ALICE
Different colors of strings came out from the red book, swirling, tangling, forming a loop around me. As if it wants to tie me around its knotted threads.
“What is this?” Black white and red burst out like fireworks. I’ve never seen strings this much without people.
Thrice when I was in crowds, I saw many. But most are black. None are white. Some have red. In their pinky, in their hearts.
Black strings ruled over hearts. Humans are full of hatred. They can lie straight in their faces, in their smiles, but they can never lie through the string.
I don’t know why strings reveal themselves to me. I don’t like people in the first place. Seeing their feelings laid bare makes me hate them more.
I waited till the outburst died down. Shocked, surprised, all these turmoils of emotions were in my heart, at the epitome of my lungs, at the tip of my tongue. But none can be reflected in my face. In my eyes. I'm like a statue. Once carved, can never be undone. My expression is always one and the same. What I wore on that night has never left...even until now.
I’m used to staring into dead empty space. I sometimes can’t process what’s happening in front of me.
Maybe these strings are just a lie. An illusion. A lot of things a mind can do to a person. A shadow, a disparity in the surroundings, can create ripples of hallucinations, giving birth to apprehensive thoughts. Creating unexplainable fear. Then people call you crazy for expressing your own share of anxiety.
I waited. I rocked back and forth. I’m desperate to touch the book where my sketches of Kenneth are but can’t. He’s in there. He’s trapped in there. His warmth is in there. In my drawings. In my sketching. I wanna touch. I wanna hug.
I want comfort. Please mind… stop playing with my sanity anymore. Let me touch him.
[Touch who?]
I stifle a scream, my panic, my terror, my voice couldn’t get out of my lips. Can’t be expressed. Deeply caged at the bottom part of my chest. I’m staring eye to eye to someone who looks like a human, bright red eyes, black charcoaled long hair, tight thin lips. White chalked face, he looked certainly a young man if it wasn’t for the half of his face shifting a hologram of dark and wrinkly skin. An old man's skin.
[Oh no need to be scared. Scaredy little cat. I’m your guardian angel.]
.
.
.
He wiggled his eyebrows. He tilted his head. He expected me to say something. I don’t know what to respond. He called me a cat. There’s only one cat in here. And last time I check, it wasn’t me.
[Somehow your expression irritates me]
He exhaled a short breath and scratch his head. I looked down. I forced my eyes to watch his red swirling robe, anywhere from his eyes. Pure bright red, like blood, with gold and silver cursive shapes and designs. Awestruckingly beautiful. It could be my mind playing tricks on me again but I could have sworn they move.
[What? You want a robe like this too?]
He asked with a tone I can’t begin to describe. Something in between of amuse and joking but his eyes weren’t wearing the slightest trace of humor. I’m confused. He’s somewhat shady, but not scary.
[Oh, right. I’m supposed to return this book to you. Sorry for making modifications to this. It was originally the 'Book Of Strings', I just played with the cover and pages to make it look like a sketchbook. Good thing it's successfully delivered into your hands.]
He stretch his placid - green and purple vein popping hand with the book towards me, which is now red and unfamiliar. Not the same sketchbook I used to hug to appease my loneliness. Not the same sketchbook I use to pour out my feelings of longing for Kenneth. Nothing is left…except an explicit hard bound cover with eccentric designs.
I don't recognize this.
He chuckled at me. His bright red eyes cackled in delight. Like it’s on fire. And I inwardly flinch.
[You’ll offend ‘Chordinis’ if you don’t accept it]
He slowly ran his eyes down, then up towards me.
“Chordinis?”
[Ah, finally you spoke! I thought you don’t wanna talk. It’s kind of lonely you know. I keep talking, you keep staring. I know my face is artistically one heck of a masterpiece but - ]
He’s cut off by twenty red threads spinning around him like spider web.
[Fine, fine, I’ll tell her. You guys are so impatient. I know you want her to be your new Master but lay down okay? Let me handle this.]
I don’t understand. I feel he’s talking to nonexistent matter. In this case, the strings. Weird thing is, they listened to him. They recede back in the ground, slithering towards me.
They're never a trick of my mind, weren't they? This is all real.
[No drumroll eh? Gods, I hate it if there’s no drumroll when I’m about to announce something vital and important and so - drastically magnanimous that could change a woman’s life forever but, no choice, fine then. Whatever.]
He cleared his throat and dig his hand deeper into the collar of his red robe. A moment later, he take out a necklace. A silver necklace with a pocket watch, the color is strangely red and white with two figures, a woman and a boy inside a thin red line shaping their surroundings in a heart.
My eyes are glued to the image, my mind is deeply preoccupied I didn’t notice him hanging the necklace to my neck. My consciousness wasn't pulled back to reality if it weren't for the unknown click in my collarbone.
It took one, two - five seconds for my mind to register. There's a foreign object in my neck. Alive and clocking time. I quickly pulled it out and forced it back to the half strange man's hand.
"I don't want it." I told him. He clench his hand around the necklace then it disappears.
[But it looks like it wants you. Look at your neck.]
I shivered all over when I found it back, clocking and ticking as if I put it on myself.
"What's the meaning of this?" I asked, intended to him. But my voice is barely a whisper I don't know if he heard me.
He didn't respond at first. He stood up and outstretched his hand on the swirling strings hovering me.
I waited. But it looks like he had no intention of answering my question so I open my mouth to ask but he spoke first.
[Alice dear, have you ever wondered why you can see the string? This flimsy connection that bounds people to each other. Dictating fate, making fated encounters, connecting fated partners. Not all can see it you know, only you. But why?]
I slowly shake my head.
"My Aunt can see it too. And her Aunt. And her Grand Aunt. I'm not alone. Every woman in my family can see the strings."
He snapped his head and raised his eyebrows at me.
[I didn't know you could be this accepting. I thought you're too gloomy to handle the world I'm about to introduce you but it looks like I'm mistaken.]
He winks at me.
[Dear, you see this one here?] He reached out to touch one string hovering above us.
[Is power. To have control over the string lets you open the door towards a person's deepest darkest secrets, their hidden emotions they don't even know exist. It makes them vulnerable in your presence. You can rule over people if you want.]
I tried to move my legs. One, two - twenty strings loop around my legs, arms and torso and supported me up. Their thin lines don't hurt. They touch my skin but only that. My legs are no longer in pain. I can wiggle my toes and tap my foot.
[The strings healed you I see. It's supposed to not have that power but I guess Chordis favored you so much she's willing to help you in any way she can.]
He mentioned that name a while ago. Speaking of names, he never mentions what's his. And yet he knows mine.
"Strings power... Thank you but I'm not interested. I have no use for it. Please find someone else."
I staggered, not used to get up and walk after four months of kneeling. The sketchbook is dangling in my hand. I'm about to leave when he stops me.
[Really? You could use the string to exact your revenge on your Aunt though. You can inflict pain as much as she inflicts pain on you. You're more than capable to do that.]
ALICE "I don't want revenge. It's a waste of time." I said and resume my place in my kneeling spot. I'm thinking of leaving but I have nowhere to go. Except here. He is my home. This is where I belong to. This is where I'll die. [And you think kneeling there is not a waste of time?] "He is my world. So my time solely belongs to him." A distortion in the air and he sprouts at my side. Glaring at me. [So you'll throw your life? Just like that?] I opened the book and scan through the pages. At first, it was all blank. My drawings completely wiped out. I started seeing red. Rage surge inside me like blazing fire. But it stops... then recedes to oblivion when Kenneth's face appeared. I pursed my lips in relief. I ran my finger at his image. Black inky hair, electric blue eyes. My drawings doesn't have the lush of colors he always
ALICE My sight started to shatter. Images bombarded me in full blast. Strings shot up in every direction. Like numerous colorful birds on their glorious flight. I can hear excited whispers. Of a woman, floating, hovering, embracing me with welcome arms.I can’t tell what she’s saying. Only a low distorted words of ‘thank you my Mistress’ is what my ears picked up. I’m still kneeling in the soft pile of grass. A bit mushy from the rain, pebbles scraping at my knees. I hear soft enchants. A foreign language I’ve never heard before. But some part of my brain oddly pin the words as familiar. Like a distant lullaby someone sang to me. Long long time ago. I find it strange. Not upsetting. Just strange. The more I listened, the more my strength drained my muscles lifeless. I’ve heard these enchants before. Someone whisper them to my ears in my sleep. Soothing, palliative, a set of w
ALICE This is the first time I actually look around the graveyard. The sight of raised tombs made with marble in hues of white, black and greys filled my eyes with fathomless pain. This sight is a reminder. Of what I lost. Because of my foolishness, I lost him. And he is my everything. Now, I have nothing left. The emptiness gnawing in my chest is bottling up inside I’m scared it might choke the life out of me one day. The fear of not knowing anything, or whether I can go on with life without him is so suffocating I don’t know if crying or screaming or laughing through the madness will solve anything at all. Sometimes I just wish everything will end. For me. End this pain. End this loneliness. I wanna be with him so bad, I did all that I could to take away my life. But it’s useless. I’m still here. I still wake up in the morning. Left alone and existing without direction.
ALICEThe shock hasn’t left me. I’m still frozen on the spot. I should move. I should take care of the boy in my arms. I should muster strength to my limbs. I should remember to breath.“Kid?” The groundkeeper’s voice rang in still atmosphere. Chordinis and Hymen dispersed in mid air. The image of the two disappeared with the wind. They left me. Because they can’t let others see them. I know. The pocket watch necklace is heavy against my skin. The sketchbook made its weight known against the bag hanging in my shoulder.I thought I lost the bag. This one is what I brought four months ago. At his burial. I can’t bring his guitar, nor his clothes. I left it rotting in dust in our apartment. I can’t push myself to go back. Not when he died in the very room I treated as my paradise.“Woah who’s that boy?” The groundkeeper scurried to attend
ALICEOn that night, I saw my Aunt. Her bright crimson hair lits like a dancing fire in the sunlight. Her hazel narrowed eyes glinting hints of unapparent malice and ruthlessness.“Alice,” she called me. In a shaky voice, I respond. “Yes, Auntie?”She stretch her hand at me, telling me to come closer. So I did. She flicks her wrist and a chain of strings, black, red, and white of mixed colors burst out from her fingers. One connects to me. Others connect to the eleven people in the room. Majority shot up in every direction, moving outside from the white circle shape of the wall.“Can you see it?” she asked through her
ALICEAfter the groundkeeper rushed to my side last night, I wake up the next morning to two electric blue eyes, messy raven hair and face void of expression I can’t put a finger what.“You’re awake,” the boy told me. I blinked twice. Stared straight to his empty dull eyes that don’t have a trace of spark.“You’re okay?” I croaked. He didn’t bat an eye when he made a sound under his throat of saying yes. I want to reach out to him and brush his hair. I want to take my pencil and carved his impeccable beauty in my paper.For many reasons other than one, he looks like Kenneth. If I blink my eyes and gaze to his small face, I can picture out the young Kenneth in his middle school years. I forced my eyes shut.No matter how desperate I was. If I saw Kenneth’s face in every little boy’s face…how crazy have I beco
ALICEI never dared to let a single word escape from my lips again. The still atmosphere didn’t crack in between. Instead, it got colder. The breath we exhaled froze in chilled mist. Something smells crisp and ozone-like tang outside. I smiled to myself. The incense of snow. Soft lacy flakes are drifting straight down. I take a shaky breath and tried to calm the raging pain swelling inside my chest. It was also in a day like this he found me battered to death. The snow has embrace me in its chilling hands and I’m willing to offer my life. Just to have a taste of death my years with my Aunt deprived me to feel.But that desire was quenched by his stretching hand. By his tender smile. By his warm touch I helplessly long to feel in my skin again. My Aunt defines my existence as thin as an air. As worthless as mud filled paper. As stinking as rotten garbage. As meaningless as disgusting maggots.
ALICEWe ate in silence. Thrice, I caught the boy giving sideway glances at me. Curiosity dance in his eyes. I took a mouthful bite of the chicken. Hunger is overtaking my soul. I stuff two rice cups in my mouth. Swallowed it all in one gulp.He’s still studying me.I hasten my teeth to chew. Taking advantage of his almost entranced state to eat his share. Directly opposite us, the groundkeeper chuckled. His snow caked hair is moistening. I fetch the towel he hang in my chair and wipe it for him.“My, thank you.” Groundkeeper flash me his warm crooked smile. I urged my cheeks to stretch. Return his smile and the warmness it brings in my heart.Failed.I tried again.Failed.The boy must have detected my effort. He takes hold of my hand. Forcedly slip hi