Whereabouts

JHAY believed that people thought she was insane.

She started believing that maybe they were right.

She felt that the distance between herself and the people around her was beyond her reach. She had always wanted to see the world how normal people see it everyday. If she happened to get in the crowd and blended with them, she thought that would make them happy. She wondered what the world's true beauty is. Whenever she felt happy, the skies in the morning were brighter and clearer. Whenever she felt lonely, she could only appreciate the slightest presence of the moon during the daylight.

She wondered, "If only a person's eyes can see every heart's desire, will it be joy? Or misery?"

She wished she had befriended all her enemies. She wished she didn't tell lies. She wished she loved back the people who cared for her. She wished she was the former SHE.

"Jhay?" a soft and gentle voice of a lady snapped out of Jhay's thoughts. Jhay was trying to figure out what she wanted to draw on her regular sized sketchbook inside her room, when suddenly her mother knocked on the door. She looked at the blank page as her pencil never touched its rough surface, it remained in a constant position. Jhay stared at it blankly before she turned her head to see her mother's beloved face. Jhay didn't say anything and let the woman continued what she wanted to say. The woman released a soft sigh, as if she regretted for disturbing Jhay by getting inside the room. Jhay smiled a little bit, if you could call it a 'smile'.

"It's already 7pm, do you want to eat your dinner downstairs? -or do you prefer to-"

"Here." Jhay answered in her lowest tone. The woman closed her mouth, opened it again as if she was about to say something but chose to say nothing. The woman went downstairs to get some foods for Jhay and returned into her daughter's room real quick, like an army or a servant afraid to be punished. Jhay placed her drawing materials aside, she didn't have something in mind that she wanted to draw anyway. Jhay reached one of the book near the laptop and found the bookmark, she was trying to figure out what has been happening to the story she just read and what chapter she recently stopped. The woman gave Jhay a fragile smile as she placed the meal on the table. The woman stood for a little longer, not saying anything. Jhay looked at her as if asking her if something was wrong.

"You should eat it before it gets cold" the woman said with a smile, Jhay nodded. She put down her book and reached for the spoon. Jhay put a spoonful of rice topped with sliced shrimp inside her mouth. It was delicious, homemade foods were naturally tasty according to Jhay. The woman smiled as she saw the slightest change in Jhay's expression after she fed herself with a spoonful of her cooking.

"Thank you" Jhay said politely. The woman smiled at her and felt contented, her mother left the room peacefully. Jhay finished her meal and set the dishes aside.

In five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One...

"Are you done eating, Jhay?" the woman went back again. Jhay nodded and the woman hurriedly arranged the empty plates in a pile. She looked back at Jhay, lips fighting over each other if she should say something again.

"If you need something, just call me...okay?" the womam said with a smile. Jhay's mother never gets tired of loving and caring for her.

But..

"It's her smile that scares me."

"I will lock my door, I need to study tonight" Jhay said softly. The woman nodded and went out of Jhay's room. Jhay was home schooled since she was eight. She was not used to socializing with the others. It was not that she was afraid of people or anyone. Jhay just found it uncomfortable being with someone she could never relate herself with.

She came to ask herself, "Am I wierd enough to be called unique? Or wierd enough to be labeled crazy of the society?"

She reads books a lot. Eats so much vegetables and gummy bears. Plays games all night during weekends and draw random stuffs on her sketchbook whenever she wanted to express everything.

Jhay stared at the night sky outside her window. Their house was located on the roadside in the middle of the city. The loud honking horns of the cars in the morning were her daily alarm clocks instead of the chirping birds. The loud music coming from the nearby disco bars at night were not that bothersome in her ears anymore. She dragged her single sofa near the window and sat on it as she watched the night fell asleep on its own.

And whenever Jhay do this kind of thing: the staring at her abyss thing, thousands of questions began to enter her chaotic mind.

"Is it possible to have snow in the Philippines?

What if everything we see is upside down?

Why do people admire the children but abandon their old parents?

Is it necessary to finish school and achieve a course? Which one is warmer: the sunset or the sunrise? Why there are tears of joy and laughters of pain? Who invented the word 'NAME'?

The world war has ended but why do people are still in chaos? Will there really be an End Of The World in the future? Or the truth; the world is slowly dying from the beggining."

And with these thoughts, Jhay would peacefully fall asleep with her knees as her chin's pillow and her arms as her feet's blanket. In Jhay's dreams, these thoughts kept hunting her.

"Perhaps, I certainly am insane, or maybe just a little unwell." Jhay said to herself.

*

*

*

THE loud screech of a ten wheeler truck woke Jhay up early in the morning. Loud sirens of an ambulance and a large crowd appeared outside the street. There was an accident. A destroyed black PUJ, a scratched dark yellow school bus, a private black car and a ten wheeler truck. What Jhay saw today was a common event in people's daily life. Medics rushing towards the injured passengers, crying and traumatized high school students asking for help. The four drivers arguing with each other; including the owner of the private car calculating and bragging about how much it will cost to redo his scratched car; and the people taking pictures of the accident. Jhay went to the bathroom to take a bath, wore some descent clothes and fixed her long black hair. At nine in the morning, her personal teacher would come and teach her.

"So Jhay, tell me..." Angela smiled as she took out the books and school materials inside her bag.

"...What do you think about the accident today?" she asked Jhay and handed her a book. Jhay sighed, opened her book from where they last stopped on their lessons and ignored Angela's question. Jhay heard her sighed and prefered to teach her instead.

"Actually..." Jhay started, she breathed slowly as her mind argued with her mouth whether to tell Angela what she was thinking or just stay quiet.

"...instead of helping the injured ones, many people chose to be active in social medias than being an emergency helper of the accident." Jhay said. Society nowadays really gave people like Jhay stress.

"Why do you think they do that?" Angela asked.

"To get attention, sympathy for their sad reactions instead for those who are fatally injured. Or simply just to have a daily status update. Whatever... they suck" Jhay said. She just wanted everything to get done fast and go back to her room.

"And who are you among them?" Angela asked the neutral lady. Jhay remained silent.

"Who am I among them?" Jhay thought.

"The injured ones." Jhay said. Angela never asked more questions after that. They studied all the lessons for the day. Jhay was already 18 and home schooling seemed to be uncommon for her at that age. She needed to have a job as soon as possible. Angela bid goodbye both to Jhay and to the woman beside her. The door shut and Jhay was left alone with her mother again.

"Hey Jhay, have you heard about this?" the woman smiled as she handed a piece of flier to Jhay. It read: "YOU CAN NOW EXPERIENCE A SNOWY WORLD HERE IN THE PHILIPPINES!".

It was a man made Christmas village, ice slides, artificial snow and a snowman. The picture was very convincing and the comments below the pictures from random customers really did captured Jhay's interest about the place.

"Do you remember when you were nine, you used to ask me and your dad about going to a SNOWY world!" the woman fidgeted out of excitement.

"How much do you know about my childhood? Were you even there for me?" Jhay asked with a blank face. The woman didn't utter a word and instead gave Jhay a smile.

"Jhay you know I-"

"Stop, please. You don't have to say sorry all over again. It was just me who never fully understands about everything. I don't hate you anymore, not to everyone too. So you don't have to give me the same pain every single day by saying sorry... I will return to my room now." Jhay said. She went upstairs and entered her room. Shutting the world out like what she always do. She went to her favorite spot of the room. She sat on the sofa, this time crossing her legs in a relaxed position as she stared at the window.

"I wonder how really long have I lived in this world." Jhay had the habit of talking to herself whenever she was alone.

Jhay Locrene Ayara. Current age since birth: 18. She was fully aware why the people around her were curious and uncomfortable of her presence. People could not blame her if they would hear out her story.

Have you ever heard of frozen embryos?

A frozen embryo transfer is a cycle in which the frozen embryos from a previous fresh IVF or donor egg cycle are thawed and then transferred back into the woman's uterus.

Jhay made a documentary of herself, or normal people called it diary.

She was frozen for eight years as an embryo. She could not even tell if she was awake or conscious that time. Without knowledge, she remained frozen for a very long time.

Did God really agreed?

Until one day a rich couple who couldn't have a child came. She was finally became useful, she was injected inside a uterus of a woman whom she barely known. Developing inside that unfamiliar womb, Jhay could barely feel the thing they called love. When Jhay's instinct thought that when she comes out, the woman would become her mother, she was wrong. She was just Jhay's surrogate mother. A surrogate mother is a woman who agreed to become pregnant in order to give the baby to someone who cannot have children. The rich couple adopted Jhay right after birth and claimed her as their legal daughter for seven years. When Jhay reached seven, she was abducted. She ended up inside that room full of books, gummy bears and cute stuffs. They were all Jhay's favorites since she was a kid. Then a woman came inside the room, claiming she was Jhay's real mother. Jhay already knew three mothers and then that happened. Since then, whenever her classmates asked her who her parents were, she could not tell.

That's why she dropped out of school.

Who really were her parents?

The owners of the sperm and egg?

The one who carried her for nine months inside the womb?

Her rich and former adopted parents from the moment she was born until she was seven?

Or that woman living inside this house who gave everything Jhay wants without asking?

Jhay asked herself, "Should I be happy or confused?

Am I lucky or cursed?

Has my heart become frozen when I was eight? Or was I intended to live my whole life searching for love with a frozen heart?"

Nobody knew who she really was. Jhay felt so empty all the time. She kept asking herself where did she came from and yet she could not find the answers. She wanted to live but she couldn't find the reason. There was only one sure thing that Jhay knew about herself.

She had four mothers.

One she never met once.

One who kept her for nine months inside her womb.

One who spent a large cost to have her.

And one who claimed to be the real one among all of them.

On top of that She is Jhay Locrene Ayara. Frozen for eight years. Being kept for nine months. Lived for eighteen years with an empty and a searching heart. A product of advanced science, curiousity, surrogacy, money and a result of uncontentedness and ignorance.