[Note: Thank you for the correction Danton Remoto. Apologies.]
I was sitting on the floor, silently waiting for late papers to arrive, tabulating numbers.
He was waiting for a test at 6:00 pm beside me, waiting for something else, someone.
Feeling his waiting, I sighed, “You know, you remind of a day…Let me see… Want to hear that day’s story?”
He nodded.
I began:
I feel as if that whirling and spinning wheels, bolts, screws and springs have clicked into place in my mind. It is as if everything else has disappeared, become peripheral and dispensable, and it’s just me here, waiting for the end of March.
It must have been the end, she said today. She had felt that end.
With me, I had felt it coming. Does it even matter if he finds or has someone else? Would even matter if he were completely absent? He has been an absence for a while now--- a dead star.
He shifted (having read a story with that title in late July) and became still, listening.
I smiled (seeing when words unspoken resound true) and continued:
Why would I continue to wish on a dead star? This star would never fall but as dust. He will not come. He thinks he has tomorrow and tomorrow and all tomorrows I will be saying “Sorry, I can’t.”
Tonight, he will not come, so tired, he will fall asleep.
Tomorrow he will only have silence--- like all the peripherals and dispensables. Silence.
Why would I continue to love a dead star? The end has almost fallen upon my heart. He will not come and in April he will feel the fool, be the fool. It will be too late. There always has to be rules and restraint, not paralysis, not this.
What will I always have? This silence in my mind, my self. I am returning to my self. He will be outside of me.
He will not come tonight. After all, he does not really love me. He only says so.
I return to this place--- where this all began---- where it ended---- where I thought it would begin again--- where he ended it. It should have ended there. After all, he loves himself more, he said.
I return to dining alone, alone with my thoughts. I am comforted. It should have ended then but it didn’t. Love has exhausted itself in me. You’re not the only one tired.
Now it’s just me, alone with my thoughts--- as it always should have been and will be.
If you do not come, do not even speak. After tonight, there will only be my silence and your broken heart.
Of course he will not come.
What logic: “Of course I’m not irritated at you. I love you.”
I scoffed: We do get irritated especially by those we love.
He will fall asleep while I stay awake, waiting for him.
Tonight, only tonight. You will not have me tomorrow anymore.
Like always, I will do what I do best--- I will simply disappear.
I pity you and the next woman you will love. Perhaps, by then you already know how to love other than yourself.
I have loved you--- forgiven what I could never forgive. Perhaps I have never forgiven you.
I want to weep but I smile.
This is the end, isn’t it?
Tonight, and you don’t even know it.
Because (you will say) you’ve fallen asleep, you were tired, what you’ll always say, always say. I watch, look outside the window, waiting for you. Silence, only silence.
Dead star that will be dust.
In the end, I will say, “I love you. I waited for you.” And tomorrow the waiting will stop. I do want to weep. Again, I grieve for the two of us alone. I remember a night like this, waiting for you, too and you didn’t come.
Of course he will not come.
Until what time do I wait?
Waiting is long. It seems to take forever.
I look outside again and again, wondering if I would ever see his face, wanting to see him. Time moves slowly when you’re waiting.
I’m waiting and he has fallen asleep. I want to weep but I smile. It is the only thing I can do--- breathe and smile.
Tonight, it is tonight that matters.
I’m the kind of woman everyone looks at--- wondering who I’m waiting for---a man, definitely, they all say. And later, because he had not come, they will wonder why but they will not ask.
If they only asked, I would have answered, “He didn’t because he’s not a man yet.”
He has not said anything, not even a word. I will not call him, I will not ask him again to come, I will not ask why he didn’t come, even when he finally speaks.
I will simply say, “I was waiting for you to come, for me, just once, for me. I was waiting for you to even say you were not coming. I waited for you.”
He will say, always say, “I forgot the time.”
My heart--- a dead star, now ashes, then dust.
I said, “It’s 6 pm, time to go.”
He and I stood up and we began walking towards the elevators. We were stopped by the Angelus.
I asked, “When’s the loneliest time for you?”
He answered, “From 8-10 pm.”
“Why?”
“Because then I’m no longer with my friends…And you?”
I smiled, “6 pm…Ever think about how night doesn’t fall but rises? Think about it on some sunset. Watch it. Anyway…”
The Angelus was done and we walked once more to enter the elevator. He said, “Let’s go see the drawings now.”
I laughed “Okay” and we went three floors up instead of going down.
We got off on the 12th floor and walked around, viewing the drawings, sharing to each other what we thought of each face, mirror, bear, bug… I said, “There’s nothing there…nothing yet. I see nothing.”
He asked, “You don’t like abstract?”
I shrugged, “Sometimes. But see, it’s nudes for me.”
We agreed about liking this one particular drawing of a face.
Then I stopped, drawn by a drawing of a hallway, drawn into its hallway--- seeing in it a black and white photo of a hallway--- a study in light and dark on the wall in my room--given to me on September 16 1999. A note in the back: The mere thought of someone asking for a copy of my pictures gives me happiness, di biro lang sobrang eklat no! Pero salamat pa rin at pinasaya mo ako sobra, eklat. Keep this well& I’ll make better pictures for people like you, chaka! Sobra Tanks. Carding.
He laughed, “That’s mine.”
I laughed, “I see.” Perspective and asked, “Why do you like drawing perspectives?”
He shrugged.
We walked back towards the elevators again. Then I pulled him to a stop and faced him towards the windows. We stood silent, facing the city that seems--- as if no one is there--- outside--- no sound. We are alone.
I quietly said as we looked outside, “For 10 seconds, I feel free, looking at that… Then I begin to feel lonely.”
He whispered, “When I see this, I think of everything before, that it’s possible to begin, go back, from the beginning.”
We are separated from what we see by glass.
I murmured, “And this is why you like drawing hallway perspectives.”
We stood there for a while, watched, and then turned to walk into another elevator. We said goodbye as he got off on the 7th floor for his test. I reminded him to do well and to study well for his final exam in my class.
After, while I waited on a ground floor (in an hour or so he will say I keep on thinking about the story you told and I will think again popstick as I think about Adam David’s poetics and if Douglas Candano is back from Tokyo) I drew the day that I remembered. (I will tell Joey, Sorry, wait, I need to get this out of my head. He will say, Take your time.)
Drawing a day is always more beautiful in words.
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