Bash

  Eli pushed open the meager three-foot wooden door with not a single sign of lock blocking intruders from stepping in. It creak. The path was alight by the full moon, making a line of majestic trees of purpled flowered wisteria look hauntingly beautiful. Every step she took was a delicate assault of sweetness to her senses very much alike a field of lavender. The cool wind kisses her skin as she walks down a path that would lead her to a familiar place.

Meow.

Eli looked around, searching for the sound. Once, she heard it. Twice, she looked and saw nothing.

With a shrug, she went ahead. A smile played on her lips as she nears the end of the path she’s taking. From afar, she could already see the bricks that stood many a time. A little on the left and she could now see the wooden deck.

“Hello, Nana.” She greets.

A woman whose eyes always reminds her of a warm cup of cinnamon tea now reflects a hint of a life well lived, met her own. Every night of everyday, the woman sits there looking at the flowers in her garden but Eli knew she was looking for something else. Her shaky hands reached out, shaking as she points to her. “Who are you?”

Time has taken pieces of her memories and Eli needs to borrow it every once in awhile. “It’s Eli, Nana.”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “Eli? Do I know you?”

Eli took Nana’s hand on her own, gently tapping it reassuringly. “Yes. Yes. You use to tell me of your adventures remember?”

Her eyebrows shot up, her mouth falling open as if on the verge of remembering but Eli knew she didn’t—wouldn’t—can’t. Truth is, Nana loves to tell stories of her youth-the tales of her bravery and all the crazy things she once did. Eli likes it when Nana speak of them because only then could she see her eyes lit up as the scenes played in the depths of her irises. It’s amazing how she could forget everything else but her youth. Once she asked Nana how come she forgot everything else but her youth but Nana told her, ‘that is where my life started, not when I first cried my lungs out during birth. It’s where I first laughed my heart out and cried it all the same. It’s when it was me, not a daughter, a wife or a mother-just me’.

“Come now. Don’t tell me you forgot your favorite listener?” Eli pouted.

Nana shook her head. “Of course not.”

She laughs. “Right. Right.” She grins. “How about we take a walk while you tell me some more of your amazing stories? See? The moon is very bright and the flowers are in bloom.”

Nana held on Eli’s left arm for support as they walk a path of memories. Every step, taking them to the past

Nana took a deep breath, taking in the cold air of the night.

“Are you cold?” Eli asked.

She shook her head, vehemently so. “Once I was giving birth on the side of the road to my daughter—”

* * *

The Mother

Nana gasp for air as more contractions hit her. It was such a horrible pain. They say first time was the worst. Control and tolerance for the pain is slipping out of her hands, and she prided herself for a high pain tolerance. No she didn’t scream. She didn’t even say anything except when she told her husband to catch their child but oh, did she glare at him enough to express the thousand of curses that ran through her head all throughout the ordeal as though she didn’t put an effort alongside with him.

Pain aside, her greatest fears didn’t lie on the act but on the fear of anything happening to her child. Here are two people, barely knowing what they are doing getting married in the first place and now they are delivering the birth of their first child in the most unexpected way possible. Her husband sat in the middle of the driver’s and shotgun seat as he waits between her legs. It was an unusual sight to see her big burly husband looking pale and sweating in the coldness of that night. Beside her is her phone, an ongoing call to her doctor onscreen in loudspeakers guiding them as much as she can. Nana wanted so much to scream at her doctor speaking like it was an everyday occurrence- with no urgency at all, but overtime she has gone to appreciate that calmness.        

Alas, after an hour or so, her daughter finally made her first appearance. Everyone expected a scream- not the silence that followed. All pain, all sweat and tears halted as they waited with bated breath for her to cry but she didn’t. Even her husband was shaking, not knowing what to do. All of a sudden, he held their baby upside and slaps her back with controlled force several times until finally, she screamed her lungs out.

          Perhaps it was the adrenaline rushing out, or just plain relief but her husband gave their child to her and hugged her. On her shoulders are drops of tears from a man who only cried once before on their wedding and now the second for their child. Together they stayed like that as a family for the first time. The heater dying, together they kept each other warm until the ambulance arrived.]

“No way.” Eli was speechless. “I could never imagine the.. how..” She failed to comprehend what she just heard. How tough is she to have overcome something like that? “Just the two of you? Wow.”

Meow.

Eli looked around again, but saw nothing.

Nana smiles. “Not even when my husband cheated on me did I cry-“

* * *

The Wife

Nana stared and watch as the woman, a cousin of her cousin two houses away from hers, tell stories about her husband. Her husband!

“My sister saw him. She swear it was Roberto she saw.”

What nonsense is this woman speaking? How can her husband, who is busy working in another country be back without her, the wife, knowing?

“I tell you, your husband is cheating!” The cousin insisted.

Nana couldn’t believe it so she didn’t. Until her husband came home. She need not ask. The man told her what he did, even brought along a walking piece of evidence with a bump on her belly. Nana learned the woman was a maid in someone else’s home.

“Why did you entertain him when you knew he has a wife?” She remained calm, not one to stoop so low.

“I didn’t know.”

Ha! Nana didn’t believe her. Everyone expected a drama. They thought, when the other woman came to her own house, a war would ensue. Much to everyone’s disappointment, nothing happened except that her husband came back out, woman in tow and all his belongings.

Eli, hearing new things scratched her head.

“I never cried. I told him to support his new child. I have a job, a house and everything else. I didn’t need him.” Nana says, chin up and proud. “Ha. What happened? He would come home to us, complaining about his new wife. One time the woman brought her child asking me to take care of it so she could work.”

“What?” Eli’s eyes widen. “Don’t tell me you took care of her child?”

Nana snorted. “That shameless woman. Of course not. I have a job of my own and kids of my own. Why ever would I do that?” She shook her head. “After my husband left me, I lived a life of a single woman. I partied and enjoyed my life. Many offered me marriage, but I refuse.”

Eli can’t help but laugh at the sly look on her face. “Ah, I can only imagine you when you were young. I bet you’ve caused quite the trouble.” 

Eli can’t help but think about the cat she’s been hearing. It was meowing but she cannot seem to catch a sight of it.

As they come back to the deck, a cat lying on the grass in a ball with his throat and belly exposed. Nana stopped, she gasp.   

Unbelieving of what she’s seeing, she kneeled down. Her hands reach out to the softest of fur, waking up the cat. The eyes that always make her think of an old map greeted her albeit a little unimpressed. She laughs amidst the tears streaming down her face. That’s right. He’s always been the map that leads her home whenever she feels lost. He’s Bash.

* * *

The Maiden

In the middle of the night at the same moment, time stood still alongside the steady beep of the monitor that held her in a bittersweet prison of unending dreams the moonlight, like a thief in the night, enters the room— stealing a photo of two smiling young woman in their twenties smiling brightly so for the picture. One of the woman was holding a cat whose busy playing with the locket around the neck of the other woman. Inside the locket was his photo, and on the other side are the words; Criselina’s Bash.

From the couch near the window, sat up the other woman shown on the photo. The blanket falls beside her, as she look around, noticing how bright the moonlight is. Knowing how much her sister loved the moonlight, she pushed open the window to let more light in. Perhaps it would be a good time to read to her, she thought. She stood up, taking the leather-bound book from beside the picture frame. From the bookmark, she opened the book and started reading;

What if he was still here? Will I still love him like I do or will that love grow weary as time pass by? He was just here until he isn’t. Gone like he was never even here. That’s the thing about love. It shines brighter in the midst of pain—blooming like a flower in a field of drought.

The woman looks away from the book and out the window. Her lips parted, uttering her own what ifs. “What if you never ran after him? Would you still find your way back to yourself?”

* * *

Eli walks the same path she came from. The moon walks with her. When she was little she used to ask her mother, ‘why is the moon following me?’. Her mother would laugh, shake her head and say, ‘it’s guiding you’. Eli would frown, not understanding what her mother meant.

Now, she could feel the familiar comfort of the moon as though it was walking along with her through the seemingly endless line of wisteria. As she reach for the wooden door, she stopped, seeing a flower on top. She looked back and smiled when she saw two green orbs looking back at her. He didn’t get close, nor did he stay too far away from her. She knew now that he’ll always be there. “Of course.” She muttered to herself as she tuck the wisteria to the tiny pocket inside her jacket where it stayed for a very, very long time. One last time she looked back once she was out the door and waved a hand.

He blinks slowly.

She laughs, feeling the way it reverberates through her core like it used to before. Something warm streams down her face, when she touched it, she was surprise to find that it was tears—happy tears. Eli lost herself in the process of looking for him. Stuck in endless possibilities of what ifs in a world where only her time had stopped. She looks afar, and thought, ‘what a wonderful journey it would be’.