Crimson Lights

Reaffirmations Cont. Part 2

Inness stared at Karmen, wondering what else was still in the dark. She was feeling impatient; she wanted so badly for their reunion to happen now; she wanted Karmen under her now. She can already imagine how it would feel like to have their bodies pressing against each other. Karmen's body was so soft when she was just on the cusp of adulthood; Inness was sure that the woman in front of her now possessed a kind of physical being that she has yet to experience.

"After you left ..." Karmen began her story. "Things were quite difficult for me, for our family after you left. I didn't know what to say to them; what could I possibly say at that moment?"

Karmen got up from the bed and began putting away Inness' things that Samar had just brought in moments ago, using the tasks to swallow the bitterness that was clogging her throat.

"Things were spiraling out of control for me; I was a wreck after you left, Inness. Once again, you have no idea what it was like for me. I was the elder one; I was supposed to know better. I was supposed to be stronger. I was supposed to be taking care of you, of our family – not cause it to fall apart."

"But it wasn't your fault," Inness interjected but Karmen cut her off.

"I felt it was my fault! I believed it! Of course, looking back at it now, I can brush it off and say that you were just being a kid still; that you didn't know any better and had just allowed your emotions to control you. But back then? When you left? I honestly believed I destroyed your life."

Karmen opened up her drawers; moving her clothes into the top two so that Inness can have the bottom two all by herself. Inness saw flashes of red lingerie; satin silk that covered up anything but skin.

"I flunked out of college and moved to the city. It's quite a big place; I didn't know where I should go to search for you. I hung around bus stations and train stations mostly. Someone there told me of a spot I could go to – a spot where I could sleep and shower without having the police bust me for sleeping on the public benches."

"Where was that?" Inness asked, her belly sinking in.

"You know where it is," Karmen answered softly. When Inness kept staring at her with teary eyes, she continued on. "It wasn't half bad. Sure, there were drug addicts hiding there under the bridge, but they never bothered me. In fact, as soon as they realise I have no money nor drugs to offer them, I was no longer interesting."

"You shouldn't have gone there," Inness began but Karmen stopped her again by lifting her palms up.

"Where should I have gone to then? To our broken home left in rubbles thanks to my inability to be a good sister to you?"

Inness kept quiet, feeling as if she needed to remain quiet or else, they would end up arguing again.

"One day, the police raided us suddenly. That wasn't their first raid of course, but all the other times, we always somehow knew beforehand so we'd be hiding elsewhere. That day was different though; no warning came through; we were basically sitting ducks. They gathered us all in, including me, and took us to the rehab centre."

Memories of white walls and cold floors began flooding Inness' mind, bring chills to her whole body. She knew how bad the rehab centres were – she ached then; ached for the suffering that Karmen had gone through.

Noticing the look of pity that Inness was giving her, Karmen smiled softly.

"That wasn't even the worse part ..."

*****

Waking up from her bunk bed, Karmen shuffled wordlessly towards the shower stalls. All of her fellow 'roommates' were already up as well; queuing up as early as five A.M to ensure that they are on time. No one wanted to be in the warden's bad books after all.

Rehab was not such a bad place to be, Karmen thought. Sure, the warden was strict, and the officers were sometimes too 'trigger-friendly' with them – they often expected certain individuals to put up an 'act' to entertain the officers. Yet besides that, the 'stay' there was quite uneventful, in Karmen's opinion. Some of her roommates even managed to find officers moonlighting as drug mules – with the right offer and incentive, most of the drugs desired would be supplied to the 'customer'.

Karmen figured that she would be out of rehab soon. The warden quickly deduced that she did not do drugs and that she was mostly homeless. After a soft interrogation session, Karmen felt relieved as she had explained her whole ordeal leading to her arrest (minus her sister's story, of course) to the warden. Naively she thought he would have allowed her to leave since she had no business to be in rehab in the first place.

Boy, was she wrong.

She had a routine down by the time she hit the second week of her stay at the rehab. She woke up early, joined the regular morning wellness programme – which was just a fancy word for the grueling three-kilometer run they made the patients do – showered and make sure she had breakfast just before the nine A.M mass. At first she thought the mass was for Christian folks but later on realised that 'mass' was also a fancy word used to describe lectures and brain-washing seminar in which the instructors forced the patients to admit that drugs are simple Satan's poison and by consuming it, they were subscribing to Satan's beliefs and teachings – which were illegal in this country.

By the time 'mass' was over, there was another 'wellness' session – this time involving breathing practices and simple exercises and then it was lunch. Another set of the morning activities were repeated in the afternoon as well before they were all shepherd into the crafting room. This was where the patients were given materials to craft – pine and banana leaves, soft pine wood, old fabrics, and textiles, as well as paint and brushes. They were all expected to come out with a finished product that could be sold back in any local souvenir shops that carried the government emblem.

Karmen was impressed that they found a way to 'extort' more money from the inhabitants – she was sure that the officers had already confiscated and seized whatever money they found in the inhabitants' possession. The drugs would have fetched a higher price for the officers as well – but no, that apparently was not enough for them. They had to make sure the inhabitants and 'patients' of the rehab centres produce so-called handcrafted items to be sold in order to continue the façade that the rehab centres were actually working solution to combat drug abuse and drug usage.

She tried not to think too much about it – after all, she was leaving soon anyways; she was convinced about it.