The Calm Before The Storm

There's a solemn tone that takes over the house when I'm alone, where the outside lights are just barely dim enough to see without having the lights on. I choose to reside in the darkness on the couch to enjoy the peace. I stare at the road outside the window, watching aimlessly at every headlight passing. It reminds me of the time I would stay up waiting for my parents to come home with food whenever they went out together. I remember eagerly waiting for that silver Honda to appear on the road before running outside to the elevator to surprise them minutes after and each time they would be surprised. My eyelids droops over, relinquishing the lights to just a starry blur.

"Gabe's smiling!"

It's her voice. I hear her first and I see her. I don't see anything else but her. I look upwards and I see her familiar face up close, right in front of me. I notice her delicate pearl necklace that she always wore with her angular cheek bones and soft smile. Her hair is neat and left to a side and  her eyes are a faded hazel that gleams as she looks down at me and laughs. She looks much younger. My mind is in a haze but all I feel is a desire to smile and laugh too. All I feel is warmth around me. All I feel is time slowing down as I stare at her, taking in every detail of her all too familiar expressions. All I feel is joy. All I feel is love.

*Thunder strikes*

I jolt upward on the couch to another flash of white followed by another clash of thunder. My entire body is hot and I'm sweating. My breath is staggered as I look around for her. I finally realize that I was dreaming. I pace my breath and I wipe my sweat. My face is still blazing from the dream. Her laughter sullying echoes in my brain. It's gone. I feel the numbing beat of my heart, it reeks likes the ghost of a painful stab in my stomach. I was dreaming about Mom. I look outside the window half expecting to see a flash of tungsten silver but the road is empty and all I see are sheets of rain unmasked by orange streetlamps.

It's 3am, Uncle Tommy is still working the night shift and my body reminds me that I had forgotten to eat dinner. The kitchen refrigerator is unsurprisingly empty aside from beer nowadays so I set out to the twenty-four hour grocery. I lock my front door and start walking, straight to the staircase. I found out that four floors worth of stairs go by quicker than walking down the long corridor and waiting for the elevator. At least, that's what I tell myself. I exit the staircase lobby at the first floor and I walk to the grocery store under the sheltered path.

There's something distantly familiar about walking through the neighborhood. There's a sore memory of what it used to be when I moved into the relatively new estate. But now, there's no inkling of a ghost town that it used to be. Even for 3am, there's a faint hint of a livelihood that marks this neighborhood, maybe it's the drunk men merrily cheering or the mellow amber lighting that reminds me of Christmas. I move out from the sheltered path to cross the road, the only instance of which I needed an umbrella but was too unbothered to even regret bringing one. The drizzle accentuates the terrible cold with droplets of mint boring down on my skin and wind shrieking into my face. I finally make it to the grocery store with bubbles of obscurity on my glasses.

"We'll make heaven a place on earth."

The first thing I notice is when I step into the store is the song that's playing. Heaven Is A Place On Earth by Berlinda Carlisle. For a moment I'm whisked away by the song into a dreamlike state and I wonder through the barely empty store aisle by aisle, unhinged of every thought of why I was here. My movement sways in a dull ache that fits the tune and the song morphs and distorts into a familiar and ghastly lullaby that I hum to, still mindlessly walking.

"Ooh, heaven is a place on earth."

The line repeats itself, fading each time, until the music stops. I find myself dazed in a stasis inside the baby care section of the store. My breath once again is pacing and I let out a cry that was building up in me. And I finally realize the song was Dad's favorite song and Mom always sang it to him. I grasp to a faint memory of the both of them dancing in the living room, their faces plastered with a smile that lingers in my mind, the song echoing through the store.

I snap back to reality when I hear a loud thump and someone shouting and I become aware of the low drilling sound of rain. I take a peak from the shelf to see a guy wearing an apron next to the cashier with a sack of flour on the floor. He hurriedly leaves after paying. He clumsily walks outside of the store, with the sack of flour on two sides, clearly having trouble with is balance but makes it out of sight. Eventually, I find my way to the food aisle to get instant cup noodles and I leave the store after paying.

I instinctively dash over the road again, returning to sheltered path, the loud but shallow sound of the drizzle hitting the metal roof zones out any thoughts I have. There's something about rain that leaves a somber but delicate taste in my mind. It reminds me of when I was scared of thunder and would cry whenever it struck. It reminds me of cuddling in bed my parents with them to fall asleep. It reminds me of distraught and cacophony. It reminds me of peace and relief.

I pass by the bakery just before my block which seems to have started baking. It must be 5am by now. The whiff of fresh bread rises above the pleasant yet dreary smell of ozone. The bakers were a couple who were close to my parents, they had always gave us the leftovers for Dad to pick up after work and we were always to first to try out if they decided to bake something new, something that hasn't happened in years now. There's something calming about this faint and very distant but nostalgic smell that drives goosebumps down my back.

I finally make it back to the void deck below my block and I notice that my wet bicycle is locked up in the bicycle parking. Tommy must be home. I skirt my way past the elevator and into the staircase lobby and climb to my floor and exit the lobby.

"What the fuck Gabriel?" Tommy's voice is hoarse and sudden and I jump back.

I am too stunned for a reply. Tommy gets up from a wet patch of floor beside me, his clothes are drenched and the stench of sweat mixed with water clogs my nose. He must've been locked out of the house and waiting here for an hour at least.

"Where the fuck were you?" He growled with a vindictive stare.

"I went to get food from the supermarket."

"I was stuck outside for more than an hour, you shithead. Give me the keys."

He snatched at the keys the moment I pulled them from my pocket and dragged himself to the lock. He drops the keys twice without managing to open the lock.

"Do you need..."

"Shut up." He dismisses me just before he opens the lock.

He swings the gate open and barges inside the house going straight for the toilet, leaving a trail of water behind him. I follow soon after. I go to the kitchen, leaving my instant noodles on the counter and boiling water in the kettle and grab a mop before returning back to the living room. Tommy had started showering and had discarded his clothes in a soaking pile outside the toilet. I begrudgingly pick it up and throw it in the washing machine before returning to mop up the trail of water.

For a moment, there is peace again. The darkness outside is something I haven't noticed until now. I look outside the window, past the dim reflection of the kitchen light, past myself and I see nothing but a gloomy purple that cascades everywhere. I see nothing but distant blurs of orange and red and shifting vague lights on the water of the canal. Looking up, I see nothing but smudges of dark pale gray that blocks the sky. There are no stars out tonight. And strangely yet, that comforts me. The idea that the dark just blankets the things we see, but in reality, they are still there. There exists things beyond the dark that we cannot see. And in duality, there exists thing beyond the light that we cannot see.

The kettle boils and whistles me over to the kitchen, I open the cup of instant noodles and pour the boiling water in, leaving the lid on to let it cook. I bring the cup back over the the dining table and sit on the couch, looking outside at the road once more. There are more light in the distance now, but the rain which has intensified leaves it indistinguishable, the occasional flare of lightning blooms the obscurity.