Last words!

By Emmanuelle

There are tales too short but so true to life I just can’t let them go. These, too, are seeds from which rice or wheat grows.

She said: I will wait for you till the end of time. For two years, her voice and her pink, full lips as she said those words kept him sane as he toiled in the heat of the sand. There were the calls and the texts and the face on the screen of course, but none beat the sight and the sound of her as she mouthed those last words. She will wait. They will be one again.

They will not be one again. Those words were her last to his face. He comes home as she weds his best friend. He sure was not his friend’s best. There is an end to things, and loves, that friends can share. Life oft does not play fair.

There is, too, this tale of a pair whose paths had crossed at the first turn of the first ten years of their lives. At that time, milk had not yet dried from their lips. It was a first love too young to weep for. Now, when next their paths crossed, they picked up where they had left off.

There is this but though. They were once from the two sides of the fence. Through the years, they thought the fence had gone. The fence though was as good (and as bad!) as not gone. When pride raised its high brow, they let go of the love.

She mourns with no tears – for a once past, for twice, for all times. When asked why she still has not wept her loss, she says: I still have his name in my heart. I shall weep when it is no more.

Then there are those who are left to still live when a loved life had gone on. The left one, now and then, touched a face through the glass of the frame on the wall. She or he prays: soon, my dear, soon. Through the lone years, those last words had hummed in ears gone deaf: I am not gone, I am here with you.

And there is she who prayed to Him, for him who used to be her man: May he find his peace, I had long found mine. Let us all now be free. He, who now lays still and quiet in his box, had said all the last words in their fights. There will be no more of his words to ring in her ears.

Then, there was this aunt, who never seemed to stop to take a rest. She was a saint. She planned, she cooked, she served, she cleaned. For a pause, she talked. And talked she did of all her ills. No one took her word that she was ill for she worked and worked and worked and not take a rest. She showed packs of pills to prove she was sick from day one to six. On Sundays, she went to church. Her blood kin loved her, but just the same, they ran as far and as fast as they can as soon as they kissed and hugged and said their hi.

She huffed and puffed as she worked on and talked on and not rest until she was red and fat in the face. I was not there when she breathed her last. Where she is now, I am sure, she must be at the top shriek of her voice:

I told you and told you and told you I was sick, did I not?

(Author’s Note: This, too, is mono-syllabic.)

(Readers may reach columnist at jingmil@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/
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