Binary

Snail Mail

Hidden under my dusty pile of books—read, unread, and re-read—were letters from the start of the millennium. They look awfully forgotten like history, like death note episodes, like responsibilities. It was cheesy I brought them with me, anywhere I go. They were supposed to remind me of things (not so I could regret), of people (not that I’ve completely forgotten them), of feelings (not that they matter now more than they did before). Ah! I love snail mails; a little sniff and I smell the memories in them.

To be honest, however, I’d rather be reading than writing them. I wasn’t too fond of email but I think I prefer using it for convenience. It would take pure emotions, a clear head and of course a nice handwriting to create a beautiful letter. Way back, I powder my hands so that a sweaty palm wouldn’t smudge the ink and ruin everything; I phrase words in my head over and over again to be sure I will say it right; and I practice my hand strokes on scratch paper so that every word can look nice and dancing.

But through the years, too much clutter accumulated in my head that writing letters by the hand turned spiteful rather than painstaking; and too much TV made my hands idle and weak to scribble the right letters. I owe much of my sanity to emails and electronic paper and pretty MSWord fonts, and everything instant and convenient; without these things, I don’t think I’d be breathing right now.

Yet, deep within my old fashioned soul was that inkling, that desire to pick up the pen, to retrieve some stationery from the wooden chest to write that letter—no matter how spiteful the process can be—to someone who’d made my life as easy as it was meaningful.

As the Mahogany trees bud and as the Ficus fruits got pecked by brown doves, I started to scribble Dear Seph and thus commenced my journey back to the greatest friend I have ever known.

The Letter

Dear Seph,

It’s been a while. It’s been exactly twenty years since I stoned you, you cried and we became friends. I remember you because the Mahogany trees were budding now, and the Ficus were fruiting, and the wattled bulbuls came again. It rains nearly every day and you mean to me like every petrichor in summer. So, I remember you. And I miss you in between dreaming and waking all this time.

I hear you weren’t coming home. Not to these trees where we carved our names, not to the wishing well who shared our secrets, and certainly not to all of us doves, flowerpeckers, sunbirds and owls a-waiting for your return. I still picture you here, sometimes, laughing—I love your laughs!—and running around, and startling skinks. When we were seven the world belonged to us, only us but life has been hard ever since.

I quit work to marry a man who I thought shared the same dream with me. Everything was perfect and splendid at first: he had a high-paying day job while I stay home to cook him meals; he loaned a fine house in the city in a rich neighborhood; and we had a pretty daughter named Hannah. It was the life people would kill for until my husband never came home one night and many more nights after that. Then Hannah got terribly sick, she died of leukemia shortly after her 2nd birthday and I moved out. As I glanced back at my rich husband’s million-peso house, I realized without Hannah, it would never feel like home. That was when I knew where to go, where I wanted to be.

I hear you planned to marry but then you chickened out and went away. You were an @$!hole. I sympathize with the girl, whoever she might be. I wonder, now that I think of it, why didn’t you love her like you’re seven? If only you did, then you’d probably bring her here, in a home between these trees where we once carved our names, in this place where a wishing well kept all our secrets, in this land where the birds sing and wait for us. I made that mistake too; I loved like a foolish adult and broke my heart. But I never—ever—thought you would.

Do you remember the night you started hating me? It was a nice, April evening; we were seated on a bench outside your house and the smell of coffee blooms drifted in the air. At seven, that fragrance was our dope. We were kind of high and then we held hands. You smiled that nerdy, braces smile and I gave my gap-tooth smile.

“Do you love me?” you asked.

“We’re only seven” I shrieked and peeled your fingers away from mine.

“Yup. But now’s when we love forever,” you said and planted a kiss on my cheek. If I knew you were right then, I wouldn’t have punched and kicked you to death.

It’s been awhile, Seph, really. I miss you as I look out my window and watch the rain fall like a blanket of sadness to this earth. In between dreaming and waking.

Please come home.