THE WIEKTS

I couldn’t. I really couldn’t comprehend what was happening in my life anymore. My wife had been going to the market with Hart’s widow to sell her embroideries for months now. I tried to stop her. I tried my best to reason with her, but to no avail. Now, as I walked among the townspeople, they looked at me like I was such a broken man. The disgust crawled on my skin as I felt their stare on my back. It was as loud as if they were shouting at my back and calling me incompetent husband. I found myself drawn deeper and deeper towards that area in my mind where I could hide and stop myself from feeling anything. I hated myself because every time I went to that emptiness inside my mind, it meant that I was running away from the reality. And running away meant weakness. I hated to feel weak, because I wasn’t weak.

I gritted my teeth as I wrote the last word. I slammed my journal and put it back on its hiding place. For a moment, I let anger coursed through my veins, but then I sighed and slumped on the table. I started to look back on my life all these years. Starting from when I was a child, Father treated me like I was a disgrace to him and this family. But I kept strong and never gave up trying to prove him wrong. However, as I hit my teenage years, I started to stop trying and starting to live up to the name that he called me, a disgrace. I drowned myself in the drink even though I wasn’t supposed to drink yet at that time. Then as I grew up, I could never keep a work for more than a day. I was in denial about the reasons why I didn’t have a permanent work before, but now I could see that it was a futile attempt to get his attention. Perhaps deep down I realized that hatred and disgust from him was even better than the ignorance that he graced me for years since that fateful day on the field.

But now all I felt was weariness. I was tired in keeping the front. I couldn’t tell anybody about what I truly felt, not even my own parents and wife. I didn’t even know what I actually felt inside, until now. I still didn’t know what I felt regarding my wife, but I knew one thing. I didn’t feel any attraction towards her at all. And so, once again, I failed to fulfill my father’s expectations of me to give him grandchildren. Of course, regarding this matter, I felt no repercussions from the society as they deemed my wife as the one at fault. Our society was just like that towards the women. However, I couldn’t say the same about my father. He kept on pushing me to give him at least one grandchild. But I just couldn’t. I slumped even lower and put my hands on the back of my head. I grunted in frustration. Why was everything so complicated? It was too much of a burden to put on one single man. My father’s expectation was too great for me to fulfill and I couldn’t stop feeling as if I was a failure because I couldn’t give him what he wanted.

“Roan!”

A shout from outside my room brought me back to my senses. It was my father. Well, talk of the devil, I thought.

“Roan! Come here!” he bellowed.

“What?!” I shouted back, slowly rising from my chair and going to the door to open it. Once I opened it, I saw my father standing beside my wife. He looked absolutely furious while she was completely nonchalant about things.

“What is this?!” he demanded. “I spotted your wife in the market this morning. Selling things!”

“Yes, Father,” I answered. All fights had left my body. I just didn’t find the strength to argue with him anymore. I was so tired with my life and the constant battle in it.

He sputtered. “You mean to tell me that she did this with your permission?!”

“Yes,” I answered.

“What are you thinking?! Do you want to disgrace this family further?” he screamed at my face. His face turned that ugly shade of red, the usual sign of him losing his patience. “After your brother died in that battle because of illness, there had been nothing but shame to our name. And now, you! I gave you the opportunity to better your life, gave you a wife, and now what?! You’re doing nothing to repay me and you’re being controlled by your wife?! You are pathetic!”

I didn’t say anything because there was nothing to be said. I was in that phase of ignorance towards what happen to me. I felt numb. Yea, that was it. I didn’t feel anything anymore. The numbness filled my mind and body, rendering me useless to do anything.

“Answer me, you fool!” he shouted and slapped my face hard. I stumbled but didn’t fall.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see my wife gasp. She had both her hands on her chest and on her face was the expression of shock and fear. I didn’t pay her any mind, though. Even my father’s slap didn’t make me feel anything. My hand rose towards my face and cupped my cheek. It felt hot. It was supposed to sting, but the fact was it didn’t.

Hearing no response from me, he huffed and stormed away to the front door. I stared at the floor for I didn’t know how long. There was no noise for a long time. Then my wife cleared her throat and finally broke the silence.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I nodded. There was another silence.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

My head snapped upright and I looked at her. I narrowed my eyes and said, “What did you just say?”

“I said I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening to you before and now what you fear actually happened. I didn’t know that your father will hit you,” she explained and then sighed.

I could only scoff at her but I felt the numbness slipping away from my mind and body. I looked at her and the initial numb feeling was gone and changed into the familiar anger and frustration. It was all because of her. If only she had listened to me, if only she hadn’t gone to that market and sold her embroideries, if only she had obeyed me and respected me as her husband, none of these would have happened. With those thoughts swirling in my head, I saw red.

“It’s all because of you!” I shouted.

I went blank for a while and the next thing I knew was the dull sting on my palm. It was familiar for me as I had also felt it recently. I snapped back into my consciousness and saw my wife sprawled on the floor with her hand on her red cheek. The situation was so similar that it took me back to that night a few months ago when I hit her after our argument. But something was different now. Where I felt remorse at that time, I felt nothing of the sort now. I didn’t feel anything close to regret. Instead, I felt even angrier than before. I didn’t know why or how. The one thing I knew was that I was having this urge to keep on punishing her because she was the one who caused all my miseries. Again, it was as if I lost all of my consciousness and I was completely unaware of what I did until a loud shriek pulled me back.

I looked around me and saw my wife on the floor. She was sprawled on the same spot, but now she was a whimpering mess even more so than before. She was curled up on the floor with both her hands surrounding her body as if she was protecting it from something. And that instant I realized that she was protecting herself from me. I was out of control. Another silence broke in the room with me, breathing heavily on top of her quivering body, and her, trying to fold her body into the smallest shape possible.

“I —,“ I stuttered.

She sobbed and sobbed. I didn’t know what to do. Now after the adrenaline left me, all I could feel was the guilt and the heavy feeling of fear. I didn’t want to be like my father who hit people. I didn’t want to be like him, period. But by the way things went, I was beginning to be more and more like him.

Suddenly, she rose from her position on the floor. She wiped the tears from her face and tried to compose herself as best she could. Then she glared at me with hurt in her eyes.

“You promised, Roan. You broke it,” she choked on her words but quickly got her composure back again and continued, “You broke it. You’re just like your father.”

And with that said she left me. She left and never looked back, not even a glance back or trying to get her things. She just abandoned me and this house with everything in it. After that, I didn’t know how long I just stood there, unmoving and doing nothing. I only stared at the same spot where she was lying on before she went and left me. Then after long moments, I crumpled to the floor. There were no words to explain what I felt. Her parting words to me were like a knife stabbing my heart over and over again. I couldn’t think of anything to do or say except sitting there on the floor, broken. And never, in my whole life, had I felt such crushing feeling inside me. It seemed like my mind was shattering and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could only see it shattered into pieces in front of my eyes. I didn’t move for I didn’t know how long. Perhaps it was only a while or perhaps it was a very long while, I didn’t know. All I knew was that this was how my father and mother found me the next time they were here in the house.

“Roan!” my mother gasped.

Her gasp brought me back to the reality and that was the time when I realized that it had been a whole day since the incident with my father and wife. Still, I couldn’t fully go back to the reality. I could only look at her with a vacant look in my eyes. She rushed to my side and soon brought me back to my feet and sat me on one of the chairs. I would really love to scoff at her face. Now she felt the compulsion to help me. Now she showed me that compassion that I craved my whole life. I wanted to shake her and tell her that everything was too late, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have enough strength in me to do so.

“Roan, what happened?” she asked. I could hear her worry in her voice.

“She left,” I said. I looked at her face with were surely hollow eyes.

“Oh dear,” she whispered and took me in her embrace.

I heard my father scoffed again and I turned my gaze at him. He was standing there in the middle of the room with a disgusted expression pasted on his face. I just couldn’t bear to see him here in this house after what he had done to my family. Sure, I had never liked being married to my wife, but I didn’t want this to happen. Not because I felt anything to her, but more because this would cement the idea that I was hopeless both as a man and a husband. Now, as I looked at my father’s looming figure near the door, I couldn’t help the bitter laugh escaping from my mouth. My wife was right after all. I was just like my father. No, a voice told me from somewhere deep inside myself. You’re worse than your father, it said to me. And it sickened me when I recognized the voice to be my own. How could I not be worse than my father? At least he could provide for his family better than me. He could be a good and respectable husband in the eyes of the society. Whereas me, the disgraceful son from the start and a good-for-nothing husband at the end.

“What are you laughing at?” he demanded. “Don’t you understand the effect of your incompetence towards our family name? It will be years until our family are seen as a good family again. First your brother and now you! Bah!”

“Arn...,” said Mother, trying to calm him down. I knew that it wouldn’t work. Arn Wiekt couldn’t be calmed down when he was angry.

Everyone saw him as a respectable man because of his kind and generous attitude towards the people, especially the ones who worked with him. But I wanted to see their faces if only they could see how he behaved at home and how he treated his family. But then, before my feeling developed once again to the familiar territory of anger, I remembered that I was now the same with him. I treated my family like trash. Even though I only had one other person to take care of, my wife, I failed. The only difference that he and I had was that he was better at masking his darker sides from the society while I kept on flaunting it for the whole world to see. That was my biggest mistake and I knew that now. If only I was clever enough to do exactly like he did. If only I was better at pretending and concealing myself. And if only I had chosen a different way of getting his attention, I wouldn’t be here, less than a man, in front of my parents. I gave out a small laugh again.

“He’s going mental, I’m telling you. He’s losing his mind!” Father exclaimed. “Look at you. Your wife left you and you can’t even grasp the seriousness of this matter. You can’t get a permanent work in the town and you also can’t maintain the land that I gave you. Look how many ruined crops that we have this year! All of that was because you can’t work the land well enough. You can’t even give me a grandson!” He threw his hands in the air, exasperated.

“Well, if you want a grandson so much, why don’t you make Thoar get married?” I asked. There was nothing left in me anymore and so I threw all caution into the wind.

He was furious in an instant. Again that unhealthy shade of red was back on his face. He took big steps towards me and grabbed the front of my shirt, lifting me several inches off the ground.

“You insolent child!” he shouted.

I snorted and stared at his eyes. He looked deep into my eyes as if he was searching something there. He was so angry. I thought that this was the angriest he had ever been. I thought that perhaps he was even angrier now than when he received the news about Hart’s death of illness instead of dying in the battlefield. I had always thought that it was such a stupid and irrational reason to make a father hated his son so much. But now, as I stared into the eyes of the man who raised me, I could understand him a little. I could understand that he did what he did because he wanted to give us a good life. He gave the family good reputation by working hard and putting up a front in front of everyone. He did it all from scratch. The Wiekts had nothing to their name before him. He was the one who build the family’s name. Now, all he was asking for us, his sons, was that we upheld that good reputation with everything that we had. I would’ve been frustrated as well if I were him and my sons would never listen to me. However, I would never have any sons to educate about keeping our name as I felt nothing for my wife.

But everything was too late. I realized everything late. And now all I had left was guilt, the rotten guilt that was eating my soul away bit by bit until there was nothing there except emptiness. And the numbness was back with such a force. I would stumble and fall to the cold hard floor if not for my father’s hands still holding my shirt.

At long last, he must’ve seen something in my eyes, because he took a step back and let me go. He looked confused and — dare I say it — a bit sad. He looked lost. He turned to my mother who looked at him as if he was crazy. She didn’t understand. He turned his gaze back at me. All the while, I felt the numbness starting to creep faster and faster. It was all over my body now. It was starting to reach my mind and the emptiness that often overcame me when I felt extreme distress came slowly, calling me softly with its seductive voice. And with the final look at my father’s lost expression and my mother’s shocked one, I finally succumbed to it, body, mind, and soul. I was no more.

I wrote this because I was afraid. This would be the most important note in this journal. When somebody found this book and read this note, I hoped that he or she would burn this and speak of this to no one. This was my soul. I was writing this while I could still sense some logic in my thoughts. It was a good sign. It meant that I wasn’t going crazy — yet. As I had written in the notes before this, I started to experience the lapse since Hart’s death. Now, it was getting more and more uncontrollable. And the scariest thing was I felt safe there and I would like to be there forever. However, as long as my logic was still working, I knew that I would not succumb to it. I was a fighter. Even after everything my father had done to discouraged me, I kept on proving him wrong. Of course, some of the choices that I made in order to do so might not be the best course of action. But I would not give my mind up to the emptiness inside me, no matter how alluring it was.

Ever since I was given the land to work on and was married to my wife, I had been doing a lot of thinking. Several revelations — if you wanted to call them as those — came to me in the middle of writing this journal. The most important one was the fact that I had no interest in taking care of my father’s farmland. I had a greater thing that I wanted to do. I would like to be somebody instead of settling for just everybody. But I knew that this would not happen. My father would disown me if he knew that I was dreaming of going to the capital and actually studied something. I saw a similar interest in my youngest brother and I hoped that he could — would — get what he dreamed of.

Another important thing was about me and my wife — if I could call her that. Father kept on pushing me to give him at least one grandchild, no, he specifically told me to give him at least one grandson. But I couldn’t deliver that and once more I would be marked as a disgrace for the family. I knew that but I couldn’t help it even if I wanted to, because there was no way that I could make my wife pregnant when I felt absolutely nothing towards her. But then I realized that I felt nothing towards women in general as well. That was one more thing that makes me different from the rest of the people here. I couldn’t help it, though. So, I knew that it was only a matter of time before my father pressed the matter further and pushed me through my limit. But I couldn’t change it. It wasn’t something that was in my control to manipulate or change.

And so, if this journal was found and this note was read, it would only mean that I had finally lost the lifelong battle that I had been fighting my whole life. And no, it wasn’t about my father or my wife. It was all about me. I lost against myself because I was afraid to live. I wasn’t strong enough to continue living and so I gave up the fight and succumbed. Therefore, to anyone reading this note that I wrote while I was still sane, I begged him or her to destroy this. Let all of the content of this journal remained in my mindless mind so that nobody would know and so that my family name would not be tarnished further because of my actions.