Forgetful Night

The phone wouldn't stop ringing. The workload is enormous and the deadline is impossibly getting nearer. Her blood drains and refills as her heart stops and pumps. Her legs numb and prickles annoyingly alternately.

If she ever makes it to tomorrow unscathed, she would have a lot of thank-you prayers to offer. Stupid boss, she's supposedly on leave until the next week. But no, the requirement can't wait.

She takes a break for a while. Taking out a cigarette from her soon-to-run-out stock. She makes for the door, almost near its lock when she hears him grunt in his sleep.

Turning around, she sees him toss the blankets aside. His eyes open and find her. She smiles at him. He smiles back. And then confused, he goes back to sleep.

The doctors said Alzheimer's symptoms are very hard to detect. But once they start showing, there's no stopping them.

Photo from: cheeptalk.wordpress.com

All I Have

I wish we can speak. Right now, right here. I wish we can see each other's tears. I wish we can hear each other say we're sorry. Right now, right here.

There are too many things going on in my mind. My heart is just as unsettled. I don't know where you are.

So all I can do is watch the ocean. I speak to the wind, hoping it finds you and relays my message. I let it kiss my tears away, and pretend it's your lips that do so. I say I'm sorry, and let the waves crash on the apology.

Because right now, right here, it's all I have.

Photo by: Rachel Webb

Iceberg

He couldn't understand why she suddenly turned cold. She looked at him but he doubted she really saw him. He tried to talk to her, ask about her day, and even suggested one of the menus they had always enjoyed for that night's dinner. But she remained still, unnerved, unspeaking.

So he went down to the kitchen and called for pizza. He opened the television and flicked through news channels. He sat on the sofa and propped his feet up on the coffee table. Still, no sound from upstairs.

He wished, for the millionth time, that he knew what was happening. Something was breaking inside his own house and he had no idea what was it. But like always, he gave her space. He knew she had trouble breathing, literally and figuratively, and having him around could only make it worse for her.

Thirty minutes, said the pizza boy when he called. He wished it was sooner, then he could call on her again. Every minute took forever to come.

Barely ten minutes had passed when he heard a blood-curdling scream. He dashed to their bedroom, bruising his knee and cutting his palm on the way.

At the door, he saw her standing. Her hand was on the knob, as if on her way to close the door behind her. Then she looked up at him and smiled.

The iceberg had melted. Or maybe, it was just its tip.

Photo by: Runolfur Hauksson

Alone

He left before she even had a chance to say goodbye. Ten days after, he wrote to her. He said he couldn't stand to see her cry. He said he would come back. He said he would, for her.

Years passed and not another letter came. She ran out of reasons. She ran out of explanations. She even ran out of the patience to wait. Somehow, she had lost hope that he would still come back. People came and went, if you ask her. Her mother did the same. Her father did neither. She had been alone most of her life, with the few people who were around her leaving one by one. Soon, she learned to accept solitude as her only long-term partner.

But when she heard that he's back, she couldn't help but be happy. There was more than excitement in her heart as she raced through the street. Even after everything, even after she said she's through, she was still hoping. She never realized that, but there she was, running as if her life depended on it.

Until she reached the place where they had most of the memories in. He was not there. She waited. Yet again, she did.

Night fell and no one came. The sun had set so suddenly she didn't even notice high noon happened already.

She should have known she'd been right about being alone.

Photo by: Kevin Aryoueyezee

Ripple of Flowing Crystal

She was roaming the woods, leaves crackled and broke beneath her feet. There was not a single tinkle of laughter like the ones she used to hear years ago. She guessed even the people who once went there changed. Just like the birds who no longer homed and chirped in the trees and even the snakes that hissed and slithered around.

Amidst the silence was where she heard the slow trickling and flowing. It started faintly and then grew louder, beckoning her, waiting to be found.

Run, she did, her head turning around like a cat with perked up ears. She looked through the leaves, atop the fallen logs, and in between branches her eyes could take sight of.

But there was nothing.

And then, just like that, the sun poured in. Beckoning. Waiting. Leading. Then she got there. Where she sat at a dislodged branch and watched the ripple of the cool water smile at her. She smiled at it, too.

Photo by: Nessa Kessinger

In Twenty Years

Twenty years from now, that light will vanish. Replaced with more flickering ones, the kind that you see in parties. But those branches around, they will still be there. Not them, exactly. Not the ones in there are at present, but their sons and daughters and probably a few grandkids.

And that girl, who never ceases to look up to the light every time she passes by it, she'll be older. Twenty years from now, she'll go from the young girl who chased her shadow around to a lady in heels coming home from work.

And that boy, who always bask under the light's glow, he'll grow, too. He'll no longer be the boy who swatted fireflies winging around the post. Instead, he'll be a man coming home from a mean day's job.

Who knows, maybe they'll end up walking under it together.

Photo by: Oblivious Dude

The Robot

Its existence was not something it would wish for everybody else. It wanted to be something more than what kids could dismantle when they had tantrums. It wanted friends and a future that extended to an almost infinity.

At the toy store, everything else envied its family. All the young boys wanted them, more than guns and bows and arrows. But nobody knew what happened to its brothers when they were bought. It did not know, too, before. And always, it envied its elders when kids chose them.

Until a young boy walked into the store one day and went for it directly. It was delighted. Finally!

The following days were fun. The boy never let it go. It even got to sleep beside the boy. It was given a seat by the boy's meal plate. It took a bath with the boy.

But one day, a car was brought in by the boy's father. And suddenly, the car was everywhere too. Then one day, the boy just played with the car.

The robot was forgotten. The dog came in and munched on one of the robots legs but the boy didn't mind. There were days when the robot spent hours under the bed or the sofa. But the boy never looked for it.

And that day, when the robot was mourning its existence, the trash truck was being emptied into the dump site. The robot was capped with a banana peel.

Photo by: Adam Dorman