Baggage

                                                                                                                                          

So who fetched you from the airport? Michelle asked, as soon as we were seated around the table on the 23rd floor, where we were to have our dinner.

Uh. No one, I said. I was already here since the 12^th.
Ah! So, you’ve gone around?
I guess so.
So, you've you been to the New Star?
New Star?
That new hotel. With the new casino, new bars.
Ah, no. No, no, I said, shaking my head, waving my hand. 
I did not go there. I went to the old places, where I used to frequent before. I went there to reconcile myself to the past (paused), to reconcile with myself.  

So that maybe, I could move on. 
The astonishment in her eyes. Move on?! I said to myself. It has been 33 years, c'mon! You mean, you hadn’t moved on yet?  

Perhaps, I had. Perhaps, I hadn't.  But how could I know?!

I never even had the time to think about it.  I came here to look for that girl I lost so many years ago. She was concealed in almost everything I saw. I walked the streets littered with beggars, passed by the stores selling cheap textiles and other odds and ends from China, walked the ugly street of Colon, where once, I used to spend time reading Time magazines at P5 per copy, newspapers at P1 per copy. They used to have newsstands like that, where you could rent a newspaper, even magazines, to read. A testament to the Cebuano's grit? Ingenuity? Entrepreneurial spirit, they used to tell me.
Where else could you rent a Time magazine at P25 per copy? Or the much more expensive National Geographic? It would take a longer time to read.
I used to read until I could already feel the oil on my face, seated on a plastic chair, the electric fan rattling in front of me. The place was so hot and uncomfortable. Why was I so oily when I sweat? Why was I always bothered by the heat and the dust?  Why was my reading interrupted? Who disrupted it? Who stopped it?

Dear Old Self

So, do you still remember going into the midnight sale at the Metro? No, no, not even the Metro but that rustic department store somewhere near Gaisano South of Colon? Yes,Fairmart. Where we used to walk through the thickening crowds swarming the store and pushing their way to the rummage bins, where the sales staff used to throw away those items as thick as they’re dusty and smelling of old corners for having stayed on the display shelves for years.
What were you thinking then, as you waded through the swelling, palpitating crowd, finding your way around the thick forest of clothes, inch by inch, nudging those who shoved and elbowed you, shoving and elbowing in return?
What decadence, you used to grumble, your eyes popping at the price tags of a coveted piece of blouse or underwear which could transform you into another you, affording you a chance to dream, “What decadence!” you exclaimed, mimicking that Russian KGB in a popular American situation comedy you used to watch in Honey’s room inside the Tsa Elim Dormitory.
So, what were you thinking then? Did you think you can change yourself from being a poor girl from a land across the sea now in a big city to get a college education? Did you think you can change the world by changing the way you looked?
You tried a dress and saw how it suited your young and scrawny body, how it flattered your skin, your mind a whirl of emotion as you looked at that face in the mirror. Was it you? Who’s that girl? You asked, turning, staring, wanting to take all, spending a day’s worth of food allowance to buy a dream and feed your burning delusions.
I didn’t know what happened after that. I have counted the years and surveyed this particular time, and found out how brief it was compared to the great avalanche that eventually followed and pulled you out of there and brought you to me.
I wish you had been more circumspect. I wish I had warned you but I was equally careless! I wish you had tarried in one of those magazine shops somewhere near the Ultra Vistarama and the Oriente where you can read Time and Newsweek for only P5 or so, or a newspaper for P2 or so; or ogle at Itzhak Bentov’s “Stalking the Wild Pendulum,” or Carl Sagan’s “Broca’s Brain” in another bookstore, instead of shoving your way into that stupid midnight sale, flirting with your own ego!