Setting Sun Jacinth Banite
Kneeling beside you, I hold your hands as they tremble on the armrest of your wheelchair. The air wrestled against your fragile breaths, enough for me to wish I could give all of mine. I dive deep into your eyes and drown in the waves of your slowed blinks, but your musing gaze remains uninterrupted from the melting, orange sky peering through the mid-sized window in front of you. I wonder what goes on within your mind. Maybe you are thinking about how beautiful this Thursday afternoon is, how the sun is about to set, or maybe you are just tired of moving the muscles in your body, wishing for a permanent and peaceful rest. It is in the same pair of eyes I’ve found the answer—you are chasing after your memories that are being taken away by the cruelty of time. Wrinkling, like the texture of your skin, moments you shared with me still echo in your dreams. I felt ephemeral joy when you called me by my name that Monday evening. I rapture to hear those syllables again, but alas, what followed after was another truth piercing deeper in my chest. “Michael, I would want you to wear your Tatay’s tie for your wedding day. Mmm?” you asked with a smile in your eyes, wearing that same excitement when you said it the first time ten years ago, a week before my wedding day. How I wish you still remember that moment when you beat my now wife and the mother of my children, Melinda, for crying the most. “Yes,” I responded after a deep inhale. I kissed you on the forehead, just like you did to me back then. It was a moment I am certain you can no longer recall. Weary, like your trembling knees, you linger in a time you cannot escape, nor do you desire to. You stay there with your boy, guiding him in his youth, reminding him about curfews since he always goes home late, or asking for the empty Tupperware he often forgets to put in the sink when he gets home from school. “Are you going to Aldrin’s house?” you asked last Tuesday when I was about to leave for work, wearing my suit and tie. “Make sure you get home by 9 PM, Anak. Mmm?” Except, your boy is now too old to spend the night over his high school friend’s house.
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