Stalemate

Raindrops hit my ankles as I breeze through the cobblestones. Looming around are ancestral houses painted new, in a street littered with kitschy bags and magnets and chic restaurants, where your words hung like the strong aroma of drenched earth. Fleeting, leaving to come again. As the wind whip my summer dress, I lose my thoughts to the heady month of our connection, the blissful haze of words and stares and everything in-between. I breathe out. And inhale. The earth fills me.

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The cobblestones end across the church and everything begins to look like the present. Cars abound and turn in the roundabout alongside horses. Rizal welcomes guests to the famous dancing fountain and the plaza. Yellow bells bloom in shades of magenta and light pink, bathing in the mist. I whisper a wish. The skies remain cloudy.

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They stand like military men under thinning acacia trees, beside each other, backs tied to a wooden carriage. They have the same color, the same stance, the same shape, even the same eye patch. The hair, shaved. The skin, thin coarse graying wet. A hind leg trembles. A front leg takes a step back. Release. 

Horses should be wild and free and beautiful. 

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Often, I ask myself if this is the endgame, that for all the efforts and risks we are given this cul-de-sac. We stop, you and I, and I wonder if we had sights set on testing each other’s patience, abusing this almost impossible connection, shrugging shoulders over an impasse we see coming but did not evade. Maybe we willed, wanted this all along.

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I feel the cobblestones again. I am back in time. And I realize, the past should be forgotten, buried in the abyss of receding memories. There is a reason structures deteriorate and history fades and civilizations disappear. Habits live and habits die. Like our words, slowly losing its meaning. 

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I pick up a broken terracotta stone from the side of the road, its edges dirtied with gravel. I take it from its siblings and roll it over my fingers like a prized mineral. Cold and rough, I realize, and drenched, this stone I stole. And as I palm its edges, relief trickles into my body and pulls me back to where I am: in a land that retains the past for piece meals, walking with myself, under the crying sky.

Can we take a pause and then try again?