By Anna Moon
When we were younger, we were always told to sleep in the afternoon so we would grow taller. I had always been a small child. I was 9 nine back then. I was already in third grade, but I was 119 centimeters tall and weighed only 19 kilograms.
My grandparents spoiled me. We usually ate boiled okra that my grandmother counted and tied up in bundles with colourful rubber bands from early morning until noon, while they fried one of the chickens, they had raised underneath the hut my grandfather built.
My grandfather worked in the rice field and returned home at 12:30 pm, carrying a huge watermelon. He went straight to the kitchen while my grandmother and I waited in the sala where we also slept, laughing with the host of the only noontime shows we could watch on TV since all the other channels were either static or blurry.
“It’s already ripe,” he said, putting the plate of thickly sliced red watermelon on the round table. I mindlessly took a piece, dipping it in white sugar while he sat beside me on the worn-out sofa upholstered in a brown striped fabric with its springs protruding like the bones under his wrinkled skin.
He bit into the watery pulp of the watermelon and swallowed the black seeds. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he held out his hand and let me spit the seeds into them.
“It’s time to sleep,” my grandmother said, rising from the sofa and then turning off the TV. She laid the old, torn, white blanket on the cold wooden slats while I held a flattened, hard pillow.
In the afternoon, I lay on the floor between my grandparents listening to the soft bamboo trees outside creaking. There was a momentary silence. I waited for the wind to blow and the bamboo barks to squeak again. The sand and dust outside made everything gray, and the bamboo trees swayed. It had always been cold and dreary, and it never failed to lull me.
By three in the afternoon, I was deep asleep, left alone dreaming about a herd of headless brown horses galloping freely but vigorously, aimlessly. They did not neigh, because they did not have mouths. The only sounds they made were their hooves hitting the ground.
It was not gore. It wasn’t out of the ordinary. It was just like they never had heads to begin with. Everything else in those dreams quickly dissipated as soon as I woke up. Everything else in my childhood was forgotten. I just knew once it existed. Deep in my heart, I knew it did even if I pretended it didn’t. On that afternoon, I was awakened by my grandfather deeply kissing me.
I never told anyone. I was just nine back then. I didn’t know much about the world. I pretended it didn’t happen. I was certain I was dreaming of headless horses. I turned and twisted, pretending I was still asleep.
These emotions weren’t fleeting. It felt like my heart drop to my stomach. I was sickened. I was confused. I was scared. I was angry. I listened to the bamboo trees creaking. It’s the sound of the bedroom door quietly opening. My grandmother used to sneak in and check if I was sleeping. “It’s colder outside,” she said and never let me sleep in the bedroom again.
I was awake for hours, but the dream wouldn’t fade. The dream wouldn’t disappear. I never slept in the afternoon again. Still, I grew taller.
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Anna Moon was born in a small historic town in the Philippines. Growing up, she was fascinated with languages, traditions, and cultures. She loves to travel.
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