“Don’t ever feel that you’re alone. I would love to meet the same you I had before with broader confidence and perspective in life. I owe a lot from you best friend. Magkikita pa rin tayo :)) cheer up!”
- Tseb
These were his last words. A letter given
by her best friend. Perhaps, if chance allowed them, her better half. They
share the same goal – to write. But he part to chase his dreams, leaving only
that note pinched on her journal. He used to read them. She used to tell her
stories there. Now, she still writes with hopes of reaching his sight, ever
blot inked on them.
She met him on her freshman year. The
usual scenario when two strangers meet, anon, her best pal.
They spent their first and sophomore years together.
They shared time without thinking soon it will be over. They walked and held
hands as if they won’t part from each other. They ate as if no tomorrow. Until
soon, tomorrow ended. He left. She does not know. He told me, I didn't tell her
about it. She cried. She cried. She cried until all tears left her eyes. She
cried as if Tseb lost his life. She drowned herself with thoughts of solitude
the entire time, in his absence.
With grief filling over her jovial
spirit, she became gloomy. In times of soliloquy, she writes about him. She
writes about others. She writes about the world.
Perhaps, Tseb’s departure caused her to
dig deeper into her free spirit being. She participated. She enveloped the nature
of freedom, not boxed in a cage where she can only fly when her masters unlock
her cell.
I remember her and Tseb being in a cage. But in their story,involving the circle, they are the birds deprived of flight, and the
circle, they are part of a fore, are their masters.
The circle are cruel masters. Instead of
letting them fly, they centered them in a carnival – the main attraction. The
crowd sees nothing but entertainment the show brings, while I, was a part of
the circle before, see their cry for help.
Perhaps if they are not brilliant enough
to use their beaks to unlock the cage that binds them with the circle, they
still are the source of enjoyment of the spectators. They still are humiliated.
Perhaps, this memory is as painful as
their separation, or maybe worse, but it made them participate. They embraced themselves with people who are willing to give them freedom without compromising their relationship. It made them
see the greater friendship blooming within them – the possibility they ignored
while they are pre-occupied with the old circle’s demands.
In the entirety of their friendship, Tseb
had made her ready, indirectly, about the thought of lack of companion. He
found a solid companion for her. Tseb had made extra efforts to do such good
deed. Tseb, in no denying, loved her more than his past lover did, more than
his present does.
Though, despite the idea that he made her
ready, sometimes, memories of them, together, still cause her jolts of pain. She
remembers those times they walk in a smoky street, waiting for a ride going
Parang though plenty of Montalban jeepneys had passed, with his hands clutched
with hers. Those times of sneaking, at her Mom, to munch ‘kwek-kwek’ and
‘isaw.’ Those late night ‘perya’ trip
without her Dad worrying where she is.
Katipunan witnessed these, and can
testify with their friendly love for each other.
Tseb, indeed, is God's gift sent to remind her of sense of security, amid the solitariness, an archangel will descend in the Heaven's sky to fight these demons troubling her.
To her, his existence is a reality sculptured in her heart and mind. A memory she does not want to alter nor forget.
To her, his existence is a reality sculptured in her heart and mind. A memory she does not want to alter nor forget.
