Despite the large chandelier with four natural light bulbs, tongues of darkness lick at her, lustily attempting to devour the last traces of light squeezing between the cluttered dust particles on the bulbs’ surfaces. She sits on the hard, false-wood laminate, her back against the sandy wood footboard of her American-style bed. None of the bedrooms of her house have tatami mats or futons; in fact, the only Japanese decor anywhere in the house is the lonely woman who walks about like a zombie, refusing to slip easily into her role as a fixture. It is solitary confinement, her bedroom a prison, a place where she sleeps confined behind invisible bars of the marriage in which she no longer believes. The marriage had been corrupted by the actions of her husband, the man who to her is just a vessel for conception, a fixture of a man and not real to her at all. He is no more than any vase or toilet in her house, just something to be dusted and polished when the filth of his manhood cannot be washed by his lover. He is the cruel warden who abandons her in torturous seclusion as he goes about his day, lying with another woman while steadily attempting to push her children out of their mother’s arms and into the usurping arms of his mistress.
A centipede scampers in front of her, a desert sand-colored predator on scores of legs, freely looking for sustenance within the same imprisoning walls that starve her of love. Shifting, she topples her wine glass, spilling her comforter and confidant onto the floor where his feet will tread. Wanting to avoid another meaningless argument and more belittlement, she uses her silk day pants to wash away the evidence of her affair with the wine's floral boutique. It is damp and cold against her leg, a familiar sensation from her marriage, but she lacks the interest to change or at least roll the damp pant leg into a cuff.
Plurality is her mind, split between where she is and where she would rather be. Desire reminds her of what she lacks; everything she wants is what she does not already have, and what she does not have is a basic need, not a covetous lust for the materialistic. She wants a counselor, someone with whom she can talk and who will only listen and not judge, someone who will listen stoically without patronizing her with fabricated concern and belittling pity.
If marriage is her prison, then loneliness is her tomb, a sarcophagus of negative emotion and self-pity. She convinces herself that there is no one, and rolling herself into a ball, she imagines herself as a fetus inside the womb, warm fluid splashing against her body like the wine at her side.
Outside her imagination, she has a mother and a few really good friends; however, like a socially immature child, she does not know how to start a conversation about her troubled marriage with them. She does not believe she can talk to her mother, not about this place in her life, not with her mother’s words still fresh in her mind.
Her mother, a petite, powerful Pinay woman, forbade her to marry him, using authority and expecting submission from her daughter who died long ago. She spoke matter-of-factly about his laziness and worthlessness, called him a no-good man who wasn’t capable of sensitivity or love, but Mika would not hear that he was no good; she was in love, and where there is love, there is a surrender of reason and good sense.
She falls out of the fetal position and climbs to the bed, now ashamed of her life and filled with regret that she did not listen to her mother. “I was so stupid.”
She hugs her pillow, deliberately kicking his off the bed.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Her words trail off into sobs, her confession drowning in a river of tears.
She married young by her friends’ standards, having skipped her last two years at Tokyo University, leaving behind the precious pre-love experiences just like she left her education. She missed the ups and downs of university dating. She never felt the cool air against her moist skin after a late night of clubbing or the heat of passionate, emotionless sex with some hot-bodied student who wanted her just for pleasure and not love. She missed it all because she abandoned every present and future part of her life for the man who has abandoned her. She never imagined her love life would have ended as it did.
He was older by some five or six years. He was a huge, powerful man by Japanese standards, broad-shouldered then, but now she thinks he is just a fat old man. He looked like a giant beside her, the petite half-Japanese, half-Filipina woman that she is. Her skin, always the color of a caramel latte, was what helped her to stand out among all the other girls at school. In those days, he could not keep his hands off of her, and often she had to scold him for being too frisky. He communicated with a hand here or a soft kiss there, above her taut breasts or just below the nape of her neck. Sometimes a hand would courageously venture into her pants or under her skirt, and if she was in the mood, she allowed him a momentary feel in those regions. But that was then when he desired her when he was younger and more into her than other things…other women. She rarely ever considers their age difference because in so many ways, too many if she was asked, she is the senior and he is the wild and rambunctious child she is trying to raise and teach how to be part of a family. The only problem, as far as she is concerned, is that that wildness has nothing to do with her unless it is delivered with harsh and cruel words or racial insults and ridicule about her inability to give pleasure.
“No husband and no father.” Her voice trembles like she is sitting on the hood of an old, idling pickup truck. “I hate you.”
The sound of the door closing startles her. Her heart beats against her chest like a berserk wolverine trapped inside a bass drum. Quickly, she cleans up her mess, careful this time not to spill the wine. Dutifully, she fluffs his pillow and returns it to where his head will lay, provided he chooses to share their bed instead of stealing away with her replacement, his mistress.