Friday, May 26, 2006
Marionette
Marionette
She enters the kitchen, and begins to cook. Nothing fancy, just enough to sustain her hunger. Besides, she doesn't have the energy--the work in the office has drained her, like a vampire feeding upon her. That is how she pictures her job--a shadowy cloaked creature, large and looming, that suddenly captures her in its vise-like grip. Then, it sucks her blood, ravenously at first; but as her pulse slows, so does the sucking. Slowly but surely, she will die. Like the vampire, this job will kill her eventually. She never wanted it; it was thrust upon her by her over-controlling mother.
However, she had no choice but to take it. Job opportunities are dwindling; her once-close friends who are jobless look at her with secret disdain, their sweet words masking jealousy and bitterness. Somehow though, the bitterness always shows through, like the undisguisable taste of bitter gourd accidentally mixed into a soup. Sharing her frustrations and sense of meaninglessness from her work does not seem altogether possible. So, she grits her teeth, plasters a smile on her face, and asks her female secretary to bring her coffee in the nicest way possible. She has discovered that women do not like bringing other women coffee, and if forced to, will gripe about it behind her back like irritated starved hens. Men are no easier--if they see her acting nice, they call her 'soft'. If she acts like the rest of them, she is called the impolite word for a female dog. Whichever way, she loses.
She has done this for years. Already, she feels old and jaded, even though she is only 28. "Whatever happened to living your dreams?" she once wondered aloud, in the presence of a friend.
With a loud snicker, her friend answered, "Reality check, hun. We work to live our lives, not our dreams. It's just to pay the bills and buy the bread. Have you ever met someone who's happy working? If you do, do introduce me. Hell, I haven't met anyone at all."
She has kept quiet ever since, assimilating herself into the pervasive mundane culture--she cannot escape it. Everywhere she goes, she sees the same gray unsmiling faces, pretentious briskness of walk, as if they can't wait to get through the working hours. But even when they return to their homes on the subway, their faces do not change--still grim, as if they have another battle to fight through in their business suits at home. And so it has been for the past few years. The faces do not change; only their clothes, which get more and more expensive, the richness of its quality contrasting sharply with the paleness of their faces.
Occasionally, a pleasant unexpected event would happen, like an erratic drop of cool rain from a blistering hot sky. A phone-call from an old friend, a sincere praise from her tough boss, or invitations for a coffee or dinner. However, nothing ever came out from those times she spent with men. Her goofy colleagues were a definite no-no, but even the distinguished, well-dressed men introduced to her by well-meaning friends held no appeal to her. There was no spark, no catch of her heartbeat. All they possessed were oodles of cash and credit, which they whipped in front of her when the bills for the expensive dinners arrived. The paper and plastic left her cold. They were no different than anyone else; trapped in prisons of the mundane. What she longed was for someone to liberate her, to unlock the key and give her freedom so that her soul would soar and sing.
She has not found him yet. When she goes to the office, her soul is doing anything but singing. She settles herself into her desk, checks her mail, and gets ready to pick up the phone. After several hours, it is time for lunch, and she heads down to the cafeteria, a tired-looking room with harried waitresses serving food that is edible at best.
"Yo Polly! Over here!" a male voice hollers out to her.
She walks over to a crowded table and puts a bowl of noodles down. The guys have loosened their ties and made the usual dirty jokes. Bill is telling Helen one that appears to be funny, as she throws her head back with laughter.
"So Polly, any dates tonight?" Henry asks, a grin on his face.
"Why? You wanna ask me out?" she replies with a smile. She knows that he is only pulling her leg.
"Hands off her, Hen! She's taken tonight," Helen interrupts, with a wink.
The guys hoot with laughter.
"Ooohh--Polly. Which old fogger wants to grab your butt now? Don't hit him too hard, you just might give him a heart attack!"
Polly rolls her eyes at them, and turns to Helen. "Since when? Don't tell me it's another one of your rich friends. You know I hate them! They're all just so pretentious."
"Hey, I went through a lot of trouble setting them up with you, Polly," Helen retorts hotly, her chubby cheeks turning red. "The least you could do is show some appreciation."
"Sorry," Polly quickly replies. "I didn't mean to sound ungrateful. It's just--you know...they're just not my type."
"Yeah, I know. No worries about it." Helen's anger disappears as quickly as it appeared. "This one, I promise you, is different." A bright smile dances on her lips.
"Really?" Polly remains skeptical.
"Yes, yes! He's intelligent, warm, charming--a perfect gentleman," Helen enthuses. "Not to mention he's got a, ahem, very big..." She glances meaningfully at Polly.
"Big brain?" Polly asks, innocently. Then, she cracks with laughter. "How on earth do you know that? You slept with him before?"
Helen wrinkles her face with distaste. "Of course not. Do you really think I'm that crude? He dated my cousin before."
"But don't worry," she adds, looking at Polly's face. "He's not a womanizer. He's only dated her, and one or two other girls before. Loyalty's his middle name. Another plus for you."
"If he's so great, why aren't you dating him?" Polly asks, raising an eyebrow.
"He's got no dough," Helen replies bluntly. "He doesn't even have a Rolex! How on earth is he gonna maintain me, darling?"
Polly laughs. "I should have known. Only you would look at his bank account above all things."
"Most sensible girls would," Helen says, smiling. "So, do you want to give him a try or not?"
"I suppose there's no harm in it. Go ahead."
As Polly sips her coffee and listens to the details of the date, she tries to suppress a tiny flutter of hope that has sprung in her heart.
Tuesday evening.
Polly is dining in a casual restaurant which serves surprisingly delectable food. A much more pleasant place than restaurants that stink of opulence and the slimy charm of owners who care more about ratings than the needs of customers. To them, the customers are warm-blooded gold stars. This restaurant is vastly different; its warm coffee-colored walls lighted softly with shaded lamps soothe her heart, which has oddly given her the jitters earlier on, as if she were on her first date. Overdressed and desperate to impress. But she is not. Yet, this man, Erik, he calls himself, awakes a competitive spirit in her; one that has lain dormant for a very long time. He is far more intelligent than any other man she has met. That intelligence comes with self-acceptance--not conspicuously boastful, yet, not self-undermining either. It is as if he were an apple acknowledging the fact that it is red.
Polly is sorry to see the end of the evening. At the doorstep, he drops a light kiss on her hand, and drives off. It is only later when Polly realizes that he has not said anything much at all about himself throughout the meal; aside from the occasional duel of words and thoughts over certain issues, Erik was just listening intently to her life stories, which she could not help but pour with such ease.
The next several days pass uneventful. Polly is beside herself with agitation, wishing that he would call. On the outside though, she portrays the same cool impenetrable armor, if somewhat stronger than before. She keeps herself busy by giving orders, and making sure that they are obeyed. Whispers sharpened with hatred grow louder, threatening her further into a corner where she crouches, protected behind a garrison of defense that are armed themselves.
After a particularly difficult day, Polly collapses into her couch, mentally and physically exhausted. The phone rings unexpectedly. It is Erik, asking her out to dinner. Polly cannot hide the smile from her voice as she answers in the affirmative.
As before, Erik listens to her vent her frustrations. Although she tries to dig out more information from him falteringly, she doesn't succeed. Her questions are smoothly deflected with other questions turned at her. Instead of finding out more about him, she ends up revealing more about herself. Small chinks of light begin to appear through the thick stone wall that has protected her all these years.
A longer time period passes before Polly receives another call. This time, Polly accepts the call neutrally, like a steel knife that has been heated, its surface seemingly cool but is in actual fact, holding immense heat. When they dine, Polly shoots all sorts of questions at him--childhood stories, hopes, dreams, failures, expecting empty, pleasant responses. Strangely enough, Erik is open as a book. He answers everything with absolutely no inhibitions; his replies imbued with a passion that Polly has never seen before. It pleases her, yet scares her at the same time. She has had not many wishes come true; so when this one does; it throws her off-guard. She is not sure what she is meant to do with this fulfilled wish.
When he drops her off at home, she invites him in for a drink, half-expecting him to decline. Instead, he accepts, and she pours them both a glass of wine each. They drink in silence; the only sound being the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. The glasses soon empty, and Polly gets up to refill them. He stands up, and pushes her against the wall roughly before she can do anything. Fear reflects upon her eyes instantly. She opens her mouth in protest, and he kisses her in response. Rough and filled with an intense hunger that burns, claws at her heart as it begs to be satisfied. She loses all sense of the outside world; all she hears is the echoing notes of desperation, loneliness and pain, a furious symphony played by two in tandem.
The symphony rises to a crescendo in bed, ending in a magnificent finale. There is no applause; only quick, shallow breaths in the dark that gradually slower, getting into the rhythm of gently beating hearts.
Polly wakes up, but finds the spot next to her empty. He has already left. No note, nothing. She gets to work with an irritating dark cloud in her head, which she tries to brush off. Her feelings are right; he calls three days later, but he is utterly cool and pleasant, like the first time they met. Subsequently, they have met, talked, drank coffee together. Still, the same cool demeanor, heated up by the occasional philosophical debate. Polly tries to protect herself by acting like him--cool and distant. Sometimes though, the already weak defenses would crumble, and she would relate secrets close to the heart. He never judged; he only listened.
Soon, Polly begins to find herself thinking of him in everything she does and says. Before she makes a decision, she would inevitably think of him--his thoughts, and his reactions. Then, she would act wisely, and imagine him being pleased and silently impressed with her. Sometimes, he would act warmly towards her, presenting her with a few rare gems of insight to his being. Then only she realizes that on that fateful night, she never quite asked him enough to know everything. So, she hordes the gems like a miser.
Yet, even with the many gems she holds, she knows that the wall still stands strong between them. The wall that he has crafted with guile; like a mirror in a roomful of mirrors, where one will stumble into glass, thinking that she has found an entrance or exit. He will not probe deeper to discover the hidden corners of her heart, as if he does not care to know her, while she desperately desires to know him. She cannot help it; thoughts of him pervade her actions, his occasionally warm replies delight her, her battles with him of wit and skill with him engage her thoroughly.
Slowly but surely, she loses feeling in her limbs. Polly feels that her control over her mind is slipping from her grasp. The garrison that used to guard her is all but broken, leaving her cold in the open. Naked with no one offering a warm cloak, or even an eye of interest. That was the worst of it all; that she had opened up her heart so willingly to a person who did not care about seeing it, much less cherishing it or holding it safe. The heart begins to lose its vibrant red color; its flesh turns harder, like wood. The fingers and toes are already stiff like cardboard, with strings at the ends to help them move. Polly has become a marionette. And Erik holds the strings.
She stays that way for months, until one day, she decides to cut herself free. She wants to feel again with her own heart, think with her own thoughts, and act unbridled of him. Her friends have noticed how she has changed, and have expressed concern. Even her colleagues have stopped joking with her. Helen herself has drifted off, leaving her alone while hanging out at the bar with the rest of them. Polly is now a recluse.
One day, a small free thought appears in her mind:
I want to break loose.
So Polly begins the painful process of becoming human again. As she starts to cut contact with him, she feels the strings snap, one by one. The skin becomes softer, and flesh starts to materialize. Every memory she keeps physically of him is thrown out with determined hands. The harder memories are those stored in her head. With will power, she manages to erase even those. Now that her head and limbs are fully restored, what is left is her heart. Without that, her flesh remains cold, still like a corpse. She cries when she looks at her damaged heart with all sorts of strings tied to it. It isn't going to be easy, detaching those strings, some of which are thick as ropes.
But, in the end, she manages to detach almost all but one of the strings--the thickest one. Polly remembers the kiss, his uninhibited responses and the connection they shared for one night. That is the hardest to break. With her eyes shut tight, she wrenches off the string, drawing blood. She screams in pain, and then starts to cry, as the blood begins to flow through her body, warming her flesh.
She is now free.
Written at 4:23 AM
