Hiraya (HEST #1)

Kabanata 45

Antagonist's Tale XLV: Snake & Apples

A decade of my life has been stuck on twos and thirteens.

Everyday of those years I wake up at 2:13 am to memorize the laws I will break. The midnight skies are nothing but a division of twos: half darkness and half blue.

The thirteenth hour's the time for me to oppress the farmers. The thirteenth half an hour would be spent with fakeness.

The dusk will fall one number past the twelfth hand of twin clocks. The poetries are two quarters of beaten agony. A raging hangover for the Friday of thirteenth I had to live for ten years.

A cottage of winter fell. A shore of icicles. A frozen land I walked on.

That was all there was for me.

Everything's a half and thirteen.

Everything's trapped around February 13 of that year, of that day, of that moment.

Like a butterfly pinned down on a board, I had been frozen on my twos and thirteens.

Tumungo ako ng Isabela upang plantsahin ang mga kusot sa aking pakikipaglaban. 

Alam ko na maaaring madamay ang aking mga tinatagong dumi laban sa akin. Ang mga Agrazal ay madaling makakakuha ng panakip sa kontrobersiya ng isa sa kanila sa paggamit ng media upang ako ang atakihan sa oras na isilay nila sa liwanag ang insidente sa aking hacienda. 

They might make a move and poison my public image so that people would want to drag me down more than them. 

Alam kong maaaring iplano nila 'yon sapagkat kung ako sila ay kasama iyon sa gagawin ko. 

Bago pa nila magawa iyon, kailangan ko nang maglinis. I went to Isabela to shut mouths. Aking binayaran ang mga opsiyales, ang mga public attorneys, ang mga pulis, ang iilang mga residente, at ang mga taong maaaaring maging boses ng mga naapi kong mga magsasaka. 

I shook the hand of the mayor one last time as I went out of the city hall. 

"Anytime, Miss Amor. Alam mo namang ilang henerasyon nang magkaibigan ang pamilya natin," tawa ng matandang mayor. 

Binaybay ng aking kotse ang daan pagkatapos no'n. Fields of grain stretched on both sides of the road for a while. Ang mga magsasakang aking nadaraanan ay matalim ang pagkakamasid sa aking sasakyan. The Amor emblem is entirely visible for their maddened hearts. 

Malalim akong napahinga at inayos ang shades sa aking mukha. 

Imbes na bumalik sa mansyon sa pinaka sentro ng mga palayan, aking nakita ang sarili na lumiliko at bumabyahe patungo sa mas walang taong parte ng hacienda. 

Aking tinigil ang sasakyan at lumabas. The familiar tree stood a few walk away. Ngayon ay mas matanda na. Imbes na kulay ng buhay, ang mga dahon nito ay nalalagas na. 

Ang alaala nang kaunaunahang pagkakataon na tumungo ako rito matagal na panahon na ang nakakalipas ay nagpakirot ng aking puso. Aking binaybay ang daan upang lumapit at umupo sa ilalim ng puno. 

The soil and the roots of the old tree welcomed me sadly. 

Mula rito, aking pinagmasdan ang malawak na palay na aking pinamumunuhan. The vast land that shed so many tears of the people I had tyrannized. The heaviness of the things I had done weights me down now. 

I don't have a choice, I want to say. 

I never really have. 

But was it not my choice to go back now and talk to people to conceal my felonies? Didn't I choose to steal the lands of these people? Was I not the one who decided to underpay all of the farmers for my own good?