By Rex Catubig

 

BEING advanced in age tends to make one retreat and hark back. It seems to follow the rule in physics where for every action there is an equal opposite reaction. So as you move forward in years, the more you get older, the more you look backwards, and remember. Flashback Thursday or any day of the week becomes more akin to flashback daily.

Yet paradoxically, one forgets, too.

Just like this one afternoon, when my obsessive-compulsive impulse-buying complex took me to the bowel of the city — the street market whose guts blend people into like morsel, like flora in the stomach or bangus fingerlings in a jar. It’s a merry mix-up of sweat, stench, and spunk.

It was in this discombobulated arena that the bell of the nearby old church began tolling. It was 6 o’clock.

In years past, the siren at the city hall would duet with the church bell and wail into the innermost nooks of the city to announce the Angelus. Our mothers would holler at us to stop playing. Out in the streets, calesas, cars, and other vehicles would respectfully stop. People out walking would halt in their track, with most making the sign of the Cross. And as the pealing ended, as the siren quieted down, we greeted one another good evening: “Labid sikayo! ” or contracted to just an undulated “Labi..”, with a suffix of respectful address, e.g., “Labi, mama! ”. At home, we took the hand of the elders and let it touch our forehead as a token gesture of being blest. It was a ritual passed on through the years. Until now.

None of that happened this particular afternoon. Nothing and nobody stopped. The motion of living went on unabated. It was business as usual. No one could be bothered for a minute of prayer or silence and each played deaf to the spiritual call. And yet during days of interminable high tide and flooding, the heavens are bombarded by pleas of mercy to be spared the ravages of nature’s caprice. “Kasyan mo kami, Katawan! Ilaban mo kami! “

Man may have a long life but has a short memory. He cannot even seem to recall now why are the church bells ringing. Well, jingle bells remind him of Christmas. But the sonorous sound of church bell merely blends with the cacophony that surrounds him. His mind is preoccupied with pragmatic concerns. He juggles what food he could buy with the few pesos he has. Who remembers and cares about the miracle of the loaves?

Ironically, the church bells would again toll someday. Sadly, at a time he might not really hear it anymore. Yet though he could no longer hear it, there would be no more escaping its resonant call this time:

It’s the requiem bells summoning him:

“Gala, gala, inong, sempet ka lad abong. “

“Anak na lasi ka, sakit ka ed tumbong! “

It would be tough luck. We just hope he would remember the right passcode for the pearly gates. And there would be signal.

Else, he just might be doomed to spend eternity somewhere down there—without wi-fi.

“The subscriber can’t be reached. Or out of coverage area”

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