The Other

  The woman, who used to seat in a couch between the two persons’ cradle, has now been delivered to her grave. The attendance with mix emotions of sorrow, grief, and disappointment, had dispersed like crawling ants with dried tears on their faces. But within the cluster of people who have attended her burial, none of the two men appeared, to whom she made her nest while still alive. She has committed suicide, slashed her wrist at a bathtub overflowing with warm water. It was her mother who first discovered her dead body, immersed in a pool of blood as she entered the bathroom, covered with mist, to turn off the faucet, exasperated by the vexing sound it creates. She left the world without a suicide note. Thus the cause of her suicide will remain a mystery to her family and friends, except for the two nests where she lived her lust.
  In the morning, a day after her burial, a man visited her grave. His face has a cold touch of apathy as he made his seat before her grave, and as he stare at her tomb ( that’s as if it resembles the face of his beloved ), his apathetic face flared up into a mix expression of hatred and anguish.
  “You whore,” he began in a quivering voice, his calloused hands trembling like an earth violently disturbed by a tremor. “You tiny shit liar, you diabolic pretender! How could you have done this to me? You deceived me, cocksucker! You lured me through your perfumed tongue, you let me drink in a cup of wine with such sweetness poured out, you let me bathe through your splendor and I took it all with such delight, knowing that your painted words stand fast in truth. But all you offered me are lies, sweet lies bitter lies clinging in your serpentine soul. And here I am, the fool me, foolish that I have not recognized all your dark pretensions, not until you made your escape from the torments you will surely suffer from my hands. But I will not be a fool for the second time to chase you through death amidst the fiery revelations of your folly. I will not commit suicide like you did, to escape the torment of guilt and shame, for it was not I who must possess the guilt, for I am just deceived, and you, the deceiver. May your stinging soul suffer from the fires of hell! You are the worst person I have ever known in my life! You are no different from the gang of whores people see everyday crawling down the street, chasing men who craves for lust and flesh. You are no different from them. In fact, you are worst than them. You are worst that any whores every nation can offer in this world, for you do not only lick the lust and flesh of man, but the soul and emotions as well.”
  After he finished drawing his tongue’s savage claw, he threw a fist to her tomb repeatedly till it swelled up and bled, and stomped on her grave ferociously till he lost balance and fell to the ground. It was then that he burst into tears.
  “I’m so sorry. I’m so much in pain. I’m deeply freakin’ hurt. I am quite angered by your infidelity. You betrayed my love for you. I’ve been good to you and I took care of you. I cannot simply accept that you shamed my virility. Thus I thought that if I am going to lose you, I might as well reveal your infidelity to the man you chose over me. I never care what would be the outcome of my action, though I am quite certain that it’ll absolutely lead to catastrophe. I only want your folly to be revealed to that other man the same that it was revealed to me. I was betrayed, and I won’t spare you from the punishment and consequences you merely deserve.
  “And why did you kill yourself, darling? Did your guilt shame you to the world? Did you lost your dignity at the light of your folly? Did your guilt shame you to yourself? Well that’s all I have to say. I want only justice. I never thought that you’ll pay for it this way. And by committing suicide, you just deny me the justice that I truly deserve. You just deny me even that. I love you, and ah….I’m sorry for the violent words I’ve uttered.”
  The last word is uttered, apparently, in the light of sarcasm. He wiped his tears with a kerchief, stood up from his feet, and left her tomb without turning to have a final glance. He felt resolved. He supposed that, somehow, he made his revenge over her grave.
  They stayed in a relationship for about six months. He met her at a bookshop, and she had mistaken him as one of the staffs and asked him for a certain title. And then he, attracted to the particular sweetness gripping her lovely face, took the role she had thought him to be and guided her around the bookshop for the title she was asking. It was in that very moment that he demonstrated his cleverness to know more about this gal.
  There begun the certain intimacy that’ll stand between their ground. From time to time they’ll see each other and go to certain places. It never occurred to his mind that she is committed to another person, and he never even cared to ask, confident that she is not, for if she is committed, she’ll never be fool enough to tolerate his perseverance.
  He fell in love to her, and the feeling became mutual, or so he thought it is. They stayed in a relationship. A relationship he thought would last forever, for she was genuinely sweet and caring. But not until she became cold to him that he was deliberately drawn to horrendous truth. Her habitual absence from his presence, sometimes seemed to be elusive, and her assertion that she’s quite busy and she could not find time to see him thus kept him hanging, ended up in a heartbreaking revelation. She will not see him again. She wished to end their relationship, for she could no longer bear the reality of betraying the man she loves. She revealed all of this through a letter. His life is torn apart, and he decided that he should not bear the pain alone. The pain, like a coin, must be tossed in the air, and all three of them shall be encumbered by such dreadful truth, in which, he is being tormented upon. He doesn’t care who that other man is, the so-called real boyfriend of the gal he once thought he possessed, and he won’t mind either to meet him personally, what he only care about is to reveal her folly. He doesn’t consider revenge the right word to portray his pernicious act. As he once told to himself, “I am just seeking justice for the pain I’m suffering,” that’s as if it is a crime of murder he’s been tormented from.
                                       ====================
    Two days have passed since her burial; a man emerged from the tranquil canopy of the cemetery ground. Unlike the previous man that visited her grave with a touch of apathy in his emergence, this man has a face that drowns in sorrow. He is filled with bereavement. He trots languidly until he reached the tomb. Then he began to talk over her dead body.
  “Do not be betrayed by my face in the absence of tears my love, for I do grieve your death and cried all tears that I lose much strength to excrete more fluids of my melancholy, and I wonder if I could cry any longer as I talk to you right now. I must say that I am truly disappointed that it has to go further through this. I mean you committing suicide. I knew you to be quite tough facing tough days; a character of yours that I truly adored. But for you to commit suicide, then you must have felt suffocating guilt within your soul. I don’t know to whom that certain guilt is directed. Is it because of being unfaithful to me, or through inflicting pain to the other guy by not telling the truth that you’re already committed when you drip sweetness to his heart? I don’t have any idea for you didn’t even left a note for the reason of your suicide. But I don’t really care to whom that guilt is bound to, what I only care is that you live. And I didn’t wish this to happen despite of the anguish I’m drowning in. I love you so much to hate you or even to punish you. And if I caused pain through my icy cold heart, how I wished that such guilt didn’t overcome your emotions, and how I wished that you genuinely understand the pain I’m going through at the moment, and didn’t make hard things easier for yourself. With your death, you just brought along with you my chance of making up everything to you, but then you tormented me all the more so.
  “Oh if I only knew this would happen, if I only knew that that strength of your character can be drained by suffocating guilt, then I should have stayed by your side. But I chose to be alone through anger and jealousy. Well what can I do? Shall I hid what I felt at the moment and live by your side pretending to be happy and unaffected by your betrayal? Certainly not, I cannot lie on myself, I cannot deceive myself. I just remained true and genuine. For with such sadness and pain devouring my soul, I cannot be happy with you at that moment, and I can’t offer you happiness in my condition, if that’s the kind of comfort you’re expecting from me to prevent your selfish act.
  “Why did you betray me, my love? I loved you with my whole heart, and I can’t see the reason why you should have done this to me. I’d do it too when you’re away from me if I knew how, for that is your perception of all men in a relationship, that infidelities always originates in men. But I can’t, I really can’t. And even through your infidelity, I still love you so much that I never wish you to suffer.
  “I was really stunned the moment I received the shocking message from the other guy, telling me that you have been unfaithful to me for the past several months, and I wonder if you’re going to confess this dark secret to me in the future time. I confronted you to confirm if this other guy is telling the truth. You didn’t answer me, you just burst into tears, giving me a repentant’s embrace. You’ve been quite pathetic. I was filled with anger, but I held back the rage that’s flooding in my tongue. Thus I left you, not saying a single word, without turning back to see your pathetic face which, I suppose, will hinder me on my feet.”
  He paused and made a weary sigh. His cheeks turned pale and his dry lips began to quiver. His eyes glinted with crystalline tears.
  “You should have waited for my violent and poignant emotions to deliquesce itself, which I myself restrained for the sake of my genuine love to you. This nasty act of ending your own life isn’t the right way to make things up. I was supposed to talk to you about it, to listen at your very own words, in the future time to clear the obscurity that vague my mind, but you never gave me the chance.”
  It was then that he burst into tears.
  “I should have comforted you. I shouldn’t let such guilt devour you spirit, and how I wish I never let my icy cold heart immersed you through such guilt even more. I should have stayed by your side. My love, I’m so sorry! I am deeply sorry!”
  His trembling hands were clasped on his face in the verge of tears. He sweats not from the heat of the sunlight, but from the intensity of tremendous emotion unleashed into tears. The moment that it receded, it left him in a state of moribund with his head resting upon her tomb. Then he let a gentle kiss touched it. It took him a moment to find equanimity to move up from his feet, as if waking up from deep slumber. He took a final glance at her tomb, tracing the inscription of her name and the epitaph, and then he walked away and got in his car. The dismal grease of bereavement still at nest within his crumbled heart, and he still didn’t know where to begin his life anew after the intense anguish that tormented him.