Feelings
Between here and there . . .
(Part 2)
By Emmanuelle
AM I hearing my song? She nodded to herself. Is that a band playing the instruments to my song? Another nod. Then it finally got to her.
She gave up on her intended leap, and dropped down fast from her perch.
The band was on practice mode, themselves and their equipments in comfy disarray. The lead guitarist was plucking the chords with his long, thin fingers, and not with the pick. That was why the notes came out whole and full and cool from the boom speakers. Not squeaky thin, spiky or metallic.
His music ran up and down the scales, light and nifty, unfolding a musical tale without words.
Of running through grass and sand and fine pebbles. Of leaps and soars across space and mirrors of water left by the rain. Of a face turned up to the trees and the skies peeping beyond.
It was joy in the presence of what is beautiful in life. And all creations were bursting with it in a symphony of a song – from specks of seed and fluff, to leaf and bud, to worm and man! And Manta.
A symphony replayed by these young men, their fingers romancing strings on wood honed into guitars, and the beat of the heart thudding forth from lambskin stretched and tucked in metal drums.
All instruments joined their chords and the beat of their rhythms and bass to the passage of the lead guitar, and he threaded tightly all their uniquely distinct notes into one vary-colored shawl of sound. And flung it spinning, dazzling to the listening crowd.
That piece of live music was one of the most beautiful she had ever heard. Had the givers, God and guitars, unknowingly intended this at first note?
It was the band’s rare kind of “feeling” music that had induced the school principal, a musician himself, to hire the band for the promenade and ball. For two hours every other morning of the week, Juniors and the Seniors would practice with the band, the students at one end of the open school quadrangle under the shades of the ancient acacia trees, and the band on the huge stage at opposite end.
And it came to pass that, more often than not, as in three days out of the three days of practice, Manta would eventually tie the practice into knots. To the teachers’ chagrin and the other students’ peals of laughter.
Kasi naman, when treading her way through the left and right of every other girl and boy in the squared rigodon de honor, Manta would break an unchoreographed stop at that moment she faced the stage. The boys and girls behind her would end up bumping and crowding unto each other. Blag. Ugh, Ay!
Sa totoo lang, it was really nice and cool under the trees, better than the sticky stuffy air in the classrooms. So the kids made a game out of it. They would anticipate Manta’s brake-and-stop. As the teachers fling up their arms and shout in one exasperated voice Manta! the kids would also do an echoing chorus of Manta! Exaggerating their exasperation. They would all then drop delightfully to the ground.
It was thus, that the band learned of her name.
(To continue next week.)
Writer’s Note: Apologies for the details. As told last week, the writer is telling this story straight from three most reliable sources: the words, the hands and the body gestures of the person whose true story this was.
And again, this announcement: graduates of Binalonan Community High School (now Binalonan National Science High School) Batch 70, residing here and abroad, are all invited to attend their Alumni Homecoming on March 29, 2008, this Saturday, preparatory to their Grand Alumni two years from now. Mayor Monching Guico, Jr., one of Batch 70’s prominent graduates, unifier to them all, shall co-host the event. For particulars, please contact jingmil@yahoo.com or CP# 09175062609, or call Saling 562-3340 or CP# 09102402187.
(Readers may reach columnist at jingmil@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/
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