What else?

By Emmanuelle

He was Cap and she was Tea and they were named after two brews Mom poured in her cup. Not that Mom was dumb, nor that she was too smart. Come to think of it, when she said it was just apt that she named them such, she may just be right. Twice right in fact.

She did think at times that she could have done best if she had slept through those two nights of some years gap; but then, she thought she could have done worse. And so, that was the cause for Cap. So it was for Tea.

Years passed. No one thought them crazed, but Cap and Tea grew up a mite strange, like squared pegs in round holes. Or round pegs in squared holes. Like their Mom. Were they born in the wrong time in the wrong world? Or were they just the right ones born so right for this world? But hey! Did their Mom know the world just made a turn for the worst?

They seem to see, to smell, to feel the tears d the pain one tucks from sight. They need not the words to tell them. Soon, the tears dry. The pain may not be gone, but it fades in shades to near none.

And as they eased the lives not theirs, they lived with lives not here or there. And so they seem.

One such tale was told by friends of the two. Of the three, to count in the Mom:

The three once stayed in this big place, so new the paint stung the nose and the eyes. There were three rooms. Two large rooms were at the right of the hall with three big beds each and they chose one of these as just right for them. As they brought their things in through the hall, a tall dark man, with loose pants and no shirt barred them with a shake of his head at the doors of the two large rooms. So they had no choice but to fix the small room with three small beds at the end of the hall.

Why are we in this room? They asked each other.

That tall dark man showed us this room and barred us from the first two. One of them said. They looked around for the tall dark man. It was the first and the last time he showed himself. To them.

The next day Tea was so sick she was down in bed for a week. Mom felt the ice in her bones and veins. What does this house want? She asked the house. She made the sign of the cross and prayed.

Then she went through the two large rooms with a most fine comb. She found the far walls so choked with green and black molds. She thought it strange, as the paint had just dried, and these rooms were as warm as the hearth stoked with new fire.

As Tea got more sick, Mom and Cap asked up and down the street. The street kept mum. So the two went to the crime files. There, they learned what was not theirs to know: a dead man was found tucked tight in a drum of tar when the house was first built. The drum was found right next to the far walls. He was clubbed on the head. He wore a pair of dark pants and no shirt. He was tall. He was fair but he was tarred black.

Mom and Cap and Tea left the place at once. What else?

The last time they heard, the dark man had passed through the walls of the house. The next house now plays host to a guest. And the next to the next house. And . . .

(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/
For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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