Saturday, July 10
Jul. 10 Sat.
"I wish that I could make you turn around -
Turn around and see me cry...
There's so much I need to say to you,
So many reasons why
You're the only one...
Who really knew me at all..." -Mariah Carey
...
Two broken, bleeding souls.
One was saved, the other...
Still drowning.
But hey...at least one of them is happy.
And the other is happy for the one saved.
We both hurt each other.
...we both apologized.
*I wish that I could make you turn around...
Turn around and see me cry...
There's so much I need to say to you...
...
You're the only one...
Who really knew me...
At all...*
...
Dad made me go with him to Ali Mall again, and it was okay. I brought a diskette with me to post my entries at an internet cafe. Speaking of internet cafe...
"The place looked decent enough. I sat myself down at PC16, logged on..." ...seem familiar?
Hehehe, I was back at the same place. At the same PC. And yes, the bgms still threatened to kill me. But as I anxioiusly pushed my diskette into the drive to load my entries...
*swish*
Uh-oh. That was not a good sound. It was supposed to go *chink*, right? I pressed the button. Nothing. My eyes widened. Oh crap! My diskette FELL IN!
Turns out, the CPU didn't have a drive. I slapped a hand to my forhead. And so I had to wait until my dad arrived before I could recover my diskette. By the time I did, dad was already impatient, and I was forced to load around 15 entries in 3 minutes. I didn't know if they all posted okay...but I had the weirdest feeling one entry got posted...more than once...
Anyway, we ate at Frio Mixx, and walked around for a while. Dad asked me to wait for him as he bought tickets for the UAAP game on Sunday from one of his contacts.
...
I leaned against the cold metal railing. I watched as people walked by me...different people, different looks and styles. So many varied characters... There was this guy who stood outside the Blue Magic shop, holding a puppet in his hand, saying Good Morning to everyone who passed by... A fat, rather shady guy who had his hands in his pockets, glaring at anyone who passed his way... A bunch of teenage guys eyeing a group of flirting girls a few feet across them - one of which, I noticed judging from his chest, was not really a guy...
...they all seemed faceless.
Strangers.
...
I sighed. I turned around, and looked down from the railing.
But among the sea of faceless srangers that walked around on the 1st floor...I saw someone I recognized.
...
I blinked.
It was just a poster...but he really DID look like that certain character.
Brown hair shielding one of his deep, dark eyes...a poker face that never really smiled at anyone... light brown skin, covered in a long-sleeved top...
I smiled.
Yeah...he looked just like him. But as I stared at the poster, my heart seemed to gradually weigh down... I missed the time we shared together. I missed him. And now...I wonder if he's out there... If he even acually EXISTS in this reality...
Just then...
"...and I don't want the world to see me..."
My eyes widened. Someone had turned up the mall's sterio system. And the song playing was...
"When everything's made to be broken..."
Iris.
I lowered my gaze.
"I just want you to know who I am...I just want you to know who I am...Just want you to know...who I am..."
The music faded, the faces of the people around me faded...
But his face emblazoned in my memory...didn't.
...
As I curled up under the covers that night, right after my evening prayers...I stared blankly at the cieling. She was...happy. I knew she was. And I was happy that she was. It didn't hurt as much as before... All I could do was sigh.
Quite suddenly, certain memories from the semi-forgotten past started to creep into my mind. I didn't really know why...but it seemed as if my subconcious created a defense/coping mechanism for whenever I feel alone and unloved...
I remember him.
It was as if...everytime I fell and crashed into myself...he'd be there. The memories of him would gently surround me and cradle me tenderly in its embrace...giving me strength and hope to live on...to believe. To hope.
It was like...he'd been with me all along...
I wondered...if he really existed. If I didn't dream him up...if he really was still alive...what would he look like? Would he really look the same? Where would he be? Would he also be one year older than me? Also a little bit taller than me? Would he be wearing the same clothes, living in the same mansion, having the same type of family that he had? Would he really be smart and serious, brooding, and stone-cold silent? Or would he be a lot different than from what I knew him?
But the question that really made me think was:
For the off-chance that he IS real and alive...and one sweet day our paths cross... Would we recognize each other? Would we stop dead in our tracks, and just stare? Would we automatically know that it was real, we weren't dreaming, and we were finally going to be saved and loved? At last, at long last? Or...would we just pass each other by...with nothing more but a faint second glace...?
I closed my eyes.
*Thy will be done, Lord...*
...
...
I was dreaming.
It was as if I was soaring...looking down from a bird's eye view. When I came closer, I saw several figures...people lined up beside each other.
But the one that caught my attention was the last person. A guy. His loose white shirt caught the sunlight. I got closer...close enough to see that he was leaning(half-sitting) against a waist-high stone wall. He was with his friends - a bunch of guys who had their girlfriends with them...he was the only one who didn't have a gal with him. The guy to his right asked him if he was okay, and he nodded, smiling.
"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry...hehe, don't let me get in the way, lover boy, hahaha!"
His friends grinned, and proceeded to cuddling with their gals, and making out. He was still smiling...but I knew that smile, I knew that laugh...coz I smile and laugh that way too. It was a mask. When he was sure his friends were busy with their gals, his smile slowly faded, and he cast a sideward glance at them to his right.
I was the only one who saw him. I was the only one who saw the hurt, almost envious look on his face...
But he merely lowered his gaze and sighed. He leaned back a bit on his arms and hands, which rested on the patch of grass-lined earth held back by the stone wall. He propped his feet up on the opposite stone wall - around a foot and a half from the wall he was sitting on. His blue denim jeans just barely covered the soles of his black sneakers.
I crept closer...until his friends and their gals were just out of my peripheral vision. I focused on him. Tried to emblazon every single detail. The crease on his white shirt, the slight whitewash color of his jeans, the laces of his shoes dangling down the stone wall, the clash of the green grass against his fingers...
He tilted his head back. With a swift movement, he jerked the jet-black strands of hair away from his face. He turned his face up to the sky and just stayed that way...eyes closed, a soft sigh passing through his slightly parted lips.
...
I crept closer still...so close now, that I could make out his eyelashes. I spoke into his ear. But...no words escaped my lips. No sound at all...just a breath.
He snapped his eyes open. He swiveled his head directly at me. But...he didn't see me. For a moment, I was confused myself... Then I realized something - quite suddenly, actually...like it just registered.
I was the wind.
I crept around him, and ran my fingers through his hair. I saw his loose shirt and silken ebony locks move as if caught in a breeze. He turned his head to the other side, and looked over his shoulder. A dazed, anxious look was on his face. I drifted in front of him, passing my hand past his cheek, laughing...without a sound. He gasped slightly, and touched the side of his face. A grin was starting to form on his lips.
I laughed soundlessly again. This was actually fun.
"What the...what is this..?" he asked out loud, smirking. I circled around him in a gust. He ran his fingers through his messed-up hair and laughed. I stopped, and sat still in front of him. He looked around, over his shoulder, like a kid who wanted to play some more...
"Hey...where'd you go..?" he whispered, the grin fading ever so slowly from his lips.
I gently traced my hand over his shoulder, and placed it over his chest. I felt something behind the fabric of his collar. He reached up and took out his necklace chain...and revealed the pendant that hung from it. He held it in his hand. I wrapped my hands around his, and whispered:
"I'm right here..."
He stared at the necklace. I could tell by his eyes that he was lost...lost in his own memories...of his own semi-forgotten past, maybe. Quite suddenly, something dawned on him. His eyes widened, and he snapped his head up and looked directly at me. I smiled, and circled around him again, before rising up to the clouds in a gust of wind.
When I looked back down, I could see him...his head tilted back, his face cleared up and looking straight up at the sky, a hand still clutching the pendant, and a broad smile on his lips.
I was smiling too...
...
"Excuse me...do I know you..? Coz I have the strangest feeling...I've met you before..."
"Somewhere..?"
"Some...time..."
...
"If this is a dream..."
"...then it is a good dream."
"Yes...and I never want to wake up."
"...me neither."