SOMETIMES, DURING the gloom of early dawn, having woken up by the
creaks of my brother’s bed, I would instinctively sit on my windowsill
until noon, enthralled in daydreaming. I would watch the sun come
out from the sky until my eyes twinge from too much sunbeams. I would
shut all my senses and enter into a world that no one knows but me.
I was nine and wearing my washed-out Mickey Mouse cotton pajama.
During this long course of reveries, my brother would be awakened by
my image—curling like a fetus in the windowsill, early in the
morning. He would be surprised to see me and wonder what had gone
into my tiny head looking at nothingness, motionless as if I was in a
deep trance. Then he would beg me to return to my bed because he
reasoned that I was blocking the air passage of our tiny room and
that he could not sleep that way because he felt confined. His words
would just fly into thin air for my mind was too pre-occupied to even
process what he was saying. At that moment, I was already in another
dimension—deep into the roots of my sanity, collecting old scraps of
gold and yellow ingots hesitant under an unknown desert.
With the time on my side, I would build a world where I am the captain
and the main crew of my ship, the designer of my own creation with
no mentor to consult but my own rationale and acquired judgment.
My creation would start from the day I was born and from the minute
my mother thought of my name (without a hint if I will be a boy or
a girl). Since I love to have a big family, I would have five brothers
and four sisters (I wouldl be the 10th). My father would be a wise,
educated man who has a handful of money in his pocket and a bunch
more kept in a bank. I would be born in a white, clean, private hospital
with an incubating machine because I would come out a few months earlier
than expected but the doctor would announce me as a healthy,
bouncing child. Since my father has loads of money to spare, he would
insist that I would be incubated until I completely developed and
my mother would have to spend a bit longer in the hospital until she
has fully recuperated. She would be transferred into a private room.
Our family would not be worrying about the pile of hospital bills.
Growing up, my father would buy us loads of toys and clothes. All
my brothers and sisters would have our own rooms. My mother and my
siblings need not to worry about the household chores because we would
have enough maids in the house to take care of everything. Late in
the afternoon, my father would be arriving in his sleek, blue-green
car carrying a black attaché case. Upon seeing us he would grant each
of us a peck on the cheek and ask how our day was. One by one we’d
be boasting our little achievements at school. Everyone would have
a story to tell and everyone would be considered an achiever.
Reaching college, our parents would let us choose the course we want.
My brother dreams of holding a stethoscope and loves hearing people’s
heartbeats; he often sees himself wearing a white lab gown and works
in a big private hospital. My father would not have any second thought
about it and he would support my brother’s dream all the way.
I would ask my parents to send me to Manila and let me study Nursing.
I would reside in a dorm and live independently with my fellow self-governing
dudes. Of course, my parents would have to sustain my financial needs
but I wouldl have to handle my own life. And since my parents are
rich, I would not have to worry about where to get my tuition fee
for the next semester. My college life would be as easy and as sweet
as dipping choco syrup in an ice cream. I need not to worry about
my siblings’ education. I need not to hurry looking for a job and
deprive myself of my first salary. I wouldn't have to restrain myself
from buying new clothes. I would have no guilt in going out with my
friends because money would be a-no-big-deal thing. Most of all, I
need not deny myself of a good sumptuous dinner or lunch every time
I feel like eating. I would have anything I want and my parents would
not hold it against me.
I would not have to stuff myself from working too much in a derelict
underpaid company for years because losing a job would not be a problem.
I could afford to be a bum. I could take over our family business
and still live my life the way I wanted it. And everything would be
just fine—the way I have seen them all in my reveries.
But time proved to be my greatest enemy because when the sun is at
its peak, the sunbeams would start to prick my skin and I have to
wake up and see life for real. I would move out from the windowsill
to find my big brother already gone from his bed and with that everything
would be back to normal. If by normal people define it as something
real and factual, I wonder what’s on the other side of normality and
how come people could not get there permanently.
I felt sick when there’s too much sunbeams for I could see everything
visibly. Truth hurts and truly, it hurts like hell especially when
acceptance is far from sight. My mom told me once, “Poor people have
no pride. If one is poor, one is bound to swallow everything even
to the point of choking and more likely the first thing that needs
to be given up is pride.”
At nine, I already saw the bleaks in those words. I have often defied
my mom’s notion about poor men’s pride and until now I am still defying
it.
---------------
At 24, Rayts still sits on her room’s windowsill to weave reveries.
Only now, she knows what sorts of dreams are achievable and which
are not.
