And so I woke up from my dream, a dream that was grand and elusive. The sounds of the orchestral nature of my world led me open my eyes. So clear, so much clear was the beauty of my world as I gazed savoring the sweet smell of the winds that blows my skin with a color which is close to purple.
The moment of my being was interrupted when I heard the church bell ring. A few moments more and I heard the voices but the loudest I heard was the sound of hundreds of feet clustering. The church bell stopped; I suddenly pick the strings of my old guitar as my fingers glide through the rusted strings. I try to make the four strings of my guitar sound like a normal six-string, as I heartfully sing the melodic arrangements of my compositions. Next that I hear is the melody of what gives me life everyday – the sound of chimes smoothly landing on my precious rough-edged tin can. They were of intervals. Clink, pause. Clink, pause. I paused for a while and wiped the tears gliding down my face as I held my eyes closed. Then again, I came back to reality that what these eyes can see is black, only black – purely everything black.
Suddenly I heard the quietness of everything. I knew it is time for me to leave the place to yet again go on my journey in search of something. My arm extended to pick my crutches and my left hand lifted my precious tin can to place the musical dimes on my large pocket by my left chest. My guitar I raised to hang on my back. Dare I stand, feeling my left leg too much lighter than my right… that’s when I recalled that for years I had been living with just a single leg.
I am going to travel and journey to the lands of the merchants where I could trade these musical dimes for a piece of life. Each time I journey, it makes me tired, too much tired that in my mind I feel I have walked a thousand miles. One thing I am troubled about is that I have to make sure the sounding of the church bells never get far.
It is usually like this, I, trading all my musical dimes for a piece of life which lasts only for a day. At times I do not get enough of dimes that I often skip a meal of the piece of life so I could have it the next morrow.
My day goes by without a change as to these everyday folds. Everytime it bells for over eighteen consecutive times after the cold air blankets everything around… it gives me an apprehension that night is here to fall. I lay my head on a stone by my fireplace – where candles are lighted by people who pays vigil. The scents of the burning candles just by my head as they cover me warm till morning. This is where I live a life, behind these walls of this Roman Catholic Church.
Each time I’m laid with these insomniac demons cluttering trying to corrupt my sleep, as my body folded as if I am wearing the cold of the night, I hear the damnation of this cruel world. The loud cry of people saying I am a disease, that I should die and be in hell with the demons where I belong. Is it true that I have sores in my flesh? Each time I touch my skin, all I feel is the smoothness of me like silk. They say I am garbage, that I smell like the dead rats of the red lagoons. I believe them not! What I know is I smell like the sweet scent of the flowers of the Orient. Many say I am a devil, too dirty to be living… that I look like a dead man. But I do not believe them, I am not dead… I am alive, I am living. Though I resist to believe, still I cry inside… I mourn… I weep. It feels really bad how it is to be damned, to be mocked and be laughed at. One said, pity on me for I am the poorest of the poorest. No! I am not! I am the richest of the richest there ever would be.
At times I sing along with my guitar and I am being watched by people of arrogant innates… I feel lifted. That I am on a stage witnessed by hundreds showcasing the gift I only have. Applauded by their tokens of dime. I am not poor… I am not ugly…I am not sore…I am not a devil, I am just somebody who was born to be like this. Born to be such like this.
I knew not my mother. I knew not my father. I do not have a family. All I know is the me of who I am. I even knew not when I was born. Never had the chance to see the beauty of my reveries. I knew nobody. I knew no love. I wasn’t loved…I was never loved.
Is it my choice to be born as this? Never was my choice to be blind. Never was my choice to be poor. I knew not who to blame! There is nobody I could blame! What I know is, soon I am to leave. I would soon leave. I would bid goodbye to my audiences. What I know is that when the time comes that I am through with this suffering, there is Someone who would clothe me with robes of silk and of golden lining. I know when I leave this sanctuary of burning candles, Someone would shelter me on a city of stone temples and of golden streets. I know someday when I am through with this hunger, there is Someone who would let me eat the bread of life and would let me drink from the cup of life so I would hunger and thirst no more. I know the moment I breathe my last, there would be Someone who will carry my spirit and comfort it with the highest form of love. I know it would soon be done… I will wait and wait till it is time...untill that Somebody comes...until HE - my saviour soon comes.
Originally published at TRIOND.com