Color Catastrophe

July 3, 2014 at 11:32am

She found love at a time when she barely knew ABC. She was a typical school girl wearing a tucked blouse shielded by a suspender clinging to her skirt. She doesn’t recognize any familiar face she saw a year ago upon starting grade school. She only knows that her mom always reminds her that when she sits in the middle of a crowd, that is in her case classroom, she is to say nothing. And so her mouth was shut the whole time. Teacher after teacher spoke and mumbled and whispered. She wonders why teachers sometimes have their own language only they could decipher. 

And so she was sure she found love at the time she barely knew ABC. And love is in the form of a friend. 

All that Alyanna could do is to sob. It was recess time and students got to share their food with their friends. She had none, until Bea came in, offered her a piece of banana. It wasn’t really a piece but a half. She laughed at Yanna. 

“Oh wag ka na malungkot..”

Alyanna could not forget. How could she? For the longest time she has denied how she found love in the form of this curly haired girl that offered her a banana. She has been denying it was love, until now that she wants her memory to fail her so she couldn’t remember every single remarkable event of 20 years she spent with Bea. All the jokes and serious matters they threw at each other. All now are but fading memories. All now are but blurred reality. All but a piece of paper and a pen that await the content of her eulogy. She knows she’s a genius, beyond compared to Bea, but this essay is nonsense to her. How does she dare bid goodbye to a part of her being? How dare she eulogize the 50% of her entirety. She cannot. She will not. But Bea requested it. 

“You are so unfair,” Yanna weepingly uttered. 

She started writing …

And then it was all black. All that she sees is black. Or does she still see?
When she tried to open her eyes, a long curly hair woman appeared in front of her. 
And she closed her eyes again. She felt the hot breath of this woman breathing in her neck and ears. She gasped for air, and the curly woman gave her. She felt the heat released by the other woman’s body…
And now she’s totally lost. Lost from space. From earth. From the ground. She doesn’t even know what lost means. Or loss. Neither could be a piece of cake. She stopped. She opened her eyes again and saw how ink flows in her palm and stained her white tee. 
She gasped for air. 

Until she realized the pen was black. It was never red.