Anna was the daughter of my father’s driver. She was beautiful, smiling, sweet, and the power of her charm that perspires from her body was never been defeated by anything except my eyes.



She was six before and I was seven when we discovered the sweetness of the mountains. We ran, slided and hide & seek behind the bushes until we found out ourselves thirsty by the heat of the sun. We went to gather ayosip and ate them together under a tall pine tree. We had our favorite ayosip bush beside the pine tree, it was where we stayed. It was the tallest ayosip bush in the whole mountain which was at least two and a half feet in height. We frequented there every day.

The sweet moments running through me and my Anna echoed to the other mountains across the river. The evergreen ayosip went through with us as we level up our age like a canoe carefully going with the flow of the raging river. It never lost its green and it always bloomed and bore its fruits. That was how Anna compared us, when in time she heartfully told me that we should not separate as the ayosip possesses its evergreen. Of course I would agree.

I did not watch the time passed by. What I only observed was the beauty of Anna. She would even kiss me when I was ten, which made me smile like a dinosaur. I did not mind my schooling, but to her was I did. I was very happy.

One day we were there, laying our heads under the ayosip bush talking about the clouds which separated their ways in different directions we saw… I never thought that was the last time we see before I went to where they want me to go. I may perhaps do something, but they forced me to. They said I’ll move to Oklahoma to study. I did not do anything but to keep quiet when we were in the car. Anna didn’t even know that I was going away. She was napping that time in the blanket of innocence for it was a coolest dawn with the sound of the breeze silently deafening. But when I was in the soaring plane I started to groan. I kept on blaming my parents and hitting them with words. I just wanted to go back. But I could not do anything as the circumstance locked my feet. My heart pumped its maximum—was fallen and directed into the abysm of dreariness, and it was a perfect tool to pour my tears from my red eyes, my mournful emotion slowly ate me.

                                                                                                    Those tiny drops of silver tears coming from my eyes of lacklusterness and                                                                                                     melancholy had convinced the rain and thunder to burst my dying feeling                                                                                                       till the mighty wind came and rushingly blew my gloomy heart—I                                                                                                                   was weary as the skies  below my feet were worn out as black as the                                                                                                               night. Not more than human time we arrived to somewhere. I stepped at                                                                                                         the cost of somewhere beautiful—a white land which seemed tracked the                                                                                                       pathways of oblivion.

                                                                                                   

                                                                                                    Sitting beyond the center of a forea beyond description, I could see                                                                                                                   Anna's lonely face in my mind. She refused to go to school and locked behind the blue door of her room. She refused to eat and turned thin—but her heart was thinner of mourning and depression. Oh my Anna—I was your fundus, I could die.

In the place, I never wanted to have someone beside me; I just wanted to be alone. But that took me in actuality, to be unaccompanied that no one wants to exist with me anymore. Nevertheless for me, all I ever wanted was Anna and her soft sweet smile. I saw people passing the white track infront of me; some of them were happy, smiling and laughing together. Some of them were alone like me, pointing their heads on the trackless ground and wailing and weeping while walking. But many of them were wandering in the place at wintertime. I may be one of those crying, or the wandering, but never be I one of the happy like those some.

Soon I stood up and walked with them. I saw my father and my mom afar ahead of me. I followed them because they were calling me with their hands slowly waving downwards. Not so long I was in the city. People were taller than me. Their noses were longer than anyone I saw—taller in personal. They were the whites, the Americans.

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My loneliness accompanied me as the rushy long years went by. No mortal one came to be with me, I was always single-handedly in the sunrise and in the midst of dusk… Not until a golden time when a boy came and seated beside me when I was a full man in the happiest park. I turned my heavy head and saw his smiling round face. His eyes were shining like stars beginning to rise so as that made me blink for three uninterrupted times. Then my lips slowly took a bit of curve. My picturesque shined a small piece of brotherhood. We talked and got to knew each other. He said he was Nesto that took me thinking for some seconds, but I smiled when I can’t remember anything. After that, we stood up and walked like a father and a son.

Since the time that the boy was with me, I learned to grin like a fish in the bottomless oceans; we became close to each other—closer than any other door locked with silver security. He went where I went, and I went where he went. He was always smiling which made me imitate his face.

But it rained so hard the next day that hindered me to go en route for the park where Nesto constantly awaited for me. I was supposed to go in spite of the rain but the whirling wind and thunder locked my door. The misery of my heart started to grow again. Armies of desolation were attacking me at that time. I cried. The whole day and night poured all my dry tears. And my dehydrated eyes wanted a single tear to water my arid eyelids but nothing gushed so that my heart continued to annihilate.

Morning came and I was trembling. I cut off my fear and ran away. No one saw me. I got my passport and rushed my feet to the airport. Conversely, I went to pass at the park to utter goodbye to Nesto, but he was not there. So I clipped a letter expressing my gratitude to him on the back of the bench that hopefully he would see and read and take a smile. I continued my way to the airport. Rapidly, I arrived and took a sit. I closed my eyes and opened the book of my hope-- hope that Anna was there waiting for me. I can see her face in the middle of my perplexity, which of that she was hoping of my coming back under our evergreen ayosip bush…

Upon opening my eyes, I arrived. I was standing on my home land, the land that was stolen from my growing age. The sun was on its downward path but the shine was beautiful. The wind was fresh and cool like the wind that covered me and Anna when we were on our childhood. I was excited but was nervous, afraid of Anna’s absence over my expectation. But before others matter, I ran directly into the mountains. I was very hopeful and full of sentiment which was addressed into the bottom of the lonely heart of Anna. My breaths went faster and the pulses of my veins were doubled, but I never stopped running on the grassy and stony pathway. The scent of the pine trees gave me fuel to continue for the longing that I will be happy after all; on the other hand I miss my land which always made me comfortable when I stand on it. After the long run, I can now view the tree which made my somber longing at the situation. I did not mind as if I did not feel my tiredness so as to pursue to the place… The mother sun was shining beautifully with her hair of gold and joying clouds over her.

                                                                                                      At a minute I arrived, but Anna was not there. Maybe she’ll come later, I                                                                                                         thought as I hoped—the only hope that existed carrying my ensurance                                                                                                             and anticipation of my certainess and persuassion.  Then I smiled when I                                                                                                        saw our ayosip full of blossom. It did never lose its green, really.                                                                                                                      The violet beautiful small fruit made me undergo reminiscence of the                                                                                                              beautiful moments… Then to pick them on was what I wanted to do, but                                                                                                        earlier than that I noticed the shape of the ground where the ayosip                                                                                                                  stands. It looked like a grave! Yes it was… and beneath the bush stood                                                                                                            up its lapida but was covered with thick dried leaves.



                                                                                                      Attempting to uncover the hesitation I slowly walked towards it. But I                                                                                                             stopped when I heard a crashing of dry leaves on the ground… there are                                                                                                         footsteps approaching! My heart began to pump stronger. Then I slowly turned my lighty head towards my back, and soon my whole body faced the sound. Then a running momented the situation, a girl in long white skirts, long black hair, and beauty beyond my description… I analyzed her face, she was Anna, I was sure she’s my Anna! Her face was beyond depiction, she saw me, and I knew she saw me! Now she was running, she was running towards me… Then she stretched her hands like any other lover who was ready to have a life-size embrace with her love one. And so I extended my hands too, geared up for the hug of two hearts whose fate was resulted by stolen childhood commitment… I was ready; I knew I was ready to be with her again, and for this time I will not depart from her to any further extent.

And now she was near, so I closed my eyes when there were three more steps left between us. But at a click of the moment my expectation did not meet me! So I opened up my eyes and saw nothing infront of me. How come I did not feel anything! The beatings of my heart pulsed faster so that my hands trembled in coordination. Standing in the midst of mystification, I heard a snivel at my back. Little by little I turned my head again, Anna was there standing infront of our loveliest ayosip with her head down. She was moaning, crying of lostment. Bit by bit my real tears came rushing down to my cheeks, my feet begun losing its strength awaiting for my body to descend with it on the ground. Then it happened, I sat down with my feet as my seat—of lost of hope, mistake of my probability, and my head crooked.

Then suddenly a lightning came infront of me, not from the sky but in my mind. I evoked the event when we were leaving Anna with my parents. I just can’t do it before, but for now the reality slowly doing their job infront of my innocence— when Anna was right there… At an instant I exclaimed, layed on the land of my identity and on the floor of certainty with my eyes pointed to the crying Anna.

The event came like a flash. With my immense depression and misery, it seemed that nature cried with my groan. The plane where we rode encountered a massive typhoon in the skies; as a result, the plane crashed and hit the ice of the Atlantic. It sank into the ocean of frostiness and leaved no one alive! I was dead! All of us were dead. But I was lucky I was found—one of the bodies located except my family. My father and mother were not discovered, perhaps eaten by hungry fishes, sank into the bottom of the great ocean, or gone to strange islands which looked like what I had been drawing when I was a child.

Then she slowly walked into the base of the silent ayosip not to pick its fruit, but to clear up the dried pine tree leaves that covered the stone—stone where the name Nesto M. Bandales was written. The moment took me silence and never moved ‘til I noticed that my tears were dried out. Slowly I came to discern my real situation that made my whole body tremble; I was Nesto, and still a child on the moment. I did not grow up. And me trying to touch grown up Anna’s back, at a soft pace, bit by bit disappeared…





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time is not at awareness on my state but what mattered to me was the feeling of lost. I was beyond the emotion of being gone, because I saw Anna’s true commitment.  And what I only awaited for; before my silence, prior to my freedom, and sooner than my acceptance, was Anna’s smile.



Every seventh day of every month of the shiny summer I came to visit and pick some fruit of our ayosip with Anna. I always

prepared the other fruits for my special someone, because I was sure that on the next day Anna will come to pick and eat the fruit of our sweet moments… And on the underneath, her tears water our ayosip. That in a way or another fertilizes the evergreenity of our ayosip, perhaps…

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Even if I’m gone…

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