Feelings
The one that got away
By Emmanuelle
You thought, this one was in the bag. All the effort it was going to take was to pluck the fruit from the branch, plop it into the bag, then seal the bag. Voila! As you raised your hand to reach for the fruit, a hungry bird just happened to fly this way. It plucked the fruit with its sharp beak; it zoomed away. You froze in your last act, mouth agape, and whole body ballet-poised to pick.
The others thought these ones were in the bag, too. The fishing trip that almost always ended with both hands stretched far to the sides “it was this biiiig and looong. Unfortunately, it was too stroooong for my line!” Or the antlered deer seeming to stare eye to eye but only through binocular lens. The exact moment a camera bug or a really despicable hunter moved a finger to click or shoot, the deer was gone. Where once there was a target, there was empty air.
It was as good as yours. It was yours for the taking. Then, through a fluke of fate, it was not as good. It was not yours.
Ditto with the girl the boy that got way. Hatid-sundo, umaga’t tanghali, hapon at gabi. Roses at tsokolate. Max, Mac and Jollibee. Pasyal mo ko doon, bili mo ko nito. Pahilot nga; while you are at it, palaba na nga. With love blinding your eyes, you say kayang-kaya kahit lawit na ang dila. Patience my dear. Patience though may not necessarily endear. Nowadays, they shoot martyrs point-blank.
One day isang araw, the only one for you, is not. Never was, never will.
The same as with the honor slot or the job honors that got snatched. You poured forth sweat, you dripped-dropped blood. Day and night, even the in-betweens. Like dawn, dusk, lunch and snack. Zero lovelife, no DVDs, just the sometime walk-in the-park. You hang a pesky reminder right there by your door – keep right on schedule. By the end of graders, high school, college, postgrad, or the office target date – you must be valedictorian or cum laude or manager of the firm or owner of the corporation.
When an upstart, just like you, receives a grade .01 edge over yours, on the school card or office ra-tings – you scream, you scratch, you kick, you sue, you premeditate murder. What a mess. Bitch.
And now, I’m zooming right down to it.
When you have a dream mapped out to a scale of near-obsession for years and tears, you have trouble spelled with the biggest capital T.
Especially if this dream came in Teknikulay, ferocious dabs and grabs of grandioso power, wealth and fame. In that order.
Days, even weeks, months, years before Reckoning Day, you began with name-calling the enemy – liars, thieves, two-faced. Moral defamation or character assassination was your monopoly game. Your captive audience was captured.
You learned the rudiments of the game from the enemy’s backyard. When you learned, you learned well. You matched the offer dish for dish. Even two dishes to a dish.
Even God’s sanctified prayers were not too sanctified from your reach.
When desperate situations called for desperate measures, you assumed your name-calls. The mud you threw, you threw back to your face.
Trouble then turns Tribulation. Our tribulation. Not yours.
When you missed victory just by .01 edges, you threw YOUR PEOPLE’s, not THE PEOPLE’s, wrath over to the victors, no matter how humbled they already were with their so narrow win.
Surprisingly, you defeated the implication of your defeat. You charged your enemy in court with vague generalities, failing to supply the bare specifics of numbers, actual places and true events. Maybe, the bare specifics do not really exist; only in your mind.
Urged on by your single-mindedness, you neglected to count what digit was missing from your ten fingers and ten toes before you slapped your enemy with both hands and kicked them with both feet. Last we read, your charge got quickly dismissed.
Maybe, you are your worst enemy.
Except for the last four-five sentences, this article was the one the readers missed the other week.
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)
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