When the Breeze Blew the Poppies

I had a busy day, running with time in the city.

Something was wrong with our office's management, and all we could do was work, floating along the waves created by their huge hands. My brows furrowed almost every single day without my command. Every night, I yearned for peace. For solitude. For an escape. Until that night came when I had to just sleep all the exhaustion away.

Four hours.

Six hours.

Eight.

I opened my eyes. Such a bright sky. Birds from afar were singing while clouds ambled over me, looking pure and fluffy as usual. I lifted my hand and traced one cloud with my finger. I formed a dolphin. I giggled.

Wait.

I flapped my arms, as if making a snow angel. I realized, I was lying, not in my bed, but in a meadow - cool, sweet-scented meadow. How did I get here?

I sat bolt upright, and looked around me. I was a dot in a huge space of meadow embellished with chamomile. That part from afar had colorful poppies sticking out, though.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

I was dumbfounded, awestruck for quite a long while. Not blinking. Unflinching at the peace that was welling in me. I just could not believe I was there. I looked up again to see the sky's splendor, and noticed the rays of the sun peeking out of a cloud.

That was holy and grand.

I lingered at this some more, mouth agape and rarely moving.

Then came the breeze.

And woke me up.

Drifted

I've been walking for two hours now.

No, I've been shuffling. The sky is dark. The streets are messy as always. Cars whiz past beside me with their exhaust puffing out black, dirty - disgustingly dirty - smoke. But I do not care.

I look straight ahead, but my mind's falling - a listless body that surrenders to gravity - in his world. I have found it hard to enter his world, his new world.

For 8 years, we had known every inch of each other. We knew each other's thoughts even before we spoke them. We talked through stares and gestures only we could understand. But things changed as soon as our feet landed on the bigger world, the real world. In our school and university, we would always cross paths even when we didn't like it. But when we finally had the choice, when we started moving in a much larger space and be with a multitude of people, we began losing each other. He began working, and I too. From then on, we drifted apart, slowly vanishing behind the walls of his hospital and my office.

You see, I've never really known his world. And I will never. So perhaps, my mind isn't exactly in his world at this moment. It is in the possibilities. And this path has more thorns.

And It hurts more.

Swimming in Pajamas

The sun woke up, and the wind was like its big yawn across the sea.
It was the 1st of December, 2013.

My parents had a work in Baybay, and they brought me with them. The humble hostel we stayed in was near the sea, and surrounding it were coconut trees with long branches swaying and slapping each other.

I decided to walk along the shore immediately upon getting up in bed. I was on my pajamas and slippers, my ankles bending sideways as I sauntered over huge, wet, and lopsided stones.

Psssshhhhhhh!

The sea said, as if reminding me to remain quiet and still so I won't wake up whatever it is that was sleeping. I chuckled to myself, thinking it must be still itself. That it must have been what woke the sun up.

Pssshhhh!

I stopped, and turned to it. To the limitless sea. To the endlessness that kissed the unreachable sun. It was beautiful, especially with the strong rippling of water beneath it.

Psssshhhh!

Then it dawned on me that the sea was not telling me to keep quiet. Its sound that grew gentler and gentler in my ear was an invitation. It called me to come, to make it feel me and I, it.

I walked toward it. Closer and closer. Until I felt its sandy wave caressing my feet.

That day, I jumped into the sea with my pajamas and slippers on.

Swimming.

No towel.
No extra clothes.
Nothing.

That day, I saw how it was to answer a 'call'.