In Silence

Orange. The orange color now taints the vermillion sky. It is the signal for me to start steering my feet home. Another day ending but my arms are still full of these unsold paintings. Maybe I really am not good enough as a painter; maybe my dreams really are just dreams. Just a few years ago, I was confident that I could make it in this big bad world. Now, there are so many uncertain things that keep on tugging in my mind as I trudge with my aching heels. I reach for my pocket and grab everything in it. I slowly retract my hand that firmly holds on to the bills. Before opening it, I wish that it would be enough even though I already have a clue. I unfold my fist and count my sale for the day and heave a sigh.

"Was my father right? Will I die as poor as a rat?" I shake my head as a response to myself.

"What is the use of thinking this now? What is done is done, I am already here." I continue my journey home.

I imagine myself already at the doorstep of our home. From the outside you cannot really tell that it can be a home for five. Staring at the door and struggling to form the words, "I'm home." When I finally do, my little angels will welcome me with a hug. Their expectant eyes would be searching mine, looking for dinner . Finding none, they would silently hide their disappointment. My wife will be holding our youngest and will probably have that look again, wide eyes and eyebrows meeting at the center of her forehead.

The look that silently asks, "How much have you earned? Would it be enough?"

More often than not I will answer with a heavy heart , a slow tilt of my head to the side. I always take time in seeing her reaction for I know it will be of silent frustration. I would stare at her, noticing how her life with me has taken a toll on her. Her once long, straight, black hair now cut short and in disarray. Her eyes that once glimmered with love for me, now holds unshed tears of regret. Her lips that swore her belief in my dreams, now set in an angry thin line. As we lie side by side at night and the children are asleep, her silent frustration then will become words. Words that serve like little knives thrown towards me. I will respond with words of comfort so that she might at least have a good night's sleep. I would stay awake for a little while longer, asking myself the same question, "Where had I gone wrong?" until I myself surrender to the land of dreams.

That question brings me back to present.The waiting shed, where I currently wait for a bus home, is now illuminated by streetlights. People are caught in the rush hour; they are looking but not really seeing. People at this point of time are like zombies. This is the time where they either reflect on what had happened that day or worry about the things they need to do upon getting home.

I remember my wife's words last night laced with silent pleading, "Our twins will start school a month from now. They do not have anything to wear or even use in class. We already held them back last year. I do not wish to deprive them again this year."

She sighed and continued with worry evident in her voice, "I had also received the final notice to leave this place."

She was looking at me with her teary eyes that expressed her great distress and panic. That memory has fueled my body to move. I have to earn. I NEED to earn. One by one I enter the establishments in the area disregarding my grumbling stomach and aching limbs. At last, after a few hours, I find a new restaurant that badly need decorations for their opening the next day. They are smitten with my art and buy half of my paintings. Thankful, they invite me to the opening and send me home with some of their dishes.

"What a stroke of luck!" my first thought.

"No, not luck, this is a sign that my life can change for the better," I say to myself.

Ecstatic, I half-skip and half-run my way home with a foolish grin. I take a short cut through a dark alley and turn. That's where my smile slowly fades. There, standing under the streetlight, is a man holding a knife.

"No, please," I think.

"Give me all your money," he says through his mask. In response, I hold my pocket, let loose of my paintings and start running! Maybe the man is stronger, or maybe I am just too tired from my day's work that in just a few seconds I find myself on the ground at his mercy. Without hesitation, the man brings down his knife once, twice, until I lose count. He stops, realizing I will not be able to fight nor run anymore. He searches my pockets and leave after finding my hard earned money. The money is supposed to be for my children's education. The money would have found us a new home. In the state of meeting death, I see the spilled dishes from a distance, the dinner I am supposed to share happily with my family that night.

A tear falls out of pity and anger as I ask no one in particular, "Why?"

I mutter the question repeateadly as I try to hold on to life, for my wife, for my children. It is futile. Now, I can only ask for my family's forgiveness as my life fades in this cold dark place, in silence.

/cAuq