CHAPTER IV: DEAD ROOMIE'S TALE

SMOKE was a neat trick.

Akira noticed in the past that churches didn’t have strays during mass which was strange, since all religious methods she tried didn’t do anything for her. And then the priest took out his censer and she wondered if that was the reason.

Akira bought frankincense and a metal bowl the first day she lived alone. Tonya, intrusive as she is, showed herself immediately. The woman wasn’t a malicious spirit at all, but boy was she talkative, and Akira needed the quiet for work.

So, one day, Akira whipped out and burned the frankincense right in the living room where Tonya usually appeared. It made her fade – a different kind of fade from when a spirit is finally free – but more akin to paint smeared with a finger. Akira referred to it as glitch.

The only problem with frankincense is that it produced too much smoke and made the whole apartment smell musty, like a wet forest.

Akira occasionally smoked cigarettes in the bathroom only as a personal rule, where there was proper ventilation. But when Tonya pushed her stress one day, she needed it in a jiffy and did it while working. The stray hated it just as much as frankincense to Akira’s delight, buying her at least a day or two of silence. Usually when Akira created smoke to drive strays away from her home, they never come back, but Tonya’s spirit was a special case because she lived there until she died.

Her endless queries and tales aside though, Akira was lucky that she had Tonya as a roommate. The older woman was one of the rare strays who didn’t ask for anything more than Akira’s company, didn’t even try to be hurtful or evil despite the creative methods to get rid of her.

Akira felt that Tonya was simply lonely, especially when the landlord mentioned the woman’s history: miscarriage, cheating husband, husband’s new twenty-something year old girlfriend… which explained Tonya’s obsession with the fountain of youth and cosmetic procedures.

The landlord added that Tonya was a very sociable neighbor when she was alive, so it only took a day before the people next door noticed that something was wrong and reported it. Authorities were phoned to investigate and when Tonya didn’t answer the calling and knocking, they barged in and found her on the bed sleeping peacefully. An officer felt for a pulse but there was none, much to the horror of the whole apartment building.

When Akira and Gian decided to share a home together permanently, Tonya was weirdly inquisitive and even suggested that Gian could move in with Akira instead of the couple wasting money in a new place. It was an impossible feat, what with the new apartment being beautiful and spacious, and was placed conveniently near Akira’s studio and Gian’s workplace. They have already scouted the neighborhood and gave the down payment after lots of research, and Akira realized that the whole time she lived alone, she never really felt alone.

The old stray witnessed everything Akira went through, from joy to gloom to grief to love. The love-hate relationship she had with Tonya grew on her eventually; years of wisecracks, vexation, salty comments every time Akira got a new haircut as if Tonya was proclaimed God of salons. But… there was also advice from an experienced adult whenever Akira faced hardships, someone to speak with when days are downright depressing or overly blissful, a voice of concern and reminder when Akira sometimes forgot to take care of herself too.

Suddenly, it hit her that Tonya might’ve been her first real (and closest) friend after moving to the city.

In the midst of transferring Akira’s things to the new place, Tonya appeared and Akira couldn’t help but finally ask about the woman’s death – something Akira never brought up when communicating with strays in worry that it would bring back their trauma. But Tonya told her everything so easily, smiling in sadness and regret that her life ended way earlier than she expected, and that a lot of questions were left hanging without answers.

Tonya said that when the autopsy revealed she had a botched breast augmentation surgery, her loathsome, adulterer, cockroach of a husband didn’t even bother filing a malpractice lawsuit against the quack plastic surgeon who did the operation. Granted the mortality rate for that specific surgery was low, he didn’t lift one damn finger to give Tonya’s death some sort of meaning, or at the very least pretended that there was still a microscopic part in his brain that cared for his late wife.

Divorce is non-existent in the Philippines, and infidelity – no matter how frequent – is not considered a legal basis for annulment. Her early and unexpected demise made Tonya miss the chance of creating a last will or filing a power of attorney, ultimately giving her husband the rights to her assets regardless of how much her ghost screamed and cursed.

Akira remembered Tonya saying, “That cheating bastard melted everything down and then gave my kin leftover crumbs.”

Tonya’s properties composed of a small house in Nueva Ecija that she inherited from her late parents, and a vacant lot in Bulacan purchased with her own money. The vile husband had both properties liquidated almost immediately after Tonya’s passing. This, together with her life earnings and a separate college fund she saved – that went idle because she miscarried the baby – accumulated an amount so massive, that the bank called and had to verify where the suspiciously large deposit came from.

To top it all off, her husband selfishly kept eighty-five percent of the money, and left the rest for Tonya’s three sisters and their families to share.

After hearing the bitter backstory, Akira empathized with Tonya and volunteered to help with whatever she needed to be free. To her surprise, the older woman firmly declined the offer, stating that no one could fix her situation but herself.

When Akira’s last day in the old place came, Tonya appeared and stood in the emptied living room, watching Akira put the last of her things in a box.

“Look at you, hija, all grown up,” Tonya teased, waving her hand at Akira in a sassy manner. “Moving in with a boy.”

“A man, Tonya. I don’t date boys,” Akira corrected. She then pulled out her phone and showed Tonya the screen. “Before I leave, look at this. It went viral last night.”

Freak News: Man in Critical Condition after Girlfriend Finds Him Cheating

“What is this?” Tonya asked, and Akira scrolled down so she could read the article. “Oh my...”