemed ominous. My fears were alleviated, temporarily, when he sat down beside me, put his arm around my shoulders and rubbed my arm comfortingly while he browsed the menu card and gave the waiter our order.

While we waited for the food to arrive, he made a small talk about the people at the office, what they've been up to, some sending me their regards, etc. The food arrived after fifteen minutes. He told the room boy he would take care of things. The room boy left and Richard was quick to lock the door. I picked on my food while he talked in between bites. I waited until there was a lull in the conversation.

"Sonia told me you're leaving for the States. How come you never told me anything about this?"

"I have mentioned that to you quite a few times," he said, his eyes on the food.

"No, you never have. If Sonia didn't slip about it, I wouldn't have known." I stabbed a piece of the meat I had cut and examined it. "All these times, you never had any intention of..." I let my sentence trail.

"I didn't want you to stick it out with me just for that," he said, in what I thought was a most casual way. I felt my ears and my face redden.

"Just for what? The chance to live in the States?" His head jerked when I raised my voice. "How many times did we talk about that topic? I meant it when I said I never want to go to the States. How dare you think that I am just hanging around just so I could have that opportunity."

"I plan on coming back for you."

"I have means of going to the States, but I refuse to use those means, because I don't want to use those means. I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO THE STATES! Why can you not believe that?"

I stood up and grabbed my bags. In an instant he was on his feet, tightly gripping my arms. I was too hurt, inside and outside, to resist.

"You insulted me by thinking I am here just so you can take me to the States. Hah! Take somebody else, take Sonia maybe. Something's happening between the two of you, I know."
I felt a slap in my face. I broke down trying to brave the pain. I tried to pull my arm away from his grip. He put his arms around me and tried to kiss me, at the same time half-dragging me to the bedroom. From the strain of work, school, home and relationship problems, I passed out. When I came to, I was naked, Richard was putting on his pants and then threw my clothes at me. I felt exhausted and my whole body hurt. I felt sticky in my groin and throbbed inside. When I realized what happened, I sat up on the bed.

"You didn't use a condom?"

"Do you let Dave use a condom?"

I stormed out of the bedroom into the bathroom, and washed myself until my skin hurt and the little soap bar broke into pieces. He came in and pulled me up from the tub, gently this time and wrapped me with the thick motel towel. I didn't say anything. I wasn't thinking of anything. All I wanted was to put my clothes back on and leave. He even helped me put on my clothes, but made a remark: "You're no longer as tight as you used to be, you know." I ignored him. He slipped his hand underneath my skirt but I pushed him away.

I asked him to have someone call for a taxi for me. He needn't bring me home. He called the operator and asked for a taxi.

The next day, he called me at the office when I was about to leave for school. He asked how I was feeling. I said I was fine.


In Criminal Law that night, the class deliberated on the topic of "Rape, What Constitutes Rape and What is Statutory Rape." The irony was that I got top marks in the discussion period.

facing my demons - 4

We all have demons that at some point in our lives we must face.

“Will you please stop crying?” he said after a few minutes. “He might think I'm doing something bad to you.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the waiter who peeked at us from his POS machine. I also noticed that a man wearing a necktie, sort of an office manager type person, came around and had a hushed conversation with the waiter.

Still sobbing, but calmer, I gave a small laugh. “I know,” I said, “if something happens to me later on, they’ll be giving your description to the cops. That's how it is around here.”

We sat at the table silently for a long time, I tried to stop my sobbing and Richard kept staring at me.

“Did you ever get married?” he asked after a while. “Sam said he couldn’t figure out whether you are or not. Sutherland wasn’t Dave’s name, if I remember it right.”

“I never believed in marriage. I only allowed myself to believe in it when we were dating. Before we started dating, I had two minds about marriage. Seen too many bad ones. And with Dave, I figured it’s much easier to leave when there are no ties or binds. So I can go when I want to go.” I put emphasis on the ‘when I’ by articulating it a tad louder.

“May I ask you something?” he said quietly.

I looked at him, trying to guess what he might want to ask me.

“Are you hungry?” he asked and smiled. I chuckled.

I thought about it for a long while before I gave him a shrug of my shoulders. He looked around.

“But maybe we should just stay here, there’s not a lot of people. It’s more quiet.”

Another shrug.

He called the waiter and told him we were going to order. We decided on a vegetarian pizza. All the while, Richard stared at me. I knew he was searching for something in the way he stared. Whenever I met his gaze, I would only smile.

Then when we were almost finished eating, he cleared his throat and asked, “Did you have any children?”

It was not an unusual question for people to ask after not seeing one another for thirty years. But the question felt loaded. Somehow I knew there was more to it than what I was hearing - something I could not quite put my finger on.

I drew a deep sigh, looked at him then looked around. He was waiting for an answer.

I sipped my iced tea. The answer wasn't a hard one, but there was something in the back of my mind that was screaming at me and I couldn't understand why.

"Why do you ask?" I finally asked back. "Why do you want to know?"

He started to say something, I could hear him clearly, but I couldn't understand. Something in my mind exploded. What came out of my mouth sounded too strange for me.

"You son of a bitch," I said. "You fucking raped me!"

Richard sat frozen, his jaws rigid and his eyes went dark.

facing my demons - 3

We all have demons that at some point in our lives we must face.

I recognized Richard right away. His hairline receded a bit and he gained weight on his waistline. He still wore glasses.

I pretended to be busy working on my laptop on a table at the farthest end of the restaurant. I wore my Jackie Onassis sunglasses and I had my hair up. I had my hair curled so the stray strands not caught by the large clip fell on my face. The sun shone brightly and sunlight flooded the restaurant. Richard looked in my direction, hesitated before settling on the table at the opposite end of the room. I doubt he could see my eyes looking at him as my head was slightly bowed looking at my laptop.

I had my cellphone on vibrate so that when it rang, the water in my drinking glass stirred. I picked it up as I looked outside. It was Richard.

“Is that you?” he asked not waiting for me to say hello.

“It depends,” I said. “Is that you?” then I smiled and lifted my head so that my face was facing towards him. “Are you here? I’m at the very end of the restaurant, on the corner. Right outside me is a fountain.”

He hang up without saying anything. Then he stood up and walked towards me. He wasn’t smiling. I was.

“Hi,” I tried to put some cheer in my voice, although I almost swallowed my tongue from nervousness.

“How are you?” he asked in Tagalog when he was almost near my table.

I stood up and held out my hand to shake his. I was determined for a tight grip but his was tighter and I said “Ouch!” as I pressed my hand onto my left hand. “Aw!”

“I was fine before you crushed my finger bones,” I said smiling and wincing at the same time. “How are you?” I said as we sat down.

“You still look the same, although you’ve gained just a little bit of weight. You haven’t aged much.”

“Thank you,” I said, sing-songing the ‘you’.

The waiter showed up and I asked him what he would like to drink. He replied still in Tagalog, “a little bit later on”. He was looking at me intently, at my eyes through my dark glasses. “Can you take off your sunglasses?”

“It’s too bright in here. And I'm prone to migraine...” I said as I slid my sunglasses up my hair. I felt naked as he stared at my face. When he didn’t say anything, I said, “Please don’t look at me like I am the ugliest person on earth.” I heard my voice crack just a little bit. I swallowed.

“You’re still pretty,” he said. He pushed himself on the backrest of the chair, his eyes never leaving my face.

I stretched my lips and raised my eyebrows in a playful manner before I thanked him for the compliment. I closed my laptop and put it in my briefcase.

“So why did you want to see me?” he asked.

“I want to mend fences with you, Richard.” I took my glass of iced tea and sipped at it. “I may not have long to live and I don’t want to die knowing someone is angry with me.”

“Why, are you sick or something? Sam said you were okay.”

“Of course I’m okay. And I’m not sick. I’m just thinking, I am old and I can’t wage any more wars with anyone. So I want to call a truce with you.”

“I came back for you. I was looking for you.” His voice was grave.

I stretched my mouth again and drew a deep sigh.

“I lived in the same place all my life before I left for Canada. When I moved, my brother and my father were left there. If you had gone to Malibay, you would have known where I was.” I shook my head a little bit. “Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.”

His face became dark, his eyes burning. “I did, I went back to the office twice and no one could tell me where you were. Maybe you told them not to tell your whereabouts.”

“I never asked anyone to do that.” My voice was now flat and quiet.

It was a relief when the waiter came and asked if we are ready to order. I smiled at Richard and asked him, “Are we going to have dinner or do we want just drinks?”

He hesitated. “I’m okay,” he said to the waiter.

“Beer?” I asked him. “Do you not drink beer anymore?”

“No.”

“Give me another glass of iced tea, please.” The waiter nodded and went off.

“Sam told me you’re now happily married with two daughters. I’m so glad for you…”

“Are you?” he cut me off. “Are you really glad for me?”

I met his gaze and I leaned slightly across the table and told him, “Yes, I am. And I expected you to be happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you. To find the woman who would make you a happy man. Why is that so hard for you to believe? Do you really think that I am so evil that I can’t wish that for you?”

He pushed himself back, maybe surprised at my display of aggressiveness. When we were young, I would never have dreamed of doing such a thing. I was subservient to all his wishes. But we were no longer young now, and I obviously had grown out of the subservient shell.

“Well, do you?” I said as I slowly leaned back on my own chair.

I suddenly felt very emotional and almost on the verge of crying. My face felt flushed. I drew another deep sigh and took another sip of the iced tea. My hands shook, as evidenced by the tiny clinking of the ice cubes in my glass.

“I know I did something very wrong and I’m ready to ask for forgiveness. But you must be big enough to admit that all of that wasn’t my fault. I didn’t set out to be unfaithful to you, but have you ever asked yourself that maybe you did something that made me act that way? I say I am not perfect, I wasn’t perfect. But did we do enough to correct whatever was wrong with that relationship?”

He didn’t say anything. He sat there, staring at me and like the old times, I could not tell nor read what was in his mind. Maybe that was what was wrong with us then.

“In any case,” I said now with a much calmer voice, “all I want is to be friends with you. You can tell me now, how horrible a person I was. But when you go back home, I want you to think how you can forgive me for whatever sin I had committed, and I would do the same, because, Richard, you did some horrible things to me, too. You probably don’t remember, but you did.”

“Like what?” he said quietly.

“I won’t enumerate them now, because I tried and succeeded in forgetting them. All I want is for you to say, you’re okay, and you can forgive me for whatever it was I had done, and we can be friends again. We don’t have to be chummy-chummy friends, but friends nonetheless.”

“I loved you. I loved you with all my heart.”

I thought he said “loved”. After all it was in the past.

“I loved you then, too, with all my heart. I gave myself to you unconditionally. For God’s sakes, I almost gave up my life for you.”

He looked at me, his eyes inquiring. I held up my left hand and pointed at my wrist. I jabbed my wrist twice. “I didn’t want to live anymore if you didn’t want me anymore. Do you remember that?” His hands moved to grab my hand which I withdrew and placed on my lap, rubbing my wrist.

I looked away. “You know, I had buried that episode so deep in my mind that I never recalled it until after I talked to Sam. I have never told anyone about it. Maybe that was why I never came back to the office. Maybe if I went back there, I would remember what I did that time. It was a horrible thing to do – trying to take my life for a man. A person should never have to do that. I know when I die, that would be the number one thing on St. Peter’s list of my lifetime offences. If there’s a hell, I’m pretty sure that that is where I'm headed because of that.”

It was too late for me to realize my tears were falling down my cheeks.

“I proved myself to you so many times. I gave myself to you. I always believed then that the man I gave myself to was the man I would marry. But I saw no sign of that from you. I felt cheap, used and abused. And yet you thought that I would only hang on to you for the chance of going to the States. You never had the nerve to tell me you were going to leave me. You never paid me the attention you gave your friends. You never gave me the importance I deserved. You said you loved me, but aside from getting me to bed, you didn’t really show it. If I had strayed, did you think I did it on my own? Did you think I planned it?”

Our waiter came. Seeing my face, he tried to sound cheerful. “Folks, anymore drinks? You guys ready to order?”

Richard asked for a beer, any kind he said. The waiter hastily left.

He stared at me for a long time without saying anything while I tried to stop from crying and fixed my face with the linen napkin. But the tears just kept flowing. Tears that have been kept back from thirty years ago. I did not expect it. I honestly thought I would just ask for forgiveness, be told we can be friends, have a decent meal and then part ways. I wasn’t even expecting for him to pay for the meal. I would not even expect him to call me back to ratify us being friends again. All I wanted was to make peace. For my own peace of mind, and probably his.

facing my demons - 2

We all have demons that at some point in our lives we must face.

I have forgotten this part of my life. I am shocked having just remembered this incident and I could not even recall what year it happened. But I know it happened. I remember having examined my wrist once and wondered if the scars would disappear. Most of them are gone. I look at my wrist now and see that there is one remaining - one very thin line of scar blending in with the lines of my skin, that was the first cut I made. I shudder.

I am a suck at physical pain. I can't even deal with a paper cut without a lot of drama, and Band-aid! But my agony at the time was so overwhelming and I do not have any explanation why I did what I did. All I know is this is how it feels when your heart gets broken. It is true: you suddenly lose your desire to live.

But after that incident, I have learned to keep my heartaches and any emotional suffering inside. I have built this wall that no one can penetrate, not even me. And I have kept this incident at the very back of my mind, I surprised myself even now that I remember.

I have forgotten that there was a point in my life when I actually held the belief that having sex with the man you are in love with had to be given with a lot of thought and consideration. I believed then that when you do give yourself to that man, it was because you know it's forever. And that's how it was when I gave myself to Richard. I had thought then that he was "the one". But when he said we were over and that he didn't want me anymore in his life, only because of one very trivial thing, my young mind could not accept it. And so I thought my life was over.

facing my demons - 1

We all have demons that at some point in our lives we must face.

Blood oozes out as the little shaving blade slides across my wrist. My head reels and everything else seems to blur and move away from me. I make a second cut, but the blade is too dull to go any deeper. So I cut my wrist a third time. And again. And again. Each cut feels more painful than the last. I don't want to live anymore, what is the point! This is the thought that runs through my mind but even that thought becomes blurry as the pain manifests itself more.

Something seemed to spark somewhere and I was afraid to look. I imagine this Almighty God that I worship looming over me, His hands crossed against his chest, His eyes seemingly angry. The look in His face seems to say "What are you doing?". And I know I don't want to look at Him. I feel so ashamed for what I have done and for what I am doing right now.

Finally the tears come, maybe from the pain, maybe from the guilt, maybe from the fear of this imagined image of God. But as I make one final cut, the pain becomes so unbearable, it makes me shriek. At the same time, Edna enters the washroom and hears me. Earlier, I have asked to borrow her blade, the one we use to sharpen our eyebrow pencils and eyeliners. As she looked at my puffy eyes, she has asked if I was okay and has been hesitant to give me the blade, but she did anyway.

"What are you doing?" I hear her say. I sob uncontrollably. I hear the dragging of a chair. Standing on the chair, Edna's face shows up at the top of the door of the stall I am in, her face in horror as she sees the blood in my hands and arm. "Oh, my God!" she yells and bends down to open the latch, kicks the chair aside and grabs the blade from my hand. I am too tired to resist. She hastily wipes the blade on her skirt and carefully places it in her pocket. She takes her handkerchief and uses it to wrap my wrist. She pulls me towards the door, opens it, and pokes her head out making sure no one was around in the hallway to see us. We walk the few yards to our office and once inside, she ushers me towards her boss' private office.

Mr. T stands up looking confused. Edna pushes me, gently, to sit on one of the chairs. She grabs Mr. T's handkerchief to augment the wrapping of my wrist.

"Richard?" Mr. T asks. Edna nods, her eyes and nose red as she tries to control her tears.

Mr. T picks up the telephone and dials a number. "You come up here; bring your first aid kit...no, don't send her. I want YOU to come up...there's an accident, there's blood and I want YOU to take care of it...okay." He puts the phone back to its cradle and watches as Edna wipes my face with Kleenex. "Doctora is on her way." After a while, he walks towards the door. "I'm going to talk to him." I start to get up to protest but Edna holds me down.

As Mr. T opens the door, the company doctor, an elderly lady we call Doctora, enters. My boss, Althea, a large, tall woman slips inside with Doctora. She looks at me, her eyebrows furrowed, mouth open.

"What...?" Althea starts to say then stops and slumps herself on Mr. T's office chair. She sits there staring at me, her face ashen. She fishes out a cigarette from the pack that Mr. T has left on his desk and lights it, not taking her eyes off me. I couldn't look at anyone's eyes.

Edna quietly leaves the room still crying.

Doctora examines my wrist, shaking her head as she does. She brushes my wrist with iodine and I cringe from the stinging pain. With alcohol soaked cotton, she cleans my arm. She takes a small syringe, squirts the liquid through the needle and stabs my arm with it.

"That's to make you relax." She places a bandage around my wrist and hand. "I am not going to ask you why you did this," she says, her voice low but firm and deliberate, "but I want you to think hard about this and explain this to yourself." Her voice cracks.

Althea, silently sitting in front of me, sniffs then blows her nose on a piece of Kleenex.

"Here," Doctora says to her as she gives Althea a tiny yellow pill: Valium. "I figured you might need this."

i miss...

i miss the sound of your voice.
i miss the echo of your laughter.
i miss the quiet sighs you make when we talk.
i miss the sweet way you say "i love you" to me.
i miss hearing you say you miss me.
i miss you, my irog.
and i miss telling you i love you.

it's spring but the nights are still long

today wasn't so bad, unlike the last few days. today i actually had done a lot of things in the office, things i had left for when i have more time to do trivial things. of course, it helped that i spoke to you this morning. my sleep wasn't as restful as i wanted it to be, but it wasn't so bad. i even dreamed about you again.

my world is so different now, my life is so different now, than they were more than two and a half months ago. in the dead of winter, i finally came off a bad relationship that i've been wanting to get out of for a long time. and just when i was ready to go it alone, you called and my life hasn't been the same since then. two and a half months ago, i didn't think it was possible for me to still fall in love. at my age, i should be done with it. i have started to accept the fact that there was really no one for me. but you changed it. now i want you, because i love you. and i have never wanted anyone so badly the way i feel this want for you. i never believed it was possible to go back and find your true love, but you changed all my beliefs. suddenly the rules got changed because of you.

but i am so afraid that this is the love that would break me. maybe when i buried this feeling for you forty years ago, it was because i was afraid it would break me. no, not that you would hurt me, it's the love. that is probably why i couldn't really forget you all these years. i fought my destiny so hard and yet no matter, it has brought me back to you. and i learned that one can't fight destiny because it's a formidable enemy.

all these years, whether i was happy or sad, i would remember you and those few times you spoke to me. or the few times you looked and smiled at me; the out-of-nowhere conversations. i knew there was something in your eyes that i wanted to see but i was so afraid to know. all these i regret not having done anything about it. there was even a time i had let myself get lost in the imagination of what could have been had we been together. i sometimes wish i was more gustsy then. but then high grades were easy to accomplish than getting the varsity team's star. at the time, getting a heartbreak was not an option for me.

but i know all that is in the past. i know what matters now is the here and now. the here and now that raised more questions. aren't our lives exciting? we find each other again at this crossroad and we are still uncertain as to where we are going.

but i know one thing for sure. i love you and i'm so happy everytime you say you love me. it makes my life complete.

take care of yourself and i'll do the same here, for us. i love you.

DWP: ending prompt

"...from dust thou cometh, to dust thou returneth..." the priest sprinkled the casket with the holy water, muttered a prayer in Latin, then made the sign of the cross.

It signaled the end of the rite and as the few people shook each other's hands and parted, Deanna remained standing at the foot of the casket.

"Deanna, come, please." Harvey Brownstein tenderly nudged his niece by the elbow. When Deanna didn't move, he placed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her towards him. She started to cry.

"I feel so alone," she said. "I lost the woman who wasn't really my mother, I have never known my real mother, I found my real father but I lost my husband." She balled her hands into fists and wedged them between herself and Harvey and continued to cry.

"Deanna, I am here. We are family." His palm rubbed the top of her shoulders but his grief was also undeniable.

It seemed that when Ruth died three years ago, the proverbial can of worms opened and revealed all the nasty secrets of a family that was a lie from the very beginning.

DWP: silence prompt

not a word nor sound
my most powerful weapon
i'm gonna break you.

---

sit by the fountain
and hear the sound of quiet:
the trickling water.