Red

    The swirling crimson patterns on the curtains remind of the time under the fire flower tree.

    I checked the shape and shade of my lipstick through my phone. Rouge, given to me by my mother.

    Looked up and dropped it in my bag. Close. A car with the same plate number as ours was parked, fresh from last night's rendezvous with its nose punched in like a broken nose. As if it had been through a fight. 

    I remembered that we're not the only ones with this plate number with the same car. I saw it once with my own eyes when we stayed at a hotel.

    I blinked. Blinked twice, blinked too many times as if erasing what I've just seen. The jeepney whooshed past. I turned abruptly to make sure. Sitting beside me was... someone they disapprove with arms around me. Spent the night with me and we're on the way to work. Asked what's wrong. Ours had bright red paint in the back, setting it apart from others of its kind. The car hadn't.

    Denial is an impulse or reflex of the mind to dismiss a fact. Maybe my mind even procured that image into something I wished and hid the red paint into the norm. Or it was from the nerves in my eyes, red, from lack of sleep. Told myself it can't be. Mother just bought that car. Shrugged the thought. Can't go to work with that in mind.

    But my mind kept thinking and remembering the details of that serene sight. 

    

    Fire flowers blooming in contrast with its green foliage, its petals falling like golden showers in summer and the car parked on that beach and the incredulity of its accident. And it has been with my father, with nature stopping his exploits.