《A Memory of Lightning》


 Prologue: First Memory

    You were my first memory.


    In the earliest days of my awareness, I do not remember a picture. There was only perfect black: a canvas, a void. And in that darkness, light came in the form of a hum. A voice. Your voice. The harp-like melody in the ways you conjured your breath to form music as your arms bathed me in a gentle warmness.


    I remember it, clear as the sunshine running down the concrete floor of our porch. You were telling tales at dusk, a mug within your calloused fingers you proclaimed to be numb for the most part. There were often whispers from you, about how you hated the ways you no longer had the strength you used to have. But still, all that you ever made was art and love intertwined together so perfectly.


    I recall the feeling of listening to you as your narrow, glassy eyes grow distant as if elsewhere in time. The wind pressed cold against my back and the branches from two towering caimito trees harmonized in the soft rustle of their sprawling canopies. You spoke, weaving each word carefully. There was both solemnity and pride in your voice. You told me of names, of places. And with them, you have attached distinctions. Your uncle¡¯s thunderous laughter, your father¡¯s heroism set in a world burning in war. There were terrors, indeed. But you mentioned them with little regard. You were a strong woman. Mountain of a spirit. Unwavering.


    You continued by tracing your bloodline. You began with the earliest names you could remember, even if you would say you knew not of their faces. There is an intricacy among Filipino families. It extends further than most, often webbing further and further till our memory ceases to hold them.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    You often say your memory is failing, but the love you had for family was defiant. You were there, at your best attempts to name each of your relatives like you were counting numbers. And there was little fault to your remembering.


    I was seeing silhouettes when you told me of the soldiers that marched into your town. I could hear the twist in their words, the foreignness of it. You described to me the shape of their weapons: a rifle with a bladed end, spear and bow all at once. Fright slipped into the monotony of your tone as you explained how such a weapon could kill at any distance, how there was little escape. Your father, my great-great grandfather, would often lose them, you said. He would hide in haystacks, in rice fields, among the foliage. He endured even at the presence of their most ferocious.


    ¡°Resilience is in our blood.¡± You would say. ¡°It is in yours and mine, never less potent.¡±


    Those words lingered into me. A child then, I knew not of resilience. It was but a word defined by a series of other words brambling together in tight knots. It held no meaning for me.


    Not till the day you passed away.

 Chapter 1: The Gathering of Gray Clouds

    Above us, the thunders hummed just a heartbeat after white pulses of lightning would burst across the clouds. I watched. Rain fell like slits of blur, an unfathomable amount of them at once. Pools of rainwater accumulated across our terrace and circles would ripple upon them like little waves.


    You often told me that storms were the weep of the Earth, an entire planet cursed with eternal pain that it had grown numb, but never enough to subdue the torment of humanity. It was a reminder that the best of us would break at times. But I also knew that our kind was poison. The irony of being great builders and destroyers all at once.


    The city fell around me as I rushed past. Streetlights became luminescent lines dashing against me. The world was out of focus, only slates of colors and shape. Featureless. Ahead, I saw only one thing. A gaunt man wearing a tight black mask, and on his hand was my wallet.


    I glanced at the bystanders ahead, repeating the world still like it was some kind of spell I hoped to cast upon that bastard. But not one stopped. Not a single of them. Some even paved way. As I took my adrenaline-propelled step, a sting of pain burrowed into my chest and I was breathless in an instant. Air fled my lungs so rapidly that my body became fragile for only an eye-blink, and I collapsed on my knees. Ears ringing, I clutched my chest. My heart thumped, and I could feel it burst almost.


    I watched the thief escape into the night, fading with the shadows. Around me, a few people circled. Idle hands hovered and they spoke, but only murmurs came to my still-ringing ears. I stood and fled gradually, unminding of the attention that I had caught. I headed home.


    Bullets tricked down my face as I walked. It was the middle of summer, after all. Rain was yet to visit. And the sun scorched the earth. Even at night.


    I unbuttoned my polo and sat outside a 7-11 shop, starting at my apartment on the other side of the road. I leaned on the glass, catching my breath laboriously still. I looked up and I could remember tracing lines among the glitter of stars. The task seemed more difficult than how the textbooks depict. There was no perfect pattern about them. Some hid in the roll of black clouds. Others stared at the world in a desperate attempt to illuminate the shadows that swallowed it.


    ¡°Off you go! You¡¯re warding my customers away.¡± The cashier stomped out the door and growled at me, a handful of money crumpled into his fist. His face was red-hot, fuming.


    I did not want any trouble and not once did I ask for it. I was timid ever since a child. Feminine, as my peers would regard me. Too soft. But I saw nothing wrong with it. You did not see it, too. Not once. You never unloved me for being different. If anything, you¡¯ve loved me more.


    So, I left without resistance, without word. I took the full assault of his hatred and whisked it away like petals lost in the storm-driven winds.


    I crossed the road cautiously, eyes sweeping both sides. When things seemed clear, I proceeded to the other side of the road. My feet struck the asphalt with urgency as it had always done. When I reached the other side, I paused at the entrance of my apartment. I was reluctant. As if entering this place, returning at the place I called home, would make this horrid day realer. The thunders bellowed above me, warning of rain. At night, it was harder to anticipate its arrival. It prompted me to continue.


    The stairwell reeked of rusted metal and urine, putrid on my nose. But I had grown numb to it. They no longer seemed to discomfort me. You often told me that repetition breeds normativity. How the act of undergoing the same process, the same situation would build instincts into me. It was true. I knew well after building ignorance over these distresses.


    I pressed the key into the knob, twisted it open, and my studio apartment seemed dark as ever. Distant lights provided a vague sharpness to the shape that built this room. Though, if I had no memory of it, I would not know what they were.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    My hand sought the darkness almost automatically. After a snap, the single bulb overhead blinked for a heartbeat before fully bathing this room in a thin sheet of white-yellow luminescence. This was supposed to be home, but it felt like a prison. A concrete box, walls so close that even the sound of my breath would bounce before dissipating into silence. A bed without frame on one corner, a fridge in another. Right beside the small television adjacent to the bed, there was a low table filled with crumpled papers dotted with ink. I sat on the floor and pressed both elbows into the table, shuffling through the mess. At times, I would open these papers, but not today. I need not a reminder of my shortcomings.


    The phone in my pocket buzzed, a current of electricity almost to my legs still pulsating from fatigue. I took it out and saw a face. Eyes gentle, cheeks flushed red, and a face that brought many memories. It was Iris, and her image was crooked by the crack of my screen. For a moment, there was only the buzz in my room. Like a little siren banishing whatever silence lingered here. My thumb hovered briefly over the screen before I finally collected the courage to answer.


    ¡°Hey,¡± Iris said, her soft voice mangled by static, ¡°you done with your gigs today?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± I said, nodding out of habit.


    ¡°I have something to tell you. Want to come by the resto at Lualhati Avenue? The one with the chicken inasal?¡±


    I reached for my pocket, hoping that some of the money I had lost today would be there. But there was none. My fingers bundled into a fist and my knuckles turned white as bone, an act driven by frustration.


    I sighed, mustered the courage, and stirred words in my idle mouth. Only breath drew briefly, but my voice triumph in the next eventuality. ¡°I have no more money.¡±


    ¡°But you just got home from a gig, right?¡± Iris asked, confusion clear in her tone. Some concern was also there, I could visualize it in her face.


    ¡°A thief snatched it from me earlier.¡± I proceeded, feeling low. Those words punctured me, renewing further my exhaustion. In the span of that sentence, I relived the unpleasantness of the situation, the hopelessness to see an abstract form of the man fleeting with a whole week¡¯s worth of sweat and tears.


    Nay, if only I could tell you how much I grind myself down to bare bones just to live long enough to aspire, I would. But I could only hope my words to reach you, somehow drift in the wind and break reality to enter whatever afterlife you have sojourned into. I¡¯ve always found solace in you. The world is difficult, now. Especially with you gone. But I must thrive. For you, for the dreams I told you.


    ¡°I¡¯ll pay, then.¡± Iris said without reluctance.


    ¡°No, no. You don¡¯t have to. We can just meet in another time. I¡¯ll try to land gigs for the next few days so I can have the money.¡±


    ¡°Raul,¡± she said softly, stringing my name longer than it should have.


    ¡°I know the things you sacrifice just to earn money. You should not waste it on me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all right. It¡¯s just street food! We¡¯d barely go past one hundred.¡±


    I hesitated. Above me, the clock moved, and it caught my eye. With each tick, there was a subtle complexity to the sound: the motion of tiny gears twisting underneath just to move time a second forward, almost perpetually. The short hand snapped a fraction of an inch, and it was ten o¡¯ clock in the evening.


    The night was deepening, yet outside, the city hollered in the concoction of the unrelenting masses. The iron rumble of cars, the murmur of people, the creaking of pipes. Sumaoan City never slept, and through a half-curtained window, it glittered with the brightest lights. As if one had plucked the stars above and laced them into the streets.


    My head turned towards the door, its bronze knob¡¯s markings becoming prominent in the awakened senses that came the restlessness of fatigue. A thought settled into me, a decision.


    ¡°I¡¯ll meet you there.¡± I said with half a smile. The mirror caught my reflection. A ragged man, drenched in sweat and smog. Face scribbled with wrinkles.


    I was barely living, I thought, but alive. Still alive.

 Chapter 2: Streetlight

    In between the cracks of the concrete pavement, a flower sprouted. It swayed in the wind, a stem so fragile. But it was steadfast. Beautiful and defiant. You often told me of courage, Nay: How it could split mountains, push against the torrent of rivers. Much like this flower, I could thrive even in places driving me to self-destruction.


    A single, solitary firefly hovered over the petal, its glow flickering. It rose, then, trailing a pillar of steel then bursting into a bulb of streetlight above me. Fewer cars drove by, but the smell of smoke was still thick in my nose, ever prominent in the air.


    I stopped right by the street signs. Lualhati Avenue, a place of memories. This was where I stood five years ago when I first traveled to the city, a countryside boy then, seeking an apartment. A home away from home. Till now, the tall skyscrapers and narrow, closed streets overwhelmed me, like I was in another world, one where I do not belong.


    I bustled from gig to gig, worked at restaurants. I was grinding myself to the bone just to earn a living, just to earn my right to live here. That maybe, when I have sacrificed enough, my name would mean something. But I was yet to know the fruition of such things.


    At the periphery of my sight, I caught a standout motion. Iris was there, her hands apexed in the air, and my attention was ensnared. I smiled, waved back, and crossed the road cautiously. Hands in my pocket, I greeted her, my voice both hoarse and trembling.


    ¡°What happened to you?¡± Her smiled dwindled slightly, leaping to and from the territories of worry.


    Perhaps it was the sweat. A thousand glistening beads of them trickling my face. Or was it my eyes that looked dark as ever, almost like I was struck and bruised. I did not know, nor dare to find out.


    ¡°I told you earlier,¡± I sighed. ¡°A thief took my wallet.¡±


    Rain started pouring. At first I thought it was just my nerves, rolling with iced pinprick. But I saw the glass window of the eatery wet with condensation, drops of water running down its surface.


    Iris pulled me inside and as always we would sit at the chair closest to the door, as with any establishment. She told me too many times that should calamities occur, we would be the first to know and run. I told her often that her precaution was out of place, that it was too much. But she would respond as poetically as ever: There is no such thing as too much for the people we love.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± She asked, looking at menu, an old, laminated paper, creased and browning in its surface.


    ¡°Anything,¡± I said, cowering.


    ¡°Oh come on,¡± She laughed softly, ¡°I¡¯m not good at reading mixed signals. You of all people know that.¡±


    We ordered our favorite food. Hers was sisig. It was an elaborate dish, a clear contrast to her subtle personality. It was served in a sizzling plate, making it hiss like a hundred serpents. It was a head-turner. The noise and scent and the thin sheet of vapor could entice a room of preoccupied individuals.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Mine was sinigang. It had been my comfort food, especially when you were cooking for me, Nay. Pellets of oil shimmered atop the reddish green broth, and vegetables floated. The server followed up with two servings of rice, scooped with a mug into an empty ceramic plate.


    We ate our food and stories interjected every now and then. Sometimes bursts of laughter, sometimes a focused silence. It was spontaneous, though. There was no unoccupied moment; the air between us carried our tales.


    Iris had grown up, and though she looked different, she was the same girl you¡¯ve adored. You, Nay, have always asked me: Why not choose Iris? Why not love her?


    I would smile. I had pondered on those thoughts for long. There were nights when I would look at the ceiling and I would think of Iris. She was beautiful in so many ways. A bright, gentle spirit. Iris was perfectly imperfect in her own ways.


    Nay, I do love her. But my love for her was different, not romantic. I love her still¡ªin my own ways. She was a friend and I treasure her so.


    Iris pressed one elbow into the table and her pink sweater sleeve fell down slowly. Underneath, her skin was lined with patches of blackish purple. Bruises. It caught my eye, froze me in time. My thoughts receded into silence.


    Iris saw my reaction and she immediately covered those hidden pains.


    I looked her in the eye, straight into it. I saw something: a doubt, a sheen of struggle.


    ¡°Iris,¡± I whispered, my voice cautious.


    ¡°I¡¯m alright, Raul.¡± She said, looking away. A lie.


    ¡°What did he¡ª¡± My voice trembled slightly.


    ¡°I¡¯m alright!¡± She said, her voice climbed high and broad.


    I leaned back, almost like a retreat.


    ¡°We love differently.¡± She sighed, eyes leaping to and from me. ¡°And sometimes, love hurts. It¡¯s the bitter truth.¡±


    ¡°It is not love if it tears you apart, Iris.¡± I breathed, subduing the surge of emotions. ¡°Is he threatening you? I can find a way to help you.¡±


    ¡°No, Raul.¡± She looked away again.


    There was only silence between. One that was so loud that it swallowed everything. It persisted till both of us idly agreed to finish our food. The waiter packed it into Styrofoam containers and placed each order on separate plastic bags.


    We left the eatery and stood by the streetlight. There, she we waited for tricycles to pass by or jeepneys. But at this time of the night, there were only so few. In about half an hour, the drivers would take rest.


    ¡°You can always talk to me, alright.¡± My voice invaded the empty air between us.


    She sighed, glancing at me so briefly that I would¡¯ve easily missed it had I not looked. ¡°I know.¡± A whisper.


    The faint rain fell still, but we did not mind. It washed the streets, misting a cold over the concrete and asphalt.


    A jeepney stopped, its engine a metallic, guttural hum. Its headlights pierced the darkness like thin columns of sunlight. Iris left and did not dare say a word. It was fitting that I only watched. There was something that formed between us that day. A wall, perhaps. Maybe, something greater.


    I watched the jeepney drift away, carry her. The distance between us had suddenly grown more than ever.