All I Can Do Is Think

By Kaye

People always called my sister for advice. Whatever the topic was, she always gave them an answer back. As intelligent and kind hearted she was, I didn't particularly like how people took advantage of her. I remembered there was a particular man that asked for her advice. At first he was not any different from the people she gave counseling to but then he kept coming back for more advice every month, which led to weeks and eventually everyday. Still, my sister helped him. One evening, I went outside to get the mail and noticed a letter addressed to my sister. I wasn't surprised since I got quite used to it and most of her letters at the time were from the same man. After giving her the letter, she didn't leave an expression of annoyance but rather sympathy, the same face she usually wears whenever she is with a client. The next day after giving her the letter, I waved my hand goodbye as she left to get some groceries. That was the last time I saw her.

‘Why don’t you ignore him?’ I asked her before her disappearance.

“This one is different,” she replied.

I tilted my head to show that I'm confused or this isn't adding up to my question. She looked at me with a worried face and opened her mouth to speak again but suddenly closed it as if defending a secret. It took a while for her to answer. But she never did answer because a call interrupted us. She decided to let it go and get the phone rather than to answer me. During that time, I thought it was for the best. I didn't want to trouble her that much when she was already having a hard time raising me herself.

Breathing had become hard when I ran up a flight of stairs; passing through busy people with different objective, eyes that seems to come from different places, and faces that seems familiar. But all of them have something in common: cameras, microphones, and this specific day.Thinking all of this has nothing to do with me helps me reject the reality of the situation I am now in. Sweat accumulates in my forehead as I push aside a person holding a microphone. It seems like he was speaking to me but my mind can’t progress and take in this much information in front of me. Then suddenly flashes appear in front of me.

“Hahaha, you looked like Mitty!”, she laughed as she was holding her camera.

“You have to smile next time! Okay!” she said as she grabbed my mouth to make a forced smile.

‘Stop it!’ I shouted. But that plea was ruined when she grabbed me by the sides and began tickling me. We laughed hysterically like we have never lived in a rundown apartment with walls that were never thin, and a fridge that was never empty. It continued like that until one of our neighbors heard us and punched the wall. We were shocked for a little while as if someone had bursted in. My sister stopped what she was doing and looked at me.

“They’re assholes,” she said.

Shocked by her rare response, my mouth unconsciously opened up in a big gaping hole as if to suck in air.

‘Hey! Can you say that again but louder’, I asked, smiling at her but she got up and went to the kitchen.

“I heard about school,” she said, suddenly changing our conversation. She looked at me as she made our dinner.

‘Sorry’, I replied.

‘But it wasn’t my fault, they were asking for it’

She looked at me for a little bit and turned her head to focus on her cooking.

“I know that. I just want to tell you that I’m here for you”, she said as she put vegetables at the cutting board.

“So if you’re in a pinch you can’t solve it except with violence, so be it.”

Chop,Chop her hands moved as she cut the red bell peppers.

“But in return, come to me so I can treat your wounds”

Dropping the peppers in a large pot, I whiffed a scent of her special homemade “Adobo” dish.

“After all, I am your-”

“Sister! Your sister, do you know-!” a reporter shouted as she fought others to reach me. Her other hand is holding the mic in a way to reach my mouth and the other trapped with other reporters such as herself. I cough violently to catch my breath.

‘It was him!’, I screamed internally in each breath I took.

‘It was the man that sent the letters’

But it was useless because the mic still stood in front of me just like the others that still surround me. The reporters try to catch any sounds that came out of my mouth, purposely itching closer to hear my voice. I can't say anything. Even if I want to, my voice can't seem to find its way out of my throat because I’m scared to know the truth and the realization of what the man will do to me if he knows I know him. Knowing that he’s still lurking around alive in these streets and knows where I live, I looked at the mic for who knows how long. I just looked at it since it was in front of me, as if it could speak for me. The spell was broken when her mic was replaced with another one, then another and another. Getting my breathing under control, I’m now fully reminded about my incapability to provide them information. Now it seems kind of funny to see them desperately trying to record my voice since I won’t ever speak to them. I can’t.

Afterall, I’m mute.

And I can’t even be able to ask right now how and why she was killed.

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