She came to me and said “Hi” before I could bolt for the next corner or shove a paper bag over my face. In an instant my kidney, genitals, brain, ears, nose, eyes, nerves, flesh and skeleton, tumbled. A bubble of hot poison surged through my veins but only my heart’s quickened beat slowed at once. Her syllables came crashing in like exclamation points from a dead era, touching and moving me in a way that I never cared to be touched or moved.
And for that moment, I froze
I stood, transfixed and I buckled
I did not know what to say
There was a knot in my stomach and my brain shut like a clam.
In life, there are unexpected disasters that hit us off-guard. There are earthquakes, acts of war and sudden attacks of illnesses that blindside us while, let’s say, watching an episode of Boom-tarat-tarat or skulking in a mall. The world is thriving with psychos that would randomly plunge at you (at any time or day) with some chopstick while boozing in some strange avenue at Mango Square. But no matter how stitches and casts heal and soothe wounds, there are those instances; those sudden disasters that hit you full front, like a chunk of a seven-pound cold meat in which no amount of skilful routine can overcome.
Bumping into an ex is the worst predicament one could ever be caught up with (of course there are snipers and tulisans, among others, but hey you know what I mean). You expect a divine notification or a gut feeling as a warning, but instead you’re caught in a raw and shaming moment.
Well in my case being stuck in the open watching a dog trying to defecate was, in a way, the worst.
It so happens that I, an inveterate drifter, was roving the streets of Mango when I spotted a dog relieving itself on some vegetation off the road. Now i’m no zoophilliac or something. No strange thoughts going on either, just chuckling at the hilarity of the scene. Although I was close to heckling it, but the bitch looks rabid and a single bite from it could whelm the living daylights out of me. Nothing against dogs, really.
And then it happened. It struck me point blanc, and for once, I was dumb stricken, hijacked in the open.
“Hey”. I flashed a smile to hide hundreds of conflicting emotions.
We stood silent for a while, remembering hand games and love gestures, friendship and first love before our eyes. The truth is we need not say more to mean more. “Kumusta?”, “It’s been a long time”, all these were extensions hidden between parentheses of terse “Hi’s” and “Hello’s”. There was an awkward silence as if acknowledging love-ridden glances and silent thoughts were forbidden. But before I could motion to say more, a tall man with an athletic figure came into our direction, broke the silence, planted a kiss on her left cheek and wrapped himself around her.
Laura is a beauty. A celestial creature. A charm. Put her in a corner and men will be all over her like flies over seductive manure. Amongst all the other girls way back in high school, she stood among them like a proverbial diamond among the rough. The fact is I dated her for a considerable time which sums into years of fruitful, unadulterated love affair. To top everything off, she’s a near relative, which puts all possible walls and borders between us before escalating into something more serious. Our blood shares the same gastric gurgle. Nunca.
He stood like a big wall of flesh before me. His face was rather small but his eyes were huge and puffy, as if spooked. He had a tidy face. “Rye, akong cousin diay”. He smiled, reached out his hand to give me a tight grip but despite the civility, he had an aura of haughtiness about him. An impish grin and mischievous cowlick tell a hundred nameless women swooning at the sight of him. Of this Ryan. But the thing is, he is never her type. Laura. I should know. She never goes for the big bullies in school or the high profile type. She goes for the quiet ones, the ones whom big bullies pick on. And that’s where I fall in. There’s no chance in hell she’d ever like him. But there he was, Prince Paradox, with the girl whom I’ve loved once upon a time gone by and she never looked so happy.
My heart was laid bare, jolted with needle pricks and an angry thwack of rubber.
We parted in all casualty. Alibis and more alibis before chucking myself in a nearby manhole or hailing a jeep enroute river Styx.
I felt it. I felt the world gloating at me. I felt the other side of me laughing at myself, at this down-the-hill-loser who panics and stutters at the sight of this .. . this face. An old pop song came in like a huge guffaw in my ear. Boom-tarat-tarat! Boom-tarat-tarat! Tararat-tararat-boom-boom-boom! Mango, in all its oddities, will now be an emotional landmine, awaiting one faulty step before it wreaks havoc. Names, Faces and places invoke ghosts of a dead era. But how can you hide from what never goes away? How do you?
