mOon burns

the mist, the fog, the hollow view of

the lake: somehow take a

bit of breathe from the

breezy afterthought

often blown beyond

mortal recognition

of beauty and

concealed caverns of magma

beneath an azure

sheet reflecting a

cloudless afternoon

on the eve of

a full moon

poised to burn

spirits left

out in the cold

to moisten

up the night...

01.

A dried kakawate leaf strayed into the peebled patio as a sudden balmy breeze sweeps it up to linger into the late afternoon air. Amused Bettina smiled at herself as she bowed into the cup of tea she had been nurturing for the longest time. The brew smiled back just as when the leaf swirled half-past her hair and into the cup's brim. She blew it off instinctively but it boomeranged at her face. She gleefully chuckled through it all when a scream echoes into the garden.

"Armaggedon! Armaggedon!" The voice was crisp but muffled. Cleo was having a fit again. It sure was going to be a long and boring early evening again, Bettina mused. Cleo , a New York socialite-for-hire had come to seek for some peace, not just of mind but for the world as well. A piece of peace to fill into the chasm of guilt she was helplessly hanging on with if only to redeem her sanity from loosely falling out into the edge. The woman that she was wasn't really enough to smoothen up the rough that was on the surface after she got acquitted for commiting parricide. She pleaded guilty but the insufficiency of evidence led the jury to believe that her husband's death was accidental. Nothing was left of her after seven years of battery and masochism. The day she murdered Bill , her American husband she knew she would immensely miss him and the angst led her into a periodic demented rage. She had come to reach down and dig into her roots. Perhaps the sound of familiar voices and the scent of it all eventually was to heal a wound deep into the heart of her soul.

"Yes! Yes! Indeed Cleo dah'lin!" Bettina beamed at her cousin who was rushing toward her. "Indeed no one escapes armaggedon, now freshen up get ready for dinner" She nonchalantly tailed on. Cleo miraculously sobers upon being informed that dinner was in a few. She blindly walks into the doorway, Bettina still amazed with the effect of the magic word takes a long lingering look at the mess that had become of her once ravishingly beautiful cousin.

"Cleo, don't you think its rather impulsive of you to marry a man you hardly know?"

"Nonesense. When i look into his deep blue eyes, in an instant he reveals his whole being to me! It was love at first sight"

"It is really a nonsensical principle, you know, what if he is a con-artist? someone who can easily conceal the devil within... what if he comes from Transylvania?

"You're just not a a dead romantic, you will never understand all these things happening inside of me!"

The conversation echoes into Bettina's memory. It was totally ridiculous that Cleo decided to marry a man she casually met in Boracay. She confessed that his mere gaze moistened her down, sending devils back to hell. He was black and fat, somebody she thought Cleo would never be sexual about. But then the woman was basically driven by her inherent gullibility. Afterall, Sandra, her mother, somehow influenced her intense dependence on the blissful gifts that mindless and impulsive acts of the emotions brought forth. Unmarried , until her death at fifty a decade ago, Cleo's old lady drifted through the continents and men, and well, women too. But that's an entirely different story. Tales have it that Bill's perversion was extremely intriguing for Cleo ; so much that they seemed to be a perfect pair , an affair matched by hell's fury. Blessed if not damned by satan himself as they later concluded. On end for years, nothing was heard of her cousin. Bettina, while she travelled a lot tried seeking her out but to no avail. As a matter of fact she only got wind of the whole fiasco when word came that after Cleo's release from detention and the subsequent deportation did she realize that the family decided (without really consulting her) on making her a keeper of sorts of a broken doll. It all came upon the titas and titos that Bettina's East Mendez estate in Tagaytay suited to be best for a badly disheveled spirit. But after six months, nothing of any progress can be spoken of so far.

"Bill came last night, in my dream that is, and asked if I cared to join him in San Diego" Cleo narrated in between gulps of squash soup. "I told him he had to ask for your permission first". "Well, I'm sorry dearie, I don't dream anymore" Bettina sarcastically shot back. " He's been dead for a time now , don't you think you should give yourself a favor by letting go of your episodic dreams? Cleo glassly gazed at her and nothing was heard of her the rest of the evening.

The therapist who escorted Cleo assured them that hers was a rare case and oddly a painful one. No violent streaks, no self-destructing fits. And that most of the time , lucidity encumbered her. The 'crime' momentarily shook some sectors and pure sympathy poured in. The 'crime' , whoever owns a version of, can only be had for its demerits.

The moon was high over Tagaytay. It waxed away as the city froze in an awed mist lurking from the shadows into Bettina's impeccable garden...