gills-corn - Tumblr blog

[gills-corn]

Once there was a boy and a butterfly.

It wasn't a butterfly at first, of course - the boy picked up a lone caterpillar one scorching May morning and nursed it to adulthood. As it molted and grew wings and learned to fly, the boy played under the sun, showering in the sunshine and the summer rains.

The butterfly flew away, right out of a window and to the sky. The boy was outside, running around with a group of children his age, playing whatever their heart desired. He didn't even had the chance to say good-bye.

He cried himself to sleep that night, inconsolable. The next day, he's back on his feet after a friend gave him a cone of ice cream, as fickle as the summer day that shined down upon him.

He became just a boy, with no butterfly, but a boy who knows more about leaving and losing than the day ago.

The next years repeated the same way - a boy, alone in the universe, but bodies still orbited around him, people he knew loved him but he couldn't quite comprehend why or how. He had long forgotten is butterfly. People came and went - friends, classmates, family members - and he had learned how to cope. He had learned about the importance of them arriving, of them leaving, of them tracing a solitary mark on his life.

Still, the idea of having something you value so dearly, so tenderly is lost on him. But what does he know? He's sixteen and miserable and alone, not entirely friendless or lonely, but there's still a vacuum around him, warping around his from like a black hole.

"I don't think I'm capable of love," he had mentioned to his friend once, in the throes of drunkenness. There's a sad smile on his face, reminiscent of a boyhood not-so-lost but drifting away.

"You are. Everyone is," his friend answered, his eyes fluttering shut. He rested his head on the other boy's shoulder.

The silence rang through the boy's ears as other bodies slept around him, his friends that fancied themselves as rebels but didn't do more than sneak a few bottles of beers. He examined his friend's face and returned to his drink, his body thrumming.

He was nearly seventeen, crying in the bathroom, his heart threatening to burst out of his tight chest. A boy with no butterfly, no love to give, no best friend to hold onto, whether they're drinking, laughing, or exploring the blissful tragedy of teenage-hood.

He thought he knew how to say good-bye. He had practiced this all of his life - see you soon, hope you'll be okay and, in times of death, I'm so sorry for your loss. This was worse than death itself - it was something that was torn out of his life, like a page from a book, except the page was inked with memories he could never forget and things he wished he had said.

First there was sadness.

Then there was anger.

He tore out fistfuls of hair from his head. He threw away comic books they once shared, mixtapes they made for each other, notes passed around class, naughty and mischieveous and immature. He kicked his door and teared up because he stubbed his toe. He tore his curtains down and immediately repaired them, not wanting his mother to be more worried than she already is.

Finally, it was the numbness, the calm.

Everyone was too worried about him, too careful about the words they said. The hurricane had soon departed, he thought to himself, but everyone was afraid to start another one. He did not have the energy nor the time for it anymore. He had wasted enough time as it is. He had school to focus on, friendships he wanted to revive, apologies he had to give out.

He was trying to be a better person. But why did it feel like he's only making himself worse?

"He told me you thought you didn't know how to love," a friend told him. She blew a gust of smoke on his face from the cigarette she'd been smoking.

Something wrenches behind his ribcage. "Yeah."

"I'd say you were wrong," she replied. "You acted out because you love him. And you can't bear to see him leave."

"I know," he murmured. He raised his head. The familiar warmth of his friend's eyes, the slope of her nose, the crookedness of her teeth were all a gentle reminder of a childhood diminished but he hoped to cling onto it as much as he can. He tried to stop his voice from cracking as he added, "I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't be. We're all upset. And sad. He's our friend since, like, forever. But the world goes on. If you don't catch up, you might just get left behind."

That was the thing he liked about this friend. She was never too gentle.

He was able to move onto seventeen without a hitch. His remaining friends helped him celebrate, throw a party, down a few shots. He made him realize that was able to love and he had been loving them since he knew them. And he knew they loved him back.

Seventeen felt new, fragile. Maybe he was just being overdramatic but he was getting closer to adulthood. He wasn't much of a child anymore, with overgrown limbs, unwanted hair and things he was not able to control, but the thought of moving to adulthood was too daunting. Sometimes, your past selves are the ones who leave and you must still know how to depart from them properly.

The universe goes on and he moves on. Slowly. But he's getting there. School was ending. The number of summers of spending with his friends was dwindling. Soon, there'd be university, jobs, apartments. A few years later, relationships, marriages, children would start to appear in his life and rubbed on his nose, whether he liked it or not. The future was vast, terrifying, like the expanse of the wide, deep space. He decided that he'd take on his last summer as a child, even though he had lost the title years ago.

He knew things left. He didn't always expected them to come back.

Everyone rejoiced at his best friend returning for the summer - everyone, that is, only his friends. They all were planning for their last hurrah before departing their own ways after the next school year. He didn't know how everyone just became happy and fun and excited as if his friend's loss didn't rip out a piece of his soul.

Summer was ruined. He should have known that days of fingers sticky with melted ice cream, skin smelling just like sunshine and jumps into creeks and pools were long gone. He stayed in his bedroom for as long as he can. He knew that with him coming back, he'd be leaving again.

"Are you avoiding me?" his friend asked him, lying side by side as they stared on the dark ceiling of his bedroom.

He was not able to get out of the end-of-summer sleepover. He did not want to disappoint his other friends and their powers of convincing were straight out of an telemarketer.

He breathes out, his heart rattling. "What do you think?"

"I'm sorry. I - I know you're still upset with me leaving."

"Well. That answers your question now, doesn't it."

"You can't hide from me forever. I can't handle it."

"Do you think I knew how to handle it when you walked away from my life?" he shot back.

Tears clawed at his throat and he felt something hot behind his eyes. He closes them, hoping to get out o this nightmare.

"I didn't have a choice. My dad got a promotion, my mom's unhappy with her job here - "

"You could have told me," he replied. His voice was quiet, pinched. "At least I could have prepared myself."

"Can we talk outside?" his friend whispered urgently.

The two of them stood up. They were both the same height now, all awkward limbs and unharnessed strength. His friend gleamed under the glow of the silver moon outside, his tears glossing on the tops of his cheekbones. He stretched his hand, beckoning him to come closer.

He had no choice but to take it.

That summer night was cold but everything else was bright. If they were seven years younger, they would have howled at the full moon and ecstatic that they had managed to be awake past midnight. Nostalgia gnawed through his heart like an unwanted termite. He clasped his chest as his friend sat on the grass, not minding the stains on his white pajamas. He sat beside him, listening intently to the silence.

"Do you still think you can't love anyone?" his friend answered.

"No, not anymore." He smiled. A little. "I realized that I actually love all of you. My parents. Even my little sister. I was just drunk and melodramatic."

His friend laughed quietly but in a way that was still distinctly his. "I get what you meant, though. Sometimes, I - I feel like there's just something missing and it makes you all hollow inside."

"But you still loved, right?"

"Yeah," his friend replied. "I have never felt more love. That was cheesy but it's true."

"You're right. Maybe truth is a little cheesy. Maybe we need a little cheese in our life."

"I am so, so sorry. I can't - I did not know what to tell you, really, that I was going to go."

"But you told Tom - "

"No, I meant you. It's just - just the thought of saying good-bye to you hurts. Hell, even physically. I did not want to lose you. Or anyone. But especially you."

"Well, you tend to lose people in your life. That's sort of how it works."

"But then I wouldn't know how to live."

"Don't say that. Losing people does not mean losing yourself, too."

His friend sighs. "I know. What I'm trying to say is - I didn't want to make you upset, disappointed, sad or whatever. I know what I did probably made you more like those things and I apologize. Really. It was selfish of me. I didn't want to think about you not being there right by my side."

"You were right." He sat up straighter. "I - I didn't know what to do with myself when you left. Losing people means losing a part of you, I know, but I never seemed to realize that you were such a large part in my life that it made me crumble."

"Remember the first time I gave you ice cream? We were like eight or whatever. It was from my savings from school. I wasn't actually full that time. You were just so sad and you loved ice cream so. . . I gave you a cone."

His eyes crinkled as he gazed upon his friend's open and vulnerable face. "My butterfly left the day before. Of course I was sad. But why did you do that?"

"You know how I always get you ice cream, right? You, only you. Always vanilla and chocolate in a wafer cone. Whenever you want one or whenever you're miserable, I give you an ice cream cone. Sometimes, there wasn't even any reason. I just gave you one."

"Yeah, but Kay and Rachel are lactose intolerant and - "

"I'm trying to say that you're special. To me. Ever since we met. And I can't - I did not know how to say good-bye. Especially to my favorite person."

They were grasping hands, sweat intermingling.

"I know. But we all have to, right? Eventually. But seems like I still need to learn that lesson."

"Why?"

"You're my favorite person as well and I - I can't bid you farewell for the second time."

"Well. We don't have to think about saying good-bye right now, you know. We can think of what we should be doing now."

"Like what? Sleep?"

"No." A beat passes, like a flap of a butterfly's wings. "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

As their lips meet, bittersweet yet refreshing, filled with shed tears, unfurled emotion and whispered love confessions, they say hello and bid good-bye to each other again and again, like two butterflies floating in the air.

[gills-corn]

Memory washes over my brain as I hold your hand for the last time.

I remember when we spent our days under the sun, each smelling like sunshine after. I remember when our clothes sticking to our skin after playing under the rain, our shrieks resounding after the thunders and lightning.

I remember the nights we spent on the rooftop, our hands clasped like they are now, pointing out the names of the stars above us. You would make up crude names for the constellations and I would crack up. You would hold my hand tighter. I would squeeze right back.

I remember the afternoon we spent on my bedroom floor, passing each other the half-empty brandy bottle. The brown liquid dwindled worringly as we tasted our first drop of alcohol, but we didn't care. We passed out right after, the brandy drained up to the last drop. My parents didn't tell us off.

I remember when you wrapped your warm arms around me. My heart was broken for the first time. You had tissues on hand, wiping away the tears off my face, your chapped lips pressing against my tear-stained cheek.

I remember when we drove up to the small cliff miles away from our suburban homes, overlooking the wide blue sea, the air stinging and sweet. It was your favorite place, but it was the first time you took me there. You had sat on your dad's car's hood, while I leaned against the front bumper. You were smoking cigarettes, watching the sunset, the light bronzing your brown skin. I watched you the whole time. I noticed how your cheeks hollowed and puffed, how your hair fluttered softly in the wind, how you winked at me when you caught me staring. I hit your leg gently, and you laughed. Electricity sparked through my chest.

I remember when we got home drunk, both of us from a wild party thrown by an older student. You had your first kiss. I had my first - and second, and third, and fifth - beer. My parents were not home. We were laughing about nothing, as we stumbled inside my bedroom, each of us smelling of smoke and liquor. I had an arm around your waist, you had an arm on my shoulders. Every touch sparked, but you didn't seem to know it.

I remember when you crawled into my bed late at night from the air mattress inflated on the floor. You snuggled under my covers. Your head was pressed against my chest, our breathing syncing. You said you had trouble falling asleep. My fingers had absent-mindedly played with your hair. I recall asking why. You said you were itching to do something. Then, you kissed me, your chapped lips against mine, the world muting aside from the sounds of our hearts thrumming. Heat rose to my face. My fingertips were pressed on your cheeks, your hand on the crook of my jaw. We pulled apart. You smiled at me, as though nothing else mattered. I smiled back and we kissed again.

I remember the glow in your eyes when we kissed under the streetlight in front of your house. We were warm despite of the December chill, your cheeks flushed red. You were holding a teddy bear I won for you at the carnival. I was wearing your jacket, with your initials embroidered on the hem. You kissed my forehead and told me goodnight, before disappearing inside your house. I stood outside for a long time, grinning like a lovesick fool.

I remember the dance we shared in your bedroom, slow music playing in your busted speakers. My head rested on your right shoulder, my arms around your waist. You clasped me tight to your body. I felt like you don't want to let go. We swayed in the quiet beats, laughing softly because I was treading on your toes. My whole body still fizzled with the thought - no, feeling - of you, as though I this wasn't real. And it didn't feel real, with us slow dancing to the warbling voice of Elvis Presley, our bodies joined together, our worlds quiet except for our hearts and breathing. I tilted my head up to meet your eyes as the song reached the final chorus. All air left my body when I told you I love you. You smiled and kissed the top of my head. You murmured that you love me too. I had to physically restrain myself from whooping in joy. Instead, I stayed in your arms, feeling safe and secure.

It doesn't help, having all these recollections, when I know that you would be gone and I wouldn't have them anymore.

"Are you sure about this?" you ask. Your lips ghost over my knuckles, your own white.

"Quite sure," I whisper, smiling at you.

Your departure will be easier if I'd just remove of all of my recollections, my experiences with you, as though you had never existed. Memories can only do so much when the person you made them with is not with you.

The surgery is rather groundbreaking, even though I thought that it was baloney at first. You still think but it's bullshit, but I know it's the only way I'll be able to survive when you're not here with me.

I glance at the clock. 7:30 A.M. In just five minutes time, a nurse will come and escort me to the operation room for the surgery. In five minutes time, I'll completely forget about you. In five minutes time, they'll be erasing years of joys and triumph and sadness, each of them with you.

"Five minutes," you mutter. You rest on your head on my shoulder.

"Yeah," I say, playing with your hair out of habit. "Five minutes."

"Five minutes seem too short of a time to tell you how I love you," you say, your voice cracking. "And how I don't wish to leave you."

The atmosphere changes. You look almost ready to cry, your hands shaking in my grasp. And I can't handle the sight of you crying.

"Everyone leaves," I say, trying to smile. My throat burns with unshed tears, my limbs trembling. "It's just that you leaving hurts me the most."

"I don't wish to hurt you."

"I don't wish you to hurt me, either," I answer.

"But I already did."

"And you're already forgiven." I kiss your knuckles. "Any moment now."

A nurse then appears in front of us, my files clasped against her chest. Your grasp has tightened, your palms turning sweaty. She calls my name and I rise, my hands sliding out of your fingers. My heart beats faster and faster against my rib cage.

"I love you," you whisper, kissing my lips for the last time.

"I love you, too."

I follow the nurse to a wide room devoid of any color, ready to forget all the things I remember.

This is one of my short stories from my previous account (@scrawny-mf-with-a-cool-hairstyle) and I liked it so much that I decided to keep it! This is mostly unedited, since the time I posted it, but I opted to keep it this way so that I can see my progress!

[gills-corn]

Also I have like a lot of drafts there ? I hope I manage to find the time and motivation to finish all of them lmao

I'm thinking of moving my previous works here ? My old user is @scrawny-mf-with-a-cool-hairstyle and I posted a bunch of short stories and poems over there. However, I'm planning to make this blog for all of my written works so that they're not all over the place. I'll deactivating the account as soon as I moved all my works here and start anew and we'll see how it goes! :)

[gills-corn]

I'm thinking of moving my previous works here ? My old user is @scrawny-mf-with-a-cool-hairstyle and I posted a bunch of short stories and poems over there. However, I'm planning to make this blog for all of my written works so that they're not all over the place. I'll deactivating the account as soon as I moved all my works here and start anew and we'll see how it goes! :)

[gills-corn]

The water running down Ligaya's hands turn reddish-brown. The tang of blood still lingers in her mouth but she allows herself to breathe. She could just easily wash that down with water. Bloodied palms are more damning, more dangerous, but God be damned if she didn't feel something course through her body as she fled the scene.

"You're home?" a groggy voice asks behind her.

Ligaya starts and smacks her hand on the sink but it's just Anita, looking ruffled, her hair and clothes windswept and there are traces of blood on her mouth and clothes.

Ligaya relaxes her shoulder and beckons the other woman to join her, clicking her tongue. "You have blood all over."

Snorting, Anita nudges Ligaya with her hip, grinning up at her. There's something in Anita's eyes as she flicks her gaze throughout her face, eventually settling on Ligaya's lips. Ligaya feels her heart stop.

"Having a few droplets of blood wouldn't put me in danger, Li," Anita whispers, her breath practically fanning Ligaya's face.

"You should still be very careful," Ligaya replies, as gently as the other girl.

The flickering of the oil lamp casts shadows on Anita's already sunken face but Ligaya is still hopelessly staring at her face as if it's the last thing she'll do. It's painful and pointless - this has been going on for fifty years, would she let herself crumble now?

"Anything for you," Anita replies with a wink.

Her tongue darts around her mouth, wiping off the excess blood. Ligaya, despite the abundance of blood in her system, feels like she could faint.

She takes a step back, picking up the pieces left from her shattered sanity, like a loon gluing back pieces of a broken vase. There's no saving her - she and Anita both, really - but she could pretend. She has gotten pretty proficient at that. Still, Ligaya is not a good actress. And Anita is too smart for her own good. Ligaya, despite not wanting to take her eyes off her friend, turns around and busies herself with a empty mug.

"So, who did you - "

"Eat?" Anita supplies, turning on the faucet.

Ligaya hears the water run before promptly nodding. "Don't forget to use soap."

"Fine," Anita grumbles.

Ligaya doesn't know how she still complains - half a century of doing this should be routine to Anita by now.

"I, uh, had a little excursion with Dominador - I think his last name is Tan? I'm not so sure," Anita answers, her voice a little too light.

Ligaya could hear the grin in her voice and she feels her chest clamp up. Stupid, stupid.

"And you ate him afterwards?" Ligaya asks, immediately having the courage to turn around and face Anita, who is now wiping her hands hastily on her skirt.

"Ligaya, darling, eating him was the excursion," Anita says, pursing her lips. "Are you suggesting - "

"Well, how was I supposed to know?" Ligaya exclaims, throwing her hand in the air. "I still don't know how you get these men alone and feast on their blood."

Anita smiles up at her, the type that makes Ligaya weak on the knees. She just scoffs and leans against the wall of their cramped kitchen, pulling out a lone cigarette from the pocket of her shorts.

"I have my techniques and you have yours," Anita replies. "Let's just say both of us are pretty good at what we do."

Sighing, Ligaya rolls her eyes and strolls towards the lamp, where she dangles the end of her cigarette at the flame and waits for it to light. Anita's right - while she's more of a femme fatale (a title Anita so rightfully claimed when she learned the word, referring to herself as such while Ligaya wanted to tear her hair out of her head), Ligaya's more of a 'corner-a-person-in-a-dark-street-and-literally-suck-the-life-out-of-them' kind of person. However differing their methods may be, they make it work. They feed, they survive, they push on as 'normal people', whatever that means. They constantly move places, for fear of being tracked down or seen as the death rates keep rising. They live. And living is more than enough for Ligaya, even if that means losing Anita to another man every single night.

She takes a drag and puffs it on Anita's face. Shame. Doesn't even do anything to mar her looks. Ligaya bites down a laugh as the other woman coughs gently, waving her hand around the air.

"Li, not funny," Anita remarks, sliding off the counter.

"We're virtually immortal, Ani. Besides, it's - it makes me destress," Ligaya answers, watching Anita bustle around the kitchen.

For whatever reason, Anita always scarf down 'human food' after eating literal humans. She says hunting is physically draining. Ligaya wouldn't know. All she does is wait in silence and try her best to not move but she always prepares something for Anita, or at least buy her something from the store. Because she's such a good friend, who may or may not have been following Anita like a lovesick teenager for the better part of the century.

"There's food in the fridge. From McDonald's," Ligaya answers, as casually as she can.

Anita pouts as she wrenches the door open, pulling out a slightly damp container. "I prefer Jollibee."

"Take what you can get, asshole," Ligaya mutters, inhaling another puff of smoke.

"Fine. Ooh, chicken!"

"So," Ligaya asks, watching Anita swallow down fried chicken like a starved dog, which is supposed to be disgusting but instead she finds incredibly endearing, "where did you dump the body?"

"Details, details," Anita answers, barely coherent with her mouth stuffed with food as she waves around a chicken bone. "I just placed him. . . somewhere."

"Jesus Christ," Ligaya groans.

"Hoy! Do not use His name in vain, remember?" Anita reprimands, making a quick sign of the cross with the chicken dangling on her hand.

"Anita, we literally kill and consume actual, live human beings. If hell were real, we'd be in it by now."

Anita lets out a cackle of laughter, something that kids in their town said resembled that of a witch. Well. Look where they are now.

"You sound like my mother. The oil lamp doesn't help. We have an emergency lamp, Li. We're not in 1950 anymore."

"Eh, I like this better," Ligaya says, gesturing to the lamp hanging near the kitchen sink. "Besides, I love the smell of kerosene."

"Of course you do."

There's no hint of malice in Anita's words - it was almost fond, tender - but Ligaya would prefer them to be that, anything else than what gives Ligaya cascades of something strange at the pit of her stomach.

Ligaya stubs out her cigarette with the tips of her fingers, which Anita once said was cool (Ligaya wore it like a badge of honor, like she would never accomplish anything better than extinguishing fire with her various body parts). As the smoke dies out, the electricity flickers back on. She almost misses the way how the orange blaze of the fire made Anita look in the dark but it doesn't really matter - in whichever lighting, Anita always manages to disarm Ligaya, over and over again. It's pathetic.

"You have work tomorrow?" Anita asks.

"Yeah. My manager says that I'm his 'favorite employee of the month', whatever that means."

"Ooh, maybe you can get to take him."

"Or maybe he's being a total creep."

"Your point does make more sense, not going to lie," Anita says. "You heading to bed soon?"

"I'm still too worked up to sleep. I can still feel the guts of the lady I ate earlier inside my stomach."

Anita snickers, in a tone-down version of that laugh of hers, and presses a kiss on Ligaya's cheekbones, light as a feather. Ligaya feels like she could melt onto the floor of their kitchen as Anita walks to her bedroom, her footsteps getting heavier and heavier with each step, clearly tired. For whatever reason, Anita was always a morning person, not even after this whole thing happened to them.

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Ligaya sighs as she leans her head against the wall, too hopeless, too dumb, too in-love. She wants to bash her head against the wall and die but she doesn't want Anita to see that image, however often they see dead people.

Anita and Ligaya are far from normal but Ligaya tries to be. She's just your usual young woman in the city trying to go through day-to-day, despite of the fact that she turns into an actual monster at the stroke of midnight. In a way, her pining over her best friend, makes her feel grounded, makes her feel more humane in some way. She knows others don't consider her as human, but if loving and hurting are all just part of the human condition, then she'd be the most perfect human to ever exist on the planet.

She's just Ligaya, a seventy-five year old in the body of someone fifty years younger, a waitress at a restaurant, has some sort of nicotine dependance, eats people on the side, hopelessly in love with another woman with the enticing dark eyes and sickening grin. Human or not, she decides, she's still living - whatever living is, she still isn't quite sure, but she has an idea. Living is what things in this world are meant to do and it's what fuels Ligaya every day.

"Hey, can you go to bed?" Anita suddenly says as she emerges from her bedroom, her face groggy and her body swamped with a huge set of pyjamas she might have stolen from a victim.

Ligaya thinks that she's still too beautiful, too close to perfection.

"Why?"

"I can't stay up thinking that you're not sleeping."

"I said, we're im - "

Anita sighs. "I know. Just - go to sleep? Please?"

Ligaya, like every other living creature, is a fool. And, sorry to Anita's Catholic guilt, God be damned if she isn't the biggest fool on the planet.

She nods and follows the other woman to their shared bedroom. Tomorrow's another challenge, she thinks, but tonight, she's going to let herself let loose, like her wings against the midnight sky when she's feeling ravenous for blood.