Timeless Love

I felt anxious about knocking at the door. The same door I left closed more than four decades ago. The luster of its surface had melted away and some flower engravings had been chipped off. I was not sure who would open it and was not sure if I’d be able to recognize them or if they’d be able to recognize me.

I made two hesitant soft knocks, though. I never used the doorbell. The door slowly creaked in. An old woman in a pink duster released the knob in her rheumatic hand and set her eyeglasses up her nose. Her surprised eyes strove to lock with mine. Then tears glistened on her wrinkled cheeks.

I forced a smile although something lumped in my throat. My eyes swelled up with tears, too.

“Kumusta,” I said, my mouth shaking.

Silently, she drew slow steps to me and touched my cheek. I felt her coarse palm. She embraced me, pressing her ear against my chest seemed to convince herself that my heart was beating.

I put my arms around her aged body, feeling her skin rubbed with mine. I felt the crinkles, picturing dark dots of senility on the skin in my mind.

She led me into the living room and offered me a seat. I sat down. The cottony cushion gave comfort to my hand. I waited for her to sit, but she trudged to a door that also had been the door to the kitchen before.

“You haven’t altered the house divisions, Maggie,” I commented.

“No, I haven’t.” Her voice joined with the clanking of a spoon and a cup.

I inspected the house. The once-curtained window to my left was now a wall. The antique flat-screen TV was still plastered upon the wall to my right. Every corner of the living room was adorned with a combination of daisies and chrysanthemums blooming in a light green vase. I looked at the vases and there was a switch on each. The flowers were certainly just holographic displays, but they had no difference from the natural ones. Overhead were ilang-ilang orchids which brightened up the living room. They were anti-gravity stuff, once set in the air would float forever. Across from me was a white wall. It was not really a white wall at all. They have this kind of technology on Monteen.

While I was waiting for her, I remembered two inmates who spent five days in dungeons under Philippine Penitentiary grounds on Monteen because of that technology. They called it compack, obviously, because it is a complete-packaged appliance. It had anything you want for entertainment and comfort. It had a holographic video. A telecom that you could use to communicate in a way that you and the receiver seem just a few inches apart. It also had a monitor of surveillance cameras outside and inside a building or a house. It had air conditioning too. An alarm system that let you know something bad going on in the house. A library that preserved your digital documents and everything you want to store including your favorite digital books from the two-century-old Ray Bradbury classics to the five-decade-old Jean Aphrose romance, etcetera.

On Monteen never was an inmate allowed to touch the compack’s remote control which was always placed on a table near the front of the white wall. It was fenced with laser and only deactivated by a jail guard who would enter the penitentiary lobby. Usually, it was in the morning that the assigned jail guard activated the holographic video to let the prisoners watch the news from Earth. News that had actually taken place fifteen years ago.

During that moment, the jail guard hadn’t yet entered for some reason, but the lobby had been opened for the perspiring prisoners. Air-condition was not yet turned on. That was to conserve energy. Monteen is a planet hotter and smaller than Earth but it supports flora and fauna life. Just like Earth, every living thing gets energy from a yellow dwarf like our sun. But Monteen’s sun is smaller than Earth’s. Thus, penitentiaries and the newly-built cities conserved solar energy practically. Geothermal is limited because the planet’s core is less active compared with Earth’s. There’s hydroelectric but is also restricted since there are only a few wide rivers.

Going back, an inmate from Luzon State desperately rushed towards the compack and snatched the remote from its burning cage. It happened when several of us noticed it. Those near him, including me, saw lots of blood squirting from his sliced arm. Two things lay on the floor, his dead hand and the remote control. He was twisting with agonizing pain.

A close-bearded inmate from behind me leaped down to the remote control and scrambled up. I knew what he wanted to switch on. Lots of sweat had been dripping down since we were in our quarters last night. But, he did not know what button to press. He looked at me, eyes asking for help, but he knew that I also had no idea about it.

The white wall sprung to life. It flickered and gradually began to show a recorded video of building construction. It seemed that the building was the penitentiary, the first time it had been built. Every penitentiary had records of its history, which were put in the compack’s library.

The close-bearded inmate pressed another button. The scene changed to a middle-aged news anchor announcing news fifteen years ago from Earth. The image was cut to a video clip of some agricultural innovation.

There was some bad news. The crime rate had dropped down on Earth, Moon, Mars, and Ganymede since half a century ago. The UN devised a way to achieve it. They implemented the compulsory law in all countries that a tracking chip would be injected into the heart of all newborn infants. It was not dangerous though, putting technology inside your heart. It had gone through thorough research and ever since its inception, no infant has been put at risk. It wouldn’t intrude on one’s private life either because it could only be used to track a crime suspect who tries to escape from authority. Innocent suspects would not worry about it, because an instant trial would be acted upon immediately in local courts as government protocol. Higher courts like the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court no longer exist. They had been in no purpose after Russian scientists invented the crime-detector device a few decades ago on Earth. It’s a local court instrument similar to a small flashlight, connected by infrared to a digital box, which looks like an obsolete laptop. It records the suspect’s memory by way of flashing its beam to the eye. In the digital box, the recorded memory is scanned and reviewed. The new prisoners on Monteen benefited from it.

Now another inmate got near him and seized up the remote. A piece of deafening hardcore music broke in. I looked back to the entrance as the inmates were shouting with complaints. A group of jail guards was coming in. And that was it; the two inmates were locked in the dungeons for a week.

Maggie came back with a tray; a glass of milk on it, a platter of cooked rice, and a basket of fried drumsticks. That was just enough, for I hadn’t eaten Earth-food for twelve years.

“You’ve never forgotten my favorite,” I said, standing up to assist her.

Before I was incarcerated, I had always had this menu on the table after work.

“You’re still very young. Your looks haven’t changed.” She sat down in the chair to my right. I noticed she was keeping her eyes on me.

I took a sip of the milk. She hadn’t forgotten my taste. I sipped and savored it.

“Where is she?” I asked, drawing a handkerchief in my pocket.

“She’s in Manila with her husband and kids.”

I wiped my mouth. I was elated to hear it. “She got kids?”

She nodded. “Three. One boy and two girls.”

Forty-two years ago here on Earth, Milla was still cradled in Maggie’s arms. I too had held her for a very short time in the hands that had worked hard for them. And when I got home from work, Milla’s babble let wane my weariness. Her smile was my strength.

Maggie pulled out something from the pocket of her duster. It was a remote control. She pointed it at the white wall and clicked. The wall flickered.

“It’s Milla’s videos.” She introduced the scene that began to play.

We watched the videos. Milla’s childhood. Her adolescence. A short video of her and Maggie walking in the busy streets of Luna City. Her college graduation. Her first job was as a nurse in Manila Doctors Hospital. And her wedding. Milla looked more like me than Maggie. If we could’ve been together, people might think we were fraternal twins. We also watched my grandchildren’s videos. Maggie was narrating and commenting on the videos. She answered my questions once I asked who those unfamiliar faces were. It took us the entire day to finish them. We smiled, laughed, and shed a few tears.

A short time later, Maggie suggested that we go upstairs to the terrace to get some fresh air. She suggested I hadn’t yet filled my lungs with the air I breathed in when I came out of my mother’s womb and first saw light in my world. She was right. I escorted her up, holding her hand, and supporting her waist.

On the terrace I let her sit first in a wooden rocking chair. Then, I set a steel chair next to her and settled down in it.

We were looking up into the purple sky. The tangerine beam danced over the cities of Samar islands like aurora borealis. The stars in the clear sky had begun to show true lights. To our right, specks of vehicles were moving smoothly above Caibiran City through the skyscrapers. Far away beyond us were passenger spaceships gliding like shooting stars. They had replaced the defunct planes. Then, a cruise ship passed fifty yards above us.

“That’s from Tacloban City bound for Manila City,” Maggie said. “It picks up passengers to Luna City.”

“I haven’t gone to the Moon,” I said. “I heard they have a lot of tourist spots there.”

“Yes, that’s right. In fact, Luna City is now crowded with tourists. Unlike the time Milla and I went there. That was twenty years ago. A required educational tour in her college.”

I felt a sting of guilt. I knew it was a family trip, that fathers must come too. It’s a custom in all colleges in the Philippines, to expose students to space travel and take a view of Earth from the moon, as well as family bonding.

“I’ve preserved your atmosbike.” She changed the topic. I knew she sensed what I felt. “No one has touched it since you were gone.”

“Really?” I glanced over my shoulder at her. “I would like to ride on it again.”

“Can you still fly it?” she said, smiling.

“Maybe.” I chuckled. “Twelve years is not long enough to forget how to operate it.”

She chuckled too.

We were quiet for a short while. The night breeze blew. The rustling leaves around the house got my attention.

“Are they the mangoes I planted?” I wondered.

“Yes,” she responded.

It came back again, that very day I lost my world.

I was working as a grade two teacher in a Montessori school. I was always the last teacher to leave the campus. I stayed working on my lesson plan to be prepared for the next day. At six I should have been riding in my atmosbike heading home, but something made me stay for a while.

I suddenly heard a clatter from somewhere outside. By way of its noise, I could determine it was in a nearby classroom. I thumbed on the digital time clock beside the door and moved out.

A woman’s soft cry filled the air and it made my heart jump. I focused on where the cry came from. There was a stir about. And I was pretty sure it was coming from the principal’s office. I headed there. The soft cry was replaced with a guy’s moan of pleasure.

The door was not totally closed. Someone might have forgotten to thumb it out. I sneaked in. Then I saw an indecent scene as clear as daylight. The principal. His pants and underwear had been pulled down to his knees exposing his butt. He was thrusting against the unconscious body of a woman. Her skirt had been flipped up and her underwear hanging in one leg. Her blouse had been stripped open. Her right arm was swinging freely in the air. His left hand was squeezing her right bosom.

I slowly moved to my right and noticed that he was gripping a knife in his right hand. Its sharp blade glittered against the fluorescent light over them. The only mistake I made was I didn’t think of getting something that I could use to cripple him. I jumped at him instead and tried to take away the knife. But, he gripped it in full strength. We dropped to the floor. I strangled him with my left hand, but he was able to push me back. When we were facing each other, he hit me in the face with his left hand. I took revenge by knocking him in my head. He was over me and it was easy for him to point the knife in my chest. If I gave up my strength, then the knife would plunge into my heart.

He was heavier and stronger. The knife slowly cut to my chest and I felt cold metal. I thought if I would let him outdo me I would be dead in minutes. I concentrated to gather all the forces, gasped, and pushed him off. He flipped over to my right side. Warm blood gushed out of my chest. I didn’t mind it. I must have a weapon to defend myself, or else I’d be dead. I was wounded.

I looked to my left and saw a trophy that resembled a pointed pyramid. This was one of the principal’s awards. I crept to it. Just as he dived to stab my back I turned up holding the trophy upward. It cut through his rib cage. His eyes fell out and blood spurted from his mouth. He was dead over me.

There was no witness. He had turned off the surveillance camera to hide his lewd action. The victim, his secretary, was unconscious, like a white paper on the table. I had no choice but to call and surrender to the authority. I had dripped my blood on the floor. Even if I’d clean the mess, run away, and hide, I have a tracking chip in me. Everyone had a tracking chip since the day he was born.

The trial lasted for about a week and I was sentenced to 10-year imprisonment on Monteen. Had the crime-detector device been invented at that moment, there wouldn’t be any trial at all. They secured me in the city jail not allowing someone to see me, including Maggie. I cried every night.

The day came when I was going to serve imprisonment on Monteen. And, I hadn’t yet seen and talked to Maggie and had a last look at my daughter. The law forbade a prisoner to see and talk to whoever has recognized him. There must be complete isolation from the people he knows in preparation for his service on Monteen. Nevertheless, I spoke with the jail warden for the last time. I pleaded with him to let me see Maggie and my daughter. Perhaps, due to the weight of the crime and sympathy for me, he let me.

It was a sunny morning as if the day was smiling at me departing from the good life I had. They took me to my house.

I knocked on the door. Maggie opened it. Surprised, she hugged me merrily. I knew she was thinking that the court had reversed the verdict and that I was going to stay. But, the jail guards were waiting for me at the gates.

“Where’s Milla?” I said, staring at the automatic crib gently swaying in harmony with the instrumental classic Tagalog song ‘Tulog na Baby’. Through the pink nets surrounding the crib, I could see her sleeping peacefully. I choked. I tried to swallow down, but I couldn’t. Tears streamed down from my eyes. I wouldn’t touch her, not now. I did not get in. It would just add to the pain I was going through. And, I didn’t want to change everything I had established in my mind. I had accepted the idea of not seeing her grow up. I thought of what would become of her when I got back. A full-grown woman or a mother? I didn’t know.

Maggie let me loose from her arms. Her face was drowning in tears too. I wiped the tears away in my hands. Hands that had touched her gently for eight years.

“I’m sorry,” I said the gravest apology I’d said in my whole life. I was very sorry for leaving them, for taking away their rights to have a husband and father.

“I’m letting you go, Maggie.” I didn’t like to say those words but it was necessary. “I’ll be away for forty years or maybe more and I don’t want you wasting time waiting for me. You’ll find someone better than me.” Our tears continued to flow out. “You take care of Milla. Tell her, when she gets to understand, that I love her.”

The sun was smiling, but tears were flooding us like a deluge.

“It’s time to go,” reminded the officer at the gates.

“I want you to close the door for me,” I said to her, for I didn’t want to see her looking at me as I left.

She kissed me once more, tasting our tears.

“I will always love you, Fred,” she whispered.

“I love you too, Maggie.” I smiled for us to be strong. “Always will.”

She closed the door slowly. I knew she was still crying inside and it hurt me more to think of it.

I stood there, looking at the door I’d used to close every morning when I went to work. I turned. My eyes rolled over the yard, to the flowering plants I’d propagated, to the mangoes I’d planted in the corners of my house. Then, I walked out of the gates and stopped to look back at the only wealth I had. I was going to leave all of them, my wife and my daughter, my possessions, my home, my town, my country, my world.

They took me to Muntinlupa City in Luzon State where the country’s penitentiary ships that traveled to planet Monteen were stationed. Along with 54 convicts from all over the country in that year, we lined up to the air-locked lift that carried six persons at a time up into the ship. Jail guards carrying long laser guns received us. I saw more or less a hundred oval transparent chambers set like eggs on a tray, two yards apart from one another. Inside them was a white couch with harnesses.

The head officer announced that all convicts were in. Each convict had a jail guard to guide and set him in the chamber. They did it all at the same time. “All harness up!” shouted the head officer.

My jail guard strapped me with the harness, pushing me deeper into the cushion.

“Close chambers!” The jail guards simultaneously pushed the button on the side of the chambers. A tempered glass slid out from one side closing us in like unborn chicks.

I saw all the jail guards move in the direction of the lift. I knew that when the ship began its journey, there were no others in it except us the convicts. It’s a self-operated ship. There are forty of them now, 30 of them travel to Monteen, one each year, and come back here on Earth after 30 years. The other 10 are reserved.

After a few minutes, a woman’s clear and smooth voice spoke up in the built-in speakers inside the chamber.

“This is the journey of your life. Forget everything in the Philippines. Forget everything on Earth. When you come back, another life awaits you. Relativity means 18 hours in your seat and 15 years of struggle of your loved ones. Now sit back and relax. Mabuhay Ka!”

I could feel we were lifting from the ground. Then, perhaps to take away the fear of travel, a piece of instrumental music played on.

“I’ve never forgotten you, Fred.” Maggie’s voice put me back to reality.

“Me, too.” I stammered. “Did you get married?” I asked, glancing at her.

“I did.” She wore off the eyeglasses and wiped her eyes with her fingers.

I put my hand on her back and stroked the way I’d done before.

“He died from an accident a couple of years ago.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“He loved Milla the way you loved her. He was a good husband and father just like you.”

“I would have thanked him very much for that,” I said, but a little feeling of jealousy tickled in my heart.

“Do you have children with him?” I asked.

“Yes. Two boys. But they’ve been away since,” she paused. “Both wanted to study at the Philippine Military Academy. Jeffrey and I signed the waiver. I didn’t like it, but Jeffrey agreed with them. He said it’s what our sons have dreamed of.”

“Where are they now?”

“Mars. After graduation, they joined the UN army with 23 other Filipino soldiers. They were sent to Mars to hunt for space rebels.”

“How are they?”

“They are fine, I think, but I still worry about them. They just called me yesterday.” Maggie was slowly rocking the chair. I was staring up at the vehicles crossing in the sky. “Fred,” she quit rocking and looked at me. “I don’t want you putting all your time for me. I’m already old. I can’t give you the things that you need, things that make you happy.”

“I understand,” I said.

Like any ex-con who gets back to Earth, I should start over. Get a job. Find a woman to love and have a family. But it’s not that easy. I missed Maggie so much, but she was not the same as I left before. A very long time had changed her.

I knelt in front of her. “May I dance with you once more?”

She dipped her head, teeth gleaming. She dug the remote out of her pocket. “I always have this with me whenever I am inside the house.”

I rose and helped her up.

She pointed the remote to the door leading downstairs. She pressed a button. A piece of familiar slow music began to play softly around the house. The song was my father’s favorite. It was sung by an Irish boy band that became famous in the early millennium. That was a century ago. We danced, reminiscing our teenage years, like when we were in high school during JS Prom. That had been fifty-five years ago for Maggie and twenty-three years ago for me.

The song finished. We remained standing looking at each other’s eyes. The light produced by the artificial white orchids set upon the ceiling along the stairs inside was hitting our sides. Maggie’s cheek, drooping like candle wax, had wrinkles that formed like nets. The corner of her mouth rumpled as she was trying to keep it close. I tried to kiss her, but she receded. She hugged me instead.

Words were trapped in our mouths like it was forever. We were feeling each other’s warmth and heartbeat. The coolness of the early night breeze encircled us, teasing our skin. She was the first to let go. She looked up at me. “You want to call Milla tonight?”

I shook my head. “I want to see her in person. Touch her hands and embrace her.”

She bowed in agreement. “She comes here every weekend. If you want to wait for two days.”

“That would be nice. Or maybe tomorrow I’ll go to Manila to surprise her.”

A yellow atmoscar crossed over us, dragging air that shook the tops of the mango trees. I followed my eyes as it went away and mingled with the vehicles in Caibiran City.

“I missed my atmosbike,” I muttered to myself.

“It’s down there in the basement. Do you want to ride on it now?” Maggie said.

“Yes, but only if you join me.” I cast a teasing smile.

She laughed.

I started the engine while Maggie was closing the door. She had donned a glossy black jumpsuit that hung loosely from her shapeless and aged body. She walked over to me with a helmet under her arm.

“It’s been ten years since I rode an atmosbike,” she declared. “Would you please fly slow? You’re going to take your grandma up in the sky,” she joked.

We laughed.

Once she was seated at my back and our helmets were on, I brought us up a yard off the ground. “Hold on!” I told her.

We darted up pleasantly like a hawk in daylight. We reached the part where the air pressure was high and Maggie complained. I lowered down. Had I been alone, I could have gone up higher. We were staring down at Caibiran City, which seemed like a mound of silver and gold jewelry. Lit brightly. Atmoscars passing along air streets looked like colorful little bugs. We saw the edge of the seashore crawl like silver porcelain. We lowered down a bit more, yet still kept a distance from the flying vehicles. Then, we routed the boundaries of the city.

We shot up again, now straight to the preserved mountains of Biliran Island. We strolled over the mountains and decided to land for a rest. We touched down in Panamao, a plane atop the province’s highest mountain. There’s a hotel up there and a few restaurants outside. We took off our helmets and headed to the nearest restaurant.

After the meal, we savored the cold air near the rim of the plateau overlooking the cities of Caibiran and Culaba.

“I missed this so much,” I said.

“Me, too.” Maggie peered at me.

“I missed you, Maggie,” I said a bit louder. “I missed Biliran! I missed the Philippines! I missed Earth!” I yelled through the night.

Maggie was beaming at me. I knew she wanted to shout with me, but she must not force her infirm lungs.

I sighed and regained air.

“So what’s your plan with your life?” Maggie said, not as my wife but as a concerned elder.

I thought she was right, I was still young, and she was very old and in the near time would leave this world. But I love her still. With her remaining years, I’m going to be with her.

“To be with you,” I said.

She beamed a smile she had shown me the first time we met.