Christina's Funeral

The cockroach had grown into the size of a human being.
And though Christina saw in detail every 'hair' on its leg, the lines of its body and the brown of the wings, she did not feel afraid. And why should she be afraid when the cockroach sat politely before her and spoke more civilly than anyone she had met so far in her young life?

"May I stay here for a while?" Christina asked. She realized that she liked very much the place she was in; it was a cozy tea-room with plush rugs the warm shade of peach, charming scenery paintings on the walls, lacey table covers (in fact, the whole place seemed to be dripping with lace) and sunlight streaming from the window in long parallelograms of light. Outside the cottage stood on a clearing and beyond it, seen from the window, was a lush forest, something that Christina, a city-dweller, never had the privilege to be in close proximity to. The cockroach had it good.

"Of course not, dear. You have to face it one way or another. There's no going about it you know. Just plunge head-first" the cockroach said to her in its most pleasant and reassuring voice. It was some sort of shrink, not better, only different. It occurred to Christina that the cockroach could be a male or a female; there was no way of knowing just by looking since Christina really didn't know where the man-stuff or the girl-parts were in a cockroach. At the convent school, when she attended one a very long time ago (was it that a long time?) they never taught girls of how to locate such stuff on people's bodies (let alone an animal regarded with such filth as a roach), you simply had to rely on the look of the face of a person, never mind the ambiguities or the occasional lady-beard or man-boob. But the cockroach looked just like any roach Christina could've killed had it been the size of her thumb!  

She thought maybe she should ask its name.
But just as she was about to open her mouth, the world began to shake violently as if there was a deadly earthquake and Christina tried to balance herself on her seat while trying to ask the cockroach (it seemed that her mouth lost control and was bobbing up in down in time with the earth shaking) what was happening, but it did not speak and slowly, slowly shrank back to its size and finally scuttled away into some crack leading beneath the earth. It was then that Christina heard a voice calling her.

Christina! Christina!

The cozy tea-room and all the charming stuff in it, the forest which Christina was beginning to love began to melt away, as if it were all background paint that could be erased by a mere splash of water, and what's left was a black abyss in which Christina tried to get a hold on, to grasp and then a blinding light. She only had a second to collect herself, remember where she was, why she was there, who she was and that this particular day was indeed important.
Today was Christina's wedding day.

'Way to go Chris dreaming about a shrink roach on the eve of your wedding day, you crazy girl' Christina thought to herself.

Her eyes opened after some effort and saw day a dazzle of grilled window and stained glass, faceted, like a great diamond. Her mother was bent beside the bed, spewing out words to her, words she didn't care to hear and beside the full length-mirror, beside the door, was a head-less mannequin wearing her wedding gown.
"I've shouted and shouted Christina! It's your wedding day today! Now get up and be ready…" as usual the Mom fussed about her room, picking up stray books and magazines, a magnifying glass (what did Christina use that for? The Mom thought) and a box of eye-shadow samples.

Kicking her legs to the air, Christina hoisted herself up and sat on the edge of the bed. Her head still felt annoyingly heavy and dizzy from sleep and all that shaking. After some time of half-prayer and half-mad rant in her head, she finally managed to stand up, dragging the floral bed-sheet to the floor as she walked towards her closet. Throwing a casual glance to her boudoir (she actually used that word for her dresser), she saw that the Old Jewels were set and ready; the gleaming diamond necklace, diadem and earrings resting on their bed of dark velvet. As a child, Christina spent a long time staring at that set and decided that the diamonds on dark velvet resembled the clear night sky, and that being so, she learned to love the jewels so much. She silently thanked the Mom for letting her wear it. It was probably the oldest and most precious of all heirlooms in their family, and she was even lucky to have one, for Christina's family wasn't exactly rich or "upper-middle class," and the Old Jewels were simply inherited from a great-grandmother who lived in a time when Manila was still considered as the "Paris of the Orient," and the Old Jewels certainly belonged to that time, when beauty was regarded highly and the only law that ruled them all were the Laws of Beauty.  But that time was long past and only those diamonds retained their luster, everything else was faded or dead.

Christina grabbed a week-old towel and bathrobe, she stepped into the bathroom, ignoring the chaos that was her bedroom and left her mother to it. "I'm going downstairs!" her mom called later, when Christina stood naked in front of the mirror, scrutinizing herself, her flesh and dreading all the things that will come.