Stories

They said, nothing prepared you for the death of your loved ones. Nearly all of them came suddenly, but consider yourself lucky for not losing your mind over it. So, I spent my days (more often than not), thinking about it. Although, I have always ended up wishing for mine before any of them beats me to it. Selfish, but a million days from now I’ll still stand by it. I would never want to die from the agony.

But apparently today is not the day. Despite my better judgement, turns out some people goes out of their way to make other suffers. So, I was forced to set aside those feelings for the moment as the crowd gathered to bury a dear friend of mine 12ft before me. Not because of time nor health reasons, but simply because he decided to. I have tasted the temperature drop below zero, but my body then wasn’t as cold as the moment when I heard the news that he went missing last summer.

So I refrain myself from the eulogy and leave.

‘What’s your greatest fear?‘, ask everyone who will eventually became one.

It’s been six years since I moved in to this imaginary lot in my head. Although it is small and rather deprived from the reality, lovely and lively is what I hope that it would be. Warm, bright and pretty, but more importantly.. full of giddy. Refreshing like a brisk of water in the summer, but soothing like the clouds that hanging above it. Relaxing at times, and hopefully keeping me alive if that day should come. I let the doorbell be my jam and my empty couch to be a safe haven should anyone ever came close enough to this living room – one that no longer has anything in it. Thus, tired barely expressed how I felt right now, as I freeze in the middle of it while watching everyone who care enough to came took every little bit of things from this room out through that door.

My pretty collection of little trinkets on that wall? They took it as if it was theirs to begin with. Some wear it proudly as a jewelry, while others keep it as a collection of their own and empty they left me. The fabrics? They’re gone, though I will never know why they need it because I have seen that it requires ten people to brought this beautiful – yet, unnecessarily heavy – carpet out of the house. The furniture? Well, what can I say, they probably are the most precious thing I own to be sold – though I get none. The pictures? They smashed it as if it was no longer an accident, even one that barely has their faces in it. The instrument? Who would have guess that somebody with that much of knowledge could turn a C on this instrument into a G#, while tuning all the other ones into a melody of despairs – one that everyone dread to hear.

I’d kicked everyone out of this living room in a heartbeat had they care enough to listened, but I would not have anything left to fight for – so, I closed my eyes long enough to wished that their path to this neighbourhood shall ends here.

Fixating on the extreme temperature drop of the night, I have been keeping my eyes staring on this sad little maple leaf outside my window for a few hours now. Alone, cold, and pale… yet I don’t see the rest its peers hanging around this season as long as she does. Yes, it’s a she – I can tell.. and props on her for staying through this cold wintery night. But then again.. maybe the rest of them are having a party down there and she wasn’t invited – who knows. Either way, I am not leaving before she does. We’ll make a party of our own.

One that will help us get through the night.

In any other day it might be a short one, but not tonight – I am setting up a camp. Maybe others will join too. We’re quite a delight if it is our presence that they are looking for. Other than that we can’t promise anything. One of us is barely hanging on at the moment and the other one.. well, she’s is a leaf. Silly, but I’ll be her friend for the night.. I need one too. Although, I keep wondering when will she leave me. Not that I want it, I just wonder. Everything that comes will eventually be gone at some point, right? I just like to be prepared. So I keep myself counting.

One till it fills the hundred. A hundred till it fills the thousand and a thousand till I finally getting tired enough fall asleep at the kitchen table – right before she finally flew off of the night to find the rest of her company... like they always do.

Talk about fair, maybe my number is finally up.

“Age is just a number”, we say. It would have been better if people like me actually meant it, but I bet they keep tracking on every turns – even when nobody is paying attention. I know I do.

This afternoon, I was wandering around one beautiful city in far north of the wonderland. Distracted with the exciting new world around me, pressing buttons and making sounds as if I were five. Laughing, running around until I ran out of all the energy, and confused when people making such an irrational decision on their part while saying things such as, “it is part of growing up”. But, is it though?

In such a big world where places are still left to be explored, times remain to be relative, and possibilities are endless, I would like to believe that whatever the future holds for me is somewhere near to be found. Sitting by, tightly, patiently, but happily, just a few turns before me. Sometime missed, but I will still be running and making my turns towards it. Sometimes late, but that’s okay traffic is crazy these days and nobody expected us to make it all the time.

Barely understand what it means to be a grown up like the other, I choose not to be one for as long as I can, because despite of the number, everything else I wrote eleven years ago still holds true to this day.

So, for the moment, let me continue to keep that little girl alive and if any of you are leaving, be sure to close that door tightly when you do.

“He taught me the meaning of true love”, said every mother I know describing their first-born. With the utmost form of protection in mind and with the cost of everything, motherhood turns women into the bravest soldiers one could encounter. Especially for her son.

Any mother, except Lou’s.

Born in the darkest winter of 2023, Lou’s cry is slipping amongst the cheering crowds, and his tears were drowned in the ocean of joys. Just five minutes before the fireworks strikes across the loudest part of this neighborhood tonight, I watched his mother walking against the crowd. Alone and straight to a taxi waiting.

“…but where’s Lou?” I kept asking, as I dive myself into the crowds. “Why does nobody is looking?” I swore that I heard his cry is getting louder as I go, but still… I couldn’t find him. I would have asked someone to help, but nobody had noticed. Sad thing is, had I looked the other way for a split second, I would too. Selfish, but I wished you did not share the pain with me, Lou.

Although, I really am sorry that the shadow of a woman you‘d long to call mother chose fled off of the night to hold her dreams tightly than to hold you in her arms.