Rizzalyn Vales

Memoirs Hello Anna, how are you? Will you still remember this scenario when I tell you about this? It’s summer of 1978, we were just seven years old when I saw you sitting by the river. It’s freezing but you still manage to remove your coat. You were so beautiful. And there you go, listening to the same old tune again. You played it a million times but seems like those lyrics hasn’t sunk in yet to your mind. You just listen to it because it tells a story. Your story to be specific. You only listen to that part where it tells exactly how you feel and what you are today but when it comes to that part where it tells how to get up and survive, you always click the replay button. You are easily susceptible to pain but find it difficult to get up and detached yourself to it. I watched you as you twist the vinyl and start the song all over. You found yourself doing it over and over again until unconsciously, you picked up a book from your shelf. Something you remember reading two years ago. T’was entitled “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath. Both your sub-conscious and conscious state was shaken after realizing that the one who penned it died of suicide. It’s a key to someone’s life with a facade of fiction. Esther’s the name of the protagonist and described the feeling of being depressed as something like being trapped in a bell jar. Like all those films you have watched and books you have read, the victim has halfheartedly did some attempts before swimming into serious one. I saw how you suffered from anxiety of the future.I remember you telling me that Esther would be the name of your future child if it is a girl. “Esther Alicia” because you can’t detach yourself to that book your mother is always reading aloud; it’s Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and you told yourself that you’ll do anything to raise her to be someone you are not. You put the book down and noticed the old albums under your coffee table. You grabbed one and let out a huge sigh before opening it. Those smiles your friends gave you are priceless so you ask yourself “where are you now? I’m growing tired and weary.” Without knowing it, a single tear roll down and fell at the picture you were holding. You opened another album which has a note “family” and wonder where are the pictures in it? You turned your house upside down but found only a few. You told me, “at least I’ve found two. One’s taken during my christening and the other’s from the Christmas day of 1965” while trying hard to smile and utter the words “I’m fine.” I saw how you choke on your tears. How your palm sweats and your knees shake. You experience absence seizures every now and then where you just stop doing something because your neurotransmitters failed to deliver electricity to your cells, causing a slight blanking out of your brain. Know why? You overload yourself with thoughts that you, yourself can’t decipher. Then after that, what will you feel? You’ll have apnea because your lungs can’t get enough oxygen because you block it with bad memories. Mental breakdowns are no longer foreign to your system. They broke your chest but you are bigger than that. I know my friend. You’re not alone in that hell. See, you need help. But you keep on refusing it because you think that only you can save yourself. Can you hold your hand when you jump off a cliff or be your personal life jacket when you’re drowning? Maybe you can, or cannot. You were shouting and screaming. A euphoric sound that made the entire school burn. I’m so worried about you back then so I called for help never knowing that it was the last time I will be seeing your melancholic eyes. Winter of 1978, they took you away from me, and ever since that day when they let you wear a white gown and promised me that they’ll take care of you, I never saw you again. Only today when they finally let you out to see yourself in the mirror. You found a piece of you and said “I never thought I’m beautiful”. I met your gaze. You were staring blankly at me. You gave me a sly smile and said “It’s you” and that moment, I felt you for the first time after ten years. I said “I’ll come back for you. You’ll never be alone again”. Can you imagine that it’s year 1988 today and your reflection in the mirror is getting clearer as time goes by? Summer of 1989, I came back again and I can see that you are fully recovered from being a half-glass soul. Your eyes, they are like embers again, you’re no longer pale and you can speak now. I look at you, looking at me, neither one of us wants to speak first but something pushed us to say “It’s you. Welcome back” You promised me that it’s going to be the last time you’ll ever talk to me and that made me happy. You promised yourself to never look at the same mirror ever again. With a loud sigh, I commanded you to smash the mirror and never to pick up those pieces. You did. You defeated me. You set yourself free. See, I’m your demon and I am always here for you. I’m still with you, watching you and haunting you in your dreams. I keep on whispering you the past, but as long as you don’t let me in, you’ll be untouchable. So long Anna.