As a kid, I was told bizarre stories by my parents.
Unlike fairy tales and mythologies you'd usually see in a children's book, I could say that they're more like stories based of personification of living and non-living things. Stories that have seemed to spark my interests as a kid.
Pero ngayon that I'm a growing young adult, I seemingly have forgotten what happened in those stories, but there's something that I could never erase in my heart no matter how I try.
It's the story of how waves are madly in love with the shore and how he attempts to hug him everyday but kept on being pushed back to the ocean. It's that bittersweet tale of love being so near yet so far.
"Okay, so uulitin ko lang ha? Wala na talaga?" Tanong ni Joyce habang kumakain ng ramen noodles that he prepared for both of us.
She's in my condo, but unlike the usual set-up, I was the one who called her to come here. She has to take care of my drunk ass. Kasalanan niya 'to eh! She ditched me to make out with some guy that he met that freaking day.
Sino ba naman kasi ang nagpakalasing nang sobra kahapon? Yes self, ikaw 'yon! Walwal kung walwal.
"Yes. He gave me the closure in the most straightforward way possible." I replied after smooching a large amount of ramen noodles. Ultimately the best food to sober up.
"That's okay, isn't? We no longer need those cringe-ass lines God knows we've hear from literally everywhere, diba? Tsaka bitch... It has been years narin. Nagka-boyfriend ka na nga ulit di'ba?"
"I don't know." I replied, veiling unspoken emotions safely with the depths of my chest, "Baka 'di pa pala ako ready."
"No one whips something into shape regarding these matters that easily. Walang handa, minsan kailangan lang nating magpatuloy despite the drain of unknown." She smiled in response.
"Ang wholesome mo ngayon ah? May pinainom ba yung ka-laplapan mo kagabi?"
Joyce simpered naively before letting out a laughter, "Gago wala! Masaya lang ako kasi finally! You've come to me. Nakakasawa naman kasing ako nalang lagi 'yong natutulungan mo."
At those words, my brows knitted into slight frown, "Will this advice even help me?"
A sinister expression played on Joyce's face, "Alam mo, bahala ka na sa buhay mong gaga ka. I'll let you live that fantasy of your little soldier boy."
An intense chilliness crept in my spine sending shivers all over my body, "Yeah... that little soldier boy."
"Hey, sorry. Ang insensitive 'non."
"Gaga, okay lang!" I faked a smile then segued into a different topic, "Pumunta ka sa booth namin bukas ah."
-
That little soldier boy joke was a reference to Alejandro's first showing signs of Schizophrenia. It happened years ago when I was reviewing for the finals exams where Alejandro started acting idiosyncratic.
He behaves like those armed boy soldier in a battlefield where he shouted distinct clamors, and battle cry fighting to represent corpses laying among buttercups and forget-me-nots. His eyes on tenterhooks and his limbs were quivering ceaselessly.
Puta, these times trouble me up to this day.
That fear is a knife in the gut slowly twisted. The same fear I had to overcome then to understand Alejandro more.
Sa totoo lang, hindi naman kadalasang nangyayari 'to sakanya. I don't know if these schizophrenic attacks were subconsciously triggered by something from his past experiences. Kasi, judging from the way he acts, I can surely tell that he's not a soldier before nor was he exposed in any war.
Only to wars happening in his head.
After that terrible scenario, we became a lot closer. He likes to cling to the fact that I'm near him and that I can always help him escape those tensed feelings whenever the situation arises. Things have happened a lot several times, mostly in different personas.
But this soldier boy was our favorite. Joking about it was our first step in defeating fear; a process that came from endless re-runs of Harry Potter together. We used the concept of Riddikulus, a charm used in defense against a Boggart. It causes the creature to assume a form that is humorous to the caster, thereby counteracting the Boggart's ability to terrorize. Boggarts are defeated by laughter, so forcing them to assume an amusing form is the first step to defeating them.
Calling him the Little Soldier Boy was the approach of defeating his own Boggart; That monster lurking inside his mind causing him fear.
This little soldier boy of mine protected me like his own nation, afraid of getting me harmed or wronged.
This little soldier boy sheltered me from infliction.
-
Months after, he released a new song titled Lost Soldier Boy.
It is a narrative song about a boy soldier seeing the brains of his best friend blown out in the trench next to him where he had to drop his rifle and run from the battlefield in blind terror and panic, but was found by the military police and charged with desertion. After the guilty verdict he was shot by firing squad. It was 1917 and he was a boy of fifteen on the day he died.
Just like the song, he started having these mental problems at age fifteen.
This fact made the song more hauntingly depressed.
More than that, I see it to more as to how Alejandro's situation is getting worse. The only thing I could do was being there for him. I am not myself when I'm with him; this strong persona -weakens when long-endured.
That day, I stopped calling him my little soldier boy who got lost in misery and misadventures.
How can one fathom the thought of a Lost Soldier Boy in conundrum and haywire?
-
"Hannah, Eli's calling. Sagutin mo baka importante." saad ni Joyce.
My heart dropped immediately, nearly missing a beat. My mind rivals my hand in answering the phone. Yeah, this might be important.
As I placed the phone in my ear, silence domineered the other line. A moment later, Eli finally spoke.
"We need to talk, there seems to be a problem."
-
Chapter 6 - Truly One of the Mighty
Will be released on June 6, 2020 • 10 AM
Hope you liked this episode as much I did writing it.