“For whom are those flowers?”

“Yours.” She held three of them on her hand and held them out. They seemed new and all were in full bloom. They were not hers. They were given to her.

“That’s not mine. I’m here. Why are you giving me flowers?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. They told me to. They’re pretty — pink and white. You’d like them. I know you like pink and white.”

“Well, you can have them. I don’t want them. I don’t want flowers.”

She didn’t want them either. Frowning, she threw them inside the pit. It was dark and it seemed cold — but it was not too deep. She saw where the flowers fell. “At least they won’t be wasted.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because bugs eat them. Or they become fertilizer. Either way, the worms will have them. So it’s OK.”

“Ah! That’s good! They must have cost a lot though.”

“You think so?” She felt a bit guilty. Perhaps she should not have thrown the flowers away. She probably should have given them back — or to someone else.

“Yeah, they usually do.”

She stepped back.

“Wait! Are you going now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I just have to go back there. But when they start going, I’m going, too. I have to go home with Mom and Dad.”

“Can I come?”

“Alright.”

“Are you going home soon?”

“I hope so.”

————–

It is hot. It is hot inside the house, inside the room, and outside on the porch. The air is warm and everything is sticky and the skin beneath her clothes is wet. She rolls, rolls on the marble floor because it is the only thing that is cold — and even it is not enough, because she gets tired of rolling. So she stops for a while, closes her eyes, and stretches on the hard marble floor.

She is bored, and it is still hot.

Pushing herself up, she sighs. What to do, where to go? There is nothing inside the house. She scrambles towards the door — no, to the attic first. She clambers up the stairs then towards the attic, ignores the simmering heat because up here it is hotter. First she opens the window to let in some of the wind (but, there is no wind. Just bright, bright sunshine, which is already everywhere, and with the air it is reduced to a suffocating villain. Why won’t it rain instead?) Second, she pulls down boxes at one side of the wall. It is hot outside; maybe it is a good time for a picnic. So she looks for a blanket — the perfect kind for picnics — and finds one that is full of lines crisscrossing each other. She runs down the stairs, grabs a pillow from the sofa in the sala, walks straight into the kitchen, takes the Gardenia from the pantry, then runs outside to the garden.

She runs barefoot because she never bothered with slippers. If she never wore them then, why look for them now? The grass pricks the base of her foot; for a second she stops. She shakes her head, ignores the grass, and tries to find the perfect tree to spread her blanket and lay her pillow and lie under. The garden is huge — there is so much green and so very few of the other colors. There are no red roses, no orange or pink gerveras, or purple orchids. The edges of the ferns are a golden brown, burned by the heat, though not completely. There are weeds that grew profusely among the landscaped plants. They seemed to sprout anywhere from nowhere.

She finds a tree — finally. It is a santol tree, with a few of its fruits fallen on the grounds. She kicks them away from the spot she chose, spread the blanket out, and tossed the pillow in. She lies down on the blanket and props her head on the pillow — but she sits up almost immediately. The blanket was too thin and the grass too prickly. Their tips slightly nicked her arms and legs and her back. Irritated, she pulls the pillow and arranges it vertically before lying on top of it. Her back is bent, she is not entirely comfortable, but lying on the pillow was better than lying on the grass beneath it.

For a few minutes she stares at the sky. The sun’s rays are blocked slightly by the leaves and branches of the tree, therefore it was not blinding to look at the sky. She tries to imagine shapes and creatures from the cotton-like clouds. A horse, a dragon, a baby, something that looks like the face of Jesus…and then she could not see anything else.

She wishes it would just rain so she may see lightning. Maybe lightning would strike the ground and there would be fire and that would be something. It is more interesting than a normal day like this.

“What are you doing?”

She wrinkles her nose and brings her eyebrows together, thinking. “Nothing,” she says finally. She pulls open the plastic that contained the bread, takes a piece, and puts it between her teeth. “Eating.”

“That doesn’t sound very fun.”

“It’s not. But I like it.” She swallows. She munches again and she swallows.

“Can I have some?”

“No. You’re already eating,” she says, pulling the Gardenia closer.

“Where’s everyone else?”

“There’s no one else. There’s hardly anyone else in the house except me,” she says bitterly. “I hate it.” She rolls over and falls from the pillow. “The maid is there but she’s not.”

“You don’t make sense!”

“You don’t either,” she says flatly.

“Why should I?”

She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she buries her head beside the pillow — between it and the ground.

“It’s hot.”

“I know that already!” What is the point of saying a universal fact? It’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot — even the maid must be thinking the same thing!

“You know what? Let’s do something fun!”

She rolls over. “Like what?” she asks in an excited whisper, even though she already knows. She doesn’t wait for an answer. She pushes herself up and runs to the side of the house where the faucets are. She opens three of them gleefully and runs back to the garden, clapping her hands as she sees the sprinklers going around and around and around, throwing water every where.

“You should have thought of this sooner!”

“I should have looked for my slippers.”

“Forget it!”

And so she does. She ignores the grass on her skin, the grass under her feet, and skips around one of the sprinklers, as if dancing to ask the gods for rain. However, the weather is just the opposite. The clouds clear up and once again, sunlight harshly touches her skin.

“It’s still hot!” she complains. She hates the sunlight and wishes that it were night instead. How long before the sun sets, anyway?

“It doesn’t matter if the sun is out. Open your mouth and let’s see that tongue!”

She does. She opens her mouth and pushes her tongue out as she runs around. She catches droplets of water with it. She runs around the garden, mouth open and tongue out, catching water here and there. She goes back to her blanket to get a piece of bread and skips with it, not minding if it becomes wet, and eats it.

“Eeeww! Wet bread! That’s disgusting! You don’t have to eat it!”

She shakes her head, sticking her tongue out. “Nuuuuh. It’s not! It’s really, really good! It tastes like normal bread!”

“Wet it with your saliva, not water!”

“It doesn’t matter,” she mimics.

She’s getting wet but she doesn’t mind. It’s better, with the heat of the day, that she takes an outside shower with the sprinklers.

“It should! Look! Even your picnic place is ruined!”

She glances at the direction of the santol tree and goes to it. The blanket is wet, the pillow is wet, and the plastic of the Gardenia is wet.

She laughs. “But I’m wet too!”

“Aren’t you annoyed you’re wet?”

“It’s summer! Why should I be?”

“Do you want to play?”

She shakes her head, “Nah, I’m already tired.”

She lies down on the blanket again, rolls over and over it — rolls thrice — before she stops to lie still for a few seconds. Her breathing is fast and her chest rises and falls. She watches it until it becomes more even.

“It’s still boring, isn’t it, even with the sprinklers?”

She sighs as she’s been sighing all day. “Yes, but I had a bit of fun. It’s just tiring. But at least we’re wet. It doesn’t feel so, so hot anymore.” She pulls the pillow to lie on it but it is lumpy. It somehow lost its softness with the water. “Gah! The pillow’s bad!”

“Forget it! Don’t sleep!”

“I’m not. I won’t.” She takes another slice of bread. It is her third. “You’re not hungry anymore?”

“Just a bit. I just like the taste of bread, y’know.”

“Hm? Me too.”

“Get up!”

“No,” she drawled. “I’m tired of all that running. Just stay and lie down. Aren’t you tired?”

“No. I’m bored.”

“I’m always alone and I’m still doing things. Stuff. Think of some stuff to do.”

“Don’t you hate it though, that you’re always alone?”

“I do! You don’t have to ask!”

“Alright! Alright!”

A minute passes before a question is asked again. “It’s summer. Why are you at home? Shouldn’t you be going on outings or summer classes or—”

“Shut up! You’re getting noisy!”

“Why are you always asking me to shut up and stop asking? Why don’t you?”

“Because this is my house and my garden!”

“This is mine too!”

“Liar!” she growls. “I hate you!”

“Ha! Ha! Do you really hate yourself that much?”

She tosses the pillow. It is heavy with water and it doesn’t get far.

“You can’t even throw a pillow!”

She’s angry — angry and very, very frustrated. Why can’t she do anything right? Why is she always left at home? Why was there no one else to play with?

She buries her head on the pillow, which she has just put on her lap. Her knuckles are turning white and she was grabbing onto the pillow too hard. She starts to sob as she buries herself further and further —

————–

It was summer and yet people were in black. They were gathered in a field, drowning their complaints about the heat of the sun in silence. The sky was so clear and blue with only spots of clouds to dot the vast emptiness of it. Everyone knew it was hot, everyone wished there were more clouds, everyone wished it would rain instead — nothing else is needed to be said about it.

The voice of the priest echoes in the field. Someone recited a eulogy. A woman was crying. Her cries turn into sobs and then into wails. She was holding onto a casket and only when it was time to bring the casket down did her husband pull her away. She stepped back reluctantly and pulled fresh handkerchief from her pocket. She did not stop crying. The tears came and came and came as the casket was rolled down the pit. Her husband was hugging her. He could not say that it was fine — it was not. The second time was worse.

Everybody pitied the woman and her husband.

“That was their second daughter, you know?”

“First the younger kid. Now the eldest.”

“Poor couple! I wonder what they did to receive such bad luck!”

“You don’t need bad luck for anything like this to happen. Everyone has their time!”

“But that poor girl…those poor girls.”

“Having all the money in the world doesn’t really mean you get happiness along with it, I suppose.”

“Shhh!”

Everybody took turns to throw in flowers before the soil was used to cover the grave. Most of them were pink and white.