Chapter III: Daydreams and Eleven Years of Forgetting

Chapter III: Daydreams and Eleven Years of Forgetting

“You crazy Timbreza, get down from there!” a lovely voice reached the hearing of Berto Timbreza from behind as he was maneuvering his way up his neighbor’s bricked abode. He peeked to see the top and looked for his tsinelas, which he had carelessly thrown up into the roof to avoid carrying them. Found one, where’s the other one?

“Hoy! Someone might see us!” the voice continued, muffled at best, but still very lovely. But Berto, who found excitement in doing daring things just to gaze at the eyes of beauty, was too close to his prize to let caution cloud his goal. He raised his left leg against a loose, misaligned brick and pushed himself up into the roof. His weight gave humble metallic sounds of grinding sins that were immediately contained by his careful movements as not to alarm his neighbors. 


He stood up as if an expression of victory; breathing in the cool night breeze that hauntingly crept through the town. He kept himself low, coming to his senses, remembering what the guardias in this city did to robbers. He slowly walked towards the edge of the slightly tilted roof with the care of a cat, his tsinelas in one hand and his other hand supporting his weight, and with all 3’s he made his way to where that lovely voice was calling him. Slowly he peered out his head, looking down, already smiling.

“Come on up, uh..” He stopped, confused.

Nobody was there. He scratched his head.

He could almost swear that he had come from that direction! Damn it. Where could she have gone? He knelt down and looked ahead into the dark distance; the bricked road far ahead lit only by a few street lamps, the patches of plants that seemed lifeless, an empty street, and countless stars. And for the first time tonight, he felt alone. He gave out a sigh.

I knew this was a bad idea, he thought to himself. He let himself feel the disappointment and pain that comes with being abandoned by a person whom he had thought he loved come to him. And as to any teenager, young Berto felt the pain of love denied in exponential proportions; something that felt like hopelessness, drunkenness, sometimes even equated equally with death. 

When we are young, these emotions that we go through seem to be more important, and unimportant things bare great weight. We often have problems that seem to matter, and as we grow old we realize this, that’s why there’s the expression: “Sus, bata pa kayo.” The stars that glittered seemed to spread vastly in the dark expanse of the sky, the moon that was full and white, this did not help Berto at all.

He shoved his palms roughly against his face, murmuring, swearing to himself silently.

“Stupid… stupid, stupid!”

His misery was interrupted by a hard knock against the back of his head that gave quite a thud. The object seemed to have flown out from nowhere and hit his head emphatically, sending a jerk of painful surprise all throughout his body. He rubbed the back of his head; he was more surprised than in pain. We all hate being surprised when we feel like we have been wronged by the world. 

“Ohwww…” he whispered, his head urged itself to turn to the source of the object. He thought of prison and what they did to little school boys there. Slowly he turned his head towards his captor. Great, he thought. Oh, there’s my tsinelas!

“You should really watch your manners, Berto. Do you expect a lady to climb up that way?”

Berto could only see her face, down to hear shoulders, and her hands that gripped carelessly on the bamboo ladder that seemed to make a frame for her face. It was that lovely voice again, that familiar and lovely voice that Berto Timbreza had been thinking of ever since he had first laid his eyes on her. Her face was enough to make Berto forget his misery and think of love again, and with nothing to hold him back, he stood, wearing no tsinelas at all, walking towards her, holding out his hand. 

“I am sorry, Kathleen. I guess I have no talent in climbing houses.”

She let her soft and dusty hand touch his, and they both felt that this touch was worth the struggle up. For two teenagers in love, the slightest touch could give so much; butterflies, raised hairs at the backs of their necks, Goosebumps, and sometimes, equating it to forever, in all its glory, assuring them that because their hands fit perfectly with each other, because of this very reason, that they must have been destined, pre-determined by the angels of love, even in some of his strange fantasies, past lovers that overcame the tests of time. Because my hand fits your hand, Kathleen, I love you.

And for the strangest reason, be it the hours of star-gazing, or the fact that they have already been laying down next to each other and felt a certain comfort that was new, be it the talking about anything, from dreams to poetry, their least and most favorite things ever, their seemingly uninteresting topics, they kept them from ever pulling away from each other. It was as if they had so many things to share, with so little time to do it. 

Berto could still see how slowly she closed her eyes and pursed her full, pink lips to kiss his that night. And how quickly the morning came to meet them; the only command that they would heed that it was about that time to go home.