Out II: A Moment In Time

Tentative Title: Out II (A Moment In Time)

Penned by: Saint Aurellius

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Prologue / Chapter X:  Seasoned Memories

I lie half-awake in a state of confusion, as I take a deep breath with my eyes closed – slightly squinting. I can feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead and some flowing down my temple to my nape.  I can’t resist this steamy sensation lingering around my neck and chest anymore, like I’m being passionately raped all thru out my body.  I wrestle with the pillows as to not open my eyes. Because once I open these eyes, I know there’s no going back.

As the summer kisses my lips, I felt this tingling inside my system. It’s decided. I’ve decided. I open my eyes slowly as they adapt to the dimly lit environment. I am alone.

I got up.

The AC stopped working; I must’ve set the timer incorrectly. Nonetheless, I turned it on once more, but leaving the lights as they were. As insensible as it may seem, it is the darkness that gives me a sense of peace and tranquility.

“Agh, Metro Manila, why are you being a jerk to me?”  I sigh as I gaze upon Manila’s nightlife from my glass-walled room, 34-storeys atop the ground. “I’ve worked hard my whole life to gain leverage and yet you still make me feel like I don’t belong. I’ve worked my way up the ladder of success and still being treated like an outcast. I see myself as unique in one way or another, yet you simply see me as indifferent.” I warrant these statements inside my head as I tap on the glass-wall.

I’m not usually like this, maybe the hot season just got under my skin. I hate my sleep getting interrupted.

I went to the kitchen and got myself a glass of Malbec Gran Reserva Fabre Montmayou, my favorite label of red wine as it shows a remarkable balance - with very elegant, delicate and silky tannins, a comparison I’ve always wanted to associate myself with, thinking that this might lure the Sandman back and lull me to sleep.

I went back to my room and turned myself towards my laptop. I put the glass of wine down with a coaster beneath it onto the table adjacent to my bed, where the digital clock rests – which reads 18 minutes past midnight. I picked my laptop up, flipped it open and turned it on.

“I’m fully awake now, might as well surf the net and catch up with the current events” I think to myself as I cautiously sit down on my bed with one leg crossed and the other touching the floor.

I grabbed my headphones and put it on; I then jacked it on my laptop and played my favorite playlist – first song:  “Aspri mera ke ya mas” which translates “There will be better days, even for us” by Agnes Baltsa.

I logged on to my email account, for no apparent reason. Or maybe there is a reason for this, I just don’t know it yet. I then went back to surfing the net, appreciating the masterpieces of lesser known and/or up-and-coming artists on the deviantart site.

As I am being mesmerized by the art offered by promising common people, I suddenly heard a familiar sound. It was a beep sound, a customized beep sound – very familiar from long ago.

“**bleelip**”

It was my personal email account, minimized in the background, prompting that I just received a new email.

Knowing that my close relatives, peers and co-workers are well-informed that I become dragon-like when my sleep gets interrupted, I got irritated - but it was my curiosity that has gotten the best of me.

“Who is this brave heart that emailed me in this unholy hour?” I mumbled onto the darkness.

So, I maximized the email tab and directly went onto the inbox. It so happens that I have 436 unread messages but it was that email that got my curiosity earlier that really stands out of the bunch.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The message’s preview reads:

Sender: Jessie Elizalde; Received: 2 minutes ago; Subject: A broken arm heals, A broken heart dies

I’m in shock. The preview left my mouth open, my jaw hanging, ‘brows on a head-on collision with each other and my head tilted to the right – like I have just seen a ghost.

“What the fvck!?” I blurted out.

I collected myself and mustered every bravery within me – and clicked the said email. It was dated from a decade ago. A time-traveling email. This got me dumbfounded even more. Still a little bit shaken, a started reading the email.

“From: Jessie Elizalde;

Recipient: jzalde_sonata@yahoo.com

Received: [12:43 am] May 2, 2015

Subject: A broken arm heals, A broken heart dies

Message:

Service provided by: Futureme.org

Date created: [00:00 ??] ??? ?, 2005

I am writing to you, my future self, so as to remind myself that . . . ”

               

The cold air coming from the AC has filled the room since almost half an hour ago, yet here I am staring blankly at the LED of my laptop with beads of sweat yet again forming on my forehead. Maybe this is really a ghost – a ghost of the past – visiting me . . . to remind me . . . of something . . . I forgot . . . from a long time ago.

Something – something I forgot to remember.

As I continue to read, I see flashes of images inside my head. I can’t seem to make something out of it. But nonetheless, I continued on reading a few more words – words to phrases, phrases to sentences and sentences to lines.

As I go and read on, these blurry visuals begin to clear up. These are memories of the past, living beneath my consciousness for the past decade, lingering somewhere in my mind and are now resurfacing to meet with me again – like  a group of friends that hasn’t seen each other for a long time that are set for a reunion. But whether it’s a jubilant or a melancholic reunion – I don’t know.

I blanked out. Everything I read has slipped out of my mind, like I was pre-occupied with something. Maybe this is the other part of my brain reacting – rejecting these memories and suppressing them back into oblivion – into the deepest pits of my consciousness.

And so, I closed my eyes and tried clearing my mind of anything that can obstruct me from fully understanding the message of the email. Someone I know told me once that sometimes even three deep breaths can change everything. So I took three deep breaths. 1 – 2 – 3 and poof! My head is now like a clean canvass that an artist would willingly kill for just to have his masterpiece drawn on it.

And so, I started reading again from the top, but this time, instead of seeing simply flashes of images, I am rather watching a movie inside my head. As if my memories came to life and I traveled back in time.

I see myself sitting in front of a Pentium III-powered computer set inside our old mini library back at my parents’ home in Quezon City from half-a-score ago.

To Be Continued . . .