[Source: Ojeda, A. (n.d.). We are one — Street Ghosts (VI) Series (Mexico City) [Photo]. Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/713539134695536697/]
The room was filled with nothing but somber ambient and intimidating sparks of murk. The walls were dappled by faith-forgotten pieces of shattered hopes starting to linger like a bad perfume. The lights were lifeless but they appeared to be blinding.
And there I was, pushing up daisies, holding those chrysanthemums all calloused and dried.
I could hear indistinct voices coming from the next darkened room. They were all furious, raucous, and wild as if the signs of infidelity prevailed, but were too simple to simply discern.
For years, I became dead on one’s feet, all battered and bruised to even hear the uproar. But that night, I swore to break away—I swore to make a run for it.
In that month, when winter jasmine took its blossom, I snuck out my bedroom window past curfew hours. There, I ran as if my steps didn’t mean anything but misery. I ran as if I had someone patiently waiting for me—as if someone would come and save me from myself.
As my wander kept its pace, I saw how the wind blew an excruciating level of madness, how that one star flickered an explosive degree of desolation, and how the moon hid in solemnity for its awaited final phase. The minutes passed like a bottle of wine as I kept on walking ahead to an unbeknownst nirvana. Hence, I could tell that my forlorn was insufferable—but that’s only when that night hasn’t made me meet her yet.
In a distance, right before I saw her face, my heart pounded an utmost heartbeat enough to cure all my hidden battle scars. I couldn’t hold a grudge so I admit her apparent morbidity. There was despair in her that one can’t dare to disregard. Her dark blue eyes were telling her sullen state but the curves of her lips told me the other way. But despite that darkness of her, I could also tell how beautiful and carefree she was.
“How long have you been walking?” she asked as if she knew what a lost-cause I was.
I admit I was walking for almost an hour or two—an hour of complete misery and a lifetime of drowning. But I couldn’t dare to tell her that.
That’s when I uttered, “I probably spent the whole night walking.”
“Then I guess it’s time for you to run,” she said like she was hinting something like a thrilling chase—a threat of forthcoming exhaustion. “Ever heard of cops, right?”
For the whole phase of my dysphoric wander, it had never occurred to me that it’s already midnight.
“Run!”
I realized she’s right, it’s time for me to actually run. I think the whole point of getting out of that lair was for me to break away. I realized I had to break free from that perilous smoke I breathed for sixteen years. I figured I had to get away from that place where all I could hear was the wildest bawl and the raging screams of an oppressed mother and her unwavering commitment towards a Janus-faced spouse.
As she let go of those words, I couldn’t do a thing but to follow the dearest desires of my adrenaline-fueled feet. I froze for a second, and when I couldn’t taunt to move a bit, she grabbed my hand for me to run with her.
With her hands holding onto mine, I felt her pulse beating a thousand euphoric vibrations. It all felt like a morning glory blooming in the morning due, a gazania daisy blooming in the weeping twilight, and an evening primrose waiting for the screaming-colored sun to set—all delicate, beautiful, and warm.
There’s one thing about her I couldn’t ever fathom; her smile. It almost looked like a smile of a newborn—it was innocent and naïve of some sort; except hers was a little bit fake. I couldn’t tell if she was happy for being chased or if she was happy because she also broke away. All I know is that she has to be somewhere in between.
“Up for a little bit more fun than this?” she asked.
“Impress me, then,” I screamed.
For the first minutes of that rip-roaring chase, I could tell I was cherishing it. But it couldn’t be compared to the feeling when we raised it to another level of glee.
We ran from the gloomy suburbs of Windermere to its darkest corners I never knew about. We jumped through random backyards, crashed through trash cans, and touched the chevy doors of the cars we happened to pass by. We hid from all the penumbral lights that those cops had with them. We ran as if we’re finally free.
“I guess we’ll keep doing this until those cops piss their pants,” she joked as her laughter was filled with insurmountable genuineness.
Her voice was like the winter wind—cold but cozy. And hearing it made me don’t want to jump in the fireplace of eternity. Everything she did fits perfectly with what she was as a person. Her dark blue eyes were glimmering like a comet in the sky. I could tell how beautiful they were from afar but I always knew it’s a furious fireball if I dare to come closer.
Her messy-looking-grayish-white hair was as intimate as the warmth of loving and being loved. Her plain jet-black hoodie paired with her pants of the same color made me realize how angelic it is to be a dark one. I was dazed by the way she showed her boundless optimism, her smiles as we tried to live through that chase, her soul as she tried to fix my tarnished life.
We only talked fewer words than a hundred that night, but I always knew there was something she had hidden deep inside.
For years, I always wished I was able to save her the way she saved me in my darkest hours. Every night for ten straight years, I kept on asking myself why was I too naïve to realize her hidden battle scars? How could I even manage to neglect her desolation when it directly slapped my face the first time I saw her?
One indispensable thing I could tell was that she had an exceptional soul—like she was an angel sent here to fix me and tell me not to end my life the night I was about to do so. Did she even know that I was broken enough for her to have a reason to save me? I guess it would be ironic if I were to answer that because I saw the signs of her fake niceties, but I still failed to save her from herself.
In the end, I figured that the winter jasmine could also take its withering hours—only if its time to bloom has come to a halt. Her life, although was too precious to be wasted, had to end for a reason. I guess I have to thank God for letting me meet her in the midst of my own chaos.
She taught me so much about life. Maybe not directly, but her message as we ran away through the suburbs in that Godforsaken night of January will forever be remembered. In that quiet world where everyone wears face masks and face shields, in that weird year of hopelessness and inability to go outside; we broke the rules and escaped from our lives past curfew hours—maybe just for a bit, but it did feel like forever.
We ran away from the sadness that life has brought us. We broke free from the baggage that our lives have made us carry. We broke away from the viciousness of our own states of mind with incomparable smiles and an unsurpassed rush of heartbeats. And somehow, that was everything.
“Alessia Avery Catapang, you were a warrior with armor thick enough to hide your pain. Thank you so much for saving me. Thank you so much for running away with me,” I whispered to the rigid stone with her name deeply carved on it.
In that split second, the world blew the sweetest howling of the wind I know for sure was a kiss from her.
“I wish I could tell you how much I regret not being there to save you when you were at your worst,” I cried, with tears falling down the dead chrysanthemums I brought for her.
Wherefore, in that dreary place of lost souls and morbid phantoms, I swore to God that I never wanted to leave her behind.
But it was getting late, and the graveyard gates were about to be closed.
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