(2020) Heights Vol. 68, No. 1

Elena bit her lip as tears started to glisten on her cheeks and little waves played with her toes. It felt cold and unwelcoming.

“Then tell me what’s troubling you, Isagani.”

Isagani was going to protest again, but there was something in her tone that gave him pause. She had always been a mystery to him—a mystery that over the years he’d gotten to know a little bit further a day at a time, but a mystery nonetheless. There were many girls who wished to be swept up in Isagani’s grand romantic verve, but the truth of their relationship was that Isagani always felt like his actions were merely necessitated by orbiting in her gravity. Sitting there on the shore, the tide suddenly creeping closer around them, he felt keenly all that he didn’t know and didn’t understand about the woman in his arms—especially now, now that she was proposing this mad new undertaking.

He let go and began to stare off into the distance. He clenched his hands together. “I’m frightened, Elena. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Elena looked at him straight-on. “Revolution, Isagani.”

Standing up, he took a few strident steps forward into the water.

“Before, when I would look to the horizon, everything that needed to be clear was clear.” A resoluteness began creeping again into his voice as he gazed into the setting sun. “You, and me, and the love that we share—each step forward had a light to guide it, and it was always enough. Now,” he turned to look at Elena with downcast eyes, “you don’t want to start a family anymore. For revolution.”

“I don’t want to bring a child into a world they can’t be free in. Especially now, Isagani—especially now, when there’s a real chance. I’m not the only one in Barangay Valentina ready to join this fight, you know—” Isagani kneeled before her. “I’ve been having bad dreams, Elena.”

His eyes were devoid of any of his usual warmth and laughter, and she listened. “In my dreams, you’re always giving birth. You kick and scream and cry, but no baby ever comes. Only blood.”

Elena was quiet for a moment. “Those are just dreams, Isagani.

We can join this fight, and we can win. Start a family in a better world.”

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