Bones

Bones
Pol Singson

Sadness is joy's lost fragment, if not its identical twin.

Under the waiting shed, I wait for the rain to stop. If the winds were right in telling, it would take me around twenty four minutes before I get home on foot. The callous afternoon winds foretell a gloomy sky; compared to exactly eight days ago, when I last walked with you back home, the street to Albardado never felt this cold. Reaching the third store, a pet shop, you often motivated yourself by coming inside and checking if any of the random critters you named - Scruffy, Lila, Garbauch - were already sold to some unsuspecting customer, and you made it a point to touch them (though Kaswel always bit you!) while I impatiently tap my foot until the bright sky withdraws to an indigo hue. You wouldn't be aware of the time unless I told you that your mother had already passed by to buy packed chicken and herbs down the market and you are needed for preparing an extra late but extra special dinner with me.

I was never the talkative, artsy type; you know that. It's just that I see you, and I feel an increasing will of the self to share whatever happened to me, in school or at the neighborhood basketball court, like how that jerk Jerry 'accidentally' splashed orange juice on my white shirt - of course you know I punched him square in the face. And then you would tell me how the girls found your new puppy, Bones, very cute and stout, its little triangular ear folds limp on both sides. You always took pride on the only animal you resolved to buy from the shop - Kaswel must be very jealous of Bones. You would giggle, and I couldn't help but stop reacting, just to contemplate on how beautiful you are. You stop too. I smile, and we both laugh from our stupid pauses.

Come Monday morning this week, you surprised me with a little cake for our anniversary. It was a circular caramel-flavored dessert with both our names under what I assumed is your stick drawing of the two of us (perhaps you asked the cake decorator for you to personalize it?). You tried so hard putting the names smack at the center that the -ley in my name was already off-center. You said sorry. I kissed you.

I always looked at you as this sunny being, a flower that never withered with rain, sleet or snow, and though you tell me all your agitations - with your mother, with me or with your girlfriends - I never knew what bothered you until two days ago. I was practicing my freethrow when your mother called me. The gym was buzzing with players, but her sobbing voice singled out my hearing. My left hand twitched and dropped the phone. Two minutes later and I was at your doorstep, and I sped to your bedroom only to choke myself with what I saw.

Did I do anything for you to act irrationally? I never saw the point. And yet when I came to school yesterday, Jerry confronted me at the second-floor corridor. He looked serious, teary-eyed, even. We sat down on a bench at the school yard and I listened, but I thought he better not play games with me, 'cause I ain't in a good mood. He said he had a thing for you. What the fuck was that? He also told me you liked him as well. I did not believe him. He even told me you've been going out for six months now! I kicked his leg, stood up, and blew his face witth my fist. I broke his nose, that bastard. When he fell down, though, he went on, with a hoarse voice, that he broke up with you on our monthsary because you called him on the phone, crying. You were pregnant with his baby.

Even though it's a bit like a blow in the gut, I was forced to accept the whole truth. After all, I found a clinical prescription at your garbage bin, and it's telling me more than what I needed to know. You could have just told me. I know I easily get angry at times, but I would never leave you! God, I miss you. Words fail to sum what misery I am filled with since that day. I love you. I always will.

(P. S. I kept the noose. And Bones misses you so much.)