everyday starts exactly the same way everyday starts.
she will set two alarms at 8.30 and 8.40 in the morning. In
between the time, she will close her eyes trying to remember the dreams she
had. no significance there, just ritual.
the second alarm will go off and she will rise straight to
the bathroom door. She will undress fast, and after she let her clothes slip
down, she will head for bath. she never had long baths. she just doesn’t. all
she has are hair shampoo and body soap which she sometimes uses alternately. no
facial washer, no cleanser, no scrubs, no other else. soap and shampoo. just
soap. and shampoo. either.
it’s not that she doesn’t want to have those typical set of
womanly proof of existence, not even because she can’t afford one—but she has
her own timing and she hates it when things slow her down.
time consuming, she says.
and she does not have time.
in less than 5 minutes, she will be out already with her red
towel she brought from father’s house. no sentimental value there, just that
she is the type who thinks twice when it comes to buying new things. or
shopping. she is not a cheapskate. to her defense, she sees herself as a person
with priorities.
well she always defends herself anyways.
she will grab anything she feels like wearing right after
she got out of the bathroom. her clothes are not new. she got them at flee
markets or internet pre-loved items auctions she sees in blogs. she believes
things have hearts, that if she throws them away— they would cry.
she would.
if she were those things.
so anyone who goes to her apartment would see all sort of
old things. not the antique or vintage kind of old. but outdated and unwanted.
she never cares what people think of her. like for example there is this one
bag she had from her father. up until her second year in university, she used
that briefcase we see only be seen in silent movies. the girl with the big PVC
box with four non-functional wheels;
that—
she is.
she just cant put them away. she just cant handle the pain. the
piercing sounds she hears while leaving them to their own fate. she just cant
stand her own tears.
she says sorry to them as if those things hoping they would
comfort her; that it is ok for them to end up in the thrash where she left
them. she puts them nicely and in order, in gestures of a farewell to a pensioning
national war commander—faked smiles with tears running down, as well as a nod
with a bucketful of unspoken words.
everyday starts exactly the same way everyday starts.
like everyday, she will wear anything she feels like. she
has limited accessories, a choice of only one long bead that can act as a
necklace or a bangle, a pair of hoop earrings that can go with basically
everything and a faded scarf she sometimes use as a hairband, a hip belt or
even a tie.
at every time, she will work her look very well.
perhaps it’s because she is pretty in her own ways, or at
least she thinks she is, which in her own definition means not giving a damn
about how she looks but still presentably attractive. everyone is attractive,
she thinks. one extra mole on one twin will make two different from each other,
wont it?
it is safe to say she actually is beautiful.
and a lot safer to continue with “in her own ways”.
she should be. her parents were a beautiful pair of match
made in heaven. everyone says that while they smile reminiscing her parents
until they stopped the smile in exchange to a sympathetic flat lip. they always
switch off the sun when they talk of her mother. on how her mother’s death
killed her father more than her cancer was to her mother. On how her father
were broken and shattered when her mother passed to the other side.
“do you remember?” ask they.
all the time.
every time.
how could she not? left to live in her own definition of
living at the early age of ten as her mother had started to wilt then. her
siblings were either too young or too ignorant to care. she always feel lonely.
her father was there—but there was no father but a hollow man more silent that
the dead walls.
beauty was a term she learned by not having. like the word ‘rich’.
she understands it by grasping the fact they are the opposite.
growing up, she was not the typical sparkle-eyed girl we
want to be friends with. she was a little bit extra on the pounds and was sour
smelled because of she sweats all the time. no one was there to tell her and
guide her what to do. or how to manage the basic things in life like which
powder to use to cover blemishes or what to use when you spill ketcup on a rug.
no one at all.
her mother died after two years of mean cycle of ups and
downs. mostly downs, of course. at her age of twelve, she was left with her
frozen father and invisible siblings. her puberty went with none to refer to.
her first sanitary pad was a maternity one just because she thought the thicker
the better and as she freaked out, she wore them upside down. she thought the
common sense would be glue sticks the discharge. experience thought her tissues
absorb better than glue sticks.
she had no friends at all.
that was not bad.
she thought her life was normal.
now that—
was sad.
at 13 she enrolled herself in boarding school so she could
breakaway from the silence she was chained to. she was a bright girl in her
class, she always has. she was witty and smart with words—she found herself in
the school debating team. she likes it when she can speak things out loud. she
loves it when she expresses her mind. she cherishes every second on the stage
for that is the only place on earth she can be the person she has always wanted
to be and can get away with it.
everyone can be someone they cannot be in real life there on
the stage.
everyone.
but she was not the standard look of a representative of a
unit. she may be the face of her school, but she was fat and was not attractive
enough to be the face. all she had was her mouth, her voice. no one likes a
non-attractive smart mouth.
no one.
therefore always at the dining room, she will sit alone with
no one joining her. what is worse than hostel food is obviously hostel food
eaten on your own. after a while, she stopped dining. thank god for the
allowance money her father gave her she used to buy light snacks to substitute
her meals.
it is harder to survive loneliness than hunger.
of course, she lived.
but she lost massive amount of weight from week to week. she
might be depressed, but no one saw it. “she was just being her”, snickered
they. the way she lived her life was how her invisible siblings and statuette
father did when her mother died.
quietly, she had made numerous attempts of suicides but that
was the farthest she could go; attempts. she still cries on the sight of syringe
at times she has high fever, how in the world can she even try to cut her wrist?
She tried overdosing but always at the tenth tablet she would refrain herself
as she feared the other side is just too big for her and she realized that she
was not prepared. good thing, though—at least those drugs will calm her from
her loud, mean and abusive mind.
there was nothing much to talk about of her next decade. the
typical frustrations, the normal shouts of teenage angst, the classic puppy
love made believe the truest. friends in and out. life up and down. the
standards.
but whatever they were signifies nothing much to her in
present time, except she is now is in her perfect figure and her parents looks
are now more and more visible in her
features.
she had become a swan.
but this swan grew up thinking she was a toad—
so of course,
she never knew she could fly.
if only someone would tell her she is beautiful.
if only someone would just hold her and say to her face she
is wonderful.
but none did.
none at all.
so no matter how much she had grown into a woman, the only
person she sees every morning in the mirror is the girl with humongous thighs
with few layers of chin she sees all this while. it is a tragedy, actually, to
live a life of one who wishes to be someone you never knew you were all along.
a swan who wishes she were a swan because no one ever told
her she was one.
a simple little swan who loves her simple life of her every
simple day.
and like every other day after she is done with putting on
clothes and accessorize, she will powder her face and paint her lip nude. she will
get into her car and drive to her office. it takes her only ten minutes to get
there had no force of nature or brutal accidents on her way.
at ten every morning she is will be in her office. she will
always make sure she gets there before anyone else. she loves coming early to
work so she doesn’t have to see people looking at her movements every second
from the door to her cubicle. she can’t stand being looked at, other than the
times when she is on stage debating, or at times when she enjoys being the
class clown pathetically in desperation of friends making.
she will make herself busy until the office closes. she
doesn’t even go out for lunch because she cooks to work. she may be a superb
cook because she was born with amazing taste palate, but truth be told: when
she was little, all she wanted to be was a housewife.
she still keeps that thought secretly to herself. but in
reality she feels too ugly to date, and assumes she would never be married. and
she has this understanding that so far, all of her assumptions had always been right.
well, mostly.
perhaps she was protecting herself.
so.
in the office, she is more like an observer. she is kind and
never tried to be rude even though she was visibly quiet. she helps the office
help when they come in. when people make silly jokes, she will laugh together with
the joker, no matter how bland the punch line is. she smiles in support
whenever people present their proposals, be the ideas are weird and
outstandingly stupid. she avoids talking much so she wont have to shut her ears
to office dramas. she blends better that her cubicle’s wall.
she tries really hard to not be significant.
at 7.30 when the sky is dark, she will be out of her
cubicle, far from her computer and files. by now, everyone had left. and
everyday, after work, before she gets back to her apartment, she will drop by
at the supermarket. she buys her groceries in small portions on daily basis
because she has nothing else to do. she has her own movie setting at home. her
apartment is complete. at least to her.
right after, she will head directly to her nest. she will change to appropriate homey attire, and
then she will start cooking two portions. one for now and another for work the
morrow. she will cook and then she will turn on her film of choice on her small
box telly—her favourite genre is autobiography and myth. with food in the plate
on her palm, and she will enjoy her dinner while sinking in her little cinema
date with herself.
her body clock is everyday demanding for early sleep. the
latest she could go is at twelve and at that is very rare. she is more of a
morning person than a night owl. nothing happens at night, she said.
nothing but beautiful dreams she cant wait to be in.
she will then clear the mess she had made for dinner and will
pack her food for work. she has never let herself sleep in untidy. she will
clean everything up and put everything back in order. she would feel terrible
if she notice any of her stuff fell off unattended—because they have feelings.
and she has feelings, too—
so.
everyday, her ritual ends with her tucking herself between
her cozy bedspreads and blanket. she will smile as soon she is comfortable with
her position. she does that all the time. she smiles to signal her thanks to
the bed who every night had kept her safe and warm.
she will doze all the way in bliss. she will find what she
wants to find in her dreams. she has always been so eager for night time. it is
the best time of her simple every day.
as everyday starts exactly the same way everyday starts,
everyday ends exactly the same way everyday ends.
except this morning,
she wakes up dead.