Prose by Ivonne Hartono
Edited by Erica Leal
The grave had been hard to find.
Their lot is too small, their tombstone is too tiny, and their presence is too minuscule compared to the others around them. Natures’ growth camouflages the gray marker and erases any remains of mourning, any memories of a life. Wind blows away the whisper of their name, until all that remains are numbers. Eroding the last mark of the child’s existence to dates of birth and death.
Lone grave of a baby born in September 2003.
Forgotten life of a child who died in November 2004.
Erased existence of someone I will never know nor remember.
Yet, I tremble at the lone sight of the grave. Its whispered existence lingers, haunting me for the last two decades. Its story is sung as a tale of my miraculous life. The owner’s death becomes a notice of my debt to Heaven.
I could have turned around and left. I could have flagged down the passing taxi and been on my merry way to Changi Airport, waiting for my next flight back to the City of Angels. For, there, I will be free of the smell of death. The dark shadows will finally leave me alone. I will rest easily in a pristine lounge with a burdenless mind.
Instead, I stand in the middle of the final resting places of people I will never know with a mourning bouquet in my grasp. Dark fog settles into my mind. It slithers and coils like vines around my body, unwillingly anchoring me to the cursed ground of death.
In aid of those vines, tiny hands breach free from Death’s grasp and latch onto my soul. They pull me downward to Tartarus’s gate, daring my spirit to let go of the living world and leave my empty vassal for the dead ghost to occupy.
Sometimes, I feel it would be easier to follow those hands rather than fight against them.
With a shaky breath, I open my mouth. Words rush to my tongue, yet none wish to take the leap and leave my throat. A small stutter between a whine and a groan leaves me. It makes the blood rush to my ears and I finally close my mouth. Words left locked in.
I had always been addicted to the smell of hospitals: artificial, sharp, with a hint of chlorine. Perhaps the smell was reinforced in my mind as a sign of comfort like the kind my mother gave out during my childhood. Or maybe it was my mother holding my younger self with too much antiseptic on her body. No matter how, the hospital gave me more comfort than my home did.
My feet dangled against the edge of the plastic chair. Little hands gripped the edge of the blue furniture. Eyes focused on the screen ahead of me, playing blurry images of The Magic School Bus. Once in a while, my head would tilt to the side when the characters prompted me to think.
Back then, I had no idea what the purple liquid was for, or why the nurse grabbed a vial of my blood every year. All I knew was that the bitterness of the liquid and the metal needle punctures were unpleasant. I would cry every year and tear through my mother’s clothes, holding the expensive fabrics like a lifeline, attempting to numb my tongue and wounds.
Yet, this year was different. My stomach turned and churned when I walked through the spotless hallways. Instincts blared its horns of Doom’s arrival at the waiting room’s gate. Then, everything faded away into silence when the Mourning Queen arrived.
She was in her late 30s, yet her eyes resembled my grandmother’s. Gray strands slipped in between onyx hairs. Her clothes were worn with tears at the edges. The wrinkles shallower than those on her face.
She was my mom’s age, yet she looked nothing like my mother.
The Queen in her crown of mourning casted her gaze on me. Sparkling tears brimming at the edges of her eyes like pearls. When the first pearls fell, cold sorrow settled into the air around us. The chill penetrated my flesh and rattled my bones. The cold froze over the fire of my curiosity and I curled away, trembling.
Then, my mother spoke. Her melodic voice burned through the Queen’s aura like a sorceress’ spell. The Queen’s eyes left my form and I stopped shivering. I hid behind my mother’s sleeves as she conversed with the Queen. My mother’s words encircled us in a barrier of crackling warmth.
I grasped the white silk of her dress and was hidden away from the Queen’s cold glare until she left the waiting room. Yet, I only let go of my mother’s garments when she sat me on the blue plastic chair. The blurry cartoon helped distract me of the previous encounter, until my mother reminded me.
“Do you know who that lady was?”
My mother’s voice soft and silent against the waiting crowds. I shook my head and landed my eyes on my beautiful mother.
“That lady was the mother of a baby. The baby who went through the same thing as you did when you were younger. Remember what kind of illness you had?”
I nodded at my mother. The warmth of her voice burned my arms and I cowered away from my mother.
“Yes, you survived. You lived. That baby did not.”
My mother turned to me. Where the Queen of Mourning’s eyes were chilling, my mother’s were blazing. It burned as bright as the pride in her for being the mother of the miracle child. As if I was a blessing that Heaven gave only to her. A special gift for my mother.
I felt more like Heaven’s tool borrowed by a mortal in order for her to present more offerings.
I hid away from my mother’s flames. I hoped that it would not burn as painfully as the last time.
Had the baby been alive, would my mother’s flame burn me less?
“Oh my! How you have grown!”
She was like any typical old woman in my church. Wrinkles covering her face, a pair of tiny slits barely showing graying eyes, boney fingers with veins popping out of. Then, there were the white pristine clothes. White hair, white blazer, white undershirt, white ribbons, white skirt, white heels. White that shined brightly in joy and admiration that it blinded me.
I blinked. Once, then twice. I forced my lips to stretch upwards as I shook the trembling hands of the elderly woman. I watched carefully as her graying eyes crinkled at the edge and her chapped lips stretched wider than mine. Her burning hands wrapped around my cold ones. Thankfully, she let go before her hands could scorch me.
My mother placed her warm hands on my shoulders, grounding me to the present. Just in time as I was about to spiral down the abyss of my mind. I waved at the lady. Watching the white fade to the black shadows.
She was one amongst the hundreds of elderly I met at church. Never once have I recognized any of them, yet they all seemed to recognize me. Some shined brighter than the other, but they all still blinded me. They spoke to me as if they spoke to their grandchildren. Sweeter than my grandmother did without having the right to use that tone.
“Did you know who that lady was?”
The hands on my shoulder began to burn. My mind screamed at me to wriggle away from my mother’s grasp, yet my body froze in place for the fear of my mother’s wrath. So, I just shook my head.
“She was one of the people who had prayed for you when you were sick.”
My mother’s eyes were bright.
“You should know who she is.”
My mother’s hands burned through my clothes. It boiled my inside and fester my annoyance to explode in wrath.
If I had been a more defiant high schooler, I would have scoffed at my mother’s words. I found the suggestion absurd. So what if they had prayed for me? Did that mean they had helped my parents pay for the hospital bill? Did that mean their prayer could somehow remove the mutating cell in my small body?
No. It did nothing aside from giving hope and dreams.
Yet, as night came to cool my anger, shame began to settle in. I reflected upon myself and the half-baked reasons behind my annoyance. My responses were childish and my frustration was immature.
My thoughts floated to the other baby who died instead of me.
I wondered how the baby would react if they were to be in the position I was today. Would they have reacted more maturely? Would they have smiled genuinely and been grateful for the prayers offered?
I gulped. Suddenly, Heaven seemed a lot hotter than Hell.
The lady was twice my mother’s age, yet her eyes blazed as bright as my mother’s. Her face glowed with joy and wrinkles. Her feet tapped with overwhelming excitement despite being too skinny for her upper half. Worst of all, she looked at me with hope, based on my mother’s lies.
It burned my whole being just by sitting across her. It was painful.
I looked away as my mother placed words in my mouth. I disliked the way that she spoke to me as if I was not fifteen years old. She kept talking of how my love for piano was not an act I put up to keep my parents proud. Yet, I did not have enough defiance in my blood to deny any of it.
“So, do you want to train under me? I saw that God had a plan for you.”
I did not need to hear the word “miracle child” to know what the lady was referring to. My heart screamed for me to refuse everything. To shout and scream and throw a tantrum. It held onto the love I had for piano and begged for me to not give it away to the church.
My mind told me otherwise. It reminded me of the baby in the grave thousands of miles away from here. It whispered to me how maturely the fifteen year old that would never exist would have responded. How willing they would have been, if they were given the chance, to offer their talent to God. To repay the debt of Heaven.
So, I snuffed out the screaming in my heart and leaned towards the whispers in my mind. I nodded.
Dread flowed throughout my body as the lady grinned.
“You are such an embarrassment.”
I might have imagined the wording, but the meaning was accurate. That was the first time that my mother’s words had been so cold to me. As cold as the chilling dark waters of Antarctica. It filled my lungs with black water. It burned and froze me at the same time.
I would rather burn in my mother’s fire than to drown in her freezing words.
Tears stopped from overflowing with the closing of my eyes. I leaned my head against the warm car windows. My eyes fluttered up to search for the God that blessed me with life. I asked Him who sat in Heaven what the purpose of keeping me alive and taking the other baby into His arms was. I asked him why he did not extend the offer to me.
I found no answers in the sky above, nor any peace in my heart. Only the whispers of the black waters.
“The baby would have excelled in piano, unlike you. Their mother would have been proud and warm to them instead of cold and ashamed.”
The black water laughter was sinister.
Would the baby have been better than me if they were given the chance to live?
Should I have been in the grave instead of the baby?
I would ask myself occasionally.
Sometimes, the answer is no. Most of the time, it is yes.
There was an English idiom, “A single flap of a butterfly wing can cause a storm on the other side of the world.” It is based on a chaos theory where a simple change within a complex system, like our world, can cause a big disturbance.
What if that small change had been me and the baby switching places?
The thought came to me during the zero hours. My eyes staring blankly at the plain ceilings while my mind was floating on cloud nine. Music penetrated the thin wall of my dorm as my neighbors continued to blast deep treble. For once, I was grateful for my neighbor’s selfishness; their actions gave me sleep deprivation and it brought untouched wisdom to my head.
I took a deep sigh. Retracing my life through the past few years brought both unpleasant and pleasant memories into my head. Bitterness came easier than sweetness. Burning spread faster than warmth. Pain was quicker than comfort.
I imagined that the baby would have been a better pianist than I was. Wiser at the same age as I was. Talented in things I wish to achieve and have achieved. A better version that is supposed to exist, yet did not because of the pestilence that robbed them of life.
However, what would happen to the people around me?
Would my mother become as cold as the Queen of Mourning? Would the hundreds of elderly lose faith at the death of the child?
Would the people’s lives that I walked into be affected?
Yes, they would.
I imagined my mother standing in the hallways with the Queen of Mourning. Except, my mother no longer wore the white silk and the Queen no longer wore the crown of mourning. My mother would exude the chill of the black waters of Antarctica and the Queen would blaze in the glory of Heaven’s fire. My mother would be looking at the Queen’s child, casting a child that struck their bone. My mother would wish that that child had been hers instead, in the exact same way that the Queen had.
Others called me a selfish and spoiled child. I am proud to admit that I am one.
I could care less about the hundreds of elderly that would lose faith because of me. I could care less about the people whose lives I walked into. But, it would break me if I were to ever witness my mother losing her fire.
Her fire may have burned me, but I still loved her back.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I shook away the image of my mother bearing the crown of mourning. It settled uncomfortably against the figure that stood in white silk and warmth.
I needed my rest for the day that was coming soon.
For some reason, Heaven felt a little more comfortable now.
My eyes land on the bouquet of orange jasmine. Most of the flowers had lost their petals and some had fallen off the bouquet; their pristine white tainted by the smears of dirt. My eyes squint and my nose wrinkles. The clumps of flowers cannot be properly called a mourning bouquet any longer.
I nudge at the petal-less stems and reach for one of the few that has retained its beauty. With a gentle tug, I remove it from the pitiful garland. This is the one that remains immaculate against my onslaught, and thus, this is the one worthy of being an offering for the dead child.
The flower is a nice touch to the lonely grave. Not too big to overpower the eroding gravestone and not too small as to look pitiful. My mouth stretches slightly upward, and I let myself breathe.
“May you rest in peace.”
With the rest of the bouquet still in my hand, I turn around on my heels.
Then, I leave.
The burden.
The gravestone.
The thoughts of the child.
I leave them all.
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