SOPHIA'S NIGHTMARES

The love of or for wisdom has always been the number one reason to chase knowledge. Ranging from the sciences to the least empirical subjects that we have come to label. Humans are passionate creatures and we always want what is best for our works, sometimes we desire a degree of perfection that we design it in a way that it could never exist. Thus, one point comes to mind, either perfection is chaos or that chaos is infinite existence.

I've always had an idea for an intellectuals table. Not just banters and outbursts with the growth and decay of value. Realists, as people call them, subscribe in a different understanding that is based on intuition and instinct while revolving in a reality, they don't ever question.

As much as I would like to talk in this conversation about the stock market and arguments about empirical views. I have to say, this is the one closest to that dream. Maybe I should host a dinner sometime. Sarcasm.

It was a communal meal. It was neat and informative. I did learn about why I should put my money in their companies.

"...it is crazy isn't it. It would void decay in the future and all will live happily ever after." a man said looking english with blonde hair with dashes of transparent and watercolor like shade as if doing a pitch on me, to which I assume was put in front of me to test my aptitude on business as the revelation that I, for one day, has been the love-interest of the heir to a throne. Whose company I don't even know.

"Now, I have to ask what do you practice?" the man who I barely know asks me.

"Forensic Nursing?" I panicked.

"Are you sure?" he said in a giggle as his eyes flew around the table.

The whole table giggled. I would be laughing too but I was too busy trying to remember the briefing they have given me. They might as well as have given me cards but digitized notes seem to do the trick.

"Ms. Ramirez?" a voice from the end of the table commanded me to look. It was the Browns' mother.

"Yes po?"

The moment I answered, all eyes turned to me. I've seen episodes and series containing thoughts about high-society, and this one was extremely accurate.

"Tell me dear, how long have you been going out with Kaley?"

I froze. At least if the government was involved, there would be an official story and briefing, it all happened so fast. "Um."

"We met during the closure of the December Strangler case when Detective O'hara introdupp6p0pced us. We worked on much cases together and..." Kaley said firing a look at me.

Sophia was particularly grinning on my side as Kaley had taken the lead to explaining the story of how we met. Everyone was so invested in the story as if it was that of a crazy television drama. I never knew this could be a reality. Actually, I did.

"She slowly wore me off by being too obvious with her feelings."

I looked at him in glare in response to his very inaccurate hypotheticals.

"Fine, I wore her off," he trailed off and whispered, "Like they'd believe that."

From the other side were these cliched- elitist girls darting gazes at me. They wore very fashioned gowns from top designers, I assume. Wearing white dresses so soft and graceful making you look like a goddess. One wore a very clean cream gown, the others with white. Secret ingredient? A whiff of fancy. I leaned on my chair and whispered in a very low voice, "some people are eyeing for something."

Sophia almost burst into laughter on my side but masked it by drinking the empty glass of wine.

"So, I read, your family is of prestige too? A family connected to media was it?" a girl from the other side said doing the "was it" act to look smart. She wore a pretty revealing outfit to support my guess. She was this dazzling young woman. Rounded face and short hair, she resembled Sakaki from Love and Fortune. A beloved show I've come to love.

First of all, this is not going well for me. Now they know my identity. I just smiled and nodded.

"You're not quite the talker, are you? Looks like we won't be able to break you," the guy on the other side poured me glass of wine, ironically.

"Come on, talk, or else we will think this is not a relationship at all," the mother said. "How come I've never heard of the fact that you two live together?"

The girls at the other side of the table were particularly shocked, and a certain entrepreneur with a very bushy mustache was intrigued as if his venture just went somewhere or diverged away from its path.

"Very well," I said as I was worried our cover might be blown, my identity shown and her mother was really scary. I was wrong, first impressions don't last.

I started searching my brain for ideas to create an impromptu pastiche and put them together in under a minute. So far as I've gathered: elaborating Kaley's story.

"We got cooped up together solving cases that we ended up-" as I was saying this, Sophia was laughing hysterically inside. I could tell. "...wore down," I swallowed my pride and looked at Kaley. "...Each other, and we decided to move in. Together."

From everything that I've gathered for the time I've exhausted living here are the facts that I don't respond the way people would and that somehow with destiny's flick, I'm in for a ride. After hearing about the case, I didn't, for one moment -got shocked by the fact that he is a detective. It was all television.

"Sophia, how's the research going on? Have they decided to make soybean alternatives for other target consumers?" Mila Browns, with no pause- immediately switched topics. It feels like she only asked me that question for courtesy. I don't think it even qualifies as courtesy.

"Yes, there is an ongoing nationwide taste-testing and survey. We should get the results next weekend," she said without looking at her. She just cut her steak while talking. Prestige or hostility?

I often get lost in my own world. To be fair, the world shares a subjective reality to which I say is... convenient.

On the midst of the very lively conversation, a ringtone that sounded clearly like Bach's cello suite rang. The attention shifted to Kaley to which he replied, "I have business to attend to."

I believe that is a miracle to help me escape from realists' world. Though common courtesy dictates that I shouldn't leave abruptly during a pleasant meal. But it wasn't.

"Kaley, have you decided your position on the matter? It looks like this is the best time to do it," the monocle man said going around the table. He drank from his wine glass and walked behind us to pat Kaley's back and mine.

Kaley's mother looked curiously at our direction where Kaley declined the phone call and I assume, switched to texting this particular man... or woman.

"It will be the same as ever. If I may be excused, there's a de--" he stopped and changed his phrase to, "I'll take my leave now," he said closing his phone.

He was clearly about to say the word "dead body." Fair assumption given his thought patterns.

"What business?" his mother asked.

To my right, Sophia looked more upset than ever.

The moment he got up he looked at me in a stoic face. Is that code for something.

"Let's go?" he said.

Sophia stood up and said "I'll go to the bar," said she then trailed off by my side saying "I'm coming."

~

As far as I'm concerned, I just got dragged into a spaceship. As a form of common courtesy, I smiled and got out there as fast as I can.

"I can't believe this," Sophia raced us to the entrance(well, one way in and out) and got ahead of us.

"Sir, you're leaving early?" the driver earlier said as we passed the arching doorway of the old convent's building.

"Actually, don't mind taking them home. They'll come with me," Sophia said as she led us to her parking space outside. "I kind of want to go on a long drive right now."

It was a cyan vintage-looking car from afar, designed like that maybe? Though it was night, I could've mistaken it for white. The outside was particularly reminiscent of my days walking alone on the streets. I would enjoy those few moments of solitude hearing the crickets; the hums of the wind and the sound of moving cars as if I was in countryside Japan, are the reminders that somewhere and some-how I can manage to live without fear.

I got on the convertible and sat in front. For some reason Kaley doesn't like seating up front.

I only looked outside and saw how tranquil the fields. I would trade any part of my life to be here alone. My mind has been numbed.

At least, I owe myself a confession. Every time I find a way to suppress my thoughts, I feel like something and somehow, something is bound to go wrong. I would lay down my bed hoping there's something out there that'd tell me what to do as I wait for the terrors to come back and haunt me.

~

Upon reaching Asuncion street, Sophia, in front of the convertible stopped the car by the gate of Holstein. Her eyes, watery and her face strands twitchy of sadness had only painted gloom into the winds.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

In a simple nod, her biting her tongue was evident. Her eyes might as well as have quivered in front of my eyes. Poor girl, she is a woman of greatness, one who no one could see her value in a sex dominated concentric.

Kaley, having noticed the silence, suspended his actions of letting himself out and said, "Crying helps."

Having heard his comment, it was the missing imprecision of my calculations to his holistic personality. He was one, Truly THE AGNOSTIC, one who is certain of uncertainty. One who obeyed the rules of-- no, not rules of Logic, but rules of senselessness- a paradoxical world where good and bad are intertwined by kindness.

In meaningful silence, the teary eyes of Sophia broke out. Upon his words was an embrace that gave Sophia a safe place to crash.

"In this world, there is no permanence, there is only integrity and kindness. There might or might not be a destination, but that doesn't block one from being great."

His words were patriotic, nearly one that was political and of a President's mouth, but it was his way to mask the real message.

He sighed and said, "You can come to stay with us for a while if you want, right?" he said then asking me. I could only nod having been confused about his ways. Sophia brought herself back and said, "Thanks." Her cheeks were dried tears and a face relieved of stress.

We headed to the apartment and traipsed to the apartment. She said she was good sleeping on the sofa and asked me if I had any extra clothes for her to borrow, which I said was alright. Upon changing and all of us were comfortable, we invited her to join us for a midnight tea. I gave her my violet knitted sweater and comfortable black jogging pants. It is all I had.

"I hope you can forgive my intrusion," I'll be out in the morning.

I smiled at her and said, "You can stay as long as you need."

In turn, she smiled. The worlds were definitely inter-subjective. What was on our minds was communicated by each tingling and sigh as we sipped the teas by our table.

"So even you couldn't take the table?" I said breaking the silence to ask Kaley, who was in his comfortable stripe energy-conserving form. "There really isn't a 'dead body'?"

With a smile, he said, "Yes."

Sophia in turn slowly grew her motivation back. "Only you know the real value of your work," Kaley said then walking over to the sofa. "It is the beauty painted, the feelings, the touches to one's ego that fulfills the publication."

"Ego?" she asked turning her head to Kaley, who was by now reaching for the remote on the transparent end table of the sofa.

"The receptor and comprehender of reality. If one knows how to play with perceptible passion, completely in a different concentric, the beauty can be made into physicality in a non-empirical form."

The Brownian detective's word hinted emphasis on his agnostic propositions. But they were as calming as the fur of a dog by your side and as silky cooling of fear.

By this time, Sophia had regained her battle-ax. Her mind was recharged. She smiled at me, and at that time, I knew I had a family. The eyes of an agnostic, the beauty in display, and the mind of an adventurer were afoot.

It was the trio that completed the primordial dictionary that gave birth to reason. Those that defied and accepted at the same time. One who could never reach an end and one who saw the true light of reason.

"So you're saying that beauty is incomprehensible to a fool?" she asked.

"Essentially the rules to mystery writing."

Smiling I joined the conversation and all of us went to the sofa to watch Chief Executives at war. In the show was the Battle of Trenton.

"So do you guys think, salons are overrated?"

Kaley in his de Quattro form said, "A good conversation with some tea and crackers are better than men in a debate," he replied. I sat beside him and Sophia rested herself on the armchair. "It is better to reach an agreeable term, rather than persuade one group as yourself- the epitome of truth."

"Truths are unknowable, but also knowable," Sophia said smiling. Having back her smile she fixed her face strands and her lips were once again glossy. Her position, her hand by the rest and the opposite to her face. She looked more beautiful than ever. Emerging from the darkness, her light shone, her eyes twinkled and her voice sang as she spoke. It was beautiful. "She" was beautiful.

The cold wind by the window produced the howl to a new beginning. It wasn't about reaching the transcendent or finding utopia. If I had to guess, maybe you can't evolve into one. But I think, if there was a utopia, you could make someone else too. The logic of transcendence doesn't make sense but not Kafkaesque. The beauty of chaos, after all, is a passion for order. Chaos is beauty and so truth is beauty!