The Birth of Hope

To whom it may concern,

I’m writing this letter with my computer

Because my handwriting is bad

I tried practicing once a week

But it hasn’t improved since

So I’m sorry

I have a plan I want to accomplish and this is my plan:

I’m taking a long train ride to my favorite town

Won’t you come with me?

Bring with you a shovel, make it two

Your enemies, if handy, could come too

And I’ll take with me

All the puzzling premonitions we’ve created,

The faltering echoes of our unintentional words,

The ambiguity we’ve painted on our faces,

The tragedy of our inevitable past,

The underlying cause of our animosities

Let’s bury them all

If we get tired of digging, there’s a river nearby

We can drown them all

Of course under different names

So if someone accidentally finds them,

They will never know it was us.

Everyone has secrets, and this is ours.

Sincerely,

Manganese

Desolation

I woke up to the sound of my neighbor’s mower. I can hope to wake up at a different time as a different person but at the end (or start) of the day, I would still be me living the tomorrow that I was afraid to wake up to. I squinted as I reached for my phone to check the time. 7:00 am was actually an early time for me to be up on a Saturday. I tried to sleep again but her face kept popping in every time I closed my eyes. A very sharp memory, the most tragic flaw I have. Meanwhile, the heat wasn’t helping and neither was the lawn mower so I dragged myself out of bed, threw in a vinyl into my ten-year old turn table. It is funny how I feel like some songs were written especially for me. I sometimes feel like the artist took out an ounce of my emotions and turned it into something lovely that will later act as my pill. Kind of like a doctor performing a biopsy. After they take out a tissue sample from you, they examine it, figure out the abnormalities and, if available, prescribe a medicine. And that’s the thing I like about music; it fills in the gaps, the holes, and the emptiness in you allowing you to heal and, if not completely, allowing you to grow in one aspect or another. And if for you, it doesn’t, I do not know what on earth it is for.

I happen to like being immersed in the unknown so I decided to go for a drive. I stared blankly at myself on the mirror after doing what I had to do before stepping out.

“Breathe. Keep breathing. I can’t do this alone.” said the song that was currently playing.

I let out a hopeless sigh before finally drawing in my keys to the ignition when I saw a familiar movement in my peripheral vision. She was there standing. In the span of two years, she had changed. She had grown and dyed her hair. Her curves now more defined. I had always complimented her for her beautiful hazel eyes, which was probably the reason why she refrained from wearing eyeglasses. She had her eyesight aided with clear contact lenses back then but her eyes were now framed with red-rimmed glasses. It was not the first time I saw her with eyeglasses on. She had worn them from time to time until she broke them one day that she refused to replace. Nonetheless, her eyes were as gorgeous, just like when I had first met her.

I had first met Melissa ten years back.
"Hold that elevator!" she said.
The lady who was standing behind the door held it for her.
"Thanks!" she said with a big smile on her face.
After a big yawn, the lady asked her, "What floor?"
"Oh, fifth floor, please" she said.
Her short brown hair smelled like camellia and rose. The bridge of her nose was evidently high. She was one of those young girls who could actually pull off a women's suit without even trying. She was unutterably beautiful. I didn't mean to stare but when I snapped out of it, I realized that I, undeniably, was. In fact, I was staring at her the whole elevator ride, maybe because she was a stranger, a beautiful stranger. We both got off on the fifth floor.
"Hi. I'm Melissa. It's my first day today. Do you work here too?" she said extending her arm for a handshake.
Being the socially inept as I am, I didn't know how to respond. Besides answering her question, I didn't say a word.
"Great! See you around!" Despite scaring her away, she said it cheerily as she walked away to her desk.
She was young, perky and I could tell from her actions that she was fresh out of college, or maybe not. Fresh graduates are supposed to be shy and nervous on their first few weeks at work, or at least their first day. She was not. She was calm and confident. Her smile was cheerful, and it was contagious. I had this insuperable desire of taking her smile home, store it in a jar and pop it open whenever I feel the need to mute commotions.

The bells chimed 12 o’clock. It was finally time for a break. Everyone shut their computers and streamed out for lunch immediately. I have no idea why they always rush outside when they know it is going to be packed. I slid my swivel chair backwards and loosened my tie a bit. I took out my iPod and looked for a song that would fit my mood. I was listening to Sparklehorse for no particular reason when a familiar scent started inching towards me. As I looked up to confirm, I saw her lips moving so I took my headphones off.

“I’m sorry?”.

“I said I see you’re alone. Do you want to eat lunch with me?” she smiled.

Surprised, I froze for a moment. I didn’t want to say yes because I didn’t want to bore her with my insipidity. But apparently, I did.

She was excited. “Great! Let me get my purse.”

She likes me. I don’t know why but I just know she likes me, I thought to myself.

I started to like her too, and that’s irrefutable. I mean, she caught my attention from the very start. I got too comfortable with her that I started to ask her out more often, or I think it is safe to say that she was the one asking me out, if not every time, half the time. One night, in celebration of our first month together, we both had too much to drink so I invited her in to my pad. We made love until dawn.

“What do you usually eat for breakfast?” She asked as soon as she noticed I was already up.

The sliding doors that separated the bedroom from the kitchen were opened halfway. She was standing around my coffee table looking out through the window with a mug on one hand and a cigarette on the other. The curtains were dancing with the wind and she was carefully listening to the sound it produced.

“I didn’t know you smoke.” I asked with my eyes still half-opened.

“I don’t, but I am. You aren’t, but you do.” She said with a hint of scorn.

“Occasionally, I do. What about you?” I was now rolling off from the bed and walked to her direction.

“I just found it on your coffee table.” She stood and started searching my cupboard.

“I usually have bran flakes for breakfast.” I said to answer her question earlier.

“Bran flakes with soy milk. That’s very ironic.” She said after she found a carton of soy milk in my refrigerator.

I took a sip from the coffee she left on the coffee table. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But really, I am telling the truth.”

She completely ignored my previous statement. “So do you want me to make pancakes for a change?”

“Good idea.”

She walked towards me and asked for a kiss that, she accused, I had owed her, probably for hiding something from her. I apologized once again and we ended up making love in the kitchen.

But it hadn’t always been that way. After we got married, all she started caring about was money. It even got worse when our then five-year old daughter, Melody, had to be taken in and out from the hospital for chemotherapy. It practically ate up all our savings but it didn’t matter to her. She neglected all her responsibilities as my wife, if there’s such thing, but never as a mother. She was always there for Melody.

“I don’t want to leave you, mom.” Our poor daughter had once said as if knowing that having the illness she had was like looking directly at the devil’s eyes; tainted and frightening.

After a year of fighting against Leukemia, death took away her agony.

There is no way to describe how painful it was. Growing up in an orphanage, I’ve already had my fair share of aloneness. I could feel parts of me dying a little, one by one. But I had to be strong both for myself and Melissa. Two people can’t be weak together, one has to stand strong, and everyone knows it couldn’t be her.

“You’re safe now. Sleep well, my beautiful daughter.” I wept for months and started to live again while Melissa started to smoke two packs a day and became a hopeless alcoholic. We were still living in the same house but it felt like she had gone away with Melody. I had to close down the coffee shop business she once had enjoyed managing. I had never had a decent conversation with her for so long that I forgot she was still my wife. I still tried to start small talks with her but she would just start overturning tables and start throwing things that are within her reach at me. She once hit me with our alarm clock straight to my groin and had left me limping for days. I had to call in sick to avoid humiliation which made my colleagues worry. I cannot count how many times I answered with ‘just fine’ every time someone asked me how I was doing. I cannot count how many times I felt like going mad and that I needed help but didn’t know how to ask for it.

She seemed to be in the mood one day so I took the opportunity to remind her of some of the supposedly million things she had to do. With her situation, accomplishing one or two would have been enough. She was putting on her contact lenses, which she wasn’t allowed to put on anymore, but I chose not to reprimand her to avoid conflict.

“Don’t miss your appointment with your ophthalmologist at 1:30pm and your therapist at 4:00pm today,” I said stressing subtly on ophthalmologist.

No reply, just an irritated look.

I hurried out before she morphs into a monster. It wasn’t that I was scared of getting more physical injuries. I just didn’t want to take pity on her. I didn’t want to save her nor ask her to live. Choosing life is not a decision you can dictate to someone. I could only wish to take her sorrows, her burdens away but she wouldn’t let me. And it was not fair. It was never fair.

I did not lose hope on her. I had sent her to mental institutions several times and she would kneel down before me and beg for me not to. They had to drag her out of the house and I had to endure the sight of delirium.

“I can’t stand the people here. Please, take me away from here. Anywhere but here, please.” She would plead hugging her knees while biting her nails.

I did not want her to feel abandoned so I took her home. Just days after, she had gone back with her old routine, in the living room watching horror films, drinking whiskey and smoking Virginia slims. It was not long after I decided to have her confined again. And the cycle went on for a while until I met another woman.

She was the exact opposite of Melissa. Veronica’s personality was strange. She was three years younger than Melissa but she acted like she was a decade older than me. While Melissa was getting help, Veronica and I went out more often. We had so much to talk about, from the bands we like to the books we’ve read. We both enjoy desolation so we’d isolate ourselves at a cottage she owns located at some ski resort. We’d camp, we’d made love with candles, and dance to the rustling sound of the leaves. For once, I felt young again, not because she was 14 years younger than me, but because it had been a while since I actually sat down to listen to Radiohead.

<3 Manganese

Chapter Three

It had seemed like a century but it had still been eighteen years since I moved with Uncle Tim. And in that span of time all I had been thinking was about the lives that I might have had if that nightmare didn’t happen. I had become a slave of my imagination and that made me at least smile until my mind realizes that it is defying the truth, and I was back to being miserable again. The number of breaths I took, steps I made and obstacles I broke were decreasing, gradually decreasing.

When Uncle Tim’s wife was still working at a night club, her so-called friend would often come over.

“Do you know how lucky you were when you were rescued from that fire?” She would say.

I never said a word to her, not even once. I find it ridiculous to talk to people who pretend to know how I feel. Only the people who have lost everything have the right to say that. I didn’t like how she looked at me with sympathy I didn’t need. I didn’t like how she filled me with words of hope when she herself wasn’t living life one should. I didn’t like everyone who had the choice to be successful but chose to be miserable. Uncle Tim, my aunt and her friend and Jean; they were all capable of ruling the world but they chose not to.

“You are alive. Many people who have died in that earthquake would love to trade places with you.” She would add despite me ignoring her.

But it didn’t happen once or twice. Wherever I go, it happened all the time. Like when I was forced to go to high school. I had sworn not to have an interaction with other people ever again, not because I was mentally or emotionally incapable of interacting, but because of the opposite. They, my elementary classmates and schoolmates, though not all, weren’t capable of doing such and I expect high school to be worse than that. I was not scared. The part I didn’t like was when the countable kind people try too hard to keep me from drifting apart from the norm.

“We’re having a pajama party tomorrow night. If you can come, please do!” Aya said.

Aya, who was my classmate in elementary, was probably the kindest person I knew in school. She was the top student in our class and she had invited me to all her parties that her parents had thrown for her as a reward. She had offered to have her dad drive me to and from our house. But I have not been to any of her parties. Oftentimes though, she seemed to forget that I had declined her fifty previous invitations and just kept on inviting me. She wasn’t the only one. There was Kenji, who had invited me several times to see movies with his sisters. There were five more. And the rest just either stare at me probably wondering why I don’t have legs or dodge the pathetic, unattractive sight. The teachers though were all kind to me. But the problem with them, kind people, is that they just don’t know when to leave a person alone.

“You know what, you’re still lucky to have survived. Go out and play.” My English teacher once said.

Here we go again. I would say to myself. I could say I was so used to people saying I’m lucky I survived. I get them probably six times a week and I should have gotten better in dealing with them. But I didn’t. In fact, I personally think I got more senseless than I already was. Maybe because, it had never occurred to me that I am lucky. We all know I am not lucky. If they really meant what they said, they should have stopped comparing my life to the dead. I mean, why would they compare me to nothingness? If I was really lucky, they should have compared me to Aya. But no one did. That is because they all knew that I was the lowest form of being in that room, in that school, in the whole mankind. But that didn’t matter to me. All I wanted was for them to stop giving me special attention I never asked. I wanted to be normal or at least be treated normal but I myself didn’t know what being normal was. I guess living a normal life and being happy sometimes and being sad sometimes is normal. If having your own house, marrying the man of your dreams, going to work you really love is normal then I am light years away from it. Sometimes, late at night, I blame my disabilities. But sometimes, late at night, it just strikes me; if having four limbs doesn’t lead everyone to success, then what does? Sometimes I come up with silly answers like love, hope, trust, or faith but I contradict all of them if not always, most often, thus, leaving my questions create more sub-questions.

<3 Manganese

'Maybe it's not the ending. Maybe it's the story.'

I was driving myself back to my mom's house with all of my clothes squeezed in the backseat, my shoes in the trunk and my bags sitting at the passenger seat when I promised myself to never go back to that town, to our home we both created ever again. It was painful seeing myself leave and each time i passed by grocery stores we used to shop at, restaurants we both love and coffee shops we used to lounge in, it just kept on getting more painful. I wiped off my tears and held it back for a while whenever I stopped at a red light because I didn't want to leave other people wondering how sad I was because I don't think anybody would really know how much somebody else is hurting. But I was wrong, nobody looked my way, and if anybody did, he wouldn't see me from the dark anyway, and if anybody had, he just probably went on with his life when the light said go. And I had to keep moving too.

I reached home before daylight but I stayed at the parking lot until midday just wondering if I had made the right decision, chain-smoking and listening to songs that somehow calmed me down. By calmed me down, I meant cry all my sorrows. Some people stared but that didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that I was hurt and I can fucking cry when I need to regardless of anything.

I finally decided to go inside the house and my dad was there ready to welcome me again. I felt relieved somehow to see a very familiar face from the three-hour drive I had. He didn't ask me what happened. He already knew when he saw my eyes.

'Jaa, dokka ikou ka?' he said cheerfully.

I told him that I didn't want to go anywhere and that I just wanted to be alone in my room. And that was the worst decision I have ever made. As I entered my bedroom, half of the things that were there reminded me of him. The pictures on the wall, the 3D glasses we bought on our first movie date, the first bouquet of flowers he gave me that had already dried, the 500 coin bank that was already half full for our hawaii trip, the books he bought for me, the star projector he got me for our first monthsary... I couldn't stop crying not because I was sad I lost him to someone else but because he really made me happy. Even if he left me completely broken, I am forever in debt for the two years of happiness he gave me. And that's what makes it even more sad. I can't pay him back anymore because all this time I thought I had a lifetime to do it. My mom, though, said I've done enough.

'I'm sure you've made him happy too' she added.

I hope so. I really hope so. But I still can't stop asking why it happened and what went wrong. And for the most part, my questions are still left unanswered. If you want to keep your sanity, i guess it's better to leave your questions unanswered.

<3Manganese