AN OLD FLAME? i didn’t think it was even a flame just yet…it was a hazy, feel-good, lukewarm smoke emerging from a spark of hope that could have been possibly "us"

i dunno if that’s exactly how you call it, or if indeed it had a name…but if "it" died so long ago, could "it" also come back?…after more than 3 years… damnit… why?…

IT WAS BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL. he was this wacky, wide-grimaced freak who went around and cracked people up with his rather annoying and far fetched ideas, unbelievable remarks and silly criticisms. oh yeah, he was the ‘punchline’ guy alright.
the comedian, a freak of nature, and we didn’t even have to say that out loud for people to know. he was just like this walking contagious laughing gas. man, he’ll get you laughing so hard you don’t even know what you’re laughing about anymore. it was just downright insane but people loved him that way. it just came out of him naturally, i guess. and that’s what annoys me the most, he was just way too irresistible to be ignored.

THREE YEARS. three unbelievably long years. he never caught my attention just then. mine were more of the ‘ehem’ rocker type. those guys with messy long hair and had this im-so-tough-school-sucks aura about them. angst-filled teenagers who pretty much don’t even know why they’re so freakin’ mad at the whole freakin’ world.
not that he wasn’t a musician himself. because he was. and you just can’t imagine just how good he was… just that… acoustic music didn’t appeal to me that much. they just seemed to me like sappy, love-sick, songs that was just a notch higher than those opm jukebox hits kidding aside. but seriously the freak is just hands-down, praise-worthy good. when he plays the guitar, its as if he completely disrobes into some utterly different guy. if you could just imagine bayani agbayani transform, sans the physical aspects, into nyoy volante who serenades you right there and then, you ‘ll know where i’m coming from. it was as if his guitar was in some way like Narda’s magic bato. and i kid you not! that’s why he was also the one i called on when i took a shot in playing the guitar.

LESS THAN FIVE BLOCKS AWAY. that’s how far he lives from me, oh, and not to mention, we were also on the same carpool. so i really pretty much saw his face from sun up to sun down. and then again we became text mates. and finally, he became my first informal teacher in playing the guitar. oh and he’s from the volleyball team too. so, what are the odds right? although i really can’t say i did "like" him. physically, he wasn’t that much of a looker. and then again, he was a clown and i was a spoiled brat. how the heck do you think that would work? but that "clown" is just his binary other. the more "acceptable" other was the one that showed some rather intriguing side of him.

MYSTERIOUS, was the more appropriate word to describe how he was to me and how i was drawn to him inevitably. it always amazed me to hear him play, to look at his eyes, his hands, his hypnotic plucking. And where this unusual music came from, i did not know, but i knew it was something else and it definitely was not what the one coming from his guitar. this music, its like a bubble that envelopes he and i and there is no one else. he just looks at me with this point-blank stare, either he was so absorbed with his playing, or something else, i did not know and i never asked. but then he would just smile and look away. and that, that was what i called a different ’spark’ that we had. it was a different kind of comfort. it was not some ‘infatuation’ or any mushy feeling. it was different and i did not know but i liked it. there was a time when i cried so hard and i was just rushing off to all directions and then i saw him playing his guitar again. and without any hesitance, or nerve even, i ran to him, rested my head on his lap and sobbed like a little girl, i cried so hard his pants had wet patches on them. He stopped for a while and when i pushed him to go on playing, he did and his music just seemed to comfort me. i felt embarrassed when i recovered and found out that all the people were shocked to see our ‘little drama’. call it sick, call it cheesy, but that was what we had shared ever since. that little special thing we shared did not last long though. he went away on my junior year in high school. and from then on, i never heard from him ever since.

I SAW HIM AGAIN. as i am busy for my so called "coming of age". i saw him and i did not look once, but thrice. his name just didn’t register at once. it was so long ago. a long, long time ago. and to think we were just neighbors. i blinked and he smiled. the clownface recognized me. pshh. i looked around him and saw there were three others encircled in what seemed to be a practice. they were playing a gig at the nearby square. i smiled back, shrugged him off and hurried inside the mall. but my mind was just shouting in my head. i had to go back, ask him how he was. to find out if i could still find in him, the guy i had once known. and went back, i did. and already they were setting up on the stage. he looked up, smiled as he saw me and his face threw bright rays back at me. psh. what a clown. he was changed now. he cut his hair real’ short, and there was not a trace of that walking laughing gas. he was more mature now, and yes, that more ‘unacceptable’ binary other seemed to have waned in those three years lost. i urged myself to stop at my tracks and just run the hell out of there but he called on me and asked me how i was. his band mates stared jeering at him and smiling funnily, and i knew they were teasing him. he just blushed and look away.

"gusto mo tumugtog?" he asked
"di noh, dito lang ako, ikaw na lang pakikinggan ko"
damnit, how did those words just spill out that fast?.
"ikaw bahala"…

I STAYED THE WHOLE TIME THEY PLAYED. and the whole time i just smiled at how better he was than before. every once in a while he would glance my way and smile. and i would just melt everytime. there were other people there, a hundred more so even. but he stared at me the same way he had before. that same stare that i have not deciphered until now. that bubble again. damnit. suddenly it was just like yesterday, three years back. late afternoon, the sun throwing glistening ripples on the rice paddies (yes, our school stood just beside a pretty ricefield.:p) he and i sitting in the soccer field, waiting for our carpool to arrive. he, strumming his guitar and i, singing along, entranced with his playing. entranced with the melody that blanketed the two of us, the same way it always had. that same feeling. that same comfort. that same spark. he and i in our little world. our own different world.

AND THEN SUDDENLY IT WAS ALL OVER. the bubble disappeared. it was like waking up suddenly from a dream. i blinked and there they were, preparing to leave.and just like that, all had ended, all was over. the world just zoomed out from our beautiful picture and there he was indifferently talking with his band mates. i, alone at an empty table, in a big square cramped with people i didn’t even know save for him. suddenly he was a world apart from me, his music had suddenly ebbed away from me. who the heck was i fooling?.. here i am, at my sophomore year in college and do i expect that he was still the same guy that i knew? that he saw the same ‘me’ three years back? or was i just hallucinating when i thought what we had was something else? something different. something special. were all those times just dreams that were never really there but only for the two of us? shunned, i prepared to leave hastily. he approached me and asked if i was leaving.

"so, uuwi ka na?"
"ah, oo, kasi pinapauwi na din ako, tinawagan ako ni papa kanina"
"ah ganun, sige ikaw"
"penge nlang number mo para okay na"

he gave a faint "hehe", and smiled. i smiled too, still searching in him the guy i once knew. he gave his number willingly and i was relieved that at least there was still an infinitesimal speck of chance that we could catch up on each other some time. but then he said something i didn’t expect, or was i just too fazed by that moment to not even see it coming.

"pero ilagay mo lang pangalan mo hah, kasi mapapatay ako ng gf ko…"

DAMNIT. it was as if that statement rang a thousand church bells, tenfold even, but i barely even heard a thing. and then i shrunk. i shrunk a million times smaller. and i just wanted to shout, shout right back at him with my tiny, diminutive voice. i stared at him in disbelief, not wishing to sink in what his last statement just implied. Blankly, i tried to utter what i could for a reply, and though there were no words, my head was shouting a hundred million thoughts right back at me.
why yhe?. what surprised you? WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING? that in all those three years he hadn’t found someone else? and you weren’t even an "item" even then! pretentious little sissy, it isn’t like you swore by death that you wouldn’t share that special "bubble" of yours and let others in. he wasn’t ‘yours’ in the first place. and he’s a *damn musician for crying out loud, didn’t you think he would be mobbed by all those girls he’s serenading? how important did you think you really were to him? face that fat, hideous fact shouting right back at you:

You are NOBODY to him.

that statement echoed a million more times before i snapped myself right back.

YES, i think for a moment there i just blacked out and hung up on him. but then i think i managed to utter a feeble goodbye before i dashed away from there. and even for a split second, i didn’t look back. i didn’t want to see his expression after i made that sudden exit. and i just wanted to cry but i couldn’t. i wanted to cry so hard like how i cried a long time ago. the only difference was, he wouldn’t be there to comfort me anymore.damnit. where are those tears when you need them? doesn’t these kind of moments demand for a sudden flood of tears? for that climactic surge of emotions? but there were none. well, i didn’t force them out too. and anyway, i guess i was just too overwhelmed by what happened. like a different, much more deeper sorrow gripped my heart that there were no room for tears or madness anymore. i just ran, ran away so i could just wear myself out and maybe i could forget everyting. i ran and got on the first jeepney i saw. i didn’t even bother to look at the signboard. i just wished there was something on it that said: NEVERLAND. because there, even the wildest dreams, the wildest fantasies are realities, and then maybe there, i’ll finally find the guy who i once knew. the same guy who shared with me that special kind of music.

p.s. i wrote this EONS ago. back when friendster was still the shizz. i can't help reposting it since it's one of my favorite entries.:p