Feelings
Cannot be reached
By Emmanuelle
STORY 1. She should not have taken that one last bottle of light beer. The beer was everything but light. It was also the “last tagay na ito!” that lasted and lasted and lasted. Way past midnight when the group broke up, dawn was just a wink of an eye away.
She took all the usual precautions: a drinking buddy saw her to the taxi stand. She made sure he took note of the plate number though he was too cross-eyed with the drink and antok. She sent a text message to a sleepy dorm friend that she will be home in less than twenty minutes not a second more.
She never arrived. Somewhere along the way, the taxi took her the one-way route from which there was no coming back healthy and alive. Sometime between the first quiver of alarm and the last scream of her life, she was frantically calling her friend.
The woman manning the network circuit kept intoning: the number you have dialed is either unattended or out of coverage. In other words, the friend cannot be reached.
STORY 2. Nick is truly Jam’s best friend. He disapproves of what Jam had gotten himself into. Yet, when the going got rough, he finds he does not have the heart to let Jam down.
Despising himself for this weakness, he shrinks his bulk further to fit behind this tree of a hiding place. He is Jam’s lookout. Jam is with his lover whose other boyfriend may appear anytime on the pebbled path straddled by the tree.
Suddenly, Nick sees him, swaying and stumbling. Lagot, he is drunk.
Nick’s big thumb stabs the call key. The woman manning the network circuits intones: the number you are calling is busy at this time; please try your call later. Again and again he stabs the green key. S_ _t, s_ _t, s_ _t. How busy can you get, Jam!
Jam cannot be reached. The police and the ambulance did reach him, though. But not as fast as the other boyfriend’s knife.
STORY 3. Then comes the most awaited portion of this noontime show, where from the red tambiolo the host picks out the number of a lucky participant from the audience. After the congratulations, the host draws again, this time from the green tambiolo. He unrolls the piece of paper, then he reads the cell phone number of a registered home viewer who shall receive the same hefty prize as the studio participant.
He dials the number. The number rings. And rings. And rings. The woman manning the network intones: the number you are calling cannot be rich.
If their owners were reached, would the true stories above have a healthier, lovelier, richer endings? There is no other answer but. Get rid of that woman manning the network circuits!
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