Breathe

Places We Call Home- 2

Emotions are signs of weaknesses. They should not be shown, stoic faces, rare smiles, which is what I have seen the men in the village do. I've observed their biggest laughter reserved only for the tavern. The tavern was a dimly lit haven, a place where the weariness of the day could be temporarily forgotten. I would find a quiet corner and take my usual seat, my back against the rough wooden wall. Gakeyo, my friend, was a man of mystery, always shrouded in darkness, far from the candles, his face hidden from prying eyes. It was as though he had mastered the art of concealment, just as I had perfected the art of silence. Just as I felt, he never showed his face, and I couldn't fathom why. But I didn't mind it. I would sit there in silence, gazing at the flickering flames of the candles on the counter, and soon enough, he would begin to share his tales.

In the beginning, I knew little about him. It was only after two weeks of his storytelling, filled with phrases like "I felt" and "I heard," that I deduced he was blind, living a solitary life confined to the tavern.

One evening, I mustered the courage to ask, "Have you ever gone outside this place?" I remember how his head hung low, and at first, I thought he was dozing off. I stayed for a few minutes, just sitting there, my mind blank.

"Why do you always come here?" His first ever question was directed at me, his head still hanging low.

"To listen to your tales," I replied, my voice trailing off at the end, almost as if I didn't quite understand my own reason for being there.

"It's just sad how short our lives are," he mused. "Just three years ago, at this very table, two men used to meet up after dark. They talked about everything and whatnot. Now we are doing the same, discussing what we've heard, not what we've lived or felt. We talk about things we'll never experience, not what we truly desire. We never open that box because we know that once we do, the ants would come crawling out into the open. We bottle everything up, as if it's shameful to speak of the realities of our lives." He took a swig from his mug.

"Men talk less," I mumbled my eyes fixated on the table, feeling the weight of his words sink in.

"Exactly," he agreed. "Do you know your father?" he asked me.

"No, I never met my parents. I was raised by my grandmother."

"So was I. So is everyone in here," he exclaimed. "We never question it. We are the bastards who got left with our grandparents because our fathers went to war, searching for riches or something, and our mothers had too many young ones to bear."

"Sometimes I wish I had met my father," I muttered softly. "Maybe he could have guided me."

"But that's not how it works," Gakeyo responded. "We are destined to go through life on our own and be tough. It seems the stories shared among us are about lands, harvests, laborers, weather, and women."

The more Gakeyo spoke, the more I felt a connection with him. It was as though he could see into my soul, a skill he had honed through his years of listening to the unspoken words of the tavern's patrons. His stories resonated with me, not just because of the captivating way he told them, but because they touched on the very essence of what it meant to be a man in our village.

At that moment, I could not bear the thought of returning home. The yearning to stay there that night, among the flickering candles and the talk of the past, consumed me.

Now here I am at the rock, just as I had when the day began, with the weight of my emotions bearing down on me. The night had fallen, shrouding our small house in darkness, and I had no desire to go inside, to expose my vulnerability and tear-stained face.

As I contemplated my own thoughts and the questions that tormented my soul, I heard a voice behind me, a voice that was both familiar and distant. "Are you wounded?" my wife exclaimed. I fought to wipe away the tears before she could see them, and I shook my head, not trusting my voice to speak. Praying she doesn't look at my face and notice how my flushed my face was.

She moved closer, "Do you not want to go inside?" she inquired, she was trying to decipher what I was doing outside at this time of night.

I turned my gaze from the night sky to her. Her face was partially illuminated by the soft glow of the moon, and for a moment, I saw her as the girl I spent nights dreaming of, sending flowers to,  the woman I had married, not as the source of my current breakdown. "I was just looking at the sky," I replied, my voice carrying a weight I couldn't fully express.

She stepped closer and scrutinized the sky as if looking for something worth peering at and mused, "At least the stars are the only things bright here." She went back inside. I don't know what happened in that moment, maybe it was because of Kageyo's words, maybe it was the breakdown I had moments prior.

I felt rage burning inside, like hot coal in my chest, burning me alive. I felt myself get up and followed hot on her tail. I grabbed her hand, turned her.