The first day...

She walked down the boat and onto the dock, carrying her luggage with her.

Beside her, about a dozen tourists of different origins were alighting, with nothing but their camera's and their day bags and backpacks to burden them.

They wouldn't be staying long, nobody ever did.

Corregidor was a two day town. An island full of ghosts, the living nothing but a population of a thousand. During the day, the tourists brought on an additional two, maybe three dozen, but at night, the island remained the same.

Standing at the edge of the waiting post, she watched as the tourist piled onto their guide bus, comandeered by an elderly guide who had actually seen World War II.

When she first went here, their guide Stan--a native born white man of Swedish origin--told her that he was five during the world war. He didn't remember much, except that his family had to hide in bunkers because somebody told the Japs that his father was an American soldier.

She listened to his tale when they were on the way over, when they were in the ferry and there was nothing to see, and all the tourists were flocking over to the overpriced snack bar.

"Where was your father?" she remembered asking him

Stan had looked at her blankly, scratching his head as he thought. "He fought during the war. I don't remember much, except that he had dark hair, blue eyes, and spoke in Spanish. He went away during the first occupation. I think he returned one night, but I can't be too sure...Anyway, I don't recall ever seeing him again."

The admission left her dumbfounded, and she immediately felt sorry for asking, even if Stan assured her that it didn't bother him at all.

"I didn't know him" he told her afterwards, on the ferry home "Sometimes, I thought I missed him, but I think the idea of not having a father that bothered me more"

And she had wisely left it at that.


The end is in the beginning...

She always got the same feeling.

Frustration, anger, denial, and resentment. Pessimism. Hopelessness. Despair.

On worse days, she actually threw up. But after three jobs she'd gone past that routine and settled on what her doctor had called as a "stress induced migraine".

It wasn't so bad at first. Just a little headache here and there, nothing that couldn't be controlled with medication. She found that two aspirins during the day worked best. But it was when she started popping the pill as soon as she got up in the morning, and most of the day at work, that the insomnia began.

She'd moved on to extra strength by then, and for the nights, she'd considered asking for a sleeping pill.

"I'm not going to give you a prescription" her doctor, a young man ten years older who'd inherited the practice from their family physician told her "But I am giving you a name"

She wanted to prostest at first, but she decided to take the small slip of paper with the contact information on it than have him make her stay longer.

"I was a psych major" she wanted to tell him "I don't need a shrink"

She ended up seeing a shrink anyway. A friend, Irish who--unlike her--had decided to go into practice.

Her training was as a school counselor and not a therapist, but being with a friend made it feel like she was just there for a visit instead of a consult. Besides, she thought she was being irrational and terribly juvenile.

This was her fifth job since she'd gotten out of college, she wasn't even 32.

"What's with 32?" Irish had asked her

"It's my panic age" she said "Sort of like my deadline for all the things that I think I should accomplish"

Irish had suggested that she draw up a list, like a concrete gameplan of some sort.

She used to have one, written in expensive cream stationary with her engraved fine point Parker fountain pen. Much ceremony went into preserving that list. Until she lost her nerve, her wallet, and her sanity with it.

She was nineteen then. She was twenty four now. The plans had long since changed, but she considered herself to be more stable.

Even if she couldn't--as Irish had asked--draft a new list and pick a direction.

Static...

Fifteen minutes went by before she was picked up by a porter.

Gathering her things, she got on the back of a battered Honda scooter, nodding as he thanked her for her patience.

"They had me run an errand to the other side of the island" he was explaining "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but there wasn't anyone else"

Her hands gripped her seat as they rode up the mountain towards the hotel. "It's okay, I wasn't waiting long"

As expected, everything was the same. She suspected that even the hotel would still be the same, even if the only place she'd been to the last time was the lobby.

She wondered again if things had always looked like this here. A city among ruins, the whole island a monument by itself. Maybe the technology was different, but everything else...

"Everything else remains the same..." she told herself

Let fate chose my destiny...

She looked at the blank slate.

Beside it, her hot cocoa was beginning to cool in it's paper tumbler. There was a pile of donuts to their right, with only one piece consumed from the dozen.

Sitting in front of her was Irish, who was sipping her coffee and looking at her with a neutral expression.

She wasn't bothered, they were trained to be that way.

She remembered sitting in counseling class as they taught her to school her face, to give an unbiased reflection. No way was she to judge, never spook the client, never give him or her a lead or inclination.

"Let everything come from them" her professor had told her "You can clarify, ask questions, but let them choose their direction"

Sitting in a booth, in what she now thought of officialy as a "session", she thought about those lectures and couldn't help feel like she was robbed.

It was like knowing the magic tricks because the magician was a friend. But at the same time, she knew that she'd feel even more helpless if she saw a complete stranger as opposed to a friend.

"This isn't working" she told Irish, putting down her pen and shoving the slate dejectedly to the side "I can't think about this..."

Irish nodded. Patient as ever.

The coffee had been on her, as were the countless meals that they'd had during their sessions. She'd hinted before to Irish that maybe she should pay her. After all, she could afford a shrink and Irish could use the money.

"You're a friend" Irish said "This is just a bitch session between two girls that happens to have some scientific structure"

She'd almost laughed out loud then...heck, maybe she did. She took every oppurtunity to laugh nowadays. Besides what she got from watching sitcoms, she couldn't seem to find much reason to smile.

Irish had put down her coffee cup and took the pad from her, closing it and putting it neatly to the side, showing a little of her obsessive compulsive behavior.

"Okay...we'll try that again sometime" Irish said, before pulling out a pad of her own

Clicking her pen open, she turned to a page and looked up at her for direction.

"So" she started, noticing her comfortrably settle into her chair "Let's start by talking about how you feel"

She said the first thing that came into her mind.

"I feel like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole"

Hidden

"Enjoy your stay" the bellhop had told her, pocketing his tip before closing the door

She waited five more minutes before throwing the rest of the things on her bed.

"First things first" she thought

Opening her carryall, she proceeded to unpack her stuff: clothes to the drawers, jacket to be hung, lotions on the vanity, and her toiletries on the bathroom sink.

Pulling out her laptop, she settled it right next to the phone on the room's tiny desk, before plugging in her handheld and her cellphone's charger.

This was supposed to be a vacation, but no matter how resolute she was in getting away from it all, she couldn't seem to escape having a computer, her calendar, and the ever present cellphone.

As if on cue, the thing chirped, indicating a text message.

"I should have thrown out that thing on the boat" she muttered, scrolling down to her inbox

It lost the signal when she was out at sea, and she was hoping it would stay that way all throughout her vacation.

Part of her wanted to just shut off her phone. But another part of her, the part that was still sane, the part that she considered as "responsible" forced her to keep it open.

After all, you never knew who might call.

Two of the messages indicated Irish, and her boss.

She opened Irish's message first. "Stay on vacation"

She sighed. Hopefully that would be the case.

The second message was a little bit more grounding. "Hope you have fun and that we are all on vacation with you."

She flipped her phone shut and tossed it on her bed.

Truth was, she didn't want to go on vacation with her boss. She didn't want to snap pictures for officemates to have them feel like they were taking a weeklong vacation vicariously through her. She didn't want to hear from her mother, or even her friends.

She didn't want anyone wishing they were there with her. It only made her feel guilty for being thankful that she wasn't with them, because this vacation was hers, and hers alone.

Jumping on the bed, she crawled underneath the comforter and buried her head underneath the pillows.

"I just wanna crawl underneath the earth and die"

Tucking the spare cool pillow underneath her chin, she closed her eyes and slept.

Down the rabbit hole

The cold leather seat made her squirm.

To her left, the airconditioner was spitting small bits of ice through its vents. Outside, it was 39 degrees and anything that was left on the sidewalk was just about to melt.

She wanted to press herself against the panoramic windows, soaking up the rays while at the same time feeling the cool of the glass: the perfect combination of hot and cold.

"Are you cold?"

The question snapped her out of her reverie. She looked away from the windows and at the eyes of her Marketing Manager.

"A little" she answered, unconsciouly tugging at her fleece jacket "But i'm okay"

"Good" he answered, leaning back, giving her his version of a worried expression

He wasn't that much older than her, probably just fove or six years, eight tops. He was tall and well dressed. Dry clean only designer suits, with Italian alligator shoes. His hair styled and moussed and his nail clean and manicured.

He was supposed to be ruthless, but she wasn't scared of him. She found him boring. Mostly because she didn't like his hair, didn't like his clothes, and she really didn't trust a guy who spent that much time with his nails.

That plus he was young.

In her head, you couldn't be that stable when you were young. In the organizational ladder, he was just a gangly colt, and no amount of dressing could change that.

And she, insignificant little peon, marketing assistant extraordinaire, an expendable assistnat e among a whole minion of assistnats, didn't really care.

She didn't give a flying fuck. Not even if he fired her tomorrow.

Voices you'll soon be hearing tomorrow

She gave an irritated sigh while she picked at the phone cord.

"You should have gone surfing" her mother was telling her "Stayed at the summer house and just lounged at the beach. There aren't a lot of tourists right now and the weather's perfect. Not a lot of rain for September."

"I don't want to go surfing" she mumbled, wanting nothing more than to slam down the phone

She was born in September. In fact, she had a birthday coming up. She'd initially scheduled the trip around that time, but nobody would hear of it. They didn't think it was fair for anybody to spend their birthday alone.

So made it so that it was a week before.

This year she was 25, somewhat of a life changing event. She would be in this earth for a quarter of a century. Not a long time according to some people, but from where she was standing--where the road was still flat and endless and uncompromising--25 seemed like forever.

"I just don't understand" her mother explained "There's just nothing to see there"

She bit her lip to keep from speaking up.

An explanation would just prolong the conversation, something that she didn't want to do. Ten minutes into their talk and she was already wondering why she thought she should check with her mother.

Tomorrow

"Do you want a soda?"

She looked at the row of pedestrians outside the restaurant and shook her head.

They all looked okay. Just typical people going about their business. Like sheep out to pasture.

But she knew there was more than that. They were thinking, running problems in their heads. She wondered again what it would be like if people had subtitles to their thoughts.

Would anybody ever read them? If someone wasn't bored out of their wits, how many of them would actually take the time to see what other people thought?

"Did he say anything else?" Irish was asking her

"No...no he didn't say anything else...only that he was worried. My numbers were down, and since i'd done well in the past, he thought all I needed was a vacation."

She wasn't surprised at her managers suggestion, though she didn't think he'd grant her that much vacation. She wasn't, by far, a workaholic. She didn't like her job. She was modestly good at it, but she didn't like it, and took every oppurtunity she had to get away from it.

Recovery

Lunch was just being served when she got back down.

She'd taken the morning ferry, which arrived shortly before noon. If there had been an earlier trip she would have taken it. She had woken up at four that morning, way too early, but she was just amazed that she had slept at all.

She settled down at a corner table with her buffet plate and tried to make herself invisible.

The past few weeks the days just kept getting longer, and slower. Minutes stretched and the work required to live the next few seconds became almost unbearable.

The last few days she felt as if ants were crawling inside her head. She spent the nights frozen in the dark, staring at nothing, living in the images inside her head.

Her little wonderworld.

One story, two story, five. Every night she tried to breathe life to people she'd never met, and walk in places she'd never seen, in an ironic attempt to keep herself sane.

Sane enough to get up the following day, to shower and dress and eat, to ride the metro to work and sit down in front of her office terminal to do her job.

The same fucking thing every damn day.

And each morning, as she switched on her computer, she could hear a voice scream inside her head. Of fear, frustration, and most probably indignation.

Funny that the voice sounded faintly like her.

In Hiding

The first time she tried to surf she almost drowned. An undercurrent had caught her unaware and sucked her in.

Tumbling inside the waves, she became more than a bit disoriented as it pulled her down. She stayed there for a few minutes, trying not to panic as she contemplated whether or not she was willing to die.

Five minutes later, she found herself floating up.

She didn't know how or why she made that decision, or how hard se fought to get to the surface, but the next few minutes found her just hanging onto her surfboard.

Paddling idly back to the shore, watching as her instructor raced to her in a jetski, panicked and afraid that she'd drowned, she thought of nothing but the reasons why she had kicked so hard.

Maybe if she knew what they were, she could understand them...

When her intructor reached her, she seemed a bit reluctant to take his hand. When he asked her how she was doing, she looked up at him, his form seemingly glowing against the sun.

"How do you feel?" he asked as she climbed up behind him.

Like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole...

Plasma

Settling down on the grass, she looked at the ocean in front of her.

The tourists had all left, moved on to another site. She was alone for a few more hours. No one would bother her.

The Monument was behind her, though too far to cast any shadows. A tall, sinewy spiral that she never really understood, except for the fact that it was art, and it was pretty and complicated.

She'd stopped understanding artists. She didn't think she ever could.

Two years ago she came here with a group of friends and immediately fell in love with the spot. Looking at the sunset, the feeling of calm the mild ocean breeze gave her, she imagined herself getting married here.

Saying her vows in the little church in the island, then moving on right to the spot where was sitting for the reception. Tables right by atrium near the ornament, where guests could dance and be merry.

Her friend thought she was nuts.

Sunset was a bad time to get married. And people had died in this very place. Sixty years ago the whole island was bathed in blood.

It wasn't a place for celebration.

She wasn't friends with that girl anymore, and not because of what she said. It was just one of those things, those complications you got growing up. Becoming two different adults in a fast paced world.

But the death of the friendship didn't sour her visions of this place.

She wondered if someone had died right where she was sitting with her laptop. If someone had looked at the ocean front, and longed for escape from this island. Longed for home.

She touched the prickly grass beneath her and closed her eyes. Saying a little prayer to whomever stood on this spot six decades ago, having their last look at the water and the sky.

What she was prayer for, she didn't know. She couldn't pray for them to live.

She prayed for good life instead. For her, for him, she didn't know.