Gray, Whispers and Smoke

ii. her freedom is a prison to someone else

He takes a deep breath.

Gray stands before the mirror, observing himself carefully as he had finished dressing down. He hanged his uniform on the backrest of the chair behind him. He observed his figure, his face, his eyes, his solitary reflection, and found all that there is supposed to be and yet he didn't feel satisfied, as if he hadn't seen all that there should be.

He felt incomplete.

He takes a deep breath.

Gray places a hand over his chest. It's an unusual gesture for him to do, and if Aline were to see—

Aline.

His chest felt simultaneously strained and hollow. The air is thin and the four walls of his room seem to push in further, and what was once his home (and still is after the silver of doubt) caged him, constricted him. Gray takes a shirt and pulls it over his head as he walked towards the balcony.

This balcony, he realized, is the one Aline would recklessly jump into when the nights felt cold.

It's staggering how a person, a memory, defines a place.

Gray slumped down at one corner, resting his head against the cold metal railings. As he closed his eyes, he heard the faint echo of what he recognized was a guitar. The sound grew louder until the plucking felt close, like it was being played right in front of him, and as he opened his eyes once more, Aline was there, slumped on the same ground as he is. She gave a small smile and played him a song he hadn't heard before.

"How much do we really know ourselves?" She wondered one evening, her head resting on his lap as she lay on the balcony floor.

Tucking the loose tendrils behind her ear, he asked, "Am I supposed to answer this?"

"If you have one."

Gray knows himself. He knows what he wants. He knows what he doesn't. He has a defined set of principles. He knows what he's supposed to be tomorrow and the day after. He knows where he'd want to go, and the places he'd never been too. He knows who he wants to be with and who he wants to be. So yes, Gray knows himself. But he did not speak of it.

Aline stirred to her side and spoke once again, "Have you ever felt, I don't know, lost? Is that the right term? Incomplete?" Aline clicked her tongue in distaste for the lack of better term. She pushed a hand forward and stretched her fingers apart. "Or maybe discontent, like, you know you could be somewhere better, not exactly a place, but a circumstance, and you just don't know how to get there, or if you'd ever get there at all."

"Did you?"

"Once in a while," she sighed. "How about you?"

Gray shrugged. He didn't give it a deep thought. "I'm happy with where I am now."

Aline smiled. "That's good to hear."

The illusion of the memory faded. Gray stood up and took in the balcony's view. He saw how the cars and the jeepneys floored the highways smoothly. The sky was what Aline would call "phthalo blue". The traffic's gone and so was the sun.

Gone.

He didn't like the word, so he thinks over the facts. The traffic has ended, and the sun had bid its farewell. End. Farewell. He felt better at the temporariness of the word. There's always a beginning after an end. There's always another greeting after a farewell. Things are never truly gone.

Or so he'd like to think.

How about people?

It's a quarter before eight when the lights of the unit on his right glowed to life. Gray tried to remember the last time he saw the lights on the unit to his left, the unit where Aline lived in. His memory failed him. Before coming back inside his room, he gave her balcony a swift glance. On other nights, he'd find her there standing, staring at a distance, her white dress glowing under the moon as her hair swayed along the night breeze that blew past them. She'd turn to give him a small smile before calling it a day. Tonight, however, like the many nights that had passed, it's empty.

Aline wasn't always reckless. She never was. So it's a surprise.

Was art not enough? He asks no one. And as he dares to ask, was he not enough? The life she had? The next sunrise, the little world she moved in? The small circle of friends, the little aspirations she whispered to the sun and the dreams she had at night, the people that inspired her, and the people that mocked her—anything and everything that life could offer...Wasn't it all enough to keep her alive?

Or did she choose to concede?

Gray choose not to memorize how the railings of her unit looked like, although it's every bit the same with the ones in his. He chose not to remember the railings where she had rested her arms on during late night conversations. He chose not to remember the same railings that witnessed the only kiss she had ever tasted.

He chose not to remember the same railings that felt her wavering touch as she decided to let go.

Aline wasn't always reckless. She never was.

This is what people knew.

They haven't seen her leap into his balcony, skip a few steps in the stairs and pull the craziest pranks. They haven't seen her dabble into the most eluded questions, nor did they know about the battles within her mind, her heart.

The battle she had with herself.

So where do I go from here?

The traffic has ended and so has the day. His trail of thoughts seemed to have come into its conclusion as well. Whether it would be the same for tomorrow or not, he couldn't tell, but he knows that like everything else, this silver of doubt has its end.

And all he has to do for now is wait.

Something he hoped Aline was able to. 

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