Scratch Papers

 

They were all over the place – in my bedroom, lurking under my bed, hiding inside the cabinets, even concealed in my pillowcases. Things like these do happen, once you have gotten used to the scratched papers lying around, no matter how odd they look, you come to think of them as natural, and later on, you’d conclude that weirdness is normal. I kept reminding my mother that scratch papers lying on the floor is not an act of teen rebellion, neither is it an issue of cleanliness. It is simply because their presence occupies what seemed like an empty space, in which I am constantly self-absorbed with my creatures of doom.

 

At least, these papers serve their own purpose for me, that is, stirring memories and revisiting scenes in my life that I seemed to have nearly forgotten, like when my father gave me those papers when I was only seven years old. 

 

“These, Love,” my father mused, “…are your scratch papers.”

 

He piled a heap of them on my table.

They were those already-used papers from his office. They smelled like they have been stuck inside a cabinet for a long time. Except for the blank pages on their reverse sides, these papers were good for nothing, I thought. Day after day, the piles of paper would go up and this made me worry about what to do best with them. The thought that these piles of paper might imprison me in my own room scared my naïve, young mind.

 

At times when I was bored playing the same old childhood games, I would sit on the floor where the heaps of paper seemed like towering buildings to my eyes. Their presence alone intimidated me, yet there was a surging feeling of excitement and anxiety of how to make sense out of them. I could tear them all up, I could crumple them, I could stamp these papers to the ground, I could throw them straight to the wastebasket. Or I could burn them, and then stand in front of the burning mass, mesmerized by the fire.

 

Instead, I wrote a few scribbles at the back of the papers, things that just naturally came into my mind – childish wishes, dreams and plans for the future, and all those sorts of things. At times, I would draw a perfect dream house, or the perfect room, quite unlike my own, where rain leaked. And also, I seemed to have finessed the art of making paper airplanes and paper boats, or folding them to miniature boxes, and if I’d get lucky enough, I would sneak outside the house, and watch them float in a huge basin of water. 

 

I showed what I did with these papers to my father a lot of times, as it was customary to let him know every little thing that I do. He smiled at me, and I felt his fatherly pride when he kissed me on the forehead. 

 

Everytime he saw me cry he would pat my back gently with comfort. It was he who taught me to write my anger, frustrations, and confusions at the back of those scratch papers. Then he would burn them in front of my eyes. “This is how you do it, Love – just let them go,” he once said. 

 

When my father died of hypertension attack when I was a grade six student, I seemed to have lost the interest on using them. I was too young to understand the need of a father beside me. It was only when I was in my early teenage years that I felt pity for myself for not having a father to run to. I envied children who still have their fathers escorting them during social events like Christmas parties and graduation. 

 

By that time, the piles of scratch paper slowly went down. I wrote a lot of questions at the back of those papers – questioning God why He let my father die, or asking my father why he left me. I had lots of questions, and the papers were just tools to vent all my emotions. At night, I would sneak outside the house and burn some of them. 

 

“Love, paglung-ag na ug kan-on,” my mother shouted from the kitchen. 

 

I gathered as much firewood as I could to start cooking. Then I realized I needed paper as well to start a fire. I went back to my room and my eyes were riveted to the scratch papers in a huge box. I wanted to dispose of them, for wallowing in those memories kept me awake sometimes. It was a suspension of disbelief. But maybe, he would prefer it if I’d just grow up.

 

I squinted at the fire as it slowly devoured the scratch papers that seemed like memories, dancing in the flames. And I heard the voice of my father once again, telling me, “Love, just let them go…”

Tags: creative nonfiction, khareen, memoir, Prose, scratch papers