What sway holds repose o’er this gleaming goddess
Who is born from that to which man must return?
“Phoenix!” they call her, “Conflagrating empress!
Who sets with the sun but to rise from the urn.”
Nay, ‘tis death that bends knee underneath her wing
And all his subjects silenced to hear her sing.

Yet all flames must pass,
Returning to ash,
And so too the muse of flame!
Grows weary her soul
When passions grow cold
And rejoicing turns to shame.

Wing, tail and talon, and plumage go lightless
Skeleton and sinew crumble into dust.
Nothing remains of the empress, but a flightless
Worm, wriggling as suffocated passions must.
Suffer not to smoulder what may again blaze,
Lest the phoenix rule you the rest of your days.

I’m not often given to writing free verse
But what other course can there be
When every semblance of order
Has been evicted from my mind and
Forced, cowering, into the furthest extremities
Of my living shell – these trembling
Fingers that compose this scattered verse.
Reason has become as taboo
As the mention of your name
Ever since you became a staple in my days,
Though how you could ever keep things together
When you have me falling apart as I am – that
Is but one of the mysteries, like
Do you know how much my neck hurts
From looking at your face in side view and
Do you know how my right shoulder envies my left for
Being under the umbrella you held instead of in the rain
And do you ever read my poetry
With my voice imagined in your head?
These are my most honest words,
Which I honestly doubt
I will ever more than whisper.

I tried on a pair of socks for company
Because they were warm
And they went with me unwaveringly
Wherever I chose.
One day, however,
The right disappeared (or was it the left?)
And the left one (was it right?) joined me no more.
I guess I was never as important
To either of them as the other one was.

When pants, shoes, shirts,
And even jackets (unpredictable jerks
Who’ll never spend time with you on warm days)
Proved insufficient, I decided
I wouldn’t look for company in my wardrobe.
“Be realistic,” I said to myself. “You don’t find friends in wardrobes.”

And so I looked for company in my shadow,
Who, unlike those socks, never chose another over me.
We were exclusive, as these things go, but
As always, there was a problem.
We couldn’t go out at night.

When candles, neon lights, flickering bulbs
And matches for birthday cakes (spreading into a halo
Of wishes on top of flourishes of icing)
Proved insufficient to hold my shadow’s attention,
I realized I couldn’t look for company in a carbon copy of myself
Who danced without question but without colour.
“And I guess that takes care of my echo,” I said to myself. “That one’s hardly any better.”

I looked for company in trees,
Who were great listeners,
But I could never get more out of them
Than sympathetic moans and succinct grunts of agreement.
I briefly tried animals, but that was a horrible move.
Many had no concept of personal space,
Or even hygiene. Some had such horrid
Ideas of reciprocation (yes, domestic cats, I mean you).
I tried mirrors (better than the shadows,
Since they would accompany you even on those late nights)
But they had an annoying habit of pointing out your flaws
And making you realize your strong points were nothing special.
And I tried pictures, and statues and LCD monitors
But even the widescreens seemed so flat and lifeless.

And when none of the songs, the shows, the sites
And the sitcoms (for the love of – don’t get me started on the dramas)
Could do anything for me, I tried to call,
But all I got was the answering machine.
I was never one for voice messages,
So I just sent a text, which didn’t get a reply
Until three in the morning, when I was lying
Face down on my bed with my pillows
Whose backs were turned to me.
The groan of the phone, its flashing lights
And the pixels, who apologized for their tardiness
Before they bade me good night,
Were silent and dark and senseless
As quickly as they’d arrived.
That was the last I sought of company.

In my head, I can still hear her notes, soft – no –more like loud, but distant. They’re calling to me, I know it, from across those blighted miles of black steel tracks. It’s probably driven me mad. Some days I wonder if I really am hearing them, and maybe if I turned myself deaf it’d all stop. But I can’t do it. Not because there’s the chance that they’ll persist in my head, heedless of my self-imposed debilitation, but because I can’t bear the thought of never hearing that music again.

You’re not here for my ramblings, though. Of course not. You’re here for the story. Don’t worry; for what it’s worth, I’ll tell it. No one believes me anyway. They won’t believe you, either. You’re a writer – it’s your job to lie. Oh, don’t worry, I was one too. Not stories, though I’m telling one now. I wrote poems. I was pretty good, I reckon, at least by most standards. I could’ve gotten published, if I wanted. That was back then, though, before Stralle.

Despite everything that’s passed, I can recall that day distinctly. Indeed, I can recall most things that happened before that day perhaps more distinctly now than ever before. It was a rainy day. Not much wind, but quite some water, which had been pouring the entire day in varying degrees. I was with one of my friends – Marco was his name – and we’d just left school. It was still early in the semester, so we had time to kill and just enough money to kill it outside our own homes. We’d gone to a small restaurant where artist types liked to go. It had the typical set-up – a few tables, a stylishly small menu and a dais with a chair, a guitar and some bongos. It wasn’t quite a hole in the wall, but its sense of elegance came from how it completely avoided intruding on your sensibilities at all. The tables were covered in light beige covers that nearly touched the floor and the chairs were unadorned fusions of wood and steel. Ambience consisted of rattan window shades that filtered the meagre light from the windows and the pale light from lamps encased in frosted glass. Even the staff were more apron than person.

We made a dash from our car to the entrance and were far from dry by the time we settled into our seats. The staff didn’t much mind us dripping on their floor a bit and we ordered without any fuss. There was another group there, university students like us, quietly keeping to themselves, poring over their books while draining cups of coffee. Marco and I had just begun eating when she arrived.
She was the kind of person who could snatch your attention away for a moment, but not the type who held it for long. Sort of pretty, with her fair skin and smooth features and her dark brown hair. Her eyes were the same brown everyone in this country has, but they had a certain luminous quality. She paid little heed to her own appearance, though, which was evident in the way she dressed, the way her hair just hung loose and the way she seemed to be slouching even when standing straight. I didn’t notice all of that right away, of course. When she walked in that day she was just another stranger.

My seat faced the door, so I watched absentmindedly as she approached the counter and placed an order. She was wearing a faded black jacket a size too big, which she had to struggle against as she pulled a ratty-looking wallet out of a pair of frayed gray jeans with thin tears at the knees. She had a bulky backpack with several pins stuck to it and a battered guitar case, which she carried in her left hand. She walked right by us and immediately I was reabsorbed in the lacklustre charms of my coffee. And then she started playing.
The quality of her song captured my attention in its first few seconds and by the time the first piece had ended I was riveted. I turned around to get a glimpse of the musician and saw her clearly for the first time. Her fingers moved with ease, more than confidence, over the strings of her guitar. Her eyes gazed off into the distance. Her mouth shifted from time to time, as if to mouth a word, but she remained mute all throughout. She went through four songs all in all, and though I stopped watching halfway through the second, the whole time I listened nothing stuck in my thoughts except for the rapid stream of notes. When she finished, I twisted in my seat in clapped a few times. She started, turned to me and gave this small smile.

I turned back to my food, but my friend Marco was smirking deviously at me. It was the kind of smirk he got before cutting exams, bluffing through university red tape, skipping out of restaurants without paying and hooking me up on terrible blind dates. All of which, save the last, he did regularly enough to familiarize me with that specific, villainous smirk.

“Go talk to her,” Marco whispered.

I shook my head, looked down and plunged my fork into a wad of noodles. I began twisting them into a neat and bloated clump.

“You know you want to.”

“Yeah, sure.” I turned slightly to make sure she wasn’t listening. I glimpsed her sitting down, sipping a coffee and staring into space.

“You may feel an absurd compulsion to hit on everything with two x chromosomes – yes, including trisomy cases – but there are some of us with more reservations.”

“Well, I didn’t say you had to hit on her, Casanova. Just, you know, make some small talk.”

I sighed. “Why?”

Marco’s smirk widened into a grin. “You talk to her for two minutes and I’ll pay for your order.”

“Just how cheap do you think I am?”

“Pretty cheap, really, but how about this – I’ll throw in dessert, too.”

Marco’s grin showed he was more than willing to pay that much for a quick laugh at my expense, probably expecting the girl to be the kind who answered questions with pepper spray, or twisted wrists held out for handshakes, or maybe just the kind that wrote on their wrists with red ink. Despite that, some part of me wanted to go on with it anyway. Sometimes, in the absence of courage, people just look for excuses to do stupid stuff. Most unfortunately.

There are times when it’s best to listen to your nerves when they’re worked up. Some strangers are best left untalked-to no matter how old you get. Even so, it’s pointless thinking about the hypotheticals of that particular encounter. And I know a big part of me wouldn’t trade it for the world. That was the first time I talked to Stralle.

I wiped my mouth on a paper napkin and downed the rest of my water to get rid of anything that might be sticking to my teeth before standing up and walking over to where the girl was seated. My pulse was quickening and I jammed by hands in my pockets to stop myself from fidgeting. My voice, at the very least, I managed to modulate as I greeted her with a “Hey.”
She turned to me, with the same faintly surprised look she had when I clapped for her. She stared at me for a moment before replying.

“Hi,” she said.

“Those were some cool songs,” I said, mind racing for anything less stupid and banal to say. “I’m not much a musician, though, but, well, they were quite striking.”

“Thanks,” she replied. “And I wouldn’t really call myself a musician either. It’s just, you know, something I picked up.”

“Oh,” I muttered. “Well, uh, do you often play at places like this?”

She took a quick glance around. “What exactly is a place like this?” she mumbled. In an abrupt motion she turned to face me again, as if she’d forgotten I was there and then suddenly remembered. “I don’t really play at cafes that often. Sometimes I play on the sidewalks or- Well, you know.”

I nodded, wondering if I’d reached anywhere near two minutes yet. Not that I’d have stopped if I’d reached it. After all, when making a fool of yourself in that manner, it’s tempting to go all out. “By the way, my name’s Jason,” I said. I pulled my hand from my pocket and held it out.

She took my hand in a loose grip. “I’m Stralle. It’s spelled as, um, an anagram of Stellar. But that’s not where I got the name.”
Stralle was easy enough to talk to, largely since no matter how awkward and stilted the conversation felt to me at first, she seemed to think it the most normal thing in the world. She seemed distracted at first, but it became apparent soon enough that it was simply in her nature, in the tone and cadence of her voice and in how her luminous eye seemed to always look right past you.

My conversation with Stralle lasted well beyond two minutes. We spoke for nearly a half hour and Marco, being the instigator of that event, acted honourably enough, busying himself with his food and his readings for school. Thus free of interference, I was able to learn a bit about the mysterious girl with the guitar.

Stralle lived alone in a small apartment near the university. Stralle herself had stopped studying and spent her time running errands or going around the city with her guitar; she took part-time jobs now and then. She’d learned the guitar only around two years back, from a friend of hers. She didn’t listen to music much and most of what she did listen to came from performers like herself – the ones on sidewalks, small restaurants and other unremarkable places in the city.

Eventually, she asked me things about myself, too. Where I studied, what I studied, whether I had any hobbies or served actively for any organizations. She seemed interested to hear that although I was studying at a prestigious university, I was drifting between courses. She also seemed interested in the fact that I wrote poems.

Encouraged by her somewhat amiable, though unconventional, reception and urged on by the same foolhardiness that had started me off talking to her at all, I boldly asked if I could have her number. She took this request with the same stoicism as everything else I’d said and indulged it. She stared at me for a few seconds and then asked for my number in return. I tried not to seem too eager as I gave it.

I gave some occasional thought to Stralle in the days after that, but for the most part she was just another recollection. An interesting one, perhaps, for the rarity of its nature, but in those days it was still just another uncommon experience. Around a week later, when Marco found out I hadn’t texted her, he insisted I send her a message. He managed to convince me it was only natural, so I complied. I sent her a simple message, just checking how she’d been. She replied seven hours later and I realized after two more messages that if talking to her in person was a bit unsettling, corresponding through messages was spiritually taxing.

The text exchange with Stralle had been disheartening but a week later, as I was walking through my school’s campus, I saw a couple sitting on the steps of one of the school’s buildings. The girl was playing the guitar while her boyfriend sang a mellowed version of an ‘80s rock song. The music barely reached me over the noise of chatting students and the passing cars on the nearby road, but immediately I could hear Stralle’s song playing in my head, as clear as the first time I’d heard it.

The memory of the song faded from my mind by the time I got home, but I despite my best efforts and my most reliable distractions, I could not evict from my mind the image of the girl with the guitar, the faded jacket and the worn out jeans. I’d spent several hours trying, unsuccessfully, to study, and I figured that I had nothing to lose by trying to confront the problem in the most straightforward manner. I sent her a message, asking if she wanted to meet up some time. It was four in the morning. She replied immediately.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, they say. A comedian might say that it is then continued with a whistle that hails a cab, but otherwise, it safe to assume that another step follows, and another after that. Step after step after step, finishing mile by mile until you can’t count the steps you’ve taken. You journey until your numb feet lose awareness of the road, enduring all hardships just to reach your nirvana. But what if, after all that, you find the journey’s led you to a place quite different from what you expected? What do you do when your paradise proves false, when your pilgrimage has taken you to dystopia? You look back and realize each step you took you could have instead chosen to stop. You realize how many chances you had to change your fate.

Thinking of all the times I was with Stralle makes me realize that I am not where I am because of some random act of fate. I’m here because step by step, moment by moment, I moulded my life until this was the only destiny I had left. Blind though I was, I chose this fate. And when you’ve taken a thousand mile journey into a land of eternal dusk, you’re left with countless steps of regret.
The day after I sent that message, I met with Stralle for the second time.

It was an overcast day, and even though it was mid-afternoon, the air was cool. We were seated on the downward slope at the edge of the university’s main field. Down at one end of the field, a group of students were playing a game of football, while on the other end, another group was practicing throws with a Frisbee. All along the edge of the field, seated on the slopes or, in some cases, lying down, were several small groups – pairs or trios – of people, relaxing like us. Somewhere on the far side were three students, one of them playing a guitar. I wondered if Stralle had any intention of doing the same.

She sat beside close beside me, looking much the same as she had the first time I saw her. She had her faded black jacket tied around her waist, wore a plain black shirt and a pair of jeans that had just started to fray. Her shoes were worn out and crusted with mud. The bulky backpack she had that first time I saw her was there, as well, lying on the grass, her battered guitar case and its silent passenger propped up against it.

Though our conversations had gone smoothly from when we met, I eventually ran out of things to say after having been with her for around an hour. Her laconic replies and apparent disinterest in everything made it difficult to cover much ground. Still, for some reason, I didn’t detect any unease in her. For my part, I found her presence somewhat soothing. Since there didn’t seem to be a problem, I’d decided to just leave things as they were. We sat, unspeaking, barely moving, on the grass.

It came as a small surprise when Stralle broke the silence.

“Have you ever written about the wind?” Stralle asked.

It took me a second to consider this question. I didn’t recall the exact subject matter of all my poems, but I rarely wrote about nature, and I doubted if I’d ever written more than a trifle of rhyme about the wind, if anything at all. “Not really,” I said. “Not a whole poem on the wind, anyway.”

Stralle nodded. It was a slow, subtle motion, barely perceptible. “So what do you write about?”

This was the first time she’d shown significant interest in me, so I couldn’t help but wonder if she was trying to get at anything in particular. Even if she were, I had no clue what it might’ve been. In the end, I just answered simply. “Just… abstract notions, usually. Regret, sadness, human tendencies.”

“Most poets write about sadness, don’t they? It’s either sadness or love, and you didn’t mention love.”

“Most, I guess. They say conflict is essential to all writing, and conflict doesn’t come without negative emotions. As for love…” I shrugged. “I haven’t experienced anything there worth writing about.”

Stralle nodded. “But you’ve experienced sadness worth writing about?”

“Well… not in the grand scale of things, I guess. But then most of my poems are personal. I just write them because I like writing. There are a few meant for others to read, but…” And I didn’t really know how to end that sentence. ‘But I wouldn’t say they’re of significant sadness.’? ‘But they’re not that good.’? I let it hang, and thankfully Stralle filled in the silence.

“Could I… Do you have one I could hear?”

“Ah, well, I don’t have any on hand. I think. Let me check…” I opened my backpack and started sifting through the contents.

“Don’t you have any you’ve memorized?”

“Hmm, no, unfortunately.”

“That’s alright, then. Just show me one next time.”

The thought of another meeting with her proved to engage my excitement more than I would have expected. Although I may have been hesitant to admit it then, it is clear, as so many things are, in retrospect, that a keen interest, if not an attraction, was developing in me toward the enigma that was Stralle. Our conversation resumed its irregular pace and constant vagueness and as it did, I began silently recalling what I could of the poems I had written, and passing judgment on what might and might not be worth submitting to Stralle’s assessment. I began wondering if I might even write something new. Looking at her gazing off into the horizon, watching the fringes of her hair dance lazily around her slender neck, brushing against her shoulders, I wondered if I might write about the wind.

Stralle and I ended our second meeting as the sky took on a violet pall of a twilight barely touched by the sun. A drizzle had begun to fall and by the time I saw her off at the LRT station, she had her jacket on. We bade each other simple, quick good-byes. And for nearly a month after that, there was silence between us.

From that evening on, into the days that followed, Stralle was frequently in my thoughts. It was not a particularly distracting presence, nor what you might call an obsession. What Stralle evoked in me was a strange reflective state that brought my works, more clearly than before, to the fore of my mind. With each poem I returned to, I recalled the experiences that brought me inspiration to write, framing both poem and experience in a reflexive evaluation of my life.

I began to edit, revise and rewrite. With increasing frequency, I managed turns of phrase and flourishes of lyricism as well as the best I had ever written. As one work after another resurfaced from the forgotten places I’d left them in, and passed through the strange, new, almost frightening aesthetic vigour that had possessed me, I amassed a codex of literary cues to the various events of my recent life. The small disasters, tragedies, epiphanies and evolutions were catalogued in the words of my personae, in the verses that recorded all the luminous and umbral events that had produced the writer that produced and then reinvented them. Facing all that sadness awakened in me a sense of strength. I decided that it was time to apply that resolve to advancing myself.

Nearly a month had passed, but I applied myself with equal vigour to a new task – looking for contests, magazines, folios, anything that would perhaps accept my works. I was, at this point, determined to end up published within the next few months. I found a number of possible avenues to achieving my end and began looking for the poems best suited to each possible publisher. These I took aside once more and revised yet another time. During those days, I thought of little else except my writing, and my days took me directly from home to school and then back home. Not that going to school did much good. Already a floating student, I was in danger of being removed from my college entirely. To make things worse, it was then, when my single-minded focus on my literary quest had finally evicted her from my thoughts by my poetic fervour, that Stralle reappeared in my life.

I manoeuvred my car into an awkward, slightly slanted position between a gaping pothole in front of our neighbour’s house and the rickety van my father had never gotten around to repairing. Outside, the rain was torrential, and I could barely see more than a few feet out the windshield. The glow from the streetlamp right outside the car was oppressed by the curtains of rain. I switched the headlights off and killed the engine, but remained in my seat a while more, listening to the static-scratched song coming out of the radio.
For a while, I sat staring out the windshield, watching as the droplets swarming on the glass slowly stylized the view into an incomprehensible mosaic of pinpricks of light. My jacket, lying on the floor in front of the passenger seat, was soaked through, and I didn’t have an umbrella with me. I reached over to my backpack, lying on the passenger seat, and unzipped it partway. Only half-mindful of the action, I began to thumb through the various items there – notebooks, stapled readings, and tattered books – feeling in each of them a remnant of the rain. I pulled out a notebook at random and flipped through it, squinting at the lines of ink that, even in the dark, I could tell were partly blotted by the rain. I sighed and tossed the notebook haphazardly onto my bag. I’d barely slumped back into my seat when I heard a clattering noise from outside.

I jolted in my seat and squinted out into the darkness, but saw nothing. I could barely see three feet forward through the windshield; the mirrors were of no use whatsoever. Just as I turned my attention back to my bag, however, I caught a trace of movement in the periphery of my vision. I refocused my eyes on the area where I saw it and soon enough confirmed a silhouette, moving, surely, but just barely.

The shadowy figure was decidedly human, though something was slightly off about it and it was moving in awkward, jerking motions. Given the circumstances, I suspected it might have been a drunkard or perhaps simply someone who’d been caught in the rain too long, grown ill from the weather. I was wary, but didn’t like the idea of sitting around in my car while whoever it was lurked suspiciously near my house. I stuck my car key back in and turned it part way. The old aircon fluttered back to life and the radio resumed its scratchy song. Hardly enough noise to penetrate the drone of the rain. I readied myself for a possible confrontation with an unfriendly urban denizen and, when I’d gathered my nerves, turned on the lights.

The figure in the distance started and turned partway so that its back was towards me and I could just barely glimpse the side of its face past the hood drawn over its head. Still, the backpack hanging heavily from its shoulder, the guitar case clasped precariously in a trembling hand, and the eye, luminous even as it regarded me through the downpour, told me all I needed to know.
I pulled hard on the door handle and slammed myself against it, but the door, still locked, didn’t move. I muttered an indistinct curse under my breath, unlocked the door and flung it open, stumbling in a rush out into the rain.

Stralle spun to face me, stumbling on the uneven sidewalk as she did so. I rushed toward her, stopping a couple of feet away from her. She stared at me with a look of sheer surprise that must have been mirrored on my face. We remained so for a while, as it dawned on me that when I leapt from the car I really had no idea what I was going to do. I was about to finally say something, but Stralle spoke first.

“What are you doing here?”

The irony of the inquiry gave me pause for a moment.

“Jason?” she continued.

“I believe I should be asking that,” I answered. I took a moment to survey the area, but found nothing to clue me in to what she’d been doing. “Were you on your way to anywhere?”

“Yeah,” Stralle replied after a moment of thought. “Yeah, that’s right. What about you?”

“I live here.”

Stralle considered this for a while and her face went from surprised to puzzled and then back to its usual cryptic passivity. She replied with a simple “I see.”

“Where are you headed?” I said, “Maybe I can take you there.”

Stralle shook her head. “Never mind that. It’s not- not like I’ll reach it now. I’ll just head on home.”

“You’re just walking?” As far as I could tell from the limited information I had, her house wasn’t anywhere near where we were. She’d probably be half an hour in getting there and the rain showed no signs of letting up.

Stralle shrugged.

“Why don’t you stay here until the rain passes?” I said. “Or at least weakens a bit. Walking in this weather can’t be good.”

There was a pause before the reply, but in the end, she nodded.

I crossed the threshold – a small cement barrier made to ward off rising rainwater during the rainy season – weighed down by what felt like a few litres of rainwater. Looking at Stralle, with her jacket streaming water from its hem, and her backpack, its normal bulk increased by its load of liquid. We went to the kitchen and deposited our bags on the floor. Our jackets we spread out on the countertops. Much to my surprise, among the contents of Stralle’s backpack was an overcoat, which she threw onto the counter beside her jacket. I rummaged through the drawers and cupboards of the kitchen and was vaguely aware of Stralle checking on her guitar. I heard the snap of locks disengaging and then the tentative plucks at individual strings. The notes sounded softly but clearly. I found a few dry and relatively clean rags and took three of them. I slung one across my neck and then approached Stralle, who was crouched over her battered case, plucking at the strings of the guitar, which she’d lain on the dining table. Some water had reached the inside of the case, but the guitar didn’t seem to have been touched by it much.

I tapped Stralle on the shoulder and proffered one of the cloths. She took it and set about wiping her guitar. I hung the other cloth on the back of the nearest chair and then began drying off my feet, shins and arms.

Stralle cleared her voice. “Is there no one else here?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. I lived with my father, who often worked late hours, sometimes going through the night. The Toyota he drove had been nowhere in sight when I got home. My mother and older siblings lived in Singapore, where my older brother had a job and my older sister studied.

“Do you live alone?”

“Nah. But my dad’s not often home early.”

“Should I go soon?”

“Well, I can’t send you back out while the rain’s like this. If you need to get back home, though, I suppose I could give you a ride.”

Stralle shook her head. “It doesn’t really matter. I’d just rather not cause any trouble here.”

“It’s no problem,” I said. I gestured at her guitar. “How’s it holding up?”

“It’s okay,” Stralle said. She sighed. “The case is wet, though. That’s a bit of a problem.” She stood up and put her guitar down on the table. She bent down to pick up her case and paused, looking at the puddle of water that had built up around her feet.

“Don’t mind it,” I said. “I’ll clean it up.”

Stralle nodded. She tugged at one of her sleeves which had plastered itself, leechlike, onto her arm. “I don’t suppose you have something I could borrow?”

I threw the cloth I’d been using onto the puddle on the floor, where it slowly flattened under the weight of the water it was absorbing. “I might. I’ll just check upstairs for a bit.”

Stralle nodded, and crouched back down to stare at her guitar case. It didn’t seem that she’d have any trouble, so I left her as she was and ascended the narrow staircase to our second floor. My sister still had some clothes left in the room she used to have, just as a few remnants of my brother’s possessions still intruded on my dwelling space. All that was left was to rummage through drawers long undisturbed and fight the right keys.

I smacked the light switch with my palm as I entered the room. After a few spasmodic flickers, the lights finally hit and sustained their wan glow, which bathed the room in a pale, somewhat sickly-seeing light. I first saw to changing my own clothes, putting on a fresh shirt and a pair of denim shorts. I headed towards the old drawers where I’d probably left the keys and as I did, my gaze darted over the mess of notebooks and loose papers lying on my desk – the poems that had edged Stralle out of my mind. I went over to them, lingered a while to read them. I quickly spotted one I liked quite well, folded it, and slipped it into my pocket.

It only took a couple of minutes of searching before I found the right keys. A little rummaging through old closets and I managed to extract a few of the clothes, now perfumed by naphthalene, that my sister had left behind. Selecting the one least faded – a red t-shirt and a pair of shorts – and called out to Stralle to head up.

There was only a moment’s delay before I heard her footsteps as she ascended the stairs – light, unhurried and steady. She stepped into the pale light of my room and in the instant she stood at the doorway the shadows and light fell upon her in a striking, slightly frightening manner. I blinked the image away and handed her the clothes.

“I hope these are fine. They’ve been in storage for a while, but they should be clean. And feel free to use this,” I said as I handed her a small towel. “The bathrooms are just on the right of the stairs landing. I’ll be waiting here.”

I returned to my desk and tried to impose a semblance of order upon the elements scattered on its surface. By the time I’d gotten enough space cleared for actual writing, I’d produced two stacks of notebooks, loose papers and folders perched precariously at the edge of my desk. The whole set up seemed, in my eyes, to give the impression of impassioned productivity, without connotations of obsession or disorderliness.

The weather had gotten worse as I waited. The sound of rain slamming against the roof was deafening, and adding to the cacophony were the intermittent bursts of thunder, preceded, naturally, by flashes of lightning that I glimpsed through the blinds of my windows. In much the same way, my attention was drawn to my phone as its display flickered to life just before it trembled noisily on the desk. The stacks of paper quivered nervously.

I picked up my phone and checked the message. It was a message from my father, saying he was stranded because of flooded roads, and he wasn’t likely to be back that night. According to the message details, it had been sent nearly half an hour earlier. Clearly, networks were having their own troubles with the weather.

Stralle rapped softly on the door before entering. Her hair was a tangled mess and she had one hand held up to her brow keeping it from flailing in her face. I nudged the swivel chair by my desk toward her before dropping onto my bed, resting my elbows on my knees, right hand fiddling absentmindedly with my phone.

Stralle eased herself into the chair and dropped her hand from her brow. Her eyes flickered toward the precariously stacked notebooks and papers. She turned away and looked at the floor.

“Well,” I said. The words came out in a rasp, so I cleared my throat. “Well, looks like my dad’s stranded around his office thanks to the rain.”

“Oh,” Stralle said. She curled her lip a little. “I hope he’s alright,” she mumbled.

“Well, it happens now and then,” I said. The last time it had happened was two years ago. “He should be okay.”

“So then,” Stralle began, but she cut off abruptly. Her eyes flicked to the desk again. “I’m stuck here, then, aren’t I?”

“It’s hardly weather for a stroll,” I said. “But if you need to go somewhere, well… we’ll figure something out.”

Stralle shrugged. “I’ll just sleep for now, I guess. Until the weather’s better.” She rose and I mirrored the action, and then stepped away from the bed. She made for the door.

“You can use the bed,” I said. She returned a blank stare and I felt compelled to justify the offer somehow. “Without me, of course.”
Stralle blinked.

“Um, well, if you want, I mean. The offer stands…” I trailed off, actively endeavoured to keep myself from fidgeting.

“Where will you stay?” Stralle asked.

“I’ll take the sofa downstairs. Besides, my dad might call, so I’d best be near the phone. It could be hard to hear over this downpour.”
Stralle took this all in with characteristic stoicism. Other than asking that I bring her guitar up to the room, along with a glass of water – a request she made rather awkwardly, almost reluctantly, in my opinion – she had nothing else to add. I turned off the lights in the room before I left heard, and that was that.

Sprawled on the couch in the living room, waiting on a phone that wouldn’t ring until the next day, I let myself drift listlessly into formless thoughts, lingering on the edge of slumber.

That night was it – the verge of mundane and surreal. Imagine yourself out on a lagoon in the darkest stretch of morning, with the mist curling around your feet, which you edge forward on an old wooden boardwalk. The wood creaks a little, but with the mist clawing at everything, you can’t see. You’d feel silly doubting something as whimsical and immaterial as mist. And so you feel safe, because the mist, out of apathy rather than malevolence, has tricked you into complacence.

In the darkest stretch of that morning, there was Stralle – the enigma, the melody, the woman – separated from me by a space of mere meters. Her stoicism tempered all passion, her spontaneity left all curiosity abashed. Her song was passion and in her silence I felt a strange kind of peace – the reassurance all know at night that the sun will rise the next day. Despite everything that happened after, that night still suffuses me with a melancholic tranquillity.

Regardless, the pretensions of the mist do not excuse the lapses of the seeing.

The darkness was full when I awoke and it was impossible to tell how long I’d been sleeping. It was difficult to hear anything above the staggering noise of the rain, but a singularly imperious peal of thunder had risen to the occasion of rousing me from sleep. The room was bathed in a wan light, in which danced the shadows of water running down the windows.

There was a slight ache in my muscles and it felt like I’d sweated a bit during my sleep; all in all, my position as it was, sprawled on the couch, was quite uncomfortable. I stretched, sat myself up. Bracing my eyes for the sudden light, I checked my cell phone.

03:42

I tossed it onto the couch beside me and shut my eyes, waiting for the purplish afterimage to fade from the back of my eyelids. Then I heard a muffled thud.

I jolted upright, straining my ears for another sound. Other, softer noise from upstairs. They sounded frantic. I dashed into the kitchen and, as quickly and quietly as I could manage, grabbed a steak knife. With my improvised armament in hand, I rushed up the stairs.
The door to my bedroom swung open just as I touched the landing, and I brought it up in front of me. A pair of eyes glared at me from the darkness and in a blurred moment I felt a sharp pain in my wrist, heard the knife clatter to the ground. The next thing I knew, I was pinned to the banister, a hand wrenched in a painful grip on my neck. A few strands of hair brushed against my face. Reflexively, I blinked.

The hand relinquished its deathgrip on my neck as suddenly as it had initiated it. I felt those strands of hair brush past me again, heard rapid footsteps down the stairs. A flash of lightning outlined a person clutching a guitar.

“Stralle?” I called out. I winced at the pain in my throat.

“I thought you were a thief,” Stralle replied. I could barely hear her over the rain, but she sounded agitated.

I started down the stairs. “Goes both ways,” I said, “Are you alright? Did something happen?”

The locks on her guitar case clicked audibly. “I have to go somewhere,” she said.

“Where?” I asked. The weather was worse by far than when she’d gotten here.

Her silhouette was visible in the pale light, and I observed her hastily shoving her belongings back into her backpack. Still with no response, she shoved her feet into her shoes.

“I could take you, if you need to go,” I said. “Just give me directions and-”

Stralle froze where she was. Her lips started moving, but no sounds came out, or at least nothing I could hear over the rain. Then she stood up, slipping the backpack straps over her shoulders. “If we go, we leave this place behind.”

The whole scene was a caricature of ominous. I ignored the possible implications to keep myself calm. “Naturally,” I replied, unsure.
Stralle nodded. “Then let’s go.” She picked up her guitar case and headed for the door.

I took but a few moments to grab my keys and an umbrella and then exited with her. Immediately upon stepping onto the porch, the wind whipped in my face, roaring in my ears, cold and damp even though no rain yet hit me. As soon as the house was locked up, we made our way to the car. Water was starting to build up in the streets, flowing in dark shallow channels that wound around the curbs. The umbrella barely helped with the rain and the wind threatened to whip it from my hands, so I gave up on it, and we simply dashed into the car.

“Where do we go?” I asked, starting the engine, switching the lights on.

“Just drive straight from here,” Stralle said, “I’ll give you directions as we go.”

I did as she instructed, driving cautiously as she directed me down the streets, her gaze fixed always on the view past the storm-battered windshield. We never kept to a single road for long, sligoing instead through a series of short drives between crossroads where she invariably chose the paths least familiar to me. In the chaos of that dark night, I soon lost my bearings.

Stralle had always struck me as odd, certainly, but for the first time, I was beginning to wonder if she was genuinely insane. The peculiarity of her situation, background, manners – their mystique now held a deadly undertone. However harmless Stralle herself seemed, it was beyond question that this undertaking was mad. I’d asked her a few times where our destination was or where we were, for that matter, but she ignored me each time, remaining silent until we reached the next intersection.

We’d been driving for around half an hour by the time Stralle told me to stop. I pulled over onto a driveway in front of a pawnshop and a rundown eatery. The rain had lightened somewhat and the fierce winds had settled into a breeze, but the streets were more floodwater than concrete. The buildings around us rose two to three storeys high, but all were underneath the shadow of a train station – which line it was, I couldn’t tell.

Once outside the car, Stralle took but a brief moment to survey our surroundings before striding toward the road. I hurried to catch up and right at the edge of the driveway she stopped. She turned and gave me this odd look. She said something, but I didn’t hear it.
I moved closer and she nodded and then darted off across the street. I glanced quickly both ways and saw no sign of traffic, so I crossed after her. The water was slick with filth and surprisingly cold. Even after we’d stepped out of the water, I could feel all sorts of filth in the film of muck around my ankles. I followed Stralle to the stairs of the station, which she ascended two steps at a time. At the top of the flight was the gate into the station proper. Seeing that it was closed, I slowed down. Even as I did, Stralle bent down in front of it, searching for something in her backpack.

Once Stralle found what she was looking for, she stood up and approached the gate. With her back obscuring the movement of her hands, I couldn’t see what it was she had retrieved, but whatever it was, it opened the door for us. She picked up her belongings once again and strode on through.

The whole scenario had been disorienting, but I knew breaking and entering when I saw it and we were clearly trespassing on government property here. I quickened my pace to catch up to Stralle.

“What are we doing here?” I demanded. I refrained from raising my voice too much, worried there might be a guard around somewhere.

“Meeting the train,” Stralle replied calmly. She continued her confident pace into the building. The darkness inside was deep and only by keeping close to Stralle could I find my way, yet she went on with ease. Either she knew this place or her eyesight in the dark was frighteningly accurate. We reached a row of turnstiles. This barely slowed Stralle, who jumped them with ease even with all she was carrying. Once again, I fumbled after her.

I became aware of a noise growing in strength, a powerful and steady roar. Soon, Stralle began rising and I realized we were at the stairs leading to the platform. I felt a draft upon setting foot on the stairs, which increased with each step. The chill of the open air was oppressive.

A faint illumination reached us as we stepped out onto the platform but even so, the ceiling was suspended in a sky of pure darkness. The tracks themselves led on in both ways into a curtain of impenetrable rain. In the blackness flanking the rails were the hulking shadows of buildings, barely visible, appearing twisted.

Stralle walked to the edge of the platform and dropped her belongings. She opened the guitar case, took out her guitar and, sitting cross-legged on the platform, began to play.

“Stralle?” I called, conscious and heedless of the fear in my voice. “What’s going on here?”

“Any moment now,” Stralle shouted back, clear and strong over the roar of the rain. She almost sounded excited.

“What do you mean ‘Any moment now?’ What’s going on here?!”

A high-pitched whistle pierced the air, deafening me to everything but its own shrill call. I shuddered to my knees. Struggling against the painful cry of the whistle, I closed my eyes and grit my teeth. When those few torturous seconds had passed, I was left gasping for breath, shivering in the cold.

I looked up and saw Stralle hunched over her guitar. I could hear her breathing, heavy as my own and, along with it, the soft, pleading notes of her song. The ground began to tremble and the clamour of the rain was doubled by the overwhelming rumbling of a train. I turned to face the night and there I saw it.

The tracks of the trains in this city run straight, yet there it was, that storm-borne behemoth, winding its way through the hulking shadows, sinuous and sinister. A single eerie light led its advance and in the cone of light it projected were tiny shadows darting through the air. As it drew closer, the wind picked up. Its frenetic howl reverberated throughout the platform, its manic grasp threatened to tear me from the ground or freeze me where I stood.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Stralle rising. She dropped her guitar, which fell soundlessly to the concrete. The glow of the train enveloped us, and those shadows of bloated bodies with tattered wings danced heathen patterns around us.

Stralle stood transfixed in the light. Her arms hung limply at her sides and her hair whipped about furiously in the wind, yet if any harshness borne of the storm or the monstrous train bothered her, she showed no symptom whatsoever. Her mouth curved slowly into a smirk. But in her eyes I saw fear.

I opened my mouth to call out, but my voice was ripped soundlessly from my mouth. I staggered to my feet, coldness biting into every muscle. I took a step forward and shuddered violently.

Stralle stood there, transfixed, her shadow stretching out behind her as the train drew closer.

The whistle flared again and every sensation seemed to amplify. I stumbled, head reeling, and nearly crumpled, but stayed myself. The light from the train had grown blinding. I squinted, looking down, grit my teeth and dug my stiff hands into my pockets. Something sticky and slightly slimy pressed against the fingertips of my right hand. I panicked, seizing it and tearing it out. I glanced to the right and through my strained eyes beheld what had crept into my pocket – the poem I’d folded, now soaked and misshapen with the rain water.

The train rushed into the platform and the passage of its light plunged us back into darkness. In the midst of the noise I heard the babbling of a multitude of voices, indistinct and incomprehensible. The wind that followed in the wake of the train ploughed through the platform and knocked me onto my back. The train thundered on; the rain clamoured; the wind tore relentlessly; the cold grappled me, at last, into a precarious slumber.

That’s the last I can recall of that night. When I regained consciousness, I was asleep at the wheel of my car, parked right outside my house. I was wearing the clothes I wore going to that station, but they weren’t more than a little moist. The rain had stopped, though the puddles of murky water remained on the streets. Only the things I’d gained and the things I’d lost convinced me it had been more than just some crazy dream.

Right in the seat beside me was a guitar. Down on the floor in front of it was a backpack . Inside of it were a pair of pliers, a number of lock picks and the clothes Stralle had been wearing when I brought her in from outside my house.

The poem I’d stuffed into my pocket was, of course, gone, as was Stralle’s number from my cell phone, when I checked it upon getting in. The messages remained, but devoid of any sender details. I found my room to be in perfect order – as if no one had slept in it the night before – except for one thing. The poems I’d stacked on my desk had vanished. The paper and notebooks remained, along with all the notes and scribbles. Only the poems were gone.

I spent the next few days in a fatigued hysteria, trying to figure out what had happened, what was happening. In a desperate attempt to remove the evidence, I burned the offending notebooks and papers. Then I burned the backpack. I was about to hurl Stralle’s shirt into the fire when I heard it.

It was her song, soft as if from far away, but distinct and mesmerizing as ever. It stopped me where I was, then beckoned me to follow. I scrambled out to the front of my house and started walking, then half-running. The song always seemed to be around the next corner, or over the next rise. I don’t know how long it had been before it started raining and I came to my senses.

I found my way back home. The rain had extinguished the fire, leaving an ashen ring on the ground. Beside it were Stralle’s clothes and her guitar – supposedly next in line for kindling. I picked them up and went to my room. I found I could recall the melody, if I tried. And I think you know what happened from there.

The approximation I manage is imperfect, even more so than Stralle’s, but you’ve heard it. You know how it can mesmerize. The pull you feel is as a grain of salt scratched from the earth – not even an itch, barely a tingle. The desperation that seizes me is all-consuming and it grows with every drizzle, rain and storm. I wonder how long Stralle wandered the streets before she found the song again. I wonder how long until I find her.

Keep the guitar if you want, kid, but forget about me. Forget about the storm and the train and the station. Forget like I can’t forget Stralle.

***

Waring mapanuksong tubig sa pagkati at pagtaog, ang lapit ng sigyá sa balang sumasahod. Kaibigán ng langit ang tanging nasusunod sapagka’t wala ang utos sa namamalimos. Kadalasang bingi sa mga dalangin ang langit na kapos-ihip ng hangin. Kaya’t tanging mag-abáng ang maaaring gawin, asahan ang biyayang mga panginorin – na kanilang ang lupa’y didiligin ng katuparan ng ating mga panalangin. Tubig ang buhay ng lupang tigang, ang tagapag-adya ng daigdig na uhaw. Wala nang iba pang makapangingibabaw sa ating pangangailangan sa yelong tunaw.

Sigyá ang tubig sa manunulat, ang kaliwanagang ating hinahanap-hanap. Subali’t sawi ang palad ng abang lahat, sapagka’t ito’y saksakan nang ilap. Kailangang magdusa sa malao’t madalas, tiisin ang uhaw sa mapagparusang banas, dahil ‘pag lumiban ang sigyang mailap, ginhawa’t kapanataga’y lalong sumasalat.

Nguni’t sigya’y mapagpalaya man ng kapangyarihan ng isipan, hindi ito ang tanging bukal ng kakayanan sa sansinukuban. Nakapanggagawad man ito ng gilas at galing, nakahihibò man at nakahahaling, wala sa mga ulap ang kalahatan ng tubig – may lawa’t ilog, lagaslasa’t batis. Binigyang kapangyarihan ng mga bathala ang mga taong mag-igib, binigyan ang tao ng kakayahang magkusa, sapagka’t walang mahihitâ sa hamak na pamimithayà. Nagdudulot ng buhay ang uláng malamig nguni’t kadalasa’y paalisagâ ang hatid, kaya’t upang mabuhay nang may katagalan, kusang-palong sumalok ay ating pag-aralan. Pagmasdang maigi ang saganang kapaligiran, maraming katawang tubig ang mapagkukunan. At kung sakaling sa anyong tubig ang kinatitirha’y salat, magtayo ng balón, ng mga buto’y magbanat. Alamin ang paligid na ginagalawan; maraming kainamang matutuklasan. Walang mahihitâ sa hamak na paghihintay sa mga biyaya ng langit na kusambigay.

Ito ang pinakapaksa ng talakayan – pagkakaroon ng sigyá ay di kailangan, sapagka’t maraming maaaring paraan, upang ng sarili’y gana’y makamtan. Walang balakid sa malilikhain, lahat ng dalumat ay kayang angkinin, anumang makita’y kayang ariin, basta’t may pananaw na sa sarili’t angkin. Ito’y napatunayan ng aming mga pangkat, sa pamamagitan ng pagkatha ng mga salaysay – mga titik ng salitang “malikhaing pagsusulat” ang mga bumuo sa mga salitang aming isinalaysay. Mga kwentong makukulay ang nangaisilang habang mataas ang tindig ng araw. Mga salaysay na tungkol sa pag-ibig, maging panggagahasa, pagpaslang at galit ang mga naibahagi sa mga kamag-aral. Laking kinatuwa naman ng lahat ang bawat isa sa mga naisulat. Sadyang mahirap nga lamang lumikha ng salaysay nang iilang titik lamang ang maaaring magamit. Subali’t isa ring hamong mainam na naitawid.

Sigya’y malaking tulong sa pagsusulat, subali’t hindi nito taglay ang lahat. Sa kaniyang kawalan, maghanap ng paraluman, maging malikhain sa paghahanap ng mapagkukunan ng gana’t kakayahan. Sa isip na malaya walang nakahahadlang, kaya’t palayain ang haraya’t katwiran. Pagmasdan ang paligid at kilalanin ang alindog ng ginagalawang mundong sa ati’y handog ng mga bathala.

Waring baog na patubigan ang harayang pinagkaitan ng nakararahuyong paraluman, subali’t mas nakahahabag ang isipang pinangawan ng katamaran.

“Aray, masakit, walang hiya ka!”

Ngunit sumpa ko sa sarili’y hindi pipikit

Ang manatiling mulat pinilit nang pinilit

Nguni’t tugon ng katawa’y di ko rin napigil

At daigdig ko’y dahan-dahang nilamon ng dilim

Napahilata ako sa sahig salamat sa hapdi

At wika ko’y sandali, magpapahinga lang nang sanda-

[Tilaok]

[Pagkutitap] 8:01 AM [Pagkutitap]

Last draft saved at 11:30 PM 01/05/11

Hikab.

Kusot.

Kinusot ang mata.

Hikab.

Kusot.

Gulat at kaba.

Bathalang May Kapal

Almusal na pala

Sa gabi ma’y ilaw pa rin ang nasa paligid

Pagod ay tulog at pahinga’y nag-iibayo

‘Pag ang turing na sa sarili’y makina’t di tao

Dahil kakaiba talaga ang higpit at lupit

Ng kusampalong humahagupit

Na siyang anak ng kapanagutang

Kailanma’y di magawang matalikuran

Tinik ang kasipagan sa mabuting kalusugan

Sa ating mundong nagmumulto ang araw

Uhaw man sa tulog, katungkula’y di tutulugan

Busog man sa antok, pagtutupdan ang pinangakuan

At paghiga sa kama’y parating n’ang liwayway

At muling babango’t iwawaksi’ng pananablaw

Gan’to po sa amin, sagana sa sipag

Gan’to po sa amin, salat sa tamad

Gan’to po sa amin, patay ang kalusugan

Sa harap ng kapangyarihan ng katungkulan

You: Answer

Time is passing

I: Answer

You: Reply

Time is passing

(1/4/2011 12:41:03 AM)

I: Type, then Respond

You: Say Goodbye.

I: Say Goodbye

You have signed out on 1/4/2011 at 12:46:46 AM

I: No longer care

I signed out on 1/4/2011 at 01:01:01 AM.

Upon thy cranium is cloth divine, painted with the richest oils by hands of peerless dexterity, bequeathing the world such a marvelous sight to behold! Yours is Beauty beyond compare. Pulchritude unequalled, that even the proud sun and the jealous moon are brought to their knees in awe, adoration and adulation.

What is the head without its chiseled form? It is but a shapeless rock deprived of purpose and glory. And yet within is infinite potential for beauty and utility.

The canvas that so delicately sits upon your skull is a testament to that potential, the paragon of human attractiveness – a standard to which artisans can only dream to measure against. And yet they will try. They will try to reach the sky, to claw their way to the heavens with haphazard wings made of wax, steel and the feathers of the dead. Ultimately, however, all will fail. For mortal hands can never capture nor match what has been molded by the hands of God.

You are Galataea to my mortal affection.

You were born of the deftness that eluded Hephaestus, the true archetype of Aphrodite’s allure.