by M.G. Marquez
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
MAGGIE
“You took me to total darkness I barely see a thing. Genius,” I told him when he led me to a place where lights don’t exist. This place was like a ghost town, and no one’s here except for us.
He took me to a ghost town. Sweet of him.
“Don’t judge me just yet. You’re not seeing the whole picture here,”
“I’m not seeing anything because it’s too dark,”
“That’s because,” holding my hand, he led to wherever until we stopped at a certain place. He loosened his hold on me and snapped his fingers. “When it’s dark, stars shine the brightest.”
One by one, I see hundreds of miniature stars lighting up. Around me. Around us. They’re blinking blinking blinking of colors, different hues. What’s even crazier than this galaxy substitute was that the stars were singing. I mean, they are singing. They’re singing Christmas songs and I think they’re lovely. I appreciate these songs back then, now I love them.
I looked around and around until the dizziness crept in and I almost fell down. Guji laughed at me and I laughed at my silliness, too. I turned to look at him – him that’s being colored with red, and green, and yellow lights, him that’s standing in front of me smiling, him that’s the recipient of all the crazy adjectives I could think of.
“This show ends at nine every night, so I asked them if I could borrow the place at 12. And yey, they let me,” he said, touching a vine of tiny light bulbs. “You like it?”
“Like it? I LOVE IT!” I opened my arms to express my happiness. “This scene is just so perfect in a photograph. This. Is. Phenomenal. Break taking. Tear jerker. I think I’m going to cry,”
“Then cry,” he walked to me and reached for my hand. He held it like hasn’t held it for years. He spun me around like a ballerina girl in a music box. “10… 9…8”
“Why are you counting?” he smiled.
“Janella, I took you here to tell you something important,” by the word ‘important’ my heart leaped. “On this very special day. On this very special place. With a very special person,”
Maj, breathe.
“3 words. 2 seconds…” I felt my chest tighten at his warm whispers. My muscles were even trembling and I swear my heart’s pounding like crazy. “One moment. Janella,”
“Ye-yes…?”
“I love you.”