By Rex Catubig

 

THE weekday morning couldn’t have been less hackneyed than any other morning the teenager wakes up to. It is the usual run of cliché common in a household.

To jumpstart the day which could be hectic depending on what he crams it with, he goes off to the nearby court “para papawis”. Or in retrospect, maybe to shake off some mental cobwebs.

Towards lunchtime, he drives to a distant house of a “kabarangay”’ to deliver the food that they have ordered. It’s what he does to help in his ‘lola’s’ little ‘carinderia’ business which caters to the neighboring friends who find it a convenient option.

He comes back right after and repairs to his room without anybody noticing.

The day is unfolding fast but uneventfully.

It’s way past noon when someone observes that he has not come down to eat—which is really no big deal with teenagers who routinely forego meals if occupied with their cellphones.

When it is already running two-ish and it is unusually quiet in his room, his cousin goes up to check on him. He freezes when he opens the door. The image that he sees is out of a tragic movie. The limp body of the teenager hangs tied to a colored rope.

The teenager has taken his own life—leaving no clue as to why he abruptly ended his game of life that was just unraveling.

Basketball was his passion. He was a star in the ball court, adored by ball fans, and respected by his co-players. This passion paid off handsomely as he garnered numerous medals and trophies and easily earned the title of Most Valuable Player.

So, everyone is in a quandary how he came to the point of despair that deleted reason and self-esteem.

No explanation is plausible enough. The specter of self-inflicted death takes many forms. Depending on your viewpoint, it could be an act of honor as in hara kiri, or expression of protest as in the Asian monks’ self-immolation, or deviant heroism as in terrorist suicide bombing, or a futile act of redemption and comeuppance as depicted in the bible.

But beneath it all is the sense of fear, loss and futility, where the essence of life cannot contain the aneurysmic burst of the vessels of the mind and calm down the arrhythmic beating of the heart.

Our teenager was a point guard, who was an expert ball handler and passer – a trait that he could have passed on to his life. And yet in an unguarded moment of weakness and unexplained loss of control, unmindful of the outcome, he pushed himself to the edge and sprang a dunk shot. And upon landing on the hard court, impulsively threw his towel and called it quits.

It was only the first quarter of his play. Too soon to retire to the dugout. What could have triggered the overpowering need to retreat and surrender?

Friends and family saw no signs. Down to the last hours of his life, he remained the jolly, ‘carinoso’ type of teenager, who would routinely ask upon coming home, “Antoy sira?”

But there was an indication that he wanted to reach out, and maybe seek comfort. A day before, he chatted with a girl friend, apparently wanting a meet up. But she was busy with stuff and couldn’t make it.

Would a meeting have changed the course of the fateful day?

If it’s any consolation, nothing could have altered the events. As Shakespeare said: “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in us, that we are underlings”. #

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