| Fan Fiction |
by Chandra
Ron watched her leave and made no move to follow her. The chaos of her mind was too turbulent. A boiling mass of agony, hurt, and fear. Ron remained where he was for a long time, his head down, and breathing deeply to get through his sorrow. To get through her pain. When Ron touched his face he was shocked at his wetting tears he wept. The event of three nights ago rushed back to him as he was doing nothing to stop the woman he truly loved.
___
The moonlight, brighter than Ron can ever remember, lighted his way along the path, as dark shadows leaked from tree stumps like oil spills. He had been waiting outside in front of her house for endless hours and yet she never appeared. Suddenly, before his eyes, he saw two figures. Ron immediately stood up from the swing and approached them.
In the background Ron heard the owls calling to each other. Their mournful hoots echoed as far as the sound will carry. As he rounded the last bend he can just make out the tree up ahead. And when he was only a few yards away, he was stunned to find a figure leaning into a male’s body, looking peacefully. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for this. Because such things cannot happen. And Ron Ng won’t allow it.
There was something so intimate about the two of them being alone together under the moonlight. It scared Ron; and his blood was boiling as he ran toward them.
___
As Raymond and Tavia walked out of the car, Raymond could see how deeply she was troubled by her mother’s condition. Mr. Su, her father had gone to the hospital after the dinner and had requested him to give his daughter a ride home.
“Are you upset because your mother is sick?” Tavia was amazed at his ability to instantly grasp her deepest, innermost feelings. At the bottom of her heart was one about being inadequate, about being handed a responsibility that she might fail to fight by default.
“You’re not less a person if you do, Tavia. It’s not something to be ashamed of. Everybody feels guilty because it’s not happened to him or her but to the person they love. At first, it’s grief because their loved one is in pain, but then it becomes guilt and they blame themselves.” Tavia unexpectedly gazed at the man beside her. Despite his arrogance and cold attitude, he seemed to surprise her each moment she spent with him. Tavia sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder for she already viewed him as a companion.
“Aren’t you scared about losing someone you love so deeply?” Raymond didn’t answer immediately, and Tavia listened to the sounds of the night as she waited. Insects hummed, and water from the garden pound gurgled.
Raymond wanted to shake some sense into the poor woman or girl, in which he did not know her exact age. However, he knew it was futile for she won’t listen to him because they only met. She thought herself to blame for things she had no control over, but he knew she had to come to that knowledge on her own. The realization had to be more than intellectual; it had to be in her heart, her soul, right where the hurt was.
Tavia suddenly heard rapid of footsteps approaching behind her and Raymond, but she didn’t bother to look around. The sound of heavy breathing followed, and a man crouched roughly at her side. Tavia raised her head, and they faced each other. The light cast by the headlamps was dim. But she would have recognized him even in darkness, and the ability seemed mutual.
Time stopped. The world dropped away, simply disappeared. For a moment no one spoke. Most of his face was in shadows, but Tavia could still see his eyes. They were jealous and furious eyes, and the unexpected rudeness she saw in them pierced her with an almost physical shock.
It seemed a year before he spoke. Ron merely looked at her, ignoring the man stand beside her. His eyes were brimming with something Tavia couldn’t identify – a message that wasn’t deliverable. When finally he did speak, he sounded like a stranger. “I waited for you.”
Before Tavia could protest in words, Raymond who felt the hostility in the air and quickly began to saunter toward his car. “I’ll go now Ms. Su. I’ll see you soon.” He turned and walked to the door, but after he had opened it, he stopped. “Just so you know,” He said calmly, looking at Ron, “During the time of grief, a man should be there to comfort his woman.” The door swung shut behind him. The vehicle known as Celica was already pulling away.
Tavia stood dumbly and mutely for a moment, after which her feet of its own accord carried her to the front door of her house, and her hand reached out and opened it, ignoring the man behind her. His behavior awhile ago was rude and intolerable.
The choking feeling welled up again, but before it could get a hold on her, an outside force interrupted. A gust of wind swirled up onto the porch and snapped the door from her grasp, banging the knob against the inside wall with the force of a mallet.
__
The days flowed past Ruby without measurement. Ruby understood life from perspective of a guinea pig. She was poked and prodded almost every minute. Electrodes on her chest sent her heartbeat to a monitor. Its incessant beeping kept her from sleeping. She felt hot and dried out. The doctor and nurses gave her antibiotics and she broke out in a rash. “Allergic,” the doctor pronounced. She began to swell and the nurses drained fluid from her tissue. They gave her pain medications that made her feel groggy, like she were floating in a sea of taffy. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t think clearly.
Later that night, Ruby began to cry gently, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. She had always prided herself that she had no regrets in life, but she had them now. Whole chapters had surfaced from nowhere, until it seemed that hardly an act had not been the wrong one, hardly an attitude had not been inappropriate. She had thought that she had known where she was going, but in the end she had become totally lost. And the only name that tasted bitter in her mouth was her baby, an infant was not a year yet, and it had to suffer her mother’s deed. “Rain, where are you?” She wept in the dark night. Unbeknownst to Ruby, outside her room, her husband cried in silence as he witnessed the scene in front of him. It had been three days already. Her physical condition had gotten worst and so were her emotions.
__
Rain felt so happy. The feeling lingered, as she walked down the hallway toward Bosco’s office and wondered if this was the magnificence of her life. Bosco had helped her find a job here and she can’t believe she was so lucky to have a job at the hospital, at the front desk counter.
Rain listened to someone’s footsteps follow behind her, and her lungs contracted with the wretched, queer feeling that always preceded a full-scale attack of fear and terror. The kind that she’d succumbed to more in the last few weeks than in the several years preceding. She had no idea how to fight it. She was afraid if there were that some mental patients running around the hospital and if she was unlucky, she might be the victim.
Her heart beat rapidly as Rain turned around. To her relief, she saw no one. However, on the right side of the hallway, she noticed the door was opened. Peeking in, she saw a middle-aged man sit on the bed and stare unblinkingly straight at her.
The man was clearly waging some sort of internal battle – and a piercing one. His eyes flashed a gamut of emotions so rapidly that Rain could hardly register them, and he began to speak several times, only to abort the effort at the least second. Feeling sorry for him, Rain entered the room. And as soon as she did, she regretted because he flew toward her. “Ruby, Ruby….” Rain struggled beneath his hold. She prayed that someone would come and save her. She did not know he was such an insane person.
Behind her, another young man sprinted into her direction. He positioned himself between Rain and the insane man, and moments later, he soothed the frightened man and put him back onto the bed.
Finally, his body relaxed. His eyes became distant, and then the man turned away from Rain and the stranger altogether. When he spoke, his voice was stilted. “I thought you’re my Ruby. You look so much like her”
“I love you, Ruby.” Jimmy’s eyelids closed. Next to his bed, Rain heard the steady beep of the heart monitor turn into a loud whine. She stared, open-mouthed, at the screen where the sharp peaking line had gone flat. The room erupted into a violent whirlwind of activity. Rain shrank against the wall as doctors and nurses rushed through the doorway. No one was sterile. She assumed it didn’t matter. A team of technicians surrounded Jimmy’s bed. Bedcovers hit the floor. “No pulse.” A voice yelled. “I can’t get a blood pressure!” Another shouted. Rain trembled as the room seethed with medical urgency. Over all the activity rose the persistent whine of the heart monitor.
Rain stood there a long moment, stunned. Her eyes gazed at the young man who had released her from Jimmy Li’s grasp and insanity. After Jimmy had cooled down, Rain had found out that he was a doctor, Raymond Lam. She pitied Jimmy’s circumstance after she had listened to Raymond’s tale of the unfortunate man.
Rain swiped at her tears at she felt pitiful for Jimmy’s life. “Rain! Are you all right?” Out of nowhere, Bosco bolted through the doorway, skidded to a halt beside her and gently took her in his arms.
“I got here as soon as I could. What’s going on?” She dissolved into tears again, pressing her face into his suit coat to muffle her sobs. “I’m sorry.” Bosco said over and over, stroking her hair until her tears slowed and her body stopped trembling.
===============================================================
Chandra
06. 05. 07