Warning: Raw...raw...raw...in a hurry to meet a friend for coffee and chismis. This may appear like a spew of bitter diresion from me but as Nelson told me: "Who the hell cares if you are bitter!"




A couple of times last week, I experienced the unimaginable.

First, it made me realize that Davao, the largest city in terms of land area in the whole world (next to Puerto Princesa), can actually reduce itself into something like the size of a can. You know that small thing where they force-in five to six pieces of poorly tomato-sauced juvenile fish? That's it. A tin can.

Second...there's no "second" actually.

What I am trying to say is nothing because what I realized and experienced twice last week were almost tantamount to nothing. It was just Athan. You remember him?

I mean, a month after he left me in the middle of a dead busy highway, why the hell would he choose to eat in the same Tapsilog Center where I was eating. Hello! I arrived there first. I ordered food first and that does not mean that I must leave the place first?

That he showed up there was perfectly nothing, right? As nothing as seeing him eat with in the same Tapsilog Center with someone whom you, from the start, suspected as his new beau. Right, it's perfectly nothing with the thought of his supposed reason why he went corpse-cold over your almost two-year relationship always made you feel like a destraction--totally--to his bright, bright future.

There was, of course, nothing wrong with that, except that you, as you consistelty stood by your atheism as a personal-political statement, wrote essays--his project in theology--about how you adored the thought of lying next to god and all the angels and saints afterdeath--and you learn later that the essay earned him a 98 percent rating, something that you did not, no matter you tried, get when you were taking theology classes back in college.

Sure, there was nothing wrong with him seeing with someone. What was wrong, you would stress, is that they do not, in any inch, look good together. Not that you and him looked good together when you were still together but, hey, they looked like---unimaginable.

But of course, you are not easily pressured by anything that are not pleasing to the eyes and to the feeling. You would claim you had a blast after taking a break and finding out that you are crazy over some crazy guys you barely know the real name. But what's unpleasant to the eyes would either push you to break out into laughter or in panic and dread.

And unimaginably, you did both while you were frantically sending our text messages to your friends about the horrible sight that just unfolded before you.

But because your new year was great, despite how simple it was spent (thanks to that can of corned beef and Julian...hahaha...), you go meet your friends and tell them what you just saw and they end up laughing with you as you tell them how you bubblily greeted he-who-left-you "haaaaaaayyyyyy...how are you?" and how you only got that usual demeanor you have always convinced him to dropping because it always made him look like stupid.

And then you, next few days while you are onboard a taxi, see them again in this small cafe by the road. And then, you inspect the self and feel the self and you find the self laughing so hard that it scares the driver so much for him to ask: "Naunsa ka dong?"