December 7, 1941.
I wake up. My throat is hurting. I try focusing on my surroundings. Women. There are women wearing white dresses with red stains all over the place. They are in a rush, as if going late to pick the children at school. I look at their faces. The expressions: numb, fearful, sad, amused and shocked would only cover a small percentage of the feelings abounding in this place, and if I had to choose only one, I’d choose sorrow.
“Excuse me, Miss?” I ask a woman near me. Unlike the others, this one has a bigger stain on her dress. It must be the new fashion. Plenty has changed since it all started. She doesn’t reply, ignoring me. “Can you bring me a glass of water?” The woman turns to look at me. Finally. I think. But instead of bringing me the water, she takes a white towel and begins to clean my face. She looks at me with sad eyes, as if I were a puppy with a broken leg. “No.” I say. “Water.” I repeat slowly. Maybe she is foreign, I must be patient. She continues ignoring me. What am I? A ghost? “I said I want a fucking glass of water!” I scream. She doesn’t even blink, in fact, she smiles at me with pity. I start getting anxious. Something watery gets inside my eye: sweat. I blink fast to get it out. I look at the roof. 1…2…3… The blue fan on the roof makes me go dizzy. I want to make it stop.
A second woman approaches me. This one has miraculously no red stains on her dress. She examines my body and starts lifting my legs up and down. Then, she uses her pen on my leg. “Hey!” I scream angrily at her for trying to paint my leg. “I am not your damn doll.” She looks at me and I freeze. No- she is the doll. I think, speechless. She has two beautiful, big eyes, and her white skin is slightly tanned. Her hands, clean and bright, oblivious to disaster. An angel. I think. She must be one. But just as the thought crosses my mind, my eyes spot something red on the left side of her face. A shiver crosses my spine as I realize what she is. One beautiful and lugubrious Angel. The angel of death.
I look to the sides, trying to understand why the obsession with the color red. I see men in uniforms, soldiers like me, I realize; laying on beds, soaked in red, each taken care by a woman in -not fully white- dresses. They look like they come to save them from their misery. Nurses? All of them, husbands, sons, brothers, uncles and fathers, longing to return home; just like me. It is until we lose that we love the most, that we wish we never had to be separated from it. At that point you can only take one of two paths; the first one, fight to stay alive and return home to make the ones you love happy; or two, be a selfish bastard and let go to have the peace you long for.
“What is your name?” I ask, looking at the angel with pretty eyes. Instead of answering, she looks me straight in the eye. “I am sorry.” She shakes her head in denial. “We are doing everything we can.” She tells me and walks away, looking desperate at the ground. “Wait!” I scream, but my voice gets lost in the loud silence. The kind of silence followed by a loud tragedy. The big clock ticking on the wall stops and my heart skips a beat, already knowing what’s approaching. I can’t do this again. A loud noise followed by an aggressive tremor shakes the place. I fall to the ground and scream of fear. Not again- not again- Shut up! I beg you- shut up! Broken glasses, burned curtains and pillows; men and women are now silently laying on the ground. I used to enjoy silence so much.
Back home I had a big, green garden full of gardenias. Certainly, my favorite flower. In that place, nothing but the sound of bees and birds would cross through the fresh air. It was after the war began, that silence meant the worst of my nightmares. Silence meant death, it meant grief and tragedy. But I never prayed for the loud noise either, for that was a nightmare too, meaning destruction and sorrow. So, what left had I to pray for but to die soon and rest endlessly in a calm daydream?
I open my eyes coming back to reality. I try to stand up, but I can’t move. I roll my eyes to the left. The woman who wouldn’t give me a glass of water now lays next to me, still. “Wake up!” I scream. She doesn’t move. “I said wake up!” I scream louder. “You haven’t brought me the glass of water! Where is it? Can you see it? I certainly fucking can’t!” But she is gone- I know. Just like Philip left. They always leave. Just like Henry. Like Jonathan. Like Stephen, Adam and Rodger. Fucking cowards. I think. What a waste they were. The fools could barely stand on their feet without shaking, let alone shoot a gun or kill a bastard.
I look at the broken window. Five Japanese airplanes fly in front of us, heading to the harbor while shooting. I move my eyes to the right, frightened to see the scene happen again. My heart skips a beat when I see her, sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, staring at me with those olive eyes. Could it be possible, I wonder, that the tales and stories of love at first sight were real?
Something gets inside my eye. I’m sweating again. I try to lift my hand and clean it, but I can’t move. I try to shake my head, but I can’t. Am I paralyzed? I start growling. I want to go home. Take me home, mom. I start choking on my own air and salty tears get inside my mouth. I look at the roof. 1…2…3… I count. 3…4…5…The fan is still on its place, ignoring the disastrous scene, like nothing happened. I look at her again. “So your name is Olivia?” I ask, knowing she won’t respond. The salty flavor continues coming inside my mouth. “Olivia like the color of your eyes?” I try to smile, but I can’t.
Suddenly, I hear a noise behind me. “Hello!?” I scream. Nothing. Silence again. It’s like every time I scream, they can’t hear me. Am I really screaming? A woman with a deep and bloody cut on her face, shows up. She is one of them. One of them women in white dress. “Are you here to save me from my misery, Miss?” She approaches me carefully, crawling on her -also red stained- knees. She grabs my arm. “You are bleeding.” She says. I’m bleeding? You are bleeding. I think with irony. With a towel, she starts cleaning my forehead. It wasn’t sweat. I realize. “Her name is Olivia?” I ask the woman. She stops cleaning my forehead and stares at me. Then she starts again. “Yes.” She says and smiles. “Yes, her name is Olivia.”
Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe she won’t save me and maybe she didn’t answer my question. Maybe she can’t hear me either. Maybe this is the part where I get caught in my endless daydream; but I don’t care, because now I know, her name is Olivia.
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