Freak Accident

For the past few days, I have been having repetitive dreams about one person. One who definitely shouldn't be there anymore. Last night was the most awful one I felt like crying when I woke up. Seriously, it has been more than 6 years. Ex-boyfriends should stay that way unless you were friends. EX-cluded from you life.

As far as relationships go, I think I've only met 1 person who meant that much to me. I mean, sure, I've had flings here and there, even had 3 of them happening at the same time, but that was all entertainment and ego-boosters. None of them were really serious. From the get go, it was already an unwritten contract that none of us would harbor any deep feelings for each other, so when it ended, it just ended. No drama. No deep and meaningful talk on how we enriched each other's lives but sometimes you have to let go, none of that bullshit. When one of us got bored, we just packed our bags and said adios. And that's the way I liked it. No fuss, no muss.

Of course it wasn't always that way. I mean, seriously, one doesn't go from fling to fling without at least experiencing the real thing.

In my case, it happened in high school. NOT GONNA GO INTO THAT MUSHY DETAIL. All I'm saying is that I really liked the guy, but it was just too messy and complicated, and as time went by, I soon realized the main thing about it: it was one-sided. I used to feel bad about being in love with a guy who didn't love me back the way I wanted him to. But I just got over it after a while.

So anyway, THAT guy. I didn't have any sort of communication with him for 4 years. During my senior year in college around August, I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind and quoted Alexander Pope's poem on my Facebook status. The next day, I was just… SHOCKED to see a familiar name and face on my friend request page. It was him. After 4 years. He probably searched me up (that would have been the only way, since we didn't have any common friends at all in Facebook).

I wasn't bitter, but it still stung. You don't just add people on Facebook like that, especially not an….. (dare I say it…) ex. I mean, the Facebook theme goes "Re-connect with old friends!" not "Re-connect with old lovers whom you sent hate mails to!"

But not adding him up would make me look like a snob and a loser. So I added him up and went to visit his page, and could only cover my mouth in shock to what I saw.

There, on the same day I quoted Alexander Pope, 5 MINUTES BEFORE I POSTED MINE, he quoted the very VERY same thing. Despite the 5 minute gap, there was no way in hell either one of us could have copied the other. He couldn't have copied me since obviously he posted it before I did, and neither could he see my wall, and I couldn't have copied him because… well why the fuck would I even do that?

Chills went through my spine. It seriously scared me. Rewind to my second year in high school, the way we met was COMPLETELY BY CHANCE AS WELL. It was one of those freak accidents or series of events that if JUST ONE tiny detail didn't happen, the result would have never happened at all. We didn't have any common friends. So if I had been doing something else that day we met, even being only a few minutes late, I would have never known him. Ever. He would have just  been another face I'd blankly look at if I passed by him. But no. Because I had done this and that, and maybe because he did this and that too, it ultimately lead to me meeting him. And since then he was not just another face anymore.

Obviously today it doesn't even matter. It is one of those fleeting events that used to mean a lot in the past but is something you don't even think about today. I just found it way too strange. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about two ex lovers who somehow, despite all odds, found a way to be together again (even if their memory of each other was completely erased). 

Not that I'm saying that I want to be with him again. Times have changed and he's not really that magical and interesting anymore. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to be with me as well since he has a life of his own, and a current girlfriend at that. What I'm saying is, what was the point of meeting him? What exactly is the point of meeting someone against all odds if you two aren't going to end up together? What was the point of thinking of the same quote at the exact and precise moment? My friend told me it was too strange of a coincidence for something to not have a purpose. Was the fact that I met him, thought of the same thing at the same time despite years of no communication, only to reconnect with him again the next day, mean something? 

Ah, the questions I send to the cosmos.

Who wants to know

Today while waiting for the supposed-to-be end of the world, I got very very bored as there was nothing on TV (on HBO, they actually had this bullshit movie on, about those people with the bullet-shaped heads. I hated that movie since I was a kid) and decided to write about the strange experience I had a week or two ago. 

It is 100% non-fiction.

Once upon a frightful time, I rode a bus home to GenSan. It barely had any people since I left during the wee hours of the morning and had the double seats all to myself. Right before the bus left, a guy stepped in. Tall, mestizo, good looking (perhaps even too good looking), around my age, wearing checkered shorts, a blue collared shirt and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

"Gay," I automatically declared him in my mind, (Oh, let me tell you a thing about me, I can be very judgmental at times HAH!) as he sat on the aisle right next to mine.

An hour before arriving in Gensan, I was minding my own business, listening to music while looking at the scenery, when the said guy brushed my hand (I had my arm around my laptop bag, which was on the empty chair on my left.)

Me: …o_O

Guy: -says something inaudible since I still had the headset on-

Me: Ano?

Guy: Malayo pa ba ang GenSan?

Me: Oo. -puts headphones back on and looks out the window, annoyed-

Around 10 minutes of silence passed between us when he stood up, took my laptop bag and asked "Pwede umupo?" I must have looked pretty alarmed because he laughed and said "Hindi kasi ako taga GenSan. May itatanong lang sana ako."

And then for the next 50 minutes before arriving at our destination, I kept listening to him talking and talking, nodding once in a while so I wouldn't seem like a complete bitch. In the course of the 50 minutes, I found out that he's actually a dancer linked with the Bandila Fusion (HAH! SEE! I told you he was a homo! No one could belong in a dance group and dress like that and still be straight!), he's from Cotabato City studying in Davao as well, who was here for the weekend to visit a friend. 

In the middle of our conversation which consisted of him as the only one who was talking, he asked me "Ano nga ulit pangalan mo?"

This caught me off guard. I immediately thought of possible fake names, but they all seemed so ridiculous. I thought of Eowyn for crying out loud. Aw, what the hell. I'm never going to talk to this guy ever again anyway. "Rea"

"Leah?"

"No," I said, sounding annoyed. "Rea as in R-E-A."

The bus stops, we arrive at the station. I saw my father waiting for me outside by the car. I grabbed my bags and began to leave when he called me back. "Teka, friends kayo ni Maya Kikuchi?"

"O, bakit?"

"Add na lang kita sa Facebook."

UMMM, what? 

True to his words, the moment I opened my Facebook on the same day, there he was, with the tackiest profile picture ever (him without a shirt, showing off his abs of course), which was so typical of him.

Will continue this story later on...