Perfect (Watty Awards 2013)

Chapter 4.75: Moons

Chapter 4.75: Moons

        I never thought I could defy gravity. I never thought I could even equalize it.

              Sometimes, it pulls me to the brink of my existence that I can no longer pull myself up. It was powerful, more powerful than it used to be. Each year, each hour, it just grips on me and restrains me and my actions, my tears, my laughter, my smiles. I hoped someday, I can assure myself that I can break all the concatenations that hold me still of being someone… someone who lives in chains inside of me… someone I believed to be called… me.

                            …

Albern smiled. He never felt that condition before, a status that made him a star; a complete star that everyone looked upon to.

              In the universe, stars are plenty. There are various stars with various light power scattered on the emptiness of the infinity of the vacuum. But moons? They’re only designated. Some have a dozen. Some have a single. We cannot see them nor can we see its beauty for it shines in the times we don’t need them; when our eyes are shut and our consciousness are none.

              Albern smiled. His unconditional grins were inevitable by anyone. His face kept on flashing on every screen of every camera. His eyes, nose, mouth and ears imprinted themselves as the MVP of the year. It made him a value of each ball that he wrote on to. His hand was the center… not him. The sword, not the wielder… yet he still felt special that someone, everyone idolized him… his dream… his goal.

              “Call off! Signature signing is over guys!” a voice echoed throughout the steel covered gymnasium.

              One by one, the people started to evaporate. Isolation once ruled, he would rein once more. Each banner started closing one after the other and even though his pen’s ink would longer print his identity on balls, shirts, it would all soon be forgotten and be buried in the depths of the indefinite abyss beneath the deep beige sand.

              He smiled as he looked around the vile red ramp table, standing still in front of him. His eye caught a glimpse of a purple bottle with a dedication written in front “To my VIP…”

              A tear fell down. He stood and frantically looked for something around the steel covered gymnasium. He ran in the middle of a largely printed symbol of a basketball jersey in midst of the wooden vinyl court. He lookdc left to right, to and fro, over the bleachers, under the chairs. He searched everywhere as he divided his hair to its original arrangement.

              “Tristanny? Red?” he started shouting. “Tris? Red?” He ran around the shiny wooden vinyl.

              “Tristanny! Red!” he yelled over and over again, echoing the tone to the bleak ashen bleachers.

              His knees fell flaccidly under a large light bulb illuminating a certain area as the cover restrained its range. He divided his bangs. He sighed. Albern was in the midst of his triumph. The lights of victory blinded his sight, restraining him from seeing things that valued him before it and even values him more right now.

              He turned around, seeing a purple bottle with a familiar viscous liquid. He abruptly stood as his face seemed concerned about a petty little bottle. He ran to the other end as his rubber shoes screeched the lustrous vinyl underneath.

              His hand nurtured the unforgivable moment. He cried as he held it tighter and tighter and created a large plastic crack on the bottle. “I am sorry,” he uttered dearly. His tears fell one by one from his purple eyes. He looked at it directly and recognized a gravity that pulled him up not something to restrain him… nor to bring him down.