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Bittersweet
redkinoko
20 Jul 2004
In the beginning there was candy.
Everything that followed after would affix their selves around it as a entire religion would to a sacred icon.
It all started three years ago. My family had just moved in from the province into our new house at the heart of Manila. I found myself enrolled in an entirely new school full of strange faces, walking to and from it everyday.
Then there was the park between home and school. Strangely enough, it was there that I found my much needed solace. By the benches of the green block, I pondered about a far-off past that's filled with nothing but delusions and fading memories.
One particularly hot afternoon, I unexpectedly dozed of along the benches. I woke up as the evening settled down and started to wonder what had happened.
Then I remembered, this is Manila!
I reached for my belongings inside my bag. One by one I checked my valuables. My cap. My shades. My phone. My wallet.
I reached down the last side pocket to see if I lost any of the smaller things that I kept inside my bag. Strangely enough, instead of finding something missing, I felt something that wasn't there before. I took it out and tried to identify it under the light of a lamp. It was a ruby-red piece of candy, the most scrumptious piece of little sweet I have ever seen in my entire life.
I made no second thoughts as I removed its wrapper and put it inside my mouth. The taste was that of sweet-sour raspberries. T'was the first time I tasted the candy that night. It took no time at all for all of it to melt in my mouth.
Only after it was all gone did I start to ponder as to why I got a candy in the first place. I could only speculate but I knew one thing for sure: I wished for more of it. I finally decided for myself, I would come to the same spot again the following day.
And so I did. One day after the other. At times, I took a nap there and during other times, I just left my bag on the bench, sans the valuables which I had learned to ditch whenever I played basketball with my newfound friends. Either way, at the end of the day, there was always the candy inside the bag. I always ate it on the spot, as a child would open a gift the very moment it is given to him. As a matter of fact, I felt the inner child in me grow delightful over the little pieces of candy that I enjoyed every day. I never got tired of its taste. If ever, my craving for it only heightened
I remembered the case of the geese that laid golden eggs and how their curiosity over how the eggs became gold became their downfall. I wasn't really the curious lot. I didn't really care how the candy got there. My golden geese was in that bench and I didn't care what made it tick. To me, it was my little mystery that I wouldn't want to break by knowing how. I thought it better that way.
Time passed. The daily candies came and I ate them. It was as though things could go on forever. But having a treat everyday was a good thing. And all good things, always has to have an end.
After a few months, the candies came less and less often. At first there was no candy for me once a week. After a few weeks, the candies appeared only every other day. It wasn't too soon when they sweets stopped appearing.
I had grown so accustomed to expecting a candy inside the pocket of my bag that when the mysterious occurrence stopped, I felt my entire world stop alongside it.
Two weeks passed and not a trace - I felt abandoned.
Ironic, really.
I never did get to find out who was giving me the daily candies simply because I wanted to keep things mysterious. I didn't regret never knowing who my benefactor was or why he or she would have the patience to do the same things for so many months. I said to myself that there is no reason for remorse but deep inside, I know there's a tiny voice inside me that's asking...
Even after the candies stopped coming, I still left my bag at the same place every afternoon. Call it sentimentality, or stupidity - I really don't know what word could describe the feeling. The candy inside the bag has become so much a part of my life that I just didn't know how to break off from it.
Like an old habit.
Nostalgia for the farce.
Then, on the nineteenth day after I saw the last candy, I saw something inside my bag. But this time, it was no candy. It was a letter, nay, an invitation, laced with pink silk and printed in soft parchment in shades of purple.
Her name was Melissa. And the invitation was for her eighteenth birthday. All this time, my mysterious gift-giver was a girl of my age.
As the day of her birthday neared, thoughts started playing on my mind. I used to be so fixated on whether or not there will be candy that I hadn't really thought about the person who was giving it to me.
But now, I found myself thinking about her and how I knew so little.
A few days before the party, I finally thought of the perfect gift: An elegant phial that I had bought for no specific reason once in an antique shop. I filled it with red candy, of the same color as the sweets she had been giving me.
That I had the perfect gift made me even more anxious to come.
Finally, the evening of the party came. I wore my best sleeves and tie and went to the house within the illustrious village a few blocks away from my place.
When I saw her house filled with trees adorned with lights. My heart lightened. I felt as though I would be reunited with a missing piece of my heart.
I showed the invitation to the guard. He gave me an odd look as he let me through. I saw people by the patio. My heart started racing.
It didn't dawn on me at an instant that there was something wrong with the occasion. There was no music. There was a birthday cake but there was no other food on the table. The eerie silence that lingered as the estranged people conversed felt ethereal. The banner that signaled the 18th birthday of Melissa hung low over the porch but the rejoicing was hardly even there.
I walked inside the living room and I saw the most saddening sight ever.
At the heart of the party was a coffin.
I was anxious to go to a debut. I ended up attending somebody else's funeral.
At first I thought I was in the wrong house. I stared at the coffin from the far end of the room, still frozen from what I was seeing. Then, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
"So you're the boy from the park?", asked a soft-spoken voice from behind me.
I turned around and saw an elderly woman dressed in an elegant white dress. I wasn't to sure if I was really the one she was talking about but I nodded nevertheless.
"I'm Melissa's mother. I was the one who put the invitation on your bag."
Still trying to tie the ends to an unstrung puzzle, I wanted things cleared out.
"Is this her party?" asked I.
She nodded and took a deep breath. "It was her wish that you get the invitation."
I then finally asked if I could meet her. She slowly pointed at the wooden box at the far end of the room and spoke no more.
All my fears then became clear. It was indeed her party; and her funeral.
Now that I knew the real occasion, I couldn't help but notice that the feeling was too light. Come to think of it, nobody cried. Had it not been for a coffin, one could not be blamed for mistaking the gathering for the quieter of debuts.
I walked over to the coffin and saw a picture of her face for the very first time. Hers was that of an angel and wasn't far from what serenity I could have imagined from my experience. Beside the picture was a letter. It was from her, to everybody.
She was diagnosed with a strange form of cancer a few years ago. She concisely narrated the ups and downs she went through in the letter and thanked a myriad of people that I didn't know. Towards the bottom, she expressed her one last wish: To plan her own party.
She wanted to plan it even though she knew her marked day would come a few days before her birthday.
At the bottom of the letter, there was a note for me, for the boy at the park who always left his bag in the bench.
She finally revealed the mystery to me through her final letter. Her illness forbade her to enjoy the one thing that she craved the most in the world: the raspberry-red confectionaries that I found in my bag. She told me in the letter that because she knew she could never enjoy it, the next best thing that she could do with them was to watch somebody else enjoy it. And for some odd reason, she picked me. I didn't know why. Not all things in life need explanation to be profound.
She apologized in the end. She apologized because she couldn't see me eat all of her collection. After which, Melissa implored me to do one final favor: To consume the last of the red candies lying beneath the letter.
I couldn't help but shed tears for my endeared stranger. I never knew such a brave soul was behind the sweets.
After reading the letter, I knew more about her than I would have ever imagined.
There was no regret in my heart when I picked up the final piece of candy. I did not regret because she didn't.
That she died yesterday. But she died with a serene smile on her face.
I just felt like writing again. And this is the product of the itch.
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