THE CURSE OF THE MOTH

Like a giant IMAX screen, the view of the city was presented to us by a transparent wall of glass. The wall was actually composed of framed rectangular glasses put together as in a hundred plasma monitors, with each rectangle showing a piece of the jigsaw puzzle representing a chopped element of the big life - clouds, heads of people, the base of the statue, portion of traffic in congestion.

The best way to enjoy the view was, of course, from the best seat in the house, or to be more specific, the best seat in the building. Excepting the seats from the 10 penthouses perched 50 or so storeys above, those seats happened to be the two brass benches appearing more like sculptures than furnitures at the 2nd floor lobby of the building's Concourse Level One.

The building was the Time-Warner Center at 10 Columbus Circle, and from the said lobby overlooking a slice of Manhattan life in the hysterical world that was 59th Street, one can find luck on a gorgeous day when the sky was blue, all politics were elsewhere, and the stockmarket was, by and large, stable.

In that particular time and space was myself, book in hand, a woman's head resting on my shoulder.

I was reading Halldor Laxness' World Light, aloud, because I was reading not for myself but for the woman with me, my mother.

"Early on, he had come to suspect that in books in general, but especially in The Falsenburg Stories was to be found that 'indefinable' solace he yearned for but could not name. Maguina wrote out the alphabet for him, but only once; she had not time for me because it took her so long to form each letter. In any case there was no paper, and even when there was, no one was allowed to waste it. He would furtively scratch letters with a stick on bare patches of earth, or in the snow, but he was forbidden to do that and was told he was writing to the devil. So he had to write on his soul."

I turned my head towards left, to where the other head was, and my mother smiled at me, enjoying the words from the book that conjured inferences of obsession for learning, delivered by my voice with its undulating hints of rasp.

I looked at her closely and was saddened, once more, to find her eyes in the sacred border of death. "In this wonderful face of light", I murmured to myself, "hides the sinewy feature of darkness". Which seems ironic. Between the two of us, it was I who was less appreciative of the sights, the perfect view, the gorgeous day; it was I who in the words of Kafka, in describing a struggle, could not bear the strain of seeing around the things of the earth.

Seeing her in that striking pose and blank stare, I can tell she was probably imagining I was my dad instead, her departed husband, who could have no doubt given more life and ardor to Halldor. And so, like her, I imagined. I flew back in time. I was three. She was a teacher. To hundreds of kids and, of much importance now, to me.

She taught me to read. She taught me to read for my development.

I learned to read. I learned to love to read.

But learning to read was not enough; I should have learned to envision, too. Like the young Rizal, while being taught to read, while being bothered by the moth, I should have foreseen to be an eye doctor, too, to give back life to the one pair of eyes that dared, at any given time, to look for, after, at, me.

(fiction)