The summer sun spikes at noon and makes people uneasy and uncomfortable for the next three hours. As I start my long vacation for the unexpected pandemic, I feel the sweltering heat of the angry sun that shines like a glowing ball of butter. I usually spend my lazy afternoon underneath the shade of our little coconut tree. Still, a shaft of light passes through the small openings of the leaves, illuminating some portions of my body.

Out of nowhere, in the middle of my lazy summer, a cool wind blew, in the seemingly dehydrated atmosphere. But, it quietly faded away.

I listen to the birds chirp melodiously on their nest, feeding their hungry newly hatched ¬babies while some unfamiliar birds with strange colors of feathers pirouette their delicate feet on the dried grass to search some food. A couple of bees races towards their hive chases one after the other. Their stomachs are bags full of sweet nectars and pollens after a busy day collecting them in the row of roses of my Mama’s garden. An occasional growl of my dog and the loud chirrup of my cat, who are fighting over a place to rest and sleep, awakens the solemnity of my afternoon.

From where I settle to relax and comfort myself, I can hear some children who cackle and burst into loud and solid laughter. I can already paint in my head their gleeful faces with wide stretched smiles, exposing their white and yellowish teeth, as their big and round eyes fold into an almond-shape seed.

I scan the sky with the hope that it might rain today. But I am greeted with a vast sea of blue, clear sky with no single clouds dare to float around. As though, the cloud-bearer forgets them to hang like how my sister hangs our dresses on the clothesline. There is no hint of rain to downpour to quench the parched land. With a huge disappointment, I sighed heavily. Not today, I whisper.

Things like these lessen the boredom and mundane moments I used to feel almost every day. The hands of the clock keep on moving but circles itself into the slow-paced motion to which I patiently endure. It seems like I am inside a box – a compartment box controlled by time and space. A train of happy thoughts arrives like a bullet and transports me in my other world.  
The carefree, unbothered wind blows once again and it grazes on my skin.

I rummage the memories of my summer last five years ago. It is still warm and vivid as if I can touch them as though it only happens today. I bask myself to the words that continue to linger in my heart for all these years.
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I remember you sitting on my bed as you carefully watch me sleep overnight. As I open my eyes, you formally utter words I unfathomably understand which allows my spine to shiver. You say the barest and rawest line on earth. It is divine and glorious when those words escape onto your nervous lips. Your words and breath coalesce to blow the dying embers in my heart and set a raging wildfire.

I am never the same person that day. I am walking in the clouds, riding on the lemon-sliced moon, and floating on the universe all at once. Like I come out in my mother’s womb, strip naked and innocent once again. It flutters my heart, throbs my heart back and forth against my chest.

In that split-second of my life, where everything is a blur. It is just you and me. I think that it is time to aflame the love into this deep slumber. I am brave enough to stand tall on the morning light.
“I love you too.” The world becomes silent as it witnesses the first sprout of love growing – full of promise and hope.  And at that moment, it is the briefest yet longest summer of my life.  

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But just like the summer wind, carefree and unbothered, offers me a warm invisible hug like my old lover that tickles me for a moment. Then suddenly, in a blink of an eye, it is all gone.