My friend Ben said he met the girl of his dreams on the last 10:45 p.m. train from Doroteo Jose to PITX. He told me the doors would’ve locked her out if she hadn’t launched herself into the seat in front of him — oh, GOD! How I wish they did.
He told me from that moment on, despite her heaving state, he couldn’t dare look away. The glasses framing her eyes drooped down to the bridge of her button nose. Her wavy, brown-accented hair was strewn across her face in an errant array of strands.
An apology for her klutzy entrance and a sheepish giggle later, Ben’s already schmoozing her with some stupid pickup line off of a Hello chocolate wrapper. They go on to share a smile — his a flirty smirk, hers a shy blush revealing an incisor.
Ben said he didn’t know what came over him at that moment, but he caught a glint in her round, hazel eyes that told him this could be the first night of the rest of his life. And he was willing to bet that she saw it too.
My friend continues, noting that his memories of the night were a hazy blur. He spoke of jumping turnstiles, sharing ramen bowls at a karaoke bar, dancing under Manila’s streetlights, and recounting old stories on park benches.
He then motions to the swollen mass he once called an eye, a souvenir won after a homeless man knocked him out cold for denying him ten pesos.
Now, here I am, nursing this big oaf’s eye as he tweaks out about whether or not they exchanged numbers. I interject, asking if any of his stories even happened in the first place. I gave it to him straight: Manila isn’t a movie set, turnstiles have guards, streetlights are always broken, and the girl was probably a ghost conjured up by car exhaust.
Ben slumped back down into his chair and stared up at the ceiling, peering as if he could still see her hazel eyes through the plaster.
His phone buzzes. He shoots me an astounded look before answering on the third ring. After his voice cracks at hello, I watch his entire world light up. His lips break into the widest grin, his attention laser-focused on the voice of a woman on the phone.
Pain be damned, Ben got up, took his keys, and flew out — leaving the apartment echoing with the slam of the deadbolt.
Turns out dreams do come true, no matter how batshit crazy they might seem. I thought Manila was too loud for fairytales, but seeing that man live out his fantastical dreams with a woman, it seems that I have a lot more to learn.
As I wallow in the loneliness of the quiet and empty, I begin to wonder when someone might fill the spaces between my fingers, or embrace my skin so tired of holding me together.
It seems God indeed has his favorites. There are no meet-cutes for me at Doroteo Jose on my commute back home, only an incessant reminder:
Lahat na nagmamahal, ikaw na lang hindi.
I fail to comprehend that despite being in a city of fourteen million people, I’m left to share my most sacred thoughts within the four walls of my room. By the time I sober up from my cocktail of lonesome pain, I’m still alone in the still and silent.
Oh, how I wish I could be more like Ben and finally fall into eyes that the stars would bow down for.
- Charles Stephen Benedict R. Tolentino
(Illustration by Miles Munich Montreal Jimenez/FEU Advocate)