From here to there (Part 3)

By Jing Villamil

 

As we wander through life from here to everywhere . . . there are these moments so intense so exquisite that, though unphotographed or unrecorded, the imprints they carve in our minds scour deep and full. They might as well had been photographed, recorded, saved.

In one of her brakes-and-stops, Manta suddenly realizes there is something missing in her music. There is no lead guitar! The band is just keeping time with the students’ steps.

She whirls around, then round again, perplexed. The boys and girls behind her, with their copycat game, whirl around, then round again copying her whirlings. The result is complete chaos! Off-balanced, they fumble, they tumble all over the place with no grace. There is no dropping playfully, delightfully to the ground. Neither is there an exaggerated exasperated chorus of “Manta!” Legs go askew, arms flail, bottoms plop on hard ground. Teachers’ whistles outrage the ear and the air. Students in the surrounding classrooms lean out their windows, run out their doors. “It’s Manta! What’s she up to this time?”

Her music had descended! It had walked and crossed the length of the quadrangle over to the students’ far end. And had been watching her for sometime now from just a few steps away!

Predictably unpredictable as ever, Manta steps away from the tangled limbs, the cries and groans of the outraged.

She steps over to him; she stops short of an arm’s distance.

And so, there they stood, frozen in time, the top of her head reaching only to his chest. He is near six-feet tall, has tousled brown hair and a nice-enough face, fair-skinned and painfully thin except for the hint of firmness on his chest and arms.

A child looking up to a god; a god looking down to a nymph. Click. Imprint.

He says: “You graduate from high school this year.” She says: “Uhuh. You are not in high school.”

He says: “Will finish college this year. You are so young to be so weird.” She says: “Uhuh.”

He says: “You are also very beautiful.” She says: “Uhuh. That, too.”

He chuckles at that. He slips his hands in his back-trouser pockets and keep them there. Or else, he would grasp her arms and twirl her around and up against the brilliance of the sky!

He says: “And if I were not wrong, the same music plays in both our minds.” She says: “Uhuh. Weird, isn’t it.”

But their lips do not get to say what their eyes speak. His eyes say: Grow up fast, please, while I wait. Her eyes say: Uhuh. I will.

Then she whirls around, back to her “place”.

Chuck, for that was his name, would play her music from the raised stage at the opposite end of the quadrangle, his eyes searching here and there, always settling on her. If not exactly doing that, he would keep them closed, trying other variations to her music. Their music.

And closed his eyes maybe, he would glimpse Manta at each tip of sunrays shafting past his eyelids through the leaves of the trees!

Chuck and his band (for it was his), would be in her school, thrice a week for nearly a month, then everyday for five days before the promenade and ball. Then he would volunteer his band for Manta’s graduation rites at a ridiculously discounted rate. Only the really dumb and the hopelessly blind would not guess why.

But those in the know would keep their quiet; there are sons of influence throwing eyes of dagger and swords and maybe even bullets at him who is making their Manta glow more than ever, if this were even possible!

That summer and after, he would arrange to see her when she and her family, or her friends were in the city. He would walk across the street within their plain sight, or he would follow them right behind, his steps keeping time with theirs. Sometimes, he would eat at another table in the same restaurant, his eyes always settling on her. To see her was more than enough. To hear her voice, that would be much too much. He might just step over legs & bodies, tables & chairs and pick her up and . . .

ask her “Marry me as soon as you are twenty?” And her family or friends would all scream “Whaaaat?”

Now and then, their eyes meet. Then and only then, the calm of their music run smooth cool waters to their panic. Their eyes speak. He: I wait. She: Uhuh. I rush.

The writer fears that it would be too presumptuous to pass on to the readers’ heart and imagination the details of the rest of Part 3 of this story, But words can sometimes be so inept, so lacking in spontaneity, insufficient in breadth and depth. How can one best describe what is indescribable? One cannot put words to what is felt. One simply “feels”.

Sometime in your life, were you ever a Manta? Were you ever a Chuck?

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