Chapter 1

Try to imagine a mathematician who has trained himself to think his whole life objectively. Now he wants to write his biography. He wants to tell the deranged story that he had, the things that changed him entirely to the last cell in his body.

How boring would it be?

What made me think I could do that was realizing that I had a common ground with other people. I have read novels, books, and magazines about human relationships and their suffering to the extent of madness and self-destruction. And in all, people tend to go to the same road. The road is called Love. People are still using it. Thousands of years have passed since we became Homo sapiens. We evolved as a being. We got smarter and taller and everything else about us—our belief, taste in food, affection, and even our choices of God. So did “Love.” It is a touchy subject for everyone. Aren’t we pursuing it every day of our lives? Is it our mistake or parental teaching that we never understood the meaning of it?

The common ground tells me that I can do this biography since I have feelings like anybody else. I get hurt when I get rejected. It becomes a joy of my life to see the laugh of the person I am attracted to, and I get sad when I find out that the feeling she had isn’t the same way I had. These and many other things brought me to the conclusion that I am human like anybody else and capable of having feelings. I don’t know what kind of reader is going to read this book, but I am sure that my story, like anybody else’s, is going to be interesting. Since this is my story, I want to share it the way I like it.

But before that, let me tell you an old story about the moth’s love and the candle.

In the nighttime, an eclipse of moths gathered together, desiring to find the mystery behind the candle’s light. In unison, they said, “One of us should go find the secret behind what we are looking for.”

One of the moths went afar, saw a candle in the castle, and observed how it shone through the darkness. He came back and told the others what he had seen as much as he could. But the wise moth, the leader of their assembly, perceived, “That is not the secret of the candle.”

Another moth rose and visited the candle, and this time, he drew near it. He touched the flame by his wings. He whirled and twirled around it, but the heat of the candle drove him away.

The candle was victorious, and the moth was defeated.

He returned and told them his part of the story, but the sagacious moth said to him, “Your explanation is no better than your comrade.”

A third moth rose, drunk and inebriated; he went and sat on the candle. Embracing the candle and its fire, he became one with the candle. His body became the same color as the light that it sought.

The knowledgeable moth saw the whole thing from afar. He saw how the candle identified itself with that moth, and then he said, “Only this moth knows the secret and no one else. Who could tell the mystery of the candle but he?”

The story usually starts with the childhood of the people, how they became the people who they are now. But I want to break the unwritten law and start writing the way I like. It is going to be chaotic, but it is going to be fun.

My story starts with believing in love. Should I believe in it? Or should I try to find the truth about it?

Well, let’s see. Do I believe in it?

Many years ago, someone thought that I was the love of her life. She had this notion that if I were with her, she would be the happiest girl in the world—same old cliché. She didn’t see what was coming; neither did I.

On the morning of my final exam, I finished my test and was waiting for my ride, then I saw a woman or, should I say, a mother. She had this motherly look all over her face, from wearing cheap dresses to not even trying to put so much effort into putting some makeup on her face. She didn’t care at all about her appearance. If it weren’t for her kid’s embarrassment, I believe, she wouldn’t put that effort either. It was interesting to look at her. It made me curious what she was thinking. Do all mothers do the same things? So I looked around, and I saw that most mothers had the same figures. It was like all of them came and went to the same lousy mall. They didn’t care about their appearance. Still, I could see the beauty they had. Some of them colored their hair to golden blond, and some hid their white hair in black or red. Their bellies puffed from the experience they had from giving birth. I could see the dust of life was heavy on their faces, and it pulled down some faces with it.

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I looked back to the woman who made my morning different. She was sitting on the chair and was looking far away. She wasn’t looking at anything. It was obvious. Anyone with good observational eyes could tell you the same. She was instead thinking. I don’t know what she was thinking. I wanted to give her at least this little privacy she got. She was drowning in her own thoughts. Maybe she was thinking about what she should do if her daughter or her son goes to college. Is it going to be okay? What’s going to happen to her baby kid then? She invested too much to let it be a failure. She wanted the best things for her youngster. She always does, doesn’t she? What would happen to her little one when she is GONE? Is it okay to leave them now? Are they going to be Okay? What if her kid met terrible people? Draw her teenage boy or girl to do the wrong things, to do drugs, to smoke, to be a parent without knowing it? What if her child became successful? Is it going to be okay then? What if people started abusing her baby? Someone marries her adolescent child since her youngster is a successful person, not because of how wonderful her young one is? Or people, because of their envies, put her sweet child in difficult situations? Her fine, loving tot must make long hours work to satisfy those people. Or because of the laziness of some people, her baby must endure all the responsibility? Oh, her sweet, loving child. The kid is too young to have that kind of hardship. She wished she could do something about it. Of course, still, her stripling is in need—in need of her guidance—so she had to be strong. As long as she lives, no soul can harm her sweet, loving child. She could still remember when she gave birth to this beautiful creature, and she is thankful to the universe for giving her this beautiful gift.

The moment she saw her toddler, she fell in love with it. There was something that clouded her vision at the moment that wouldn’t let her see her child. Oh, that silly tears. What untimely moment it had to come. For God’s sake, even her nose was running. Droplets blinded her, so she wiped it out. She didn’t want to lose a second of not seeing her kiddie. She became deaf from hearing other voices. She only wanted to listen to her infant. A slight move to reach her child and a tremendous feeling of pain rushed to her body. She remembered the amount of pain she had to endure to give birth to this affectionate creature. In those moments, she made a commitment that she would never go through this again but look at her child. Her child was beautiful and perfect. She was aching to hold her babe. She moved again, and the rush of the pain immobilized her again. She was so disappointed in herself that she thought she was too weak to reach her adoring infant without other people’s help. She helplessly held her hands up in the sign of a request to have her ardent babe. The nurse understandably handed in her kid. Even though she said this sentence more than a thousand times, but she still said it with a smile on her face.

“Your child is beautiful.”

She looked up and understandably nodded. She was holding her adoring child. Her kid was so vulnerable and breakable. She was too afraid to move fast or do something stupid that would harm her minor. She could see the little face and the closed eyes and those little hands that were moving around aimlessly. Maybe those hands were trying to grab something, so she put her index finger slowly on one of those little hands. And those fingers, with no waste of time, held her finger. She could feel the warmth of

the skin of that little hand. That hand wouldn’t let go of her. It just made her smile more to see how strong her kid was. She noticed the little head that was moving side by side.

Does it want something else?

Even though it hurt her feeling, she pulled out her finger from those little fingers to free her hand to pull out her breast. As soon as she did that, those little hands were wandering around to grab something.

How vulnerable.

She pulled out her breast successfully with one hand. Doing that made her proud of herself. She showed her motherhood skill to her child and made sure her youngster understood that THIS mother was skillful and reliable.

The kid’s head was still wandering around from side to side, with the hands searching for something. Even those little feet were moving around.

How sweet and vulnerable the tot was.

She slowly turned the infant’s head toward her breast, where her nipple was to let the little love have it. It was the one and only mission the child had to do. Million years of evolution taught the fond one just to do that, to survive. The baby started suckling with excitement. She put her hand on the baby’s head kindly and traced back the line of hair. Those shaggy, wet from the womb, were a mess. This kid made a hell of an entrance into the world, and she whispered in the young one’s ear.

“Welcome.”

I could see all that in her eyes. I saw the pain, joy, disappointment, pride, laugh, hope, disgust, anger, kindness, passion, and delight. I didn’t know what to do with this kind of self-revelation. Not two hours ago, I was mapping out how to take off so many panties from the girls and collect them as a badge of honor or trophies. I wanted to push out this strange feeling that I got from this woman. I didn’t need that in my life. I just wanted to get laid. Pathetic? Maybe. But who cares for this kind of bullshit? Where was that selfishness when I needed it?

However, I was curious to see whose mother she was? At that time, my ride came, and I never found out who she was.