I stood beside the open coffin, looking at the face of the man I had been married to. Our marriage had taken place months ago in this same chruch and now I was back here, this time with him lying stiff and cold.
But, I wasn't the young widow you would expect. In fact, I was very far from it. I watched the coffin with a raised brow and clear eyes, with no traces of tears in my eyes.
It had been an arranged marriage back then. None of us liked each other, or even wanted to give each other a chance. We ignore each other at home, and when I mistakenly crossed his path, he made sure I never did it again.
I remembered the first time we went out together before the marriage, and we ordered food at a French restaurant. I was eating, since none of us felt like saying anything to the other, we had completely given our food all the attention. Until he suddenly stood and asked for the bill.
The waiter came with the bill and he paid it, then looked up at me.
"Finish your meal and go back home." He said and started to walk away.
He didn't go too far when I suddenly blurted out, "I like science," I said.
It was true. The entire concept intrigued me, and even though I hated this just as much as he did, I wanted to at least not be stuck with an enemy for the rest of my life.
I thought it would be nice. His late father was a renowned scientist who I never met since he apparently died before the arrangement, and I thought it would feel nice to know his wife to be was interested in it too.
"That just makes you even worse," He answered to my surprise. By the time I turned, he had already made it out the door.
That was when I knew that it was all hopeless. Trying to get close to him was hopeless. The very thing I didn't want to be bound to was what he wanted to bind me to and I had no objections.
Now he was dead from an accident on a rainy night. I had been surprised that my young, merely 25 years old, healthy husband was suddenly dead, but the sadness was the part that I failed in. I just couldn't muster any of it, it was almost like hearing that a complete stranger was dead. Except the complete stranger this time was my husband.
After the wake, I left the church, my fatigue getting the best of me. I walked away, knowing that the house would be empty. Almost the same way it had been even while he was around. Empty. loveless. Dark. It wouldn't be too hard to handle.
I got home and changed fron the black attire to a light night gown, and lay in bed, my palm supporting my head. The lustre of the mansion did nothing to make it habitable, and it was when I lay in bed that night, that the tears fell down in torrents.
I dropped the rose into the grave as the coffin was lowered, six feet under. That was the end of it. My marriage, my husband and the life we had built. A life of silence, but a life nonetheless.
I stayed back, long after everyone left. His mother, my mother in-law, Mrs. Catherina was bedridden as she had fainted from the news of the sudden death of her son. Some had gone to stay with her at the hospital, while non-family members had gone back home.
He, and everything he used to be was now only a cold stone. Nothing else.
"Do you really think so?"
A hoarse voice said next to me as I heard the small beating sound of a walking stick. I looked up to the person that had spoken, but he was not someone I knew. He was old, and had a smile that boldly said, 'I know something you dont.'
"Do I really think what?"
He shrugged. "That this is the end?" He asked.
"Is it not? Will he be in bed tomorrow morning when I wake up looking at me like I forced him to marry me?"
"Have you really never loved him?" He asked. "He is such a sweet person."
"He probably was, but not to me."
"Is that why you never tried? Because he wasn't nice to you? What if you couldn't see the flip side of the coin?"
I smiled and clasped my hands together. "I don't need to see the flip side. I saw the side he chose to show me. That's what's important."
The old man smiled, and turned to leave, unintentionally dropping something from his pocket.
"You left something." I said, making no move to pick it.
"I don't leave things behind. I gave it to you."
I sighed. "By throwing it down on the floor?"
"You can step on it if you want," He said with a nonchalant shrug. His expression hardened however, as he pointed a finger at me, as if about to warn me. "But be careful. The threads of time are not to be stepped on like that. They can glitch too."
I rolled my eyes. "I get it now. You left a nursing home, didn't you?"
He chuckled. "No. It's a little easier."
"What?"
"Its a little easier to run from a nursing home than from the past, and the future and the present. Don't do anything to put yourself in this race. Or you'll find yourself running forever."
I watched him as he walked away, and I looked down at the thing he had dropped. It looked like a small digital calendar, reading January 4, 2015. The day I entered college. I rolled my eyes and walked forward, stomping on it.
I heard the glass break under my feet, but also felt the shock reverberate through my leg, even though I was wearing shoes. I immediately moved my leg, frowning down at the now broken calendar.
I turned and left the grave side, as eerie rain cloud gathered in the sky.
That day, I lay in bed again, this time with a dizzying headache. I was happy about it, though. It kept me from thinking of how hard my life has been even though I had everything. The loneliness in my heart seemed to swallow it up, and was still hungry for me. My soul. And every time I lay in bed, I felt it gnawing away. Very slowly, I drifted off with the darkness.
"Congratulations!" There were a lot of voices, and I closed my eyes tighter, trying to go back to sleep. Yesterday's headache had been almost surreal, and it made me feel like I was falling through my bed into a darkness. I needed this sleep.
"Hey, wake her up." I heard a familiar voice say, and someone suddenly started shaking me.
If it isn't that my husband's grave has been dug up and his corpse went missing, I would gladly rip the head of the person that woke me up.
When I opened my eyes, in place of the mansion I and my husband shared before his death, I was in somewhere different. Somewhere that looked like the apartment my parents had bought for me on my 18th birthday, right after I finished high school towards the end of 2014. It had happened to be close to college then, and I moved in once I made my choice of a college. Some weeks later, I was accepted.
I sat up, throwing the familiar pink sheets off me, my brain going blank. Did my husband's family throw me out or something? But, I would have remembered that, right?
Bernice was leaned to my height, a large smile that threatened to split her face into two graced her face.
"Ber...Bernice?"
"Of course, its me! The college accepted you, and you didn't think we were gonna throw a party?"
"College? What college?"
Bernice furrowed her brows. "You didn't have too much wine, did you? You sound drunk. The college of your dreams, Karla. Your dreams are coming true!" She exclaimed as Kate and Bonnie echoed, joining her as they circled around my bed.
These were people that I haven't seen in at least three years since we finished college in 2019, especially since Bernice, the group's general friend left the country immediately after graduation.
"Wait. Bernice? I..I haven't see you in...years."
Her brows furrowed. "Years? Do you perhaps mean last night?" They all laughed as she balanced the cake on my bed beside me.
"Bernice." I said. The fact that I was talking to her itself a surreal fact, and the fact that they were all here... "What is..the date? I mean, today's date."
"It's January 4, 2015."