because he told me he loved. Not in his own words though. But it wasn’t me he loved in specific, it definitely wasn’t his family, but he loved nonetheless. That’s why his heart broke to pieces smaller than mine did. That’s the reason he bled more furiously than I did. That’s the simple fact why he left Us like he did.
He wasn’t always a shadow when I first knew him. He was flesh and blood, when they allowed him to be. He used to be a kaleidoscope of which I ran through the sun to refract the many harlequin patterns upon my face. He was my friend, both real and imaginary. Real, because we shared the same interests in colors and sounds. Imaginary, because I didn’t get to see him much and because they won’t let him be that way. It’s funny how They fed him cheese and did not expect him to grow into a rat.
And he was a man-rat alright. He stole, he plundered, and he hid in dark corners. Timid, sly and crafty, but he was nevertheless a dignified rat with blood red eyes. He used to sniff around me for favors that I couldn’t give out at that time. I was too young.
Didn’t I tell you that he played the guitar magnificently? He lured all the wannabe little band boys like the flute player enticed the little rats of Hamlin, into the glittery dreams of rock stars and giggling groupies. He told every story that could possibly start with the G chord. I hung around because I wanted to be baited along, but I was a girl. Girls do not have dreams; they live the dreams of others. I guess his parents must have wished for a daughter.
His parents were not military, and do not believe in ruling with birch wood canes (unlike my own parents). His family lived a quiet, country life. Simple and serene. Then his mother died (this may or may not affect him, I didn’t get a chance to ask). He was then sent abroad to study, and he came back with a sense of change. No one could pinpoint the exact time this transformation occurred, not even my Mother, who claimed to care for her little brother so much.
But the only boy in the middle of five sisters, he had always been different. Where they were rambunctious, he was quiet. Where they drowned themselves in mathematical and scientific figures, he was busy dipping his fingertips in paint. Where they were busy getting themselves married off, he stayed silent in his solitude. I guess he already found it pointless trying to fit in.
The cookie cutter world has sharp edges, and he must have been cut badly at times. An unfinished degree in a family of academics does not go too well with society. Especially within the intricate tapestry of strict middle-class Asian families. His eyes were always half-open, or half-closed I guess. I prefer the thought of him squinting through the bright shiny people he meets all day. It’s not that I don’t think highly of him, but I prefer imagining him as a low-life. Lovable, but a low-life nonetheless. That way, we would at least be on equal footing. You see, I myself am a low-life.
I crawled through the ditches too. I stole, but from the wallets of men whom I gave opportunity to rummage through my own bearded purse. I plundered the hearts of many. And I’m still hiding in a dark corner. At least he’s with the light now, maybe not basking in it, but close.
They told me he was crazy, but I envy the crazy. The crazy always seem to have more fun. To run around freely in that empty place you call your mind. He was my mentor in terms of rebellion. Although I believe his acts were not entirely intentional. I know mine aren’t.
I guess his hurt was very much intolerable. But even if he showed it, I wasn’t there to witness it. I was too busy surviving boarding school. He was busy being passed around from one sibling’s care to another. It wasn’t surprising that he would choose to flee such a life. I assume he had the same amount of self-love that I had. Not enough to prevent ourselves from being destroyed, but enough ego to allow only our own hands to do the destruction. But They always brought him back, to pass him around again. And again. And again. And again.
He led a colorful life, he was a Dali canvas full of mishaps and misshapes that terrifies but leaves one addicted. Yet I only remember him later on as a gray blob. A sad mass with no color, as he sits with a blank stare on the front porch, all sense of direction lost. This was after I learned about the color red that spurts periodically through me. This was after I caught my young cousin referring to him as ‘that ungrateful motherfu-r’; I had to stop myself from listening to such infamy and from swinging the six-year old from his limbs and throwing him into the ocean. How dare the little monster! How dare his parents teach such a thing! I kept silent though.
But now I stop and think, and curse myself for my lack of empathy. We black sheep should have flocked together. I should have defended him. But I was young and thought I knew everything. And I wasn’t as black back then, maybe off-white or light gray. So I probably thought highly of myself.
But still he stared out. This man whom they say has no respect, no love, and no life. It was the period where he started turning into a shadow. I was a self-righteous teenager and… he had a tattoo on his left arm! It showed one day, accidentally through his white shirt wet with rain, and I remember glancing with wonder, too shy (or afraid?) to ask about it. It was rude then to ask your elders such imposing questions… and I guess I must have had a crush on him back then.
He was frequently seen dressed in white attires afterwards, and They all applaud this as a positive transformation, albeit with much skepticism. But the brightness of white only made his grayness more apparent. I was saddened. My prism has broken into pieces, and I didn’t have the guts or the glue to fix it up.
I don’t blame the drugs for his demise. I blame Them, who are ignorant in their kindness, who took away the drugs, his only source of blunting away hurt. And I know he hurt a lot. They all think addiction is as easy to cure as a headache, but I know that they’re wrong. I didn’t drop out of medical school after four years for nothing, and I know things that my classmates who graduated cum laude don’t. I know pain.
They make pain sound like an abstract thing, these medical school lecturers. They talk of anesthetic procedures and morphine. They mention excisions and excavations. But they don’t talk about the pain that I am familiar with. They only discuss the different nerve endings and degrees of paralysis.
But I understood pain. He embodied pain. I am pain. He and I, we walked hand in hand with pain. Pain was our friend, but a cruel friend whose jokes sometime go out of hand. And unless you’re strong and brave enough to face up to it, the pain’ll cripple you. Hence, the drugs.
I was lucky that my drug was sex. It doesn’t leave a bad effect if you leave behind matters of the heart. The advantage of being a girl is that my drug comes free and sometimes with rebates. I was unlucky though to have bad-mouthing ‘friends’ who ran an expose behind my back, and who gave my religious father a heart attack.
Maybe he gave his own father a heart attack too. His father was strictly religious, even more than my own father was. Not that I’m aware of it though. They always manage to keep me in the dark regarding such matters. I don’t believe he died a virgin, but I’m sure he wasn’t as promiscuous as I was. He didn’t show much interest in the opposite sex, and no, neither was he keen about men. He was just… he just is.
I don’t even know where They buried him, but I see him more often now. The gray of his footsteps guide my trot. His wan smile is in my reflections, his paint marks stain deep beneath my skin. Like kaleidoscope glass, he is fragile and he beats as part of my heart. I shall guard this heart, not because I care for myself, but…
…because he told me he loved.
Dearest Uncle
May you finally find the peace you deserve.
