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The night looms over him, gentle as it casts its shadow onto the forest.
The world appears to reflect his insides, a sort of pseudo-calm that blends with the pretentious smell of rain. Grass scratches at his palms, dirt collecting under his nails. Trees arch over him, almost as though they would like to reach out. Stone and rock cover the ground. (We were all dirt once, as they say. His heart is no different, is but ground covered in cracked stone and jagged rock. This pain has been thirteen years in the making.)
He peers through the fog with slightly hazy eyes, raises his head to call to the moon. "Kaibigan." A placid smile splits through his face. The stars, indeed, are duller these days. Yet, he feels at peace with the darkness, at one with the breeze. He breathes, welcomes the earth as an old friend. (It is the only thing he can do, besides let it swallow him whole.)
He can feel his breath in front of him, moments after he gives it back to the world. (The air he subsequently takes in is just a fraction more fleeting than he is.)
With his chin held high, eyes watching black and blue battle in the sky— He thinks about nothing.
The energy in his hands disperses— the shaking almost comes to a full stop, and his knuckles regain a little color. His eyelids droop— the sun had taken away his will to live when it set. He awaits the coming of morning a little desperately. His limbs surrender themselves to his surroundings. His guard is down, and so is his mood. The spinning in his head goes the other way rather than stopping. But this, this is fine anyway.
The force that keeps him conscious falters, but does not disappear— A wave of tired crashes through him.
He lets go of the air in his lungs, blinks. (There is not enough nothingness in the world to drown his thoughts. There is always, always something.)
The wind whistles at him.
He laughs, all breathy and half-genuine. The leaves begin to bend down, perhaps check if he is okay. The raindrops are so, so soft against his cheek— but harsh against his shoulders. The bark is rough against his back— but it holds him steady and upright, he cannot complain. He drops his head, thoughts beginning to weigh him down, eyes clenched shut as though it was what they were made to do. (As though they were not made to appreciate all the world has to offer.) His palms feel at the ground. It is damp, like his feelings, almost. (The resemblance is uncanny.) "Kaibigan."
"Kaibigan." He stares by his feet, glass-eyed and... gone. (He remedies the dryness in his throat, swallows. And swallows, and swallows, and swallows— There is a lump in his throat that refuses to go down with his spit. "Kapatid," murmurs from the crack between his lips, the crack in his calmness. The earth feels as though it is quaking. It is not. He shuts, shuts, shuts his eyes—)
A rush of blood to the head. A flash of red in his vision—
He keeps his eyes shut.
"Kapatid." It comes out almost animal, save the cracks in his voice. (There is a missing little boy in this town, and the only place he can pinpoint him in now is his heart. It makes his blood boil that power has made people into monsters, whether holding it or fighting against it. They did not even know who he was. They did not even care who he was. Apathy spreads like a disease. Innocent lives, taken away just because they can be.)
He keeps his eyes shut.
There has been a storm going on for far too long. The drizzle, no matter how soft the downpour, will not help the floods go down. "KAPATID." The word comes straight from his gut— It has clawed its way through his insides, up his throat, out of his mouth. The desperation behind it colors him perfectly. This is the shade of living in a war that the people do not realize they ought to be fighting. And, there is no winning in a war, but there is undeniably a lot of losing. (It may not feel like a battlefield, but that is what they want from us. That hurt you are feeling, it is real. Something must be done. This country is made to be much more than secondary.)
Only half a sob gets through before he is able to submerge the rest of it back into the darkness. "Kapatid..."
The moon glows.
As does the fire in his eyes— He does not know who put it there, but it will not stop burning.
His nails have left marks on the ground. His frustrations have been carved into the earth.
There is so much wrong with the world, yet he wants to keep welcoming it. There is so much to be done. He knows that this country is his, is theirs— from there, the lines get blurred. Plans are meant to be executed, but they are not meant to be precise. Good intentions do not matter as much as you would think, sometimes. This way of living stains souls. What is most crucial, in all of this, is the aftermath. (Everyone has to choose their battles, and this is his. It is a communal battle that he is fighting for personal reasons— but you cannot blame him.) "Kaibigan, kaibigan..."
The anger and the sadness resting deep in his bones form a longing for justice inside of him.
Restlessness flows in his veins, but his pseudo-calm reintroduces itself— at least on the outside. His fists go back to stretched out hands. His back scrapes against the tree trunk but his limbs are fine. His eyes have a little less force keeping them closed. He remembers to breathe, tries to think about nothing again. (Everyone has to choose their battles. Some battles we fight with ourselves.)
There is a rustle of twigs and leaves that unlids his eyes. "Sa totoo lang," comes a voice that echoes familiarity and friendship, "hindi ko na alam kung saan kita hahanapin. 'Di ko akalaing ako'y gabihin. Lumabas na ang mga bituim. Ika'y aking nahanap din." He can see through the thick air around them the figure of the man he knows to be his closest confidant, his most trusted companion. The darkness of night is not enough to let him unknow his friend.
A sigh leaves his mouth, and it gives nothing away about his emotional disposition. It is not relief, not exasperation, not... anything. It is but a breath that leaves his mouth, knowing of its own insignificance, knowing of his restraint. "Isagani, kaibigan." (He holds his tone relatively well, masks over the sobbing, and the screaming, and the hoarse whispers.)
"Basilio."
He chuckles, soft. "Hanggang dito ba nama't ikaw ay tumutugma?"
More rustling. "Hinanap kita." The rain falls harder, but the clouds leave enough space for the moon.
He closes his eyes, closes in on himself while he is at it. (These woods are his, though not really. This forest is home, is family, is his will to live. Thirteen years on, and still his vulnerability leaks through his skin when he is here. His trust in people only goes as far as the trees go. And in the scale of the universe, that is, not very far at all.) "May kailangan ka ba?"
"Ako?" Isagani laughs, as the air roars between them and pulls his hair out of his face in the most dramatic way. There is a slight flush in the writer's face, a combination of the cold breeze as well as all the wandering about. "Wala naman."
"Tabihan mo na lang ako, kaibigan."
There is a blanket of peace that surrounds them. Basilio has Isagani. Isagani has Basilio. (The Philippines may be colonized, but a real bond cannot be divided and conquered so easily. The two have built a friendship on a love that goes deeper than just them. They will not let what they have be severed. This is the hope of this country. People working with people as people.) Between the tired in their eyes and the heavy in their hearts— They have this moment.
There is enough space in this forest for a small town to fit in, but Isagani finds his space on the ground right next to Basilio. The intimacy allows for a mutual empathy to runs its course between them, and they cherish that in the silence. (They will talk things through eventually, though 'eventually' unfortunately, is sooner than either of them would like.)
All this could easily be misconstrued, deluded hope— But here lies the safe space they have created in each other.
Sometimes hope is just what you make it out to be.
This is the world they live in. You may not know what that is like, but you can try to understand that the pain of those before you has made you who you are today— That land you are walking on, they thought they could get away with calling it theirs. That air you are breathing, some people were robbed of that. It is unclear, sometimes, if there is really any right way to fight. There will be times when honor need not be as important. (When you have everyone else to fight for, and you do not know who is willing to stand behind you, it is important to go back to those you know will always be beside you.)
A child is not supposed to bury his own mother— not at ten, not before Christmas, not in the middle of a forest with a man he does not know. Youth was always meant to be happier, they said. There is an innocence that should come with being young. But the world allows these things to happen. The cold rings in his ears like church bells, always resonating.
There is a concentration of warmth where their shoulders meet, but Basilio knows. The world holds a certain coldness that you could not get rid of if you tried. Isagani is first to break the silence. A heavy sigh.
Basilio finds himself detaching from the warmth. ('Eventually' is now.) The parts of their skin that had them stitched together, that is all undone. It may have kept them from falling apart for a while, but time catches on fast. "May kailangan ka ba?" The writer does not say anything immediately. He responds to the silence by placing a hand on his shoulder. "Isagani?"
"Si Paulita—"
"Lagi na lang ba't siya, Isagani?"
Isagani retracts, shifts away from Basilio. "Paumanhin, kaibigan." He hides his embarassment in a coughing fit. "Maaaring ang aking suliranin ay mababaw sa iyong paningin. Mayroong mga pangarap na mahirap habulin. Mayroong mga pangarap na mahirap angkinin. Talagang, ang pag-ibig... Ito ay mahirap intindihin. Sa pagsikat ng araw, alam ko. Ang aking mahal, maituturing ibang tao. Ang aking mahal—"
"Mahal, Isagani?" Basilio scoffs. "Ang iyong mahal ay ang iyong bayan. 'Wag mong kalilimutan ang iyong pagiging mamamayan."
"Basilio," the writer starts, "maaari na ang tao ay likas na mabuti, ngunit lahat tayo'y may pagkamakasarili. Ito ay kasinlikas ng yamang inangkin ng mga Kastila mula sa mga Indio."
The medical student looks him dead in the eye, holds him by the wrist. "Kaibigan," he drags out of his throat, "'Di bali kung magmahal siya ng iba. Ibigay sa bayan ang pag-ibig na kanyang tinanggihan. Ikaw ay binubuo ng pagkataong mas malalaim kaysa sa inyong dalawa. Marami pang bagay ang hihigit sa iyong nararamdaman ngayon. Hayaan ang mga ito mangyari."
A strange feeling forms in Isagani's stomach. Basilio seems to know something he does not.
"Ang mundo ay 'di kailanmang umikot sa inyong dalawa. Ang mundo ay 'di kailanmang titigil para sa iyo."
"Sadyang, may mga pagmamahal na hindi nagtatagal." Laughter bubbles from his throat, but it comes out mostly bitter. "Madaling umintindi. Ang mahirap ay ang maisapuso ang mga bagay na alam mong tama. Minsa'y ang ating mga kalooban ay labag sa katotohanan."
"Alam kong hindi madaling mawalan, kaibigan. Hindi mo kailangang—"
"Ayos lang ako, Basilio—"
Basilio pushes down his inner turmoil in favor of entertaining his trainwreck companion. "May kailangan kang malaman, Isagani." His voice is barely above a whisper. He anticipates what comes after all of this. This way of living indeed stains souls. It is hard to tell if there is a right way for things to go. (Everyone has to choose their battles, even though there is so much to lose.) "Si Simoun—"
Isagani's knuckles turn white. He sees a flare of red in the corner of his eyes. "Hindi ka dapat nakipag-ugnayan sa kanya, Basilio—"
"Mayroong lampara," informs Basilio, trying to get past the other man's emotions. "Ang lamparang ito ay siyang magpapasabog sa isang malaking piging sa gabing ito. Ang kasal nina Paulita at—"
(Feelings are truly the foundation, yet the bane of human existence.) Basilio stops talking, focusing instead on keeping the writer grounded. He has both wrists in his hands now, teeth grinding together harshly. Their eyes are locked. There is no telling of the emotions behind each stare, but let it be said that brown has never looked sharper than in this moment. He is only barely strong enough to restrain Isagani, but he can play anchor for a little while.
"Basilio—"
"Wala kang magagawa."
"Mayroon," he persists as his vision blurs. "Laging mayroong paraan— Bakit ako susuko lamang?"
An air of light-headedness hits him, and the unsteady in his limbs threatens to knock him over. The force against his wrists moves to his shoulders. "Huwag kang magpabulag sa damdamin, kaibigan." (It almost seems hypocritical, coming from him, but nonetheless Basilio becomes the only thing that is keeping him stable. That is, stable, if that were the word for the way his body refuses to stop trembling, the way his sanity continues to deteriorate. Stable.) "Kailangan ng Pilipinas ng pagbabagong 'di makukuha sa pagluluksa. Ang ating paghihirap ay dahilang lumaban— Alam kong nauunawaan mo ang iyong tungkulin sa bayan, na ito'y mahalin, alagaan."
"Basilio." Isagani's tone teeters between distant and frustrated. "'Di dapat tayong magpakaDiyos. Hindi tayo ang nagdedesisyon kung sino ang nararapat at 'di nararapat na mabuhay. Hindi ito sakripisyo para sa kalayaan. Homicidio! Ang kamatayan ay 'di kailanmang dapat napunta sa kamay ng tao."
The other man laughs in the humorlessness. "Akademya ng Wikang Kastila? Isagani, kailan tayo matututo?" He jests at their situation. "Ibabaliwala ba natin ang ating pagkakakilanlan bilang bansa? Ibababa ba natin ang ating mga sarili? Ano tayo, kaibigan? Mga tuta? Paano tayo magkakaroon ng kasarinlan kung tayo'y isang kopya lamang ng kanilang lahi? Nakikipagsusunud-sunuran, ginagamit ang kanilang mga salita?"
"At paano tayo 'di matutulad sa kanila, kung tayo rin ay walang malasakit sa buhay ng ating kapwa?"
A moment of silence lapses between them, and Isagani knows that he is right. But, the knowledge that he is right does little to satiate the sinking in his stomach. His morals have not gotten him anywhere. Right and wrong have blurred together these days. It is hard to match the right intentions with the right actions to create the right outcome. There are harsh truths out here in the world, and he is uncertain if he would even like to find them.
"Lahat tayo'y nadudumihan ng ganitong pamumuhay..." There is a thoughtfulness in Basilio's voice that matches the way his grip on the writer's shoulders tightens. He has a far away look on his face. "Tignan mo ang mang-aalahas, nasa kadiliman, kinakain ng kanyang mga damdamin at isipan— nabulag sa ideya ng paghihiganti. Lahat tayo'y nadudumihan ng ganitong pamumuhay... Minsa'y... Nakapapagod ding sumubok pa."
The rage in the air has for the most part dissipated.
"Maaaring, walang marangal na paraan upang makipagdigmaan. May mga pagkakataong limitado ang mga pagpipilian."
"Si Paulita—"
"Lagi na lang ba't siya, Isagani?"
The man in question has his jaw clenched, and his nails digging into the palms of his hand. The fists may look like anger, but they shake like all they know is fear and being small. (Because like it or not, that is what this world makes you sometimes. In a war, or otherwise. Colonized, or otherwise. Feelings, for the most part, are universal— What you feel has been felt before. Do not feel so alone.)
A sob cracks through his lips, leaves the rest of his mouth an open wound. The next of his words is just him bleeding.
(He spills his melancholy out, does not question why it is that he bleeds in blues instead of reds.)
There is a weight on Isagani's chest. His ribcage is beginning to fracture, just as his jaw is about to crack under pressure. His eyes attempt to focus on unkept hair, far-off eyes, the way the forest seems to echo his pain, and keeping his tears at bay. (He does not belong anywhere, not even in love. No family. Just a priest afraid to meet the same fate as those before him. Innocent lives, taken away just because they can be, and he is not doing a thing.)
On second thought, he keeps his eyes shut.
This revenge plot aches of the different hardships of the people— There is no cohesion in this catastrophic revolution, but he believes that the raw desire for something more than the individual lives they are leading is there. Desire can blind the method so easily. The coldness of the world has gotten to them— It is against what he would believe in, but he cannot blame them, really. Basilio, after all, is right. This way of living stains souls.
The writer gives up on struggling to break free. He swallows his spit, and a terrible cross between a scream and a sob. Isagani has never been much an angry person. A purple-gray colors his lips, accentuating the light-headedness that has not disappeared. His fingers reach out to the other man's clothes, bundling them into desperate fists that have no force behind them. His eyelids bring him halfway into the darkness of slumber. His shoulders begin to cave on him, and his posture sways.
He drops his head, and it falls just slightly short of hitting Basilio's right shoulder. "Hindi ibig sabihing hinayaan ko itong mangyari, ay hindi ito labag sa aking kalooban." He releases the other man in half-hearted fury that gets him pressed further against the tree.
Basilio does not respond, simply assures that he remains upright and conscious through his half-coherent spiel on sadness and the water.
He stares at nothingness so long that he begins to feel it too. The clench in his jaw shakes. "Hindi ko na kayang..." Basilio leaves it there, finds it may be ridiculous to keep talking. He closes his eyes, and the corners crinkle from the force he puts into it. He breathes, tries to remember in out in out in out. He does not know a thing. The hold he has on Isagani loosens, but the man does not move away. "Lahat na lang, Isagani... Lahat na lang..." The far away look remains, and the pseudo-calm makes a reappearance in his voice.
When he opens his eyes, his expression is blank. "Kaibigan."
"Basilio?"
"Naranasan mo na ba..." He cannot help the laughter that bubbles out of his throat. (He comes off a bit hysteric, he is certain.) "...na mawalan ng lahat na mayroon ka?"
A pause. The man considers briefly. "Hindi," he answers decisively.
"Itong kagubatang ito... Isang kaibigan ni Crisostomo Ibarra ang isinunog at inilibing dito." Basilio's eyes revert to glass-like. A wave of pain floods through his veins, but nothing hurts— not on the outside. "Nakabaon sa lupa kasama niya, aking mga pangarap... aking ina... Sa panahong ito, kaibigan, mahirap maligtas mula sa kadiliman ng mundo... Ito ay nagtatago sa bawat sulok, sa puso ng lahat na nagpanggap na tumulong."
There is a distant feel to his voice, as though he were trying to detach from the hurt.
"Ang aking kapatid..."
The other man waits, but no other words come out. He reaches out to the hand on his shoulder.
Basilio forcefully retracts his hands. "Hindi ko ginusto maging doktor... Hindi ko... Hindi ko... Hindi..."
"Basilio—"
"Ang aking kapatid..."
"Paumanhin. Kailanma'y... siya'y di mo pa nababanggit." This merits a laugh from Basilio, and the smile on his face simply does not look right.
He takes a sharp inhale, but it only makes him dizzier. "Wala akong magagawa... Hindi ko ginusto maging doktor... Hindi ko... Wala akong... Hindi... Hindi... Hindi..." It comes out in a sing-song sort of flow that tells of the state of mind he is in. His smile is frustrated, fuelled by the self-hatred buzzing in his system— if only he had been able to do something— if only nighttime did not remind him that shadows can morph into monsters if your head gets messed up enough, if you were raised in a time that even children believed in the darkness of the world. He keeps his eyes shut.
"Crispin... KAPATID—" His voice breaks off there, a sob replacing the words that would have come after.
The writer holds him by the arms, tries to shake sense into him.
This is the world they live in. It is a bit maddening, and none of us have to be persuaded to believe that— It has not gotten much better, has it? (It is a shame, that even at our own people's hands, we are not making enough progress as a country. We wonder why we are unable to move forward, perhaps it is because we still have ideologies that belong in the past.) Laughter mixes in with the sobbing, but the sound dies out when Basilio opens his eyes.
His facade is much more calm when they do. The glassiness fades away, and the fire has yet to be extinguished.
Brown, still, has never looked sharper than this night.
"Ano pa ang natitira sa akin, kaibigan?"
Loosening his grip around the man's arms, Isagani swallows. "Ako."
Conversation drops off there. Their emotions are kept at bay, still water as opposed to raging floods or fluctuating tsunamis. Their eyes gaze at the moon instead of each other. Their limbs find their way back to their respective bodies. (The fog remains thick, but the air between them has thinned out. The forest reverts to its peace, and they drown in the silence of each other's company. The rain, for the most part, has stopped.)
What a mess, it is, that his life has become. (A mother, a brother, a lover— all waiting for him to come around. He does not know what business he has remaining here. Alive. No drive. Pain that is thirteen years in the making does not age like wine— He could not be further away from fine.) It is uncertain, how things will go from here— He assumes, not very well, but you never know with the world.
It is not that Isagani has given up trying— It is just that maybe he has, just that maybe he has a difficult time justifying why he has given up when he knows very well that there are so many people who have it harder than he does. There is hope for this country, he knows, and he would like to be a part of that— It is just that he wonders often if he is even the right person to do be doing this. (This is everyone's battle to fight, but he wonders sometimes if he has good enough reason.) He worries for the fate of this country, this world.
Their minds have not been changed. Isagani is convinced that this is not the right thing to be happening— though, why he feels so passionately about it might not be in the right place. Basilio knows that the world has left him with barely anything— though, he is not the only one hurting and this is not the only way. But, conversation and discourse: these are things that are crucial when deciding what to believe in, where to go from there. If not to suade your choices, then to present the consequences and assure that you understand them.
The leaves move with the wind, and the sound they create makes Basilio grit his teeth and breathe heavy.
"Basilio?"
"Ayos lang ako... Ayos lang ako..." (He says it twice, perhaps to make sure that Isagani hears— more likely, to increase the chances that one of them would believe it. It does not seem to work, but at least he tried— even though he did not.)
He resumes clawing at the dirt in the hopes to dig a hole deep enough to bury himself in.
Basilio is not the man that Isagani befriended in Ateneo— He has not been that man for a while now. It can be awfully easy to get lost in this world. (Some of us— we get caught up in every elsewhere, not here, not now. Others— they are constantly looking at the details rather than the bigger picture, sometimes the other way around. Or— the map is upside down, the instruction manual is in another language, the clock has stopped working.)
He knows darkness and the cold better than anything. He is constantly watching his sanity fall apart (burn, from the fire in his eyes perhaps).
Mornings would feel nicer, if only he could remember what nice felt like.
A bird lands on a branch that hangs above them. It is brown and white, and chirps obnoxiously for a while before leaving— In the time it takes for this to happen, Isagani has settled his hands over Basilio's and the latter has halted ransacking the ground. "Kaibigan..." Basilio then wonders, with a laugh sounding from his lips, if lost things are even meant to be found— like his mind, like his brother.
Sometimes, it is not that life could not be harder— It is just that, it could be a lot easier too. (Isagani retracts his hands when the trembling dies down.)
It is a small world. Basilio knows this because people too often die under the same hands, or at least the same kind. (The kind that wash themselves before they sleep at night, that want the favor of the majority but would like to stay in superiority, that sit on makeshift thrones and tell everyone that makes them better somehow.)
Power is a bit of a silly concept. Whether you have it or not, the state it leaves you in can be all-consuming.
What a shame it all is. Nothing specific, just the whole idea of living like this— This being a flexible term, use how you will. (We are but drafts of a better story.)
They hear an explosion in the distance.
Isagani flinches. His hands begin to ball into fists at his sides, but he stays on the ground. He keeps his eyes shut. They attempt to recreate the warmth between their shoulders as the writer leans into his companion's comfort. Basilio does not react to the sound, desensitized to the revolution and the world. His hands reach out, uncurl the restraint and frustration in Isagani's. He keeps his eyes shut. They breathe, all out of sync and in shallow pants. This is the world they live in.
But even if the whole world fell apart, then we'd still make it through. Because we're people.