He woke up. He was lying on his side, eyes half-open, mind racing through a blurry maze of what was and what was not. Twenty four years of experience waking up and still he can’t get the hang of it. He closed his eyes again so his mind can stop running. Maybe he can focus better in the dark. He conjured up an image of his name. That’s who I am. He felt sick. Oh, right. I remember.
His hands crawled to where his mobile phone might be. He flipped it to life and opened an eye to check the time. 10:59 PM. No messages. Not that he was expecting any. He let out his first sigh for the evening and started to heave himself up. His body felt heavy, like a moving mass of rocks and cannonballs. On the edge of the bed he sat and rubbed what was left of -- he counts in his head -- four hours of sleep from his eyes. He felt the last wisps of whatever his dream was floating away. Whatever it was he dreamt of, he doesn’t remember now. There was a moment of regret and, an instant after, a spark of thankfulness. He wouldn’t want to remember anything going on in his head while he was asleep in this world. A mosaic of memories unreal, conjured up from regurgitated pieces of reality, like shards of several broken glasses trying to piece themselves back together, but always finding the wrong piece. Even the metaphor is too painful to think about.
He reached over the bedside table to where his comb was and started to rake through the gnarls and tangles his hair managed to twist itself over the hours. A couple of minutes and his breathing became less of an effort. His fingers deftly gathered the longer strands away from his face as he tied the lot back. He checked himself in the mirror, rubbed his eyes awake a little more, and smiled out of habit. He looked more or less alive now -- not a mist of dream from his pale, sun-deprived skin. You’ll do, whispered an echo from a passing, fading memory.
He sat on his small, beaten up swivel chair in front of the computer and pulled his knees up to his chin. While waiting for the programs he left the previous afternoon to fire up from hibernation, he started to think about the speech he needed to finish for his mother. Every year he writes the speeches his mother delivers during graduations and recognition ceremonies in her school and after a while, it’s become a sort of yearly tradition between the two of them. The idea of being able to convey his thoughts to young minds gives him a sense of purpose, even a perverse thrill. He was sure there was at least one or two in the audience listening who would somehow get what it is he really wanted to say -- a warning, that it’s not going to get any easier -- behind the glossy words and generalities lining the whole 5-minute tirade. That is, if his mother doesn’t change much of what he writes -- which he was almost sure she did.
Absent-mindedly, he untied his hair again and ran his fingers through it. I wish you’d cut them short, whispered another errant echo. He closed his eyes and let his memory drift towards the direction of the sound.
“Why?” he heard his own voice ask.
“You’d look better with shorter hair.”
“Will you like me better if I had shorter hair?” he answered, almost immediately, barely hiding the sharpness of each word behind a low, guarded voice. The other person smiled and looked at his food. He silently chided himself, feeling bad for saying something without thinking -- again. “Anyway it’s sort of a promise.”
“To someone?”
“No, to myself. I figured I was so bad at keeping promises, I felt I had to promise something I intend to keep, no matter what. So I promised myself I’d grow my hair long.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
“I see.”
When he opened his eyes, the programs were already running. The cursor was blinking on one corner of the blank document, awaiting orders. It looked like a little black imp, filled with contempt and disdain at being trapped inside an electronic device. He concentrated on it for a while, thinking of what to write. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, but what he remembered was his eyes closing on their own, as if in a trance, while his mind tried to run after the recently exhumed dregs of memory.
No matter what, the voice kept on saying. He heard laughter. Soft guitar playing. A woman’s voice singing. Baguio, he shivered. Happy birthday, murmured a sleepy voice lying beside him.
Again, he woke up, the shock of white light in front of him came in waves through his brain. He saw the cursor blinking. Damn, he cursed under his breath. This is not healthy anymore. Get a grip. Glancing at the clock, he must have dozed off for ten minutes or so. He sat up straight and poised his fingers on the keyboard, ready to type what he needed to say, but his brain comes up with nothing. After several weak attempts at a first sentence, he gave up. He stood and rubbed his temples, chanting Get a grip, get a grip. Eight months is a long enough time, get a grip. He needed a long walk.
