Mira [On-Going]

CHAPTER ONE: PART ONE

A life without meaning is not even a life at all.

WHO AM I? WHAT SIGNIFICANCE DO I HAVE IN THIS WORLD? These are questions that, up to this day, I desperately wish I am able to answer. Every day, from the very moment I open my eyes in the morning to wake up... to the final minute I close them to sleep, I would ask myself: What is life? What is the point of living? My answer is: I simply do not know. But what I do know is that I was once a young man who had a dream. A dream that slowly turned into an illusion; an illusion that I blindly chased after without even knowing where it was going to lead me to. Years have gone by and apparently I have lost count how many--but I can assure you, reader, that it has not been too long ago, for I can still remember everything that happened that day. A day that I would never forget in which I consider as the day that I had entered the gates of hell, and like how Dante had written it in his Inferno when he began his descent into hell, it was the day that I knew I had abandoned all hope.

I WAS NINETEEN BACK THEN, standing on the porch with my arms crossed, both elbows resting on the wooden rails, and deadpan staring at the leaves of the old apple tree that stood in front of our house. It was an unusually rainy afternoon that time around mid-March, which was a strange month for any sort of downpour. The rain in general was not very strong; of course it was nothing compared to a storm--it was just a rainy day, an exceptionally bleak rainy day. The sky above was covered with dark clouds that gave it the appearance of an old and ragged canvas that was entirely painted gray. It made the atmosphere look gloomy which gave off a depressingly melancholic mood that made everything, no matter which direction the eyes were pointed at, look like a frame from an old monochromatic film. The trees seemed to show emotions of sadness, grief and despair--quite redundant, but tis how it was. Their leaves beheld a desaturated shade of their natural color rather than the usual bright green. Instead of dancing along to the gentle breeze brought upon them from the mountains, they were impelled to bow down to the forceful push of each rain drop that hammered down on their surfaces. For the first time, to my eyes, the trees looked completely lifeless. They did not seem to have enjoyed the rain at that time nor did they seem to have thirsted for the water they were bathing in. They just stood unmoving with lifeless leaves that had no choice but to bow down and accept the continuous abuse brought upon them by the rain. Even the grass were of no exception that day for they too appeared to have a lifeless pale shade of green that had mixed with the dark brown color of the mud.

I find it hilarious how I am still able to recall all of this despite the fact that I was not even paying any attention that time to whatever it was happening around me. My mind that very moment was completely occupied with thinking about the life that was beyond what I was already living. The rain, which continued thrashing on the leaves, produced bristling sounds of different tones and pitches that were surprisingly quite pleasant to the ears. The harmonious blending of the different tones made me completely zone out--I felt lost, out of place and started staring off into the empty space, oblivious to the passage of time. All of a sudden, I felt a hand gently grab my shoulder; it was so gentle that it almost felt like a feather. I turned to look and, to my surprise, there I saw my mother with tears slowly running down her sweet face.

She held my face with her soft and tender hands, cupping my cheeks. She looked me in my eyes, while in turn I looked at hers, and said with a smile, "Everything's going to be fine, sweetheart."

I noticed that her soft voice sounded frail and quavery. She pulled me close towards her and then gently pressed my chin against her shoulder with one hand placed on my back and the other caressing the hair that hung right above my nape.

"You have grown into an exceptionally fine man like your father. You are strong, smart, and, most importantly, kind; and believe me when I tell you that kind men are the ones that rise above those who are not..." she paused for a moment. She lifted my head up by the chin and took a good look at my face and smiled; she then continued, still speaking with a faulty voice. "You'll be fine, I just know that you will be--and if things don't work out, because they sometimes don't, your mother will still be here for you."