Coming Home [Fanfiction]
Title: Coming Home
Characters: M!Philippines, OC!Intramuros, and other recognizable figures.
Warning: Unbeta’d.
Summary: When Juan needs a bit of reminding, he returns to his palace of memories.
Preview:
Soft music carried itself to him as he walked - and so he followed. A few turns, and he would find himself in a lavish room. Maria Clara sat by her piano and played a pensive tune, her eyes trained away from him.
Juan gravitated towards her - her lovely dark hair and her light skin. He yearned to see what she really looked like. Instead, he sat beside her, body faced away from the piano. The will to finally look into the eyes of a woman he had loved, but never known, had slipped.
Maria Clara continued to play as if he wasn’t there.
When the world felt like a terrible place - well, worse than it actually was - Juan took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Sometimes he would pick up a bottle of beer or a bag of chicharon (with vinegar, of course). Sometimes he would take a shower. Sometimes he would push his chair back from the table and hang his head.
He would let the world overcome him, and then he would overcome the world.
When all else failed, Juan liked to look into himself.
Through walls of thought, stairs of dreams, and palaces of memory, he would walk; he would explore himself. Sometimes, Juan would come across things old and new, subtle and blatant, red and blue - parallels and perpendiculars of events long past, highways and crossroads that he had never remembered travelling through.
It was never in Juan’s nature to throw things away, so in his memory palace they stayed, never collecting dust, pristine in every aspect. Frankly, it was more effective than a trophy case, a storage room, or even a museum.
[But it did make it difficult to forget sometimes.]
Juan’s memory palace was larger than the world, and he never got tired of picking a direction and entering rooms that held promise. Juan never got lost, always finding an entrance and an exit whenever he pleased.
In Juan’s memory palace, there would be the feel of sand beneath his feet, and the undertow tugging him back into the depths of sea, where he belonged. There would be an earthquake here or there, always imperceptible unless he stopped and stood still. Dusty concrete would rise to meet his every step, and a soft bed would always wait for him, should he have chosen to collapse.
A smell would linger; acrid gunpowder, tangy sinigang, and burnt kapeng barako. There was the rusted scent of salt and blood, an infusion of sunshine and chocolate. There was bitterness he could taste behind his tongue, in the beginnings of his throat.
There was always a commotion about; be it the buzzing of people’s voices, the crackling of a pork rind, or the flurry of gunfire. On some days and some places, there was the chanting of “laban, laban” or perhaps “Cory, Cory”.
Soft music carried itself to him as he walked - and so he followed. A few turns, and he would find himself in a lavish room. Maria Clara sat by her piano and played a pensive tune, her eyes trained away from him.
Juan gravitated towards her - her lovely dark hair and her light skin. He yearned to see what she really looked like. Instead, he sat beside her, body faced away from the piano. The will to finally look into the eyes of a woman he had loved, but never known, had slipped.
Maria Clara continued to play as if he wasn’t there.
He listened for a while longer, waiting for the song to come to an end, which it never did. The music did not loop, always reaching its heartbreaking crescendos before falling back to the heavy-hearted melody.
“I wish you’d play something lighter.”
She never replied.
It was better that way.
But there were also places where there was complete silence - an unnatural hush.
In these places, there were locked doors.
He had tried opening them before - failed attempts at picking the locks and breaking the wood - but they did not open even for him. Juan did not even know where the keys were, and he suspected that it was he himself who held the secret; like a forgotten dream.
He was never truly alone in here - there were echoes of movement, a resonance of life that belonged to his people. They roamed the halls in their dreams, going in circles and falling down rabbit holes before returning to themselves.
All the time, Juan would share himself with his people.
Do you remember when you first met him?
You were small, at the time. Completely lost in the corridors, searching for a way out. From time to time, you would stop in a room - once, to sit with Lola Basyang and listen to her stories; another time to pick up a plate of puto that lay on a table. You had entered another room, and this time, a forest lay before you. Several stone statues sat at the base of a silver tree with golden leaves. It glowed brightly.
You came forward, and you sat on its roots. A gorgeous voice began a song, and soon you fell asleep.
When you woke, you were in your own bedroom. The skies were vividly blue, and whipped cream clouds lazily floated across the vast ocean of air.
Vaguely, you could recall someone picking your small body from the ground and moving away. There was the warmth of the sun, and the rocking of waves as you were carried in your nation’s arms.
You return to his memory palace every night, but you had never seen him, but you always knew he was there.
“Well, it certainly has been a while, Juan.”
Salazar stood tall, and the feather on his hat was a deep red. His face remained without any lines, like the suit he wore. Shiny leather shoes mimicked the grin on his face.
“It has, Intramuros.”
“Have a seat.”
A gesture towards the two red armchairs that had not been there moments ago. A small table sat between the seats, and a steel coffeepot - holding American coffee, no doubt - and two saucers. They both sat, and Intramuros poured them coffee, the steam rising before disappearing into the air.
The scene played slowly, and Juan sat in his memory, seeing things as he had never seen them before.
“And so your freedom is finally granted.”
Salazar’s hands shook as he held the coffeepot. His voice was different, too. Intramuros’ voice was raspy, as if he had smoked too many cigarettes.
“Our freedom,” Juan grinned at him, as he had when they had actually had this conversation; he didn’t feel the same joy coursing through him as he had before.
“Perhaps it is then that I may finally rest.”
Juan the American colony had been too excited by his approaching grant of independence to understand, dwell, or even care about the sentiment; Juan the nation, however, saw it all very clearly.
It was here that Juan remembered - or rather, here was remembering for him. Like floating down a river’s mighty waters, he would feel the occasional stone beneath him, the feel of earth and sand beneath his fingers as he neared a bank. They would prod at him, cling to his skin.
And he would remember.
He would remember the day euphoria buzzed through his ears for the first time in his existence - people had risen to the flight of his flag, vocalized the melody of his anthem, which didn’t even have words at the time. He could see General - or rather, President - Aguinaldo’s face, winning and glowing.
He had felt glorious, blissful, less burdened. He had not wept, then. That much was telling. Looking back on it now, Juan realized that he had known all along that his ‘independence’ wasn’t real - it wouldn’t last.
The second time was, in the grand scheme of things, not long later. Much had happened; he had bled, fought, and suffered again and again. There was asphyxiation, humiliation, isolation. He had worn the clothes of the rich and the poor, shedding them and putting on another set like snakeskin, waiting for the day he would find himself bare.
And then the flag of stars and stripes was lowered, and his own colors rose once more.
He sang his anthem louder than any other man, the voices around him urging him onward to make himself heard. He felt love and praise through every pore of his skin, every hair on his body, and every shiver down his spine.
Everything was perfect. And because it couldn’t take it, the world seemed to break and blur; Juan broke with it. He found himself laughing and sobbing as he crouched to the ground beside Intramuros, who congratulated him quietly, his omnipresent hat gone for the day. He could barely hear him over the noise around them.
It was over.
He was free.
The wind rushed against his skin as the little boy ran, ran, ran across the shore. Wet sand clung to his feet, sinking between his toes. Sunlight showered upon his bare back, his short arms and legs. Undertow tugged at his toes, and he obliged, approaching the deep of the ocean.
It embraced his body the way it embraced his islands
He was alone, but not really alone - he didn’t understand just yet, but that would come with time. In his head, hundreds of voices whispered and sang songs of praise and peace.
In the distance, he heard the calls of the birds, and from behind him, the rushing of the tide. He breathed in deeply, allowing the salt in the air to fall through his chest. His heart beat loudly in his ears, louder than any of the clan’s largest war drums.
Freedom as he knew it.
The sun shone above him, the wind forgave his bruises, and the water healed his wounds. There was nothing to forgive, and nothing to forget.
He had all he needed; he could be - he was - happy.
Juan would stay in his memory palace, and it was here that he learned to cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising his voice. It’s where he learned to take the poison and float away.
It was his retreat, his fortress; the one thing he truly owned.
When Juan retreated, he was home. But it wasn’t about actually coming home or leaving it - he was his own home. For him, coming home to himself was the same as lying on the couch after a tiring day of work, opening the refrigerator in the middle of the night, and opening the door to find someone happy to see him. It was the same as misplacing a favorite book, tripping over a step in the stairs, and slamming a slipper over a pest.
For however long he needed, Juan would come home to his memory palace. He would pick up bits of himself and put them back down. He would look at his lovely collection of memories and just watch them run through his mind. Sometimes, he would feel himself crying, sometimes he would laugh to a joke he had almost forgotten.
Then Juan would open his eyes to the television, to a colleague, to a friend, to the tiled bathroom wall, to a bag of food and a lonely bottle of beer.
His eyes, and the world itself, would seem just a bit brighter.
Fin.
Have a wonderful 113th birthday, Juan. I love you.
I would have written something lighter, seeing as there’s been an influx of heartbreaking ones, but as I have no idea how to write light things, this is what came out. I regret nothing but the fact that it’s not the best it could be.
The concept of a memory palace was from the book “Hannibal” by Thomas Harris. And yes, I am indeed referring to that Hannibal.