Elm

Teddy once told me the monster watches me sleep and sometimes strokes my hair. I was confused. I thought monsters were supposed to hurt me, not pat my head. But Teddy said it was true—it even stitched the tear it made in him last time.

I don’t know if the monster is bad or good. But it always hurts me and my stuffies.

One day, I got brave and faced the monster the moment Mom closed my door. I didn’t know if the monster would be good or bad that night. I heard Unicorn say he’ll give us flowers tonight, but I felt Monkey tremble and whisper that the monster might tear us apart, like last time.

The monster slowly crawled out from under my bed. It was holding a cup of milk. But I’m allergic to milk. And my stuffies can’t drink.

It got angry when I said I wasn’t allowed to have it. The peaceful look on its dark face turned furious, and it threw the glass at the floor. Milk soaked the carpet. Then it screeched really loudly and started to tug all my stuffies from my arms.

I told it to stop. I told it to let go. But it only got angrier.

I was already crying, because its sharp teeth were starting to bare at me—wide. I wasn’t sure if it was going to eat my stuffies or me. But I held on to them tightly and hoped someone would open the door.

Then, suddenly, I stopped crying.

I heard my parents’ door click open.

And I realized—I could do that too.

I scurried out of bed and tried to reach my door. But before I could twist the handle, the monster grabbed my ankle.

When I looked back, it was crying.

It said it was sorry.

It said it only wanted to take care of me.

It said it only wanted me to drink the milk.

All my stuffies begged me to keep going and get out of the room. But when I saw the monster’s red eyes turn green, I paused.

Our room was very big. Four families were staying there: mine, my grandparents’, my grandpa's sisters, and my aunts’. I remembered the air-conditioning was on full blast, so the place was freezing. The walls were all glass. It was the khaki curtains that covered the whole place up, and the only wall there was the one holding the doorframe.

I remembered dragging my sister around because the whole place looked like the garden in Alice in Wonderland’s engagement party.

The Bermuda grass was so green, and the vines decorating the entrance before our rental house's door looked like they might swallow me up if I moved a little too close to them. There was was the tall paperflowers tree that reached up to the rooftop of the two-floor rental home.

It was already dark when I dragged her up onto the rooftop, where there were two worn-out white benches in the corner facing the resort’s entrance, with its big name on the corner of the gate. The paperflowers tree was over my head when we got there, it was leaning on the right side of the house.

There were four pillars at the corners—white and also worn out, probably from the sun—railings securing the place. There was a big water tank beside the bench on the left side, and behind the water tank was a mango tree, the floor covered in mango leaves.

I felt like something was holding my lungs as I look around, halting me from breathing for a split second, because the whole place looked like it carried twenty love stories I would like to read about. So I sat on the bench—I forgot which one—while my sister sat on the other.

I wondered if a guy had asked a girl out here, told her how her eyes catch the light. Or if a girl broke her lover’s heart. Or someone must've slapped someone here… or begged them to stay.

Or maybe they just sat on the bench and stared at the distance past the entrace, waiting for the other to fill the silence. Maybe hoping they’d finally address how every glance and innocent touch of hands made their chest twist a bit.

Maybe he was looking at her while she admired how the purple paperflowers were much bigger than the ones planted in her yard, and he wanted to tell her how much her smile takes his breath away… but maybe he didn’t get to say it, because it was finally time to go.

I told my sister how I imagined myself falling in love there, how I would love to dance in the middle of the leaves and flowers under my feet with someone—imagining myself smiling at them while we moved around the space, each step marking our presence with every leaves and paperflowers we stepped on the floor.

I would be humming the song I was listening to earlier while I looked at them as they swayed me around, my hand on them and theirs on mine.

I wouldn’t have to look at the stars or try to find the moon hiding behind clouds because their eyes was already holding the universe for us.

I wouldn’t even ask for a kiss. All I’d want is for the heaviness pressing on my chest to stop dancing alone, because when I snapped back to reality and moved to sit on the cold floor with the leaves, I finally looked up and saw the moon peeking behind the clouds. I realized the universe was too big and far away to fully grab onto.

Silence fell between my sister and me after I told her that. But it didn’t erase the thoughts completely, because I couldn’t help wondering if maybe someone was alone up there too one time and whispered someone’s name—because I remembered humming the song over and over with a name at the end of it.

Maybe if I watch the flower’s pigments blending in the dark, I might hear whose name they whispered. Maybe I could answer for them.

I don't remember what happened after we got back inside the rental. All I know is that I slept, woke up, changed into my swimwear, and rushed to the beach. When afternoon came, we were already packing up to leave.

I remember the food was tasty enough for me to take seconds—I don’t usually take seconds at gatherings like that. After eating, I dragged my siblings around the place because I had this feeling that it'd be something I'd want to remember after the moment passed.

I climbed this acacia tree just beside the pagoda where everyone was eating. I only managed to reach the very bottom of it because the bark was prickling my palms and feet, so I got off not very long after, laughing at literally nothing.

Then after that, we rode the rusty seesaw near the entrance of the resort. We talked for a while there, my feet on the seat of the seesaw while my sister sat on the other side, lifting me up. After that, we roamed around, saw long vines near the entrance, and weird cartoon statues on the edge of the kids' pool that neither me nor my siblings recognized. Then I sang at the karaoke, hit and missed some notes—but I know I served.

When everything started to get steady, when the excitement was wearing down because everyone was either in the dirty pool or munching leftover food at the pagoda, that's when I stood up. Because in the corner of my eye, behind everything else, there was a chicken shed. And behind the chicken shed were short, thick mango trees, neatly planted in perfect spaces up the slant of the hill, so the leaves looked like a veil where the sunlight poked through.

I dragged my sister up there. At the bottom of it, it smelled like poultry, but as we went further up, the smell of chicken poo was replaced by that earlier smell of rain and leaves—but stronger, like it was enveloping the whole place.

I feel like the way the dried leaves crackled beneath our feet was the reason my sister was gripping my hand a little tighter. Because I felt like if we went even further, we'd find something there. Something no one else had found before. Something we'd never forget.

The end of it was a gate. Rusty in the parts where the green paint was peeling off, wrapped in small green vines and rust. A little broken and dented on the right side, and it was connected to small fences—also wrapped in vines and rust.

Behind it were long bushes and grass, like it was forgotten and stuck in time. But I couldn’t stop thinking that if I crossed the gate, looked closely, stayed longer—I’d find something wonderful and haunting at the same time. Like a secret. Because the place didn’t look wonderful or beautiful in the usual way. It was steady. Too steady. Almost scary.

I remember telling her we should cross the gate. But it was almost time to go back, and I felt like if we crossed it and found out what was behind, we might get stuck there. Stuck in a way that we couldn’t take our eyes off it. Stuck in a way that I might refuse to leave. Stuck in a way that I might find a secret I’d never want to share with anyone else. Something precious that I felt like if I went back, the ordinary chaos of reality might ruin it.

So I hesitated. I stared behind the gates—at the tall grasses and bushes—held my breath, clenched my hands tight enough to ground me below the dried leaves. Before I could blink, I saw rustling on the far left side of it. I know I’m romanticizing it—that the rustling might’ve just been snakes or whatever wild animals lurk in the grass—but the thing that rustled was bigger. And I swear it was standing upright—to be a snake.

But before I could catch my breath, I heard one of my cousins call us, telling us it was time to go home. And my sister was already dragging me away.

On the way home, I couldn’t exactly remember what “rain and leaves” actually smelled like, but I remembered it smelled like that—as a fact. I was listening to a song before we completely left the place, so when I heard it earlier while eating my sandwich, I was suddenly hit by the image of the mountains passing by as I sat on the back of my dad’s Rusco.