By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

 

I am fascinated with shooting stars, tiny particles of dust from space that burn up above Earth’s surface as they dive down at an incredible velocity in the sky, glowing as they pass and then as quickly, gone.

I remember waiting at the school grounds of the University of the Philippines (UP) waiting for them, having been alerted of their estimated time of arrival by former Secretary of Labor Patricia Sto. Tomas, who was as excited as I to witness hundreds of them “shooting” at the same time. This was a very long time ago, during President’s Arroyo’s time, while I was a member of the Board of Trustees at the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

Most of those who gathered at UP saw, not hundreds, but one or two, intermittently appearing in between the dark clouds at night, until early dawn. I did not see one where I stood, and followed others who suggested a better viewing deck. Having moved at least four times, and still seeing none, I decided to go home. The cool breeze carried me to Mahabagin Street, where the flowers of a huge ilang-ilang tree perfumed the air with its deeply penetrating but evanescent presence. I lingered on this street for a while, glancing at the sky, in case a shooting star accidentally drops by. None.

As a child, I saw shooting stars in the sky traveling so quickly before I could make a wish. In the one instance that I was able to utter a word, I forgot what I want to wish for, among the so many I tried to remember, if and when I saw one.

I see them more often now, but they vanish quicker these days, like a flash of light, that could be mistaken for a hallucination, or an optical illusion. I remember friends who used to sit in open fields just to chance upon them, and make their lifelong wish. They are gone now, from this existence. They left, as quickly as shooting stars burned their light, so quick in fact, I was never able to say my proper goodbyes.

We are shooting stars. Shining brightly, dimly, traveling in the space of a continuum whose ever-expanding frontiers challenge the imagination. Is there an afterlife in the multiverses that scientists have theorized? What universe did the shooting stars come from? Did we travel as dust from somewhere else, evolved as human beings, settled on Earth and in dying, we return to where we truly came from? Questions of existence, mingling with the smell of brewed coffee at cockcrow.

At the first cockcrow the angels start a dance, when humans are still sleeping, to celebrate the coming of the light. And the light comes, without fail, every day, so far. The wait is not in vain, and quicker than the wait of Christians and Jews for the coming of the Messiah: the first coming for the Jews, and the second coming for the Christians, whichever comes first, certainly not as quickly, as a shooting star.

 

The coming

the streets are silent except for a distant whisper

are you coming?

I look for you in the opening of the flowers

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