In
every story, there is a protagonist and an antagonist. And
in the end, the good will always wins the bad: The knight will slay the dragon,
the angel will beat the demon, even the good old office guy will get the girl
instead of the evil used-to-be-popular hunk.
But maybe
not in this story.
I’ve learnt
from a certain man that sometimes you fight the bad guy for so long, you end up
becoming the bad guy who realizes he was so wrong. Maybe, an angel wasn’t
always an angel. And likewise, maybe a demon wasn’t always a demon. Things
happen and people change. And I guess that’s not too bad.
The more
obvious angel though, in this story, would be my friend Frank.
No, no —
“Friend” is much too much an understatement. Frank was my neighbour, my
brother, my family. Frank was the brother I never had. We weren’t tied by
blood. We weren’t tied by bonds. We just two souls intertwined by the hands of
Fate. A dead knot. Never to be removed.
The
first time I met this
dear fellow was on a night I could not remember. I had awoken on this strange
grass patch, before me a barren land with absolutely nothing.
Except this
man.
He was
dressed in a peculiar manner, almost like Charlie Choplin. Clothed in a crisp new
suit, complete with a black bowtie and a bowler hat, stood a fair man about six
foot two. The gentleman approached, trudging up the muddy hill towards me, with
his weight resting on a similarly-colored umbrella cum walking stick.
“My
goodness, Missy, are you doing alright?” he asked while pulling out a neatly
folded handkerchief from his brest pocket and offering it to me. For my tears,
that is.
That night, Father
had been long gone on another one of his business trips. He always went for
long flights to faraway lands, meeting new people, making deals, deals and more
deals. Working hard to earn money: That’s his job. So I had kind of gotten used
to him not being around much. After all, he was doing it for the family.
Mother
on the other hand was glued to the tele outside. She had probably been marking
math workbooks meanwhile. She is a great multi-tasker really: marking one
question whilst watching a television series, grabbing a drink, checking emails
on her Blackberry… The amount of things she did at once! She was a math teacher
and taught upper primary students. Sure, she didn’t have to travel and all. But
that didn’t make her any less busy.
And
that didn’t give me more attention either.
While they were both
immersed
in their own worlds, I had been running a fever possibly as high as the
Saharra. Or at least, to a four
year-old me, it had reached a
temperature of which I felt the need to settle my funeral arrangements.
It
had been a cold and wintry night. As I cuddled in the bed with my armada of
soft toys, for once, I didn’t feel any safer. Lightning flashed and thunder
rumbled. If there were anything I was frightened of as a child, it’d be that
duo.
Father
wasn’t around (as always). Mother occupied with her extreme multi-tasking. I
was on the verge of tears, shivering, silently crying and just really darn scared. Out of the blue, in the
darkness, I heard a little voice. A soft yet loud “psst” sound, like how you’d
signal to someone but don’t want to be heard.
“Psst…”
It went again. I slowly pulled down the covers, just a little past below my
eyes. I scanned the room in the darkness for the source. Lo and behold, it was
this little glowing face in the lights. “Don’t fret child, I will be here to
protect you…”
He
smiled the kind of smile one would only see once or twice in a lifetime,
comforting and calming. “If you’re scared, just look to me. There’s no need to
worry. I’m here. Wipe up those tears dearie, you look beautiful that way.”
I
giggled a little and lifted the blanket to dry off my face. I must have stared
at him forever. His eyes lighted up the
dark dark room. His nose, it kind of crinkled every time he laughed. It kind of
made me laugh too.
“Just
close your eyes, little Miss. Imagine a new world. Safety from everything.”
Back
then, I was a relatively religious kid. I believed, that night, that I had met
God. I mean who else could have been so kind to rescue me from this torment at
such a timely hour? I squeezed my eyes tight shut and when I opened them again, everything was like he said: The rain,
the thunder, the lightning, the fear, the feeling of abandonment — Gone, all gone.
At
that moment, I felt as if I was Alice who had fallen down the rabbit hole
except that there was never a hole to ever fall down except deep deep into my
consciousness. That, of course, was when I caught sight of the gentlemen coming
up the muddy hill.
“My
goodness, Missy, are you alright?” he inquired while offering me a handkerchief
from a breast pocket on his coat. Due to my relatively slow reaction, and
inability to operate due to extreme confusion to what the hell was happening, he dabbed my tears for me.
I
honestly cried even more because no one had ever been so kind to me. (And also,
I’d always seen adults cry under the prescence of God, so I thought it was only
right of me to do the same.) It might not seem like much to you, but what he
did, it meant the world to me.
Being
the only child, I followed my parents everywhere, including their occasional
social gatherings. In those parties, I was the only kid there, so I had only
the adults to mingle with. I tried, of course, talking to them and trying to
sound smart. But I was tired of pretending.
Pretending
to be smarter than who I am; Pretending to be older than who I am; Pretending
to be happier than who I am. That
little magic trick I carried with me well into my teenage years and I believe
many people still carry it with them till present.
But
with him, I could be all me.
All of a sudden, the formal
gentleman, with his suit now slightly soiled, jumps to his feet. “Oh forgive
me, dear Miss, how rude of me,” he says, removing his bowler hat, “My name is
Frank. And yours?”
He
bows down with his hat in front of him like how those royal princes do at posh
parties. I try and curtsey but all I have is a T-shirt and shorts, so it ends
up looking a bit funny. “Karina,” I giggle, just as he places his bowler back
on his mop of blonde hair.
He
beams as he hears my name and that makes me beam as well. Slowly but surely, we
began to talk. Though it started of with explanations of why I was crying, the
conversation slowly bloomed into a diverse range of topics.
He
became, indirectly, my father when my real
father was absent. He became my
“trusted adult” who I could freely talk to about anything and everything
that bothered me. I loved Frank, and I knew he loved me. “And that is all that
matters,” he’d say. ”Nothing can ever tear us apart.”
He
was my silent guardian angel.
“Watch this,” Frank announced, as he closed his eyes and
stretched his hands out towards the empty land. Within seconds, a small shoot
was visible in the ground. In another few moments, it grew and grew and grew,
so much I thought it would’ve touched the sky (though it didn’t).
My
eyes widen as the small shoot bursts into branches and leaves and into the
tallest fig tree I have ever seen. Standing forty metres and strong was a fully
grown fig tree, bred with nothing but imagination and will power.
I
gasped.
“Yeah,
you try! You could build my house!” He encourages, sounding like he believes in
me. I stutter and retort, try to cancel the deal, because obviously I don’t
believe in myself. I never have. And probably never will have reason to.
But
then he smiles that cheeky smile, the one that’s secretly whispering that ‘no’
ins’t an answer.
