A bitter case of wanting

I.

Entranced. Another memory blackout episode.

“Hi!” her voice drowned all sound inside the room. It was for Ino the only sound that mattered, his senses shutting everything out.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” her eyes squinted, giving away a made up smile.

Ino’s heart jumped many places and his eyes widened involuntarily.

“Even if it is just a made up smile.” he told himself.

“May I ask why you seem to be all smiles today?” Joey curiously asked sounding cutely reprimanding.

“Nothing. I was just wondering how it would feel to hold your hand.”

Silence fell. It was the blanket they use to cover emotions they have yet to explore and feelings afraid to admit. For a moment, he was lost in her blank stare. She knows he is sitting in the quiet corner, beside the open window rushed by the light of the setting Sun, but somehow she fails to see.

She took her small steps pass the door to where Ino was sitting. Joey extended her small hands to Ino, smiling.

“My classes are over.”

“Let’s walk home?”

Ino reached for her hand touching her fingers first, and the divide between them closed in. Her small hand was warm to the touch, her skin smell nicely sweet.

He was happy as an empty glass being poured wine. A sucker for her sad puppy eyes and Ino felt it happening again, falling such great height and ending lost in her eyes.

“Is this too close to boundaries?” said Ino.

Joey turned her head away, her hands still held by Ino.

“I don’t know?” “What are the boundaries?” were the words uttered by her curved shy lips, before she let go of his hand. Again, it was silence that became their refuge from vague feelings. Knowing that the other is just close beside seem consoling and side by side they start to walk.

Eye candy billboards, industrial edifices and the occasional trees lined and littered the road as they pass by; Ino giving infrequent glances to Joey who is preoccupied with her own thoughts, her hands wrapped in tight to two bulky textbooks.

"There used to be more trees in this area." said Ino as they come by an old church road arched by tall aged Acacia's.

A light breath drift by, clearing fallen leaves and bringing an earthly aroma. Ray of light filtered by the canopy managed to pass through the leafy roof, reflecting in many directions.

"I thought so too." replied Joey as she looked back to Ino.

"I caught them as they fall." There were three buds of sunshine in Ino's open palms.

"I know you love flowers." "They maybe small and simple, but I think they are beautiful." Ino's words seem to make the small Acacia blossoms glow.

"For you."

And it was certainly a meaningful smile. It became the definition of happiness. Maybe it was a dream and he is no longer sure if it was a mirage or just an imagined event he keeps to assure himself that he can still feel.

It was just the right amount of afternoon light falling in her face. It was the first time in a long time he existed in a perfect plain helplessly surrendered to unassuming beauty.

"Can you wait for me?" said Ino.

"I don't know?" "Can you wait for me?" Joey asked back.

"You really look wonderful today." replied Ino. It was not the answer she wanted to hear.

He saw a hint of disappointment in her eyes and only if they could stop pushing each other away.

It was the motions and the unsure conversation of that afternoon he would choose to keep and let eat the matter of his sanity, like a mold to bread. It is what's playing in his head some years later while he walked the same old church road after the lost years; hoping to rekindle fragments of nostalgia, looking for the same fallen leaves of that day remembered.

They had now reached the end of their walk; the attachment was almost unbearable to both souls.

“This is my dormitory, remember?”

“So I guess this is goodbye for us?” Joey said plainly.

“Not goodbye for us, only goodbye for now.” Ino reassuringly smiled.

She saw the honesty in Ino’s eyes and how he meant the words he freed. The back of their hands are brushing, tips of their fingers almost touching. She remembered the warm security of Ino’s hands and how she turned off her defenses at the lightest press of his fingers to her soft palm.

“I don’t know what to say Ino?”

“I don’t know what your problem is?”

He reached for her hand, unable to contain meandering kept feelings that annexed his mind and moved him to have her hands.

“Sorry Joey if I don’t say much.”

It took enduring restraint to feign indifference and hide helplessness. To hold confessing insecurities and refrain from talking about little seedy creatures niching in the recess of his mind, abhorring the sunshine.

A wanting stare showing no apprehension. A quiet undertone of desire and hushed agreement. His fingers moved and in the slightest touch, traced her lips. Their stare closed in and their lips finally grazing. Both found a moment of honesty and for one brief instance became true to their sensibilities. He watched her close her eyes.

“Say it would always be like this." said Ino.

She happily smiled and pinched his nose.

“You always seem to have the right words." said Joey.

“All for your kiss!" and it was the naughtiest boyish grin that followed. A rehearsed line he always imagined to say and finally said.

The months have fallen of the calendar and they are on their last days. He wondered how the afternoon Sun got cold.

Picture cut outs of places they wish to get lost. Lazy days pretending to walk a somber beach side. Spending midsummer's day looking out at shining mountains of golden hay.

The door creaked. Last glance and maybe the last goodbye. Last appeal to emotion and forgo binding apprehensions. Last chance to save their unsure and fibbing hearts from complications.

It did not happen as they say it would. It is the end of something beautiful and the beginning of limbo and of dog gone days thinking of fates and of things that could have been, but would never know. Of morning spent staring at the ceiling.

The door had closed and the barrel clicked in place. And such is the predicament of them whose tragedy is a celebrated romance.

II.

Click.

"Here is something from an 80's seminal band we haven't heard for awhile."

The driver tuned to a station that plays songs from his generation. He adjusted the volume to gentler decibels. Just right to hear the jangling of fares being handed and passed around.

"Here is New Order playing "Leave me alone" right here in your all music station that plays the greatest and the latest."

Entered the drum machine in unlikely intervals and builds up to the intro.

On a thousand islands in the sea, I see a thousand people just like me.

The Jeepney moved at a steady phase. Road lines appearing and disappearing in routine fashion. Impressive linear symmetry.

A hundred unions in the snow, I watch them walking, falling in a row.

"Para."

The Jeep pulled to a stop at a curbside, whilst the song seemed to claw its way out of the old shackled transistor and manifest with ghoulish omnipresence.

We live always underground, it’s going to be so quiet in here tonight. Played from a roadside karaoke.

"The only exercise I would be getting." Ino thought to himself opening the doors to his dormitory.

"This staircase and the usual nods and hello to acquaintances."

So it began the labored climb and the forced nods and hello on his way to his 3rd floor room. The stairs as well as the halls were occupied in some parts by pails, reminding of last night’s downpour and the repairs needed to patch up the roof.

Whiff of Nicotine leaks out of open doors. The kasera is not happy of the tenants smoking habit considering the dated wooden furnishing the dormitory has. But it gave the place a Greenwich - Bohemian kick.

Next door to Ino is Karlo, a budding painter who always finds his pastel and charcoal best with a friendly bottle of Cerveza ("Typical Artist" as Ino used to say.). Across is Pedro, a Philosophy Major with left leaning ideals, a friendly mien, and a reserve countenance.

He placed his key and turned the knob. He had forgotten to reset his radio alarm.

Every time I watched the sky, for these past few days leave me alone.

It was still the song from the Jeepney and the road side karaoke that was playing, possibly haunting him.

He unplugged the radio, closed the door, and pulled up the blinds. Darkness had encroached the city and on a night like this, one wonders what unsettling questions it would bring.

The train station is seen from a distance and tired eyes sees depth in things with deeper shade. Jovial shrieks of children playing in the streets can be heard. Running to and fro as if chasing their dreams or fleeing from the bondage of time. The Sun had sighed and beings of different perspectives had woken and emerged.

He sank deep in his only couch inside the sleepy room; listless while trying to make something out of ambient noises. A floating Orb fiery Orange burned in the room. Smoke hangs in the empty air, filling the room with the smell of dried burning leaves.

This room had been his altar and his lighted cigarette - an incense burning to obscurity. He chuckled thinking of Tita, his kasera and what she may say if she finds out about Ino's combustible venerating ritual.

His room is his retreat to the center, Ino's ethereal sanctum sanctorum.

He felt the poison in his veins pass through the valves of his heart; riddling it once more with insecurities, worry and longing. A cavity moved into his chest, a rift developed. Ino's feeling heart almost succumbing and failing to beat. He finished his cigarette and stood up, approaching a door that was not there before.

Through a glint of light passing through the window, he saw his name etched roughly in the door’s surface. The wooden door opened and a vast troubled ocean beckoned. A gust blew a salty mist to his face. A small stony isle was waiting for him and invited him in isolation. He dipped his feet in the damp sandy ground, mindless of the roaring tides and bellowing winds.

Just then, the door closed behind.

"I'll be gone for awhile." Joey saw Ino walking away, his footsteps hushed and his silhouette fading. Half awake, she tried to ask where he was going. But all she can muster to say was, "I can't wait for you Ino." in that waking dream.

She saw him put up his sad smile as he always does, while trying to say something hushed she did not understand. Then he was gone. 

III.

Mang Herbert has been a postman all his life. He takes pride knowing the names of each person in every household in his route. He can’t imagine doing other things aside from being a postman.

“I love my job!” is what he usually says to familiars. Mang Herbert is living his childhood dream which many had faltered to do. Leafing through the pages of his Primary School Yearbook after being visited by a curious desire to reminisce, he saw the following intriguing entry.

Herbert Costello

VI- Olives

Ambition : Meet people + Travel = Mailman

He giggled reading the scribbled silliness in bold font. It has been a long time being a postman, delivering parcels and old people’s pension among other letters that he packs in his bag and throws at the back of his blue and white service van. A long while trying to live by each episode’s example of Postman Pat which he watched as a kid; a jolly bespectacled mailman who moves around from town to town merrily in his clay-cartoon world.

There were days of yore when keeping in touch would mean having a pen and paper and would involve licking intricately designed stamps – those were days of romance. The long wait and anticipation for letters was agonizing and the appearance of a mailman in the neighborhood is taken as a sign of good tidings or of enveloped ill news.

“People don’t write letters anymore.” sighed Mang Herbert.

“The mighty pen has been defeated not by the sword.”

The leaps in communication has dwindled the significance of letter writing and it has been a long 15 years down trend, the postal corporation has been experiencing.

Earlier that day, he had received his own letter of tidings from the Post Master himself. The Post Master expressed his appreciation of Mang Herbert’s years of service and loyalty. It was a letter filed with niceties and flowery words well placed, informing Mang Herbert how downsizing would help business continuity.

It is his last day today as a mailman and he was given the choice to have the whole day to himself.

“I’ll have plenty of time for everything tomorrow.” Mang Herbert said.

A mailman to the end. He will walk the line and strut his last dance. As today would be his final act, he decided to honor his daily customs by staying true to it.

He played his favorite bebop tune in the van en-route to his point of delivery, tapping his fingers at the steering wheel; just like he did every day.

That morning, he noticed a single registered mail out of the bulk of credit card notices and advertisements in his bag of mail. It is for a sweet young lady he knows from his rounds. He was used to seeing the excitement in people’s faces before when he hands them their letters. Back then, he was delivering real letters rather than corporate churned templates that pass as letters these days; he bitterly thought.

“I’ll save that one for last.” he sheepishly smiled as he placed the letter in the dashboard and decided to deliver it as his last stop of the day.

Day’s end, his legs were tired and feeling his age. He took of his visor and wipe off the sweat from his sun burned forehead.

“Retirement doesn’t seem to be a bad idea.” he tried to convince himself while passing an old church road on his way to a student dorm.

“I wonder if she would be happy to receive this?” setting his eyes at the letter in his hands. It has local stamp on it and bears the name of that someone they used to talk about. He remembered how she is animatedly irritated when they talk about that boy.     

Mang Herbert always enjoys his time with Joey. It was just a sly strategy of his to play the tired thirsty old man asking for glass of water; her sweet and bubbly personality invigorates and keeps him happily occupied at the end of his deliveries.

“Fancy seeing you little miss.” Joey watering the thorny Bougainvilleas turned around to see.

“Ay! Tatay!”

“How are you?” she surprisingly asked.

“Same as old, tired and roasting in this hot weather that we have.”

“Care for a glass of iced water Tatay?” “I’ll get you one.” she smiled.

“Not this time Joey, but thank you for asking this old man.”

“I have a letter for you and guess who sent it.” Mang Herbert winked, handing the letter to Joey who looked utterly curious.

“You really like him do you?”

Joey just smiled.

“I’ll leave you now with your letter and you owe me a cold glass and a friendly chat next time.”

“I’m happy to deliver that letter to you.” Mang Herbert gave a broad grin before leaving, happy to see Joey smile as she peeled off the envelope like a child opening a present.

Hi Joey,

I always enjoy writing you notes. This time, I decided to write you this letter hoping to catch you smile when you read it.

Sorry, I don’t say much when we are together and I hope that this writing could say more than what I really could. This may look or sound meaningless but I write it just the same to reach you.

I maybe gone for a while, but I would always have you in my memory and there I would find you. There we would play dress up and pretend to like Coffee. I would find you under the shade of a Persimon tree and there we would laugh and chat till we tire out. I would poke fun at you and you will be annoyed in turn; stick out your tongue and wrinkle your nose as you always do.

I’ll give you French Fries then so you will stop ignoring me, as I know how you like that oily treat.

I am missing you now and will miss you always. Goodbye and see you in that memory.

Ino

A deep silence fell inside her and not even the whisper of her soul can be stirred, not knowing if it echoes regret or a sense of loss.

Throw a coin in the well and wait to hear it sing its lament.

“Joey! I think you should see this?” a dorm friend watching the news called worriedly.

* A fire had razed an old male student dormitory near the Manila University.

* A report from the Fire Marshall pointed the origin of the fire to be the 3^rd floor of the dormitory which started around 3AM and had reached critical Fire Alert Level.

* Investigation is underway to determine the cause of the fire that had ravaged the building, but initial examination points at Cigarette as the most likely culprit.

* An unverified report mentions a missing male tenant, residing in the room where the fire started. No body was found in the search for casualties and investigation is still open.

Back to you Kabayan.

IV.

The area was cordoned from scrappers and kibitzers. Tita watches her loss from the yellow lines. The dormitory was her source of income and the structure at San Pedro Street was family heirloom. It is one of the oldest structures in the district and it was their family’s home where she grew up before it was converted into a dormitory, when her parents passed away and her siblings migrated.

Tita could only think of what the fire investigator told her while he casually points to his clipboard checklist.

Fire code violation. Building code non compliance.

All she knows is that people stay at her place and they owe her rent.

“I’m old already and had been running this dormitory a long time.”

Codes and city ordinances where alien concepts to her. She is not the brightest child of her parents, explaining why her siblings bequeathed her the house.

She tried reasoning with the investigator and even mentioned the pails she places all over the house when it rains as good substitute to fire extinguishers.

“I should have placed more No Smoking signs.” Tita mockingly told herself.

“Manang!” called out one of the Fire Marshall clearing the lot.

“We got this lying in the burned rubble.” he spoke as he approached the Yellow lines.

“I don’t think it will be used in any way in our follow up investigation.”

“Maybe it is a journal belonging to one of your former tenants?”

“And what use would I have for this?” Tita ranted. Imagine only a journal being salvaged out of many other possessions the fire had licked.

“Maybe someone would come looking for it?”

“I don’t know. You figure it out.” said the fireman.

“It just doesn’t seem right to just throw it away after it survived incineration.”

“It was like waiting for someone to pick it up as it lay there in the heap of charred lumber.”

“Neither touched by water nor fire.”

V.

Some four years had gone after the fire engulfed Tita’s dormitory. The property doesn’t have insurance and where use to stand a 3 storied dormitory is now an empty lot enclosed by metal sheets.

Neighbors around say Tita was petitioned to migrate to the States by her siblings. While there are familiar faces in San Pedro St. that had stayed behind, telling stories of that fiery night for free beer in frat parties.

Karlo keeps a small signs shop near the corner of San Pedro St. smack in the middle of student food diners and barbeque stands.

He dropped his Art course, claiming to have lost his muse; but never dropping his love for the bottle. His canvasses now are banners and sign boards which he carefully letter, his pastel replaced by Neon paint. In the morning, you would see him outside his shop working on commercial sign orders with a bottle of beer in one hand; his drafting still impeccable after downing his third ale.

He would sometimes be visited by a fellow beer connoisseur, who everybody calls “The Doctor”. No one really knows his real name and he seems to prefer it that way. The only thing people know about him is his liking for black t-shirts and wayfarers. They also say that he used to be a Radio jock, which makes him a revered figure in this college-community like Baranggay.

Tonight, he had left the smoky curb to hang out with this semester’s new enrollees. He wore his favorite paint tarnished white shirt and let his long hair down. He must have looked like a rock star and every kid in the party coveted his acknowledgement.

He looked for someone in the crowd. As suspected, he saw him in a corner. A rock star like him adored in this party. His wide brimmed glasses hide a friendly mien. He was starting with their story in his usual reserve countenance. He looked a little flushed and at this stage, he might be on his sixth bottle and had finished with his leftist litany.

He caught his eyes. “Professor Pedro!”

The crowd parted as Karlo makes his way. Pedro handed him an ice cold bottle and asked if the Doctor would be coming to crash, before continuing his story.

“Sorry. Where was I?” Pedro asked, trying to see if this semester’s students are as interested as last year’s flock.

“Ummm. Well Professor, you were just telling us how your term paper got burned as well as Karlo’s paintings.”

“Oh yes! I was simply trying to establish that the only thing that exists is space and the ideas that occupy it.” pushing his glasses back to add a scholarly effect. 

 

“Whoah! That’s some heavy stuff my friend!” Karlo laughingly said.

“Story that goes around said the fire had a claimed a casualty?” somebody asked.

“Well, it was from our friend Ino’s room where the fire started as claimed by the other tenants.”

“He was the only one missing, though we did not see him move out.” continued Karlo.

“Not a body was found in the search and only Ino’s journal was retrieved after the fire was put out.”

“Journal isn’t burned?” asked by the intrigued students in unison.

“Not a single leaf.” was the confirming answer they got.

“What had started the fire?”

“They say it was Cigarette, but I say spontaneous combustion.” said Pedro.

The students thought it was a nerdy joke but they hesitated from laughing, seeing how the professor maintained his dire expression.

Karlo was tickled by this new variation of the story they have told countless students a number of times already.

“Pare. It’s funny to hear the theory of self combustion from a comrade loving person.

Pedro didn’t budge and kept silent for what feels like a minute or two.

“His mood fits again. It’s a full moon I guess tonight?” said Karlo of his philosophy professor friend.

“Pedro for the sake of argument, Spontaneous Combustion only burns the body and shouldn’t have affected objects outside it.” Karlo said sensing the start of a dialogue that harks back to the logic and reasons exchanged in the Academy of old Greece. He heard approving noise from the crowd.

Pedro continued his fiddling after his long pause.

“It was love that burned him.”

“An intense love and rage he tried to contain in his chamber.”

“He was afraid that anyone he share it will be consumed.”

“I saw it in his eyes as his heart is too small to contain it.” Pedro further said.

“This is the first time I am seeing my drunken friend, your professor, drop his materialist hold and turn into a romantic.”

The students laugh at Karlo’s joke, but they are eagerly anticipating what Pedro is next to say.

“An intense feeling he severely kept that it caused Arrhythmia.”

“That it turned him into a fire that burned everything.”

Everyone kept silent at this point, convinced on the possibility of someone burning from the inside and contemplating the story; even Karlo.

“So!” Pedro exclaimed breaking the silence.

“If you pass by San Pedro St. on a cold night and finding it empty.”

“When you hear the wind howls and see a flick of light from a faint dancing ember.”

“That is a man consumed by his inner fire.”

The last bottle was dropped and it is the end of a night of many nights to follow. The party went well and Karlo and Pedro would see their new acquaintances in the diners and in the classroom in the morning. Probably dehydrated and with blood shot eyes.

“So it was love that is to blame for what happened to your term paper and my painting?”

“Good Storytellers concocts the best stories drunk.” Pedro wittingly said.

“Was that a Dylan Thomas quote?” and both friends laugh as they walk.

They find San Pedro St. quiet and empty in this cold night. The wind howled and a weak blue flame ignited in the thin air.

--END--