Sweetened Dreams

79 ·

Isabella Marie P. Darang

bfa creative writing

Isabella Marie Darang is an aspiring writer/playwright who studied Creative Writing in the Ateneo de Manila University. She found a passion in theater during her college stay and has since continued to do work for productions, whether that be through production work or writing the material itself. She continues to dabble in other genres as well to broaden her writing skills. She hopes to continue showcasing her works for people to see and read and she hopes to become an acclaimed writer some day.

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 80

81 · Isabella Marie Darang

the galaxy of us

if i tell you i love you, would you say it back?

would your lips form the words that your heart keeps hidden away like the rays of the sun, warm and pleasant and familiar would you utter with confidence the emotions you keep tightly sealed to stop us from colliding like stars out of reach

with our lives aligning with each other’s like the planets in the sky to our promises and trust being shattered like a meteor crashing on Earth would it make a difference if our ‘i love you’s became ‘i’m sorry’s instead?

with every beat of your heart, it feels like time stops and the world stands still

for this.

this moment.

this fleeting moment of vulnerability we find ourselves sucked into with trembling hands and

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 82

gasping lungs, unsure what to hold onto as if it’s not enough to strip ourselves bare and gaze at each other tracing constellations on our skin with every imperfection we see we have to hold the galaxies from our eyes in our hands to prove ourselves worthy but if you knew i would succumb to the black hole of regret

would you still say i love you, even if i won’t say it back?

83 · Isabella Marie Darang

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 84

Aya Domingo

bfa creative writing

Aya Domingo is a Creative Writing student specializing in fiction. She is also an avid cheesecake enjoyer, a firm believer in the “treat yourself” mindset, and a master at trying to do way too many things at once, among many other things she’s still trying to figure out about herself. She is always in pursuit of a “bewitched me, body and soul” kind of feeling.

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 86

87 · Aya Domingo

Sweetened Dreams

the bar was an accidental discovery.

In a half-drunken stupor, Lianne had made a wrong turn, heading into unfamiliar alleyway after unfamiliar alleyway, until she found herself bathed in the warm red light of its neon sign at a dead end. ‘The Bar,’ it read. She scoffed and turned to see if anyone else thought it was ridiculous, but she was only met with the empty alleyway. It dawned on her only then that she had separated from Helena and the rest of their tipsy friends, but before she could turn on her heels to head back, she heard the distant rumble of rain. She glanced back at the metal door, cold and uninviting, not very promising for what might be behind it. The pitter-patter of rain didn’t give her much of a choice though, so she steeled her nerves before pushing through the door.

She made a mental note to avoid touching any sticky countertops, but she found she didn’t have to worry about that. The place was so spotless, it was almost eerie. The tables looked more like mirrors with the way they shone, the floor was void of any spilled drinks or food, and the air was cool, clean, and smoke-free. The bottles behind the bar gleamed beneath the warm lights, and a soft jazz tune filled the silence. It was such a far cry from the skeevy joints near campus that she had just grown accustomed to. It almost felt like some sort of liminal space where nothing seemed to be real. She was sure that this must’ve been some sort of hallucination, caused by inhaling the smoke of whatever the group had been passing around earlier.

Another peculiar thing was that it was nearly empty, quite an anomaly for a Friday night. The only patron there was a young woman in a sleek black dress, half-slumped over one of the tables as she sipped on a neon pink drink through a heart-shaped straw.

“Welcome.” A voice snapped her back to attention. The bartender, she assumed, stepped out from a door behind the bar, rolling the sleeves of his crisp dress shirt up to his elbows. He swiftly took his

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 88

place behind the bar, hands tucked behind his back.

Lianne approached the bar. The closer she got, the more she took in the appearance of the bartender. He was handsome, probably not much older than her too, with a charming smirk and kind gray eyes. She knew very well that he was a stranger, but something about him made her feel as if she had known him her whole life.

“How’re ya feeling tonight?” He asked. The accent hinted that he must’ve not been from around the area, but she couldn’t trace it back to anywhere else. He didn’t quite sound professional either.

She watched as he pulled out a cloth to wipe at the already polished counter. “Like I shouldn’t be drinking any more tonight,” she said.

The bartender chuckled. “That’s fair, but ya don’t have to worry. I don’t serve alcohol here.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What kind of bar doesn’t serve alcohol?”

“This one,” he grinned, seemingly finding her confusion amusing.

Lianne scanned the bottles lined up on the shelves behind the bartender. Now that she had a closer view, she noticed that most of them were oddly shaped. Some resembled hourglasses, cubes, or flasks. Some carried dark liquid, and others glittered. All of them were missing labels. She had no idea what any of the bottles contained. Red flag number one, she thought.

“Alright,” she drawled. “Can I have some water then?” The bartender shook his head when she asked, and she was right in thinking that he must have found the perplexed look on her face quite funny, because he couldn’t even conceal his laughter as it rang through the small room.

“Then what the hell do you serve here anyway?” Lianne didn’t mean to be rude, but the combination of finding herself in a strange place, the dryness of her throat she had only just noticed, and the few beers in her system were doing a number on her patience. It didn’t help that the bartender was being terribly vague while also acting smug about it, but she probably should’ve expected that from a bar called ‘The Bar.’ She dubbed that red flag number two, though that probably should have been one from the get-go.

He didn’t seem to be bothered though, for his smile never wavered.

89 · Aya Domingo

“You’ll find out after ya pay up.”

Her eyes widened. “I haven’t even—!” The creak of the metal door interrupted her before she could get any more out, and the bartender muttered an “excuse me” before shifting his attention to whoever walked in.

Lianne saw the briefcase first when it fell to the floor next to her seat with a thump. Its owner wore a crisp gray suit, strangely still in a pristine state with no inch of fabric untucked from where it should be. She figured he was a businessman, if the get-up was anything to go by. However, his eyes were sunken and his cheeks gaunt; he couldn’t have been more than 30, and yet…

“Welcome back, sir.” The bartender greeted him with a smile. Lianne only just noticed the long bottle in his hand, holding a silvery liquid. He placed a tall glass on the counter. “Will it be the usual tonight?”

The other man sighed, a strand of hair falling from where it was slicked back moments ago. He pushed it back into place with a trembling hand. “No, it was… different.”

“Oh? How so?”

The man rubbed at his temples, “It started out the same. Diving into the ocean, swimming to the bottom instead of coming up for air, but instead of the empty clams, I found a pearl in one.”

The bartender nodded. “Interesting. I think I’ve got just the thing.” With a wink, he turned toward the shelves of bottles, picking up a small one with a lime green substance. He poured the silver liquid into the glass and filled it halfway, proceeding to drip a bit of green into it.

“This should do the trick for good.” He slid the glass toward the businessman, who took hold of it with both hands.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, but instead of the uncertainty or hesitation she was expecting, his voice was tinged with expectation. Lianne saw a glimmer in his eyes now, wide with what looked like hope.

A kind smile graced the bartender’s face. “Positive.”

With that confirmation, the businessman gulped the drink in one

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 90

go with an alarming urgency. Lianne was shocked that he didn’t end up sputtering it all out.

The moment he set the glass down, he grabbed the bartender’s shoulders with a tight grip. “Thank you. I hope this is it.”

“I know it is.”

The businessman gave a sigh of relief before picking up his briefcase and sending one last nod of thanks before bolting out the door. Lianne also noted that the woman from earlier had left too. Glass included.

“Like I was saying,” the bartender continued, as if the previous transaction—if she could even call it that—hadn’t occurred, “I don’t want yer money. I’m gonna ask ya a question, and ya simply gotta give me the truth. Pretty easy, no? That’s how we run things ‘round here.”

Lianne could no longer keep track of the red flags. Every logical cell in her body, which she knew she had a ton of, seemed to scream at her to leave. A bar at a dead end that didn’t serve alcohol or water or accept money? Some kind of new way to scam her for her personal information for sure. If it weren’t for the numbness the drinks from a while ago had left in her system, she would have probably felt the nervous thrumming under her skin. Yet, the bartender’s concerned gaze kept her in place. It was almost comforting in a strange sort of way. She might have even thought he cared about her, but that thought fizzled out almost immediately.

There was always the option of calling her friends to pick her up, since the club they were about to head to wasn’t supposed to be far. Marlene would probably come to her aid, but not after chastising her for not paying attention. Del might too, but he would spend a couple of minutes laughing at her before doing anything. Oscar would end up even more lost than she was.

Helena would come in a heartbeat, without question. But a terrible, awful part of her had been rearing its ugly head recently, and it liked that she wasn’t here with her. She’d deal with that later.

Lianne surrendered. “Fine. I’ll bite.”

“Lovely,” he leaned slightly forward, and she held her gaze so

91 ·Aya Domingo

strongly as if he could see right through her. “Tell me, what do ya dream about at night?”

“Excuse me?” Lianne balked, “I don’t think my dreams are any of your business.”

“That’s exactly what this place runs on, darlin’,” the bartender donned another grin, and Lianne began to feel those smiles crawling under her skin. “Well, I usually deal with more nightmarish ones, but I’ll take whatever ya give me.”

“And what if I don’t give you anything? What if I say no?”

The bartender shrugged. “Fine by me, I ain’t gonna force ya. But they do say it’s easier to lay it all out to a stranger.”

Lianne weighed her options, and that terrible, awful part of her brought up Helena again. It looked like she was going to be in this bar for a while, so she might as well go along with it; she could always blame it on the alcohol later.

“Where do I start?”

“Just gimme the basics, the general plot of it if ya can.”

Was she seriously going to do this? Tell a stranger about her dreams in exchange for a measly drink? How would she explain this to her friends when they found her, or even to herself the next morning?

She glanced at the bartender, searching for something, anything in the way he carried himself, in his expression, in his speech, that would convince her that this was completely insane. But all she saw was a patient look in his eyes, his body slightly leaned toward her as if to make sure he heard her better, and his clever smile was sincere this time.

Lianne began, taking a deep breath in. “In my dreams, it’s just my lover and I left in the world. We are in her bed as the sun rises. When I wake up, she is already looking at me and smiling. Then she puts a hand on my cheek and kisses my forehead, and she pulls the blanket over us. Just before it covers us both, the dream ends and I wake up.”

The scene that played over and over again in Lianne’s head was something real once. After their first night together they skipped their classes to spend the entire day together in bed, speaking in hushed whispers and giggling under the sheets. They had learned

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 92

a lot about each other that day, in the act of exchanging childhood stories, singing their favorite songs off-key, and mapping out every mole or freckle they could find on each other with gentle touches. It was beautiful then.

A beat of quiet passed before the bartender spoke again. “That sounds beautiful.” Lianne saw something like perplexity or surprise flash across his features, but it faded quick enough that she thought it a trick of the light. She turned her head.

“It is. I hate it.”

A seemingly endless silence seemed to cloud the room, and all Lianne could do was sit with the weight of the words that she had only just admitted to herself out loud. She kept her eyes trained on her lap, as if they had spilled out of her mouth like red wine and staining every part of her red.

A response came in the form of tapping fingers against the counter, and she looked up to find the bartender deep in thought, staring at the ground.

“I gotta say, I haven’t heard a lot of good dreams ever since I started this place, but even among the few, I ain’t never heard a case like yers.” He shook his head, laughing to himself. “I never heard of someone hatin’ a good dream.” “Well, it was nice for a while, but…” she began. She slumped over the bar to rest her chin on folded arms. “At some point, I just felt like I wanted to get out of bed. But she’d pull me back in every time.”

The bartender nodded and turned to face the shelves. Lianne watched the back of his head move as he scanned the selection he had—a familiar one, she assumed. She couldn’t help the smug feeling brew up in her knowing she had stumped him. So much for those clever, self-assured grins he’d been throwing her all night.

He eventually reached for two circular bottles, one holding a shimmery light blue liquid and the other one had a fuchsia one. She couldn’t quite tell what they were, but she wasn’t sure if it was the tipsiness talking, or if she really wasn’t meant to know.

She kept her eyes trained on him as he picked up a shaker and

93 ·Aya Domingo

deftly poured small amounts of the two liquids inside. He added some crushed ice and shook, and Lianne was mildly disappointed when he didn’t pull any theatrics.

“Sorry, I don’t know any fancy tricks,” he said, as if reading her mind. He picked up a cocktail glass. “Ya looked a lil’ bummed.”

“That’s fine,” she shook off any expression on her face. He poured the mixed drink into the glass, and she silently marveled at its intriguing magenta hue. It still had the shine from the blue liquid, and it looked almost pearlescent.

She slid the glass towards her. “How can I be sure this won’t make me sick or kill me or something?”

“Did ya see that guy earlier? One o’ my regulars, been coming here for two months now. Still alive, right? The woman ya saw when ya came in, that was her third time here. Seems she likes my drinks so much she has to take the glass home every time too.” He snickered. The urge to roll her eyes at that nearly took over her.

“Fine, fine. Can you at least tell me what this is supposed to do?”

“I asked ya about yer dreams, right? You’ll find out tonight.”

“God, could you be any more vague?”

“I like to let the drinks speak for themselves.”

There was no way Lianne would be able to crack this man open for all the information, but her curiosity overshadowed her irritation. She peered at the drink and found a warped reflection of her staring back. Were her eyes always this tired?

Screw it.

Lianne brought the glass to her lips, and with only one sip, sweetness whizzed through her body and gave her full-on cheektingling chills. It was unlike anything she had ever tasted, but the comfort it brought made it strangely familiar, as if she was back in her childhood home and gulping down a glass of lemonade her mother had made for her. Before she knew it, she had cleared the whole glass.

“Told ya!” The bartender beamed. “Come back after a week, and let me know what happened, ‘kay?” She could only nod dumbly.

Lianne would have let the buzz in her bones settle for a moment,

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 94

but the ringing of her phone interrupted that plan. Helena’s name flashed on the top of her screen, and she had no doubt she’d be interrogated about her whereabouts. It looked like that terrible, awful part of her would have to suck it up for now.

“I should go. I hope this works, or whatever,” she muttered, sliding off the barstool. “And thanks, I guess.”

The bartender nodded. “Anytime, kid.”

She was just about to reach for the door handle before the bartender spoke up once more. “Oh, by the way, keep this place a secret, will ya? I like keeping a small group of regulars, hope ya get it.” He winked. Lianne doubted anyone would have believed her anyway.

That night, Lianne dreamt of the same familiar bed, the same sun-filled room, the same Helena. Only this time, her lover was still asleep, her back turned toward her.

When the morning came, Lianne practically leapt out of bed when she realized what had happened.

Huh, she thought. That smug-ass bartender’s drink actually worked. Even the effects of the actual alcohol she consumed seemed to have dissipated too. She hadn’t slept that soundly in ages.

But the high didn’t last long when shame crept up on her, and it trailed her like a dog as she tried to go about her day. She knew she should’ve felt more guilty knowing that she enjoyed the dream and the restful sleep that came with it, but she couldn’t help that it felt… good. She’d have to unpack that sooner or later, but maybe not on a Saturday afternoon.

To distract herself and shake off the blues, she ran her usual errands, and bought some extra treats for their weekly movie night date. It wasn’t until she was standing in line at the cashier when it dawned on her: Helena. How was she supposed to face her after this?

Thankfully the solution came when her phone chimed the moment she set her bags down.

“Sorry babe,” the text read. “Group meeting got rescheduled

95 ·Aya Domingo

to later tonight so I probably won’t make it :( Go ahead and watch something without me if u want!”

Lianne sent a “no problem” but couldn’t help feeling like this was quite odd. Helena always made sure she was available for movie night no matter how busy she was, since they didn’t see each other very often when they were in school and were drowning in their respective requirements and obligations. Lianne was the one usually sending the “sorry, can’t make it” texts when her work piled up.

Oh well. She already bought the food and drinks anyway, might as well partake in them.

By the time night had rolled around, Lianne made herself snug on the couch, which she never realized was actually quite spacious. She browsed the movie genres with a hand halfway in the bag of chips meant for Helena. She landed on horror, which was one of her favorite kinds of movies, but she hadn’t had an opportunity to watch one lately because her usual companion wasn’t a fan. In fact, she hadn’t been able to watch a lot of movies without Helena since this tradition began; almost all their dates began with a film viewing, just like their very first one.

A poster that didn’t look too corny or gross caught her eye, and the plot seemed equally as promising, so she settled on that for tonight. It was just the right amount of scary, without much over-the-top, cheesy jumpscares and had a protagonist that wasn’t a complete idiot. With the food and drinks cleared too, she felt contentment settle over her like a warm blanket. Strange. No matter how many movies she had watched on this same couch and on this usual day and time, it has hardly ever felt so satisfying.

Her phone pinged once the credits started rolling. “Meeting just finished. Sorry I couldn’t make it again. Will make it up to u next time!!”

“It’s ok! U should get some rest.”

“I will! Did u have fun?”

Lianne couldn’t help but smile to herself. “Yeah... I did.”

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 96

After spending the better part of her night turning down pleas from her friends to join them in their club-hopping adventures for the night, Lianne managed to make her way to The Bar. She expected to hardly remember the way there since she was pretty tipsy the first time, but she somehow managed to find it easily, as if walking the route was muscle memory. The red neon sign overhead felt almost warm and inviting now, even after only a week.

The place was quite empty again when she entered, only a single sleepy-eyed patron nursing a dark purple drink sat at one of the tables.

The bartender perked up from the bar when she approached. “Welcome back,” he greeted, his grin looking even more smug than last time. “So how’d ya sleep last week?”

Lianne almost didn’t want to answer at the risk of fluffing up his ego, but she acquiesced. “Like a baby.”

He beamed with a toothy, I-told-you-so smile. “See? Look, if I wanted to scam ya out of yer wits I woulda actually charged money for that, y’know. Can ya tell me what happened?”

“Well, it was still the same place, same bed and all, but she didn’t wake up this time.”

The bartender nodded. “I would assume that’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah, but am I an asshole for liking that?”

He couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Well, if I conjured up something that gave ya a dream ya hated, then I’d be out of a job, kid. At the end o’ the day, I just help with what ya see. Whatever it means to ya is something ya have to figure out yerself.”

Lianne couldn’t answer, she didn’t really know how to. She wished the drinks could do the thinking and decision-making for her too, but at least it did something.

The bartender cleared his throat, and she found him already holding up the bottles he used last time. “Well, before ya start blowing smoke from yer ears from thinkin’ about all that, how’s about I make ya another drink?”

She laughed. “That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?”

97 ·Aya Domingo

He flashed her a wink. “Coming right up, then.”

Friday after Friday, Lianne found herself back in The Bar, buzzing from the sweetness of the drink and the anticipation of watching her dream change every time.

Helena even remarked about the new glow when they crossed paths on the way to their respective classrooms. “Well, don’t you look fresh-faced,” she giggled. “Did something good happen recently?”

“I guess I’ve just been getting more rest,” she replied, and it wasn’t exactly a lie, she just obviously couldn’t tell her why she felt that way.

She didn’t quite enjoy the feeling of keeping something like this from Helena. They had always been open with each other, Helena more so, but even for how private Lianne was, she felt safe being vulnerable around her. But she didn’t want Helena to see right through her this time, an uncanny ability of hers she was usually thankful for until recently.

This led to a series of date nights she flaked out on, chalking it up to her workload. Again, not a lie, but not completely the truth either. And being the endlessly sweet and understanding person she was, Helena would always say she didn’t mind, and Lianne knew she meant it. Sometimes, she wished Helena would just get frustrated with her at least once, then maybe this would make this dilemma much easier to manage.

Despite her inner turmoil, Lianne couldn’t deny the peace she felt in the moments of quiet she had with herself. They were akin to the companionable silences she felt with another body next to hers, only she must’ve forgotten that she could feel the same way on her own.

But with the quiet came the clarity too, and Lianne knew she couldn’t keep playing dumb with herself. She knew why she felt that way, but after years of knowing and loving Helena, and being known and loved in return, it seemed almost like a crime to even think of a life without her. Yet, the thought never left a bad taste in her mouth, in fact, it tasted like a familiar sort of sweetness.

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 98

*

Another Friday came around, and this time there were a couple more people coming and going, and she watched the bartender concoct all sorts of colorful drinks in funky-looking glasses. No drink looked exactly the same.

Lianne even got the courage to chat up some of the other Friday regulars. A medical student was plagued by dreams of performing botched surgery, but his tall orange drink gave him steady hands and keen eyes. An older man held all his memories in a single glass that toppled over whenever he reached out for it, but now he held it close to his chest where it wouldn’t budge. The woman in the black dress she saw during her first night had been dreaming of an unrequited love of hers who wouldn’t pay her any mind though they were the only people in a room together. Her bright pink drink made the literal man of her dreams actually notice her. She had been coming every Friday like Lianne, though the other regular she saw her first time was always absent.

“Hey, whatever happened to that one guy?” Lianne asked once the bar had emptied out, swirling her drink around in her glass and watching it shine. “The businessman, you said he was one of your regulars, but I haven’t seen him around since my first time here.”

The bartender looked up from the glass he was wiping, “Ah, him. He must’ve found what he was looking for.”

Again with the ambiguity, she thought to herself. What did that even mean? She dug up a memory, looking for clues. She recalled that he didn’t ask for his “usual,” and instead told the bartender he found something else in his dreams.

“He found a pearl, right? Is that what he was looking for?”

The bartender paused, putting down the glass. “Ya could say that, yeah. He told me he’d dream he was divin’ into the ocean and openin’ up all these clams like he was lookin’ for something, but he didn’t know what. The drink I made for him made him swim up for air.”

“How’d he find the pearl, then?”

A chuckle jolted her, and she only realized then how much she was leaning over the counter like any information would get lost along

99 ·Aya Domingo

the way if she wasn’t listening closely. She sat back and straightened herself out while she waited for the flush on her face to abate.

“I don’t actually know.” He shrugged. “These drinks only help with changin’ around a few things to make a bad dream into a good one. If ya really wanna get rid of ‘em for good, ya gotta do something about it yerself. He must’ve done just that.”

“Really?” He nodded curtly and resumed wiping the glasses.

“Y’know kid, I kinda have a feelin’ ya know what to do about yers too.”

Lianne looked into her own drink, and a slightly murky, magenta version of herself stared back at her. She remembered her first night at The Bar about almost two months ago, her reflection looked tired then. Nothing much had changed since then, but it was almost as if her face was weighed down by something. Fear? Guilt? Sometimes she wished she could blame it on the alcohol, then she’d never have to link it back to a part of her she was trying not to notice.

Somehow, she swore she saw her reflection morph into Helena, with her signature pretty smile and rosy cheeks. But it lasted for hardly a moment, and her exhausted, sad face came back into view once more.

“Yeah.” She downed the rest of her drink, “I just don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”

“I know ya do. Ya just gotta get out there and do it.” Lianne looked up at him, surprised to find a sincere expression on his face. She had been so used to his clever quips that she almost couldn’t handle how serious he sounded, or how much the words sounded like a parting gift. She stood up from her seat to shake that off.

Lianne thanked him for the drink, and she just barely noticed that he didn’t say he’d see her next week in that chipper tone of voice, and that strangely charming accent she had grown quite fond of.

heights Seniors Folio 2022 · 100