My mother began to act quite strangely afterwards, her attention constantly on me for a reason unknown. I tried several times to get it out of her, but her lips were sealed, always a sad smile she would give me; and she stayed home more than usual. I realized that something was seriously off with her; and something was telling me, strangely, that she was hiding away from something, or something on that particular course.

This gave me the inkling that I was bound to give her more attention than I used to. I stayed up at night, surveyed her behavior and caught her crying a few times; and also she treated me as would an actual mother which quite bothered me. She and I never had a mother and son relationship ever in our lives, and there she was, being a real mother to me. This, more or less, vexed me.

Conversely, he and I got closer to one another than we previously were. I was certain of my feelings by then, and there were no regrets; I liked that feeling, to be honest; I liked the fact that I liked him, the fact that it went way beyond the point of mere attraction. It didn’t matter to me whether he was a man or a tree, it didn’t matter to me what job he did and where he came from, and I realized that it did come with the package of falling in love; one wouldn’t understand the rights and wrongs in it. And it was truly a remarkable experience for me.

Every evening until midnight would fall, he and I would sit in the rooftop, talking or just chewing on lollipops without having so much to do; or we’d just watch the sunset and the sky drowning in the darkest of blues, we’d wait for the stars to appear and watch how they would shine. There were times that I’d fall asleep while he buried himself in his own world of fiction, and I’d find myself much later, lying in his lap, his fingers my head; my eyes would flutter open to be greeted by the spine of a classical paperback. Afterwards, he’d smile at me, lead me by my arm and accompany me all the way home. He and I never touched the topic of his ‘job’ since that day, and even when I noticed how weary and tired he looked, and all the ugly scars on the smooth skin of his neck and even abdomen (under certain circumstances) I wouldn’t say a word and hide my anger within. Thus grew the strange but unbounded relationship between us.

It was on a sunny day of that spring, a Sunday where he was supposed to head for ‘work’ in the evening while I had the entire day for myself, that he confronted me. The wind was rushed on that day, and the sunshine was balmy and warm. The sound of vehicles down below was a far cry, and him, dressed in a crisp blue shirt and matching white pants hugging his impeccable limbs, looked more beautiful than any other day, the scent of him was prominent and nice.

He was reading a paperback; the spine I conceived, of as a contemporary classic. Even when he asked though, he seemed unfazed, his eyes focused on the leaves of the book, his hair danced gently in the breeze.

“You…you like me don’t you?”

The atmosphere felt warmer suddenly, and I wondered if the summer had come nearer in time. I dared not to reply.

“Well, you do” He said, raised his eyes at me and carefully surveyed me in an eloquent manner and gave me a slightest of a smile. “You’re turning red, you know”

I shrugged, my fingers playing deftly with the wrapper of the lollipop I had. “Am I that transparent?”

He chuckled. “I suppose it can’t be helped”

“I do” I said, trying not to sound gullible, and cleared my throat. “Like you, I mean”

There was silence from his part, and when he sighed, it was almost distinct and inaudible; I regarded his expression; it was somewhat divine; something that I had never come across before. His eyes were focused far ahead but shined as would evening stars. His lips were in a firm line, but were faintly threatening to curve into a smile. His cheeks were flushed pink the slightest, head was pressed against the mossed wall. And I waited.

“It’s good, you know…in fact; amazing” He said in the end, and the smile he’d been holding back, finally appeared. “Living in the city, doing this job I’m doing…hiding away from the world…it’s pretty lonely…very…lonely” He muttered, his voice was so low that I had to focus on every word he said. “So…I might do better with a little romance in my life….”

I bit my lip, something was blooming, shattering and swaying inside me. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.

He accepted it.

“I don’t know-,”

“I knew…” he said, cutting me off. “I knew all along…..and see?” He turned to me. “We’re all messed up souls. We all have our lives messed up. The society pushes us away, the world pushes us away, we pull ourselves away and cower in a corner, being stereotyped; and at the end of the day, it’s nobody’s fault; that’s just how the world goes; those are factors that could never be changed. So if you’re thinking of…circumstances, screw them. You and I, we have nothing to lose. Let’s do whatever we want with our lives, hmm? Because, in the end, we all die anyway…”

I looked at him uncertainly and searched in his eyes. All I could grasp was hope, sincerity and the faintest reflection of myself. I realized just how right he was. Yes, we were messed up, our souls were messed up, but weren’t empty, because they were ours, our own lives, the lives that we lead the way we desired to, for unlike others, we had no restrictions, no boundaries, no greed nor hunger for power. All we wished for was a life, and this was how we lived; building our own connections, trying to live on this shortest span of life the best way we could, for in the end, death would claim us all, and regardless of where we all belonged, where we end up would be the same.

“Yes, let’s do then” I said, mustering out best of my smiles. “Let’s do…let’s do and go as far as we can go”

And that’s how he and I had our hearts entangling as one.

Days passed, and on one somber evening in that spring, where the heavy sky darkened in the murkiest shade of lavender, the sun hiding behind the clouds; he called me up on my phone. I was in the repair house at that time, just minutes away from changing into the overalls when his distinct, hoarse monotone indicated to me that I won’t be changing clothes tonight after all.

“I can’t do it…I can’t do it anymore…” Screeched his voice through the pounding of the heavy wind, and I could catch up with the evident convulse in his voice. “My life, it’s over, it’s done for good…I can’t do this anymore…”

I panicked momentarily, thousand different scenarios began to surge into my mind; I tried to keep my voice steady as I spoke; I had already exited my workplace and was scurrying down the sidewalk, retracing my way back to the bus stop. “Wait….calm down….tell me what happened now”

“They found out” He replied, and I realized he was crying. “The college people, they found out what I do…my life is over now, it’s all over…”

I stopped on my track on the middle of the pavement, doing my best to hold the phone from sliding off my grasp. It wasn’t any hard to put two and two together despite how vague and unclear his words were, it wasn’t hard to realize how blurry and uncertain his life would be. I felt my own heart pounding with fear and comprehension, and before long the very next thought crashed onto me in hasty realization.

I could feel it, it was as though I was getting an indistinct inkling; I could almost visualize it, his lean, tall figure, up on the wall of the abandoned building against the murky lavender sky, anticipating my presence, my arrival for once before the final flight-

Without wasting another second, I began to run with all the energy I could muster and flag a taxi just as it passed by.

He was still on the phone, I could hear him breathing hard. The anxiety, the fear, the powerlessness and uncertainty, I could feel them all as though my own.

“Wait, I’m coming” I told him, catching my breath while sliding into the car. “Don’t do anything crazy now, I’m coming”

All the while in the car, I had my hands clasped, praying if he’d change his mind. I couldn’t imagine how much of pain, fear he was drowning in; how much he must be striving to come to a final decision. He wasn’t morally strong though he always tried to smile through tears; and that, by experience and observation I knew was a false bravado. He needed me, he needed to be shown the right way and that his life wouldn’t end there where his deepest of the secrets were revealed, he needed to be shown that his life, despite everything was precious.

It took almost ten minutes to finally reach the apartment curb; after forcing a chunk of bills to the driver’s outstretched hand, I took off running, without stopping to break a breath.

It was cold at that time, minutes before a heavy cloudburst. Over in the western sky were ripples of silvery thunder breaks, appearing and vanishing point-blank every now and then. The wind was hasty and cold, the sun had completely disappeared behind the heavy grey clouds; and against the lavender of the sky stood the two buildings, eerie and ghastly as they would ever be.

Out of impulse, I stopped for a briefest minute and tried to locate his figure on the top of the building through narrowed eyes. It was too dark that I couldn’t see anything beyond the blurry edges of the building top; giving up, I continued to run with the remaining energy I had. It was draining already, and I was beginning to become utterly powerless, drenched in ambiguity and fear. I couldn’t imagine what could have happened in those ten minutes of time I had wasted, all I could do was wish for the best but expect the worse.

I suddenly realized how my mother would have felt if she ever knew what I had been planning for so long. She would have drowned in fear, her heart would have exploded if I had died, she would have been left alone in this cruel, cruel realm, looked down upon not only as a woman who would sell her body for money but also as a woman who let her only son die.

This thought slowed me down momentarily, half way up the stairs. I realized how much of a fool I had been. I have never been there or experienced it, I have never known how terrible and difficult life was for them; though I had witnessed myriad times the painful bruises all over her and the distinct sorrow in her eyes I refused to admit it, saturated by the fear of my own to accept the truth.

I realized, my mother was the bravest woman I knew.

And he was the bravest man I had ever known in my life.

Covered in those bruises, wounds and marks of all sorts all over their skin, their souls, life’s tarnished in a way that no one could ever restore, they still lived, they still strived to live, they feared to die no matter how many reasons their lives, the hypocrite society, the world gave them to. They were the bravest kind I have ever known in my life.

Gathering all the remaining power I had within myself, I clenched my hands in grim determination and took the rest of the fly the fastest I could. My skin had gone pale, my mouth was dry, my lips were parched and my breathing was so unnaturally uneven. I could feel tears stinging in my eyes, the flimsy cloths I wore did no good to how cold the atmosphere was; but in contraire to how appalling my condition was, the fortitude was far more superior. It was as though I wanted to be daring and firm for once, like how he and my mother had been for all this time; I wanted to be bold like my mother was, bringing me up and protecting me from hundreds of wolf eyes, and save a life which was precious not only to me but many others. I wanted to be brave for another bravest of a broken soul, be a person that I had never been before in my life.

My footsteps against the cold murky steps resonated with every move I made, the sound of my panting was a mournful echo throughout. It smelled rotten inside, and it was cold. Through that, however, I made to the top of the building the fastest I possibly could.

The moment I stepped out onto the rooftop, the heavy wind coming from below kissed my exposed skin in a rush. It was scented of the very same reek of the building; eerie, old and atrocious. My head pounded in response; thus did my gaze begin to flounder all over the place, striving to locate the person of my heart; thousand questions flooding in my mind, fearing their answers. I was in a frantic state of mind, senses unable to grasp anything concrete; instead I was naturally making all sorts of ill assumptions, behind my eyes was a god-forbidden, blurry image of him lying lifelessly on the foot of the building.

The conversation from the first day we met surged into my mind as though the aftermath of a tornado. Could it be that the rumor was true? Could it be that he was going to die because he, without clear intention, saved my life?

Then he wouldn’t be here, even if he was, he wouldn’t die. And he knew it. Then there was no point of I standing here; this probably wasn’t the place where he’d decidedly take his life.

Out of resentment, I called out his name, once, twice, waiting for a single movement to where I stood. I didn’t dare to move, lest he’d suddenly appear; though something was telling me that this wasn’t it, that he wasn’t here. It was telling me that I should leave and search for him elsewhere before the thunder would strike.

But before even I could turn on my heels and leave, I could grasp the strained voice of his, faintly calling out to someone, that someone I couldn’t exactly grasp, or I didn’t want to. It didn’t really matter to me, because he was here.

He was still here.

When I took off on the direction where the sound came from, I wasn’t in my sane mind anymore. The simplest, low sound of him was a reassurance for me, giving me faith that I still could save him and help him through. I suddenly realized that it was our fate that he saved me from dying that day that he and I were meant to meet so that this day would come where I’d understand that I had been hiding in a shell all along. I could feel something warm prickling through me, I would have mistaken it as ‘love’ flowing throughout, but what it really was that realization; though completely illogical, though it was found amusing by the latter, that this could indeed happen in a circle.

Now that I had saved him, I was put onto the dead end, and if I tried to die, he would be on the same position as now; and for the love of god I realized, I would never let him land here ever again. It pained him too much, and he didn’t deserve it.

Maybe this was a quest for us by god, to keep us going; despite everything, to keep him and I alive.

Out on the furthest corner of the right where the landing would be the cross-section between the two buildings, where stacks and stacks of wooden boxes and massive garbage containers lied, was him, crouched down over the edge, only his stretched legs and hands perched on the wall visible.

He was right about to jump; I realized. One moment, I would lose him forever-

-although this wasn’t the normal way of one taking his life by jumping off the edge. Something surged into me, like a strange, horrid realization; as though I was missing something there but only I didn’t know what, and neither did I care. All I cared for was saving his life, now, for once and forever.

I didn’t waste a moment when I leaped towards him and draped both my arms around his torso, under his arms, pulling him to my side. His flimsy old shirt was cold and wet, the front of it was dirtied by the moss. He was heavy and as tall as I was; against my rather clumsy built, he was too much for me to handle that I stumbled back. But with the greatest of my will power, no matter how wearied I was, I held up. Held in my arms, he was crying, and strived so hard to reach over to the wall.

“No stop!” I screamed, pulling him back to my side. Did he still want to end his life?

I had never seen him so broken, emotionally. He had always been strong in my eyes.

“Stop! Stop! Please!”

It was hard to have him held firm in my grasp, I was too powerless to hold on; but I was strong enough to grasp that hopping off the edge wasn’t what he had in his mind right then.

A gush of fear ran through me as he fought against me that I simply let him off, and instead of moving to the edge, he began to cry and turned to me. Hot warm tears falling down his crest fallen eyes.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” He muttered through his sobs, his voice so unclear that I could hardly grasp it. “I’m so, so sorry…”

“Ssh…its okay” I whispered and caught his face in my hands. “It’s okay…I’m here now, it’s okay-!”

“Shut up!” He bellowed, his eyes frantically moving over to the edge. “No! Shut up!”

I called his name and pressed my hands onto his arms. ‘Ssh…listen to me, you’re just overwhelmed, you would be fine-!”

“I tried to stop…but wouldn’t listen…I tried!” He cried, his eyes still on the edge. “I swear I tried-!”

“It’s okay…its okay I know you did-!”

“No shut up! Shut up!”

I was at a loss, though, reading his posture, my mind was reading something else.

It wasn’t that he was crying about not dying, no. His tears were meant for something else.

He was trembling, he was horrified, his eyes bloodshot, skin so pale, as though he had just-

I called his name, and he buried his face in his hands, cried out so loudly before looking at the greying sky and back at me.

“You stupid bastard you mother just killed herself!”

It was only then that I realized how it was like to have your whole world stop dead in time.

For a moment we both stood still; him, crying up into the lavender sky and me, I didn’t know where or how I was. My mind was blank, empty, with only his words resonating in my head on and on until I couldn’t bear it anymore, it was as though it’s all I knew for real. All these days I had been living behind a massive fall, separated from the real reality. I didn’t know where I was going after then, I didn’t know where I stood on the realm at that very point of time.

All I knew was that I had lost my mother, and that not a single tear did I cry. I had become numb, completely immune to emotions. My mind was in a whirl wind but calming, slowly, and I could hear her voice in my head like a tuneless song overpowering the screams of hatred and fear in my mind, slowly did they subside, until all I could hear was her.

‘That’s how I got you’

I recalled the grief she lived in, the tears in her eyes, the sudden care she showed me, the weariness she held in all throughout the span of twenty one years we had been together. I could recall my childhood, how she took care of me without giving me once the feeling of being the child of such a mother, how she schooled me as long as she could, and how she always put off my cigar when she catch me smoke. I recalled her crying alone in her covers and how she held me when I cried when I was still a child. I had never held her through tears. I had been a horrible son, but she loved me.

She was doing an ungodly profession, but went on doing it.

She suffered throughout the time she lived, but hid it from my eyes.

She had led a horrible life, but she lived, despite the sufferance, she lived.

And now finally, she had gained the freedom she always, maybe secretly craved after.

I had been the one holding her back, most probably, and now she was free.

“She’s free” I said, before my inner self would stop me, because it was the bitter truth that I had always feared to believe. “My mother…she’s finally free...”

I could feel his silent stare, watching me, tears b his eyes, but by then, I was certain of the answer’ it was as though I had finally found the answer I had been looking for.

“She did it…she’s free…”

Subconsciously I walked over to the edge, lean over the wall, my blurry vision immediately located the petite, lifeless figure of her, lying on the cold, tarmac ground as would an angel fallen from her grace. I could still trace the long, dark mane of her hair from where I stood, and the pale pristine skin. She wore a dree, crimson spreading over the whiteness of it; although something inside was urging me to run down and save her life, I knew the best of myself.

She wanted this, she wanted to escape; and if I would save her life now, she would have gone on one full circle to land in the very same spot again, the cursed life that she couldn’t escape, not as a living, breathing soul.

I realized that it was just fair to let her fade away, though into the wind, the body she used to live, to protect me and pleasure others would only become ashes while the soul which lived would lie in the hands of god.

She wanted it, and finally she had. I didn’t see the necessity to cry but stare at her, as though waiting to see her soul rising and disappearing into the lavender sky. Though she was gone, she was my mother, and the bravest woman I have ever known.

Against me the spring’s cold wind blew incessantly, the dark curls of my hair danced softly over my eyes. I could feel him beside me, his warmth closing over to me, his demeanor suddenly appeased; and soon he was right beside me, his fingers slowly lacing through mine. I could hear him drawing in one sharp breath, and when he spoke, his voice trembled in the wind but was stronger than before, much deliberate, a hidden will evident to me in his words.

“She said she’s leaving you for me…”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, my mind gone blank, eyes still watching my mother.

“She asked me to protect you…and never let you take the same path as she…and I”

I managed a nod in acknowledgement, still unable to reply.

“And I promised her…I will”

It was then that the determination, reason and a sudden new light surged into me. It was as though she had left us with hope, that hope which said that we still had time to make life better, to leave this world and step into a place where we could start all anew. Maybe this was the whole reason why she lived so long, the reason why she gave me life. Maybe she wanted to give her child the life she never had, maybe she waited till its time.

“We’ll go away, somewhere far from here….and start life all over again…”

“Somewhere far away” I whispered, my eyes finally looking up into the deep, intellectual ones of his. They were still shining, but behind that shine, I began to see a whole new world. And the reassurance that we still had a life to live. “Somewhere far away…”

It was my mother’s death that brought an all new light and a meaning to my life. She was the first to die off the ‘suicide house’ and the last, the rumor was in a conspiracy, still a mystery to us, her leaving us hanging and a topic to not to ever touch. The building was brought down soon after, both of them were; in the end, our land lord sued against hygienic matters. He who also lived in the apartment and I lost a place to live therefore we moved out and away into the countryside where the wind was warmer and waves rolled on the golden beach. Life became easier then, for we had our past hidden beneath, an all-new future awaiting us. Nobody judged him nor me for nobody know whom we really were. He left his ‘job’, obviously, and found him a decent part time job at a retirement home where he served the old and dying while I found myself working at a nearby dock. He and I both finally began to see the realm all fresh and anew. There was no more fear, no more rush, no more hypocrisy on us and judgmental eyes. We realized how easy it was to live and how hard it was to die. Life was given to us for a reason, we would live in a bubble until we would finally apprehend it, and I happened to deem that it was us who should strive to find what they truly were.

The easy way or the hard way.

Life would become hard, just then and there, and whenever it did, naturally, I would feel like dying.

And when I’d think about dying, I’d think of;
One, My mother                    
Two, Him                    
Three, My life                           

And I’d decide to not to try dying anymore.

~The End~