Light Under The Glooms (MPS#2) | ✓

Epilogue

TW: child abuse, verbal abuse, cursing, mention of death.

Epilogue

Dark—a color that some kids didn't like to use in their drawings as it is too bland. It also resembles night, where everything they'd see in broad daylight suddenly loses its color when it comes, and how the silence swallows the last traces of their day.

Or maybe, they found dark—darkness—scary and eerie.

And I was one of them… I was a kid who hated darkness. I hate how I can't see things when there's no lights around. But unlike those kids who found darkness as scary, I found it somehow… gloomy.

“Mom, p’wede ba na 'wag na lang i-off ang ligh—”

Before I could finish my words, my room already sank into the shadows, swallowing every soft color of my room.

“G-good night po…”

It’s a cycle that I got used to. It was also the reason why I found darkness too gloomy because I always felt unheard with them.

“Frost, are you afraid of the dark?” I asked my seatmate Frost who was silently writing his name in his paper. “Do you sleep with the lights on?”

“Shh! I'm busy can't you see?” he said in a low voice. “Tahimik ka muna, please.”

“Nagtatanong lang naman. Nakakasakit ka ng damdamin,” I whispered back, afraid to be heard by Miss.

He looked at me only to roll his eyes at me. When he saw my lips getting longer, he sighed as he let go of his pencil.

“I'm not afraid of the dark, Jiovanni. I told my parents also that I preferred to sleep with the lights on, and they just let me,” he said, more calmly.

“Woah, ang galing mo naman.”

“Ano namang nakakamangha roon?”

“Ang galing mo kasi napapayag mo sila.”

“Magsasabi ka lang naman,” he then continued what he was doing earlier. But he stopped, and glanced back at me when he saw me silent. “You… okay?”

“They don't listen to me, Frost,” I said smiling, enough to show my gums.

I was seven, and I had this belief that I was holding since then that it was just normal for young ones, like me, not to be heard. That my parents would never listen because they are old enough, and all I needed to do is to listen to them. But after hearing Frost, the belief I was holding firmly suddenly felt too painful.

“Jiovanni, come here, I'll show you something,” Frost pulled me beside him when I went inside our classroom on the last day of our school year.

“Hindi ko pala natapos iyong nakasulat sa board kahapon. Pakopya ako baka hindi ako maka-graduate,” usal ko.

“Stupid? We're in grade two! Mamaya mo na kopyahin.”

“Dadating na si teacher, baliw!”

“Did you just call our teacher crazy?”

“N-no! 'Wag ka nga sinungaling! Nakakasakit ka naman ng damdamin, Frost.”

He just laughed at me. May kinuha siya sa bag niya at inabot sa akin ang isang paper bag

“Green stars? Is it edible?” I asked, peeking inside the paper bag I was holding. “Parang candy!”

He snorted. “Bakit hindi mo subukan?”

“Okay.” Dumukot ako ng isa at sinubo. Nakita ko ang disgusto sa mukha niya nang namnamin ko ang star sa bibig. “Walang lasa.”

Napahampas siya sa noo. “Uto-uto ka. Glow in the dark stars 'yan. You need to stick it on a flat surface, at makikita mo ang results kapag madilim.”