sesquipedalien

Every time I meet someone I risk losing them.

Having lived in numerous places throughout my life, I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of people. During that specific time period, certain people were endeared to me. People I would spend my whole days with, be it studying for an exam, eating lunch under blossoming trees, reading a book and then debating its themes together in empty classrooms. Or in the childhood days, people with whom I romped, climbed trees, raced against with bare feet, imagined magical lands with dragons and castles, built mazes with cardboard boxes, or stole a cookie or two when the mothers weren’t watching. Without these souls, my days would have been dull and fruitless.

Yet each time I packed my boxes and left the world I knew for those two or three years, I’d have to wave a solemn goodbye. We’d promise, through sad smiles and watery eyes, to keep in touch, and for the first couple months, the promises would be religiously kept. I would hear their voices on the phone, read their words, hang their pictures on the side of my desk. I’d remember them, wondering what they were doing without me. Wondering if they missed me as much as I did them. Those few months, my days are always spent wallowing in self pity. There they were, while here I was, all alone.

But as time passed through each numbered box of its celestial calendar, they’d wear away, silently slipping into little capsules of memories. Eventually the photos remained the same, the words stopped coming, and the phone ID ceased to bear their numbers. I’m equally to blame, for suddenly my world becomes as full as it was with them…

Until I find a stack of old letters sprawled with childish writing, names which used to be dearest to my tongue, pictures of all of us smiling under La Tour Eiffel.

I am left in my dark closet, questioning myself with guilty curiosity… where was that auburn, curly head preschool pal of mine, or that boy who was my best friend back in kindergarten, or the African American who I sang with in second grade, or all those Japanese friends with whom I struggled with through the rotten IGCSE’s, or that bearded guy with whom I debated endlessly in that boring, high school sociology class, or the girl I sat next to in Chem class my freshman year of college, or the skydiver who I’d listen to every morning before mixing another batch of coffee syrup in the lab for testing… where?

I don’t know.

I probably never will.

I can only thank them for the memories.

And then leave them in a box, all lost.

I used to have this habit of waking up each morning, grabbing my favorite Crayola marker and filling in the box of yesterday on the calender by my door. I’d do each day with a different color until each week was a rainbow of its own. I found it satifying, watching the days go by, one by one, like counting boxcars while they pass the crossing, only I was titivating them by adding a splash of color.

Today, I have no calendar to fill. It fills itself on the screen of my digital planner.

I used to stare at the face of a Mickey and Minnie clock, tracing the bibs they both wore and the ballons they both held. They were drifting downwards. No, upwards. I never did figure it out. Sometimes the hands of the clock would slash through their pointed nose or their wide smiles. Still, I’d fall asleep knowing exactly what time it was.

Today, I have no hands to stare at. My clock tells time on the screen of my cellphone.

Writing letters was a hobby of mine. I had penpals from Japan and the Philippines and India. I loved waiting for them to come, the longer they took, the happier I was. There is a certain joy in anticipation. And when the letters came, I’d read them over and over again, noting the handwriting, the type of paper, the type of ink, the company of film they used if they sent photos. I still have those letters somewhere, stacked neatly in a shoebox.

Today, I have no letters to file. They are flawless on the screen, written with the same paper and pen the entire world uses.

So many little delights thrown away to The Screen.

So I was walking across campus and this girl stops me:

Girl: Can I ask you a few questions? Or are you going to class?

Moi: No, I have time. Go ahead.

Girl: Ok. Umm, yeah. First question. What three things do you look for in a guy? I mean, not appearance wise…

Moi: You mean characteristics?

Girl: Yeah, that’s it. Characteristics.

Moi: *Chuckle* Well, intelligent enough, punctual, and a good appetite, for food.

Girl: *Scribbles all this down in green notebook* Ok. Umm, how about three things that don’t appeal to you?

Moi: Oh, bad habits, noisiness, and bad stomach.

Girl: *Weird look on her face, but scribbles everything down again* Ok. And one last thing. Is there anything you’d like to ask a guy?

Moi: No, not really.

Girl: Ok, umm. Yeah, thanks.

Moi: Sure. No problem.

About ten paces away from her, I can’t hold my laughter anymore…

“Guy” in my native tongue refers to the animal “cow.”

Ask a farmer if I gave the right answers….

I cannot understand the necessity of bringing a new born babe to the mall. Yet it is surprising how many of them I saw, their mothers sifting through the latest fashion stocks, their fathers either quietly standing by the stroller or gingerly talking to their wives.

I guess it must be therapeutic for the mothers. But I shall never understand it.

We go to the mall about twice a year: after Thanksgiving and Christmastime. Each time, I return feeling the scowl on my face deeper than it was when we left.

The great carpeted halls, flanked with stores on both sides and little stations of tinklets in between. Almost everyone is carrying something to quench a silent thirst or hunger, be it an extra large coke or a well spent bag of brand name clothes.

I can’t help but watch people. I stalked a few during my recent abnormal trip.

A teenager couldn’t decide on which pair of pants to get. She stood, her face seriously drawn as she contemplated. She glanced up at the ceiling, as if counting some invisible figures. Gingerly she fingered each price tag, biting her lower lip in concentration. Suddenly, she was at the counter with both pairs, her eyes shining in a kind of quiet triumph as she paid for them with a credit card. How many pairs does she own?

A child, perhaps 9 or 10, eagerly looking up at her mothers face as the latter frowned slightly at the red pleated mini skirt and black matching top. She shook her head and the child’s face fell to hell, the eyes suddenly as fiery as its infernos, the slender lips shaped in a faultless sulk. I didn’t wait to see the eruption. Or perhaps there was none?

An older man and his wife both dressed formally: the man in a black suit and striped tie, the wife in a matching skirt and blazer, a silk scarf tied around her neck, her lips a bright red lipstick color. They were from the Orient. Both adorned with thin, gold rimmed glasses, both staring thoughtfully at the eloquent diamond necklace on the glass shelf of Zales. (I only remember the store name because I like the piano music that plays during their commercials.) The wife tenderly touched the delicate piece of art laid out on its velvet platform and looked up at her balding husband. He nodded and her eyes shone, but she quickly looked away, as if embarrassed. Did they buy it?

A group of friends stroll lazily among the crowd, giggling and gossiping. They all look so alike, what with their matching hairstyles and painted nails. They stop at one of the stalls and watch as another gets her hair lengthened by the professional. Their interest is captured as if they were witnessing Michael Angelo give his last stroke to the Sistine Chapel. It was amusing seeing them all stand there with nothing to say, each one in her own fairyland, each one unconsciously sipping at her straw of smoothie. Were they going to do the same?

Then, as if to awaken me, the voice that had brought me to this mega land of dollar spending called,

“T, why do you hold so much inside of you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you. You want things, but you never tell anybody. Your eyes are so empty. Why do you hold yourself back?”

*Laugh* “Oh, don’t worry about me.”

Just do me a GREAT favor and get me out of here…

“So, you are married?”

“Actually, I’m widowed.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry… How did it… well, I mean, I don’t mean to pry or anything…”

“Oh no, it’s ok. My husband was killed in… in the19…80’s.”

“Killed?”

“Yeah, and it’s sorta pathetic.”

“Oh?”

“He was run over by a car that hit him at 55 mph…”

“???”

“Yeah… and the guy who did it was the only witness. And you know what he said?”

“What?”

“Well, my husband must have been lying on the road, and the guy thought he was a dog so he ran him over.”

“?!?!?!”

“Yeah, see my husband was a bit crazy in the head, so he laid on the road for some reason, and the guy just ran him over thinking he was a dog.”

“Wow…”

“Yeah.”

“Must have hurt to find out…”

“Oh we were separated then.”

“I… err.. see.”

“Yeah. He tortured me, so I left him.”

“Mmm”

“And he married again illegally, so when he died the guy who ran him over gave us 30,000 and we split it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so that’s how I am widowed. ”

The new gadget that requires no work on your part: complete with precise targeting water pipes and heat adjustable butt warmers and dryers…

The first time I went back to my motherland, I was told how my father and his four brothers would visit a low branched bush tree a mile out from the village, hang a pail of water on one of the natural hooks, and sit till the sun decided to expose their bare behinds.

I am also reminded of reading Roald Dahl’s school day episodes, where in the cold of the winter, the older boys would tag him to warm the icy stone seats, and he’d sit there for an hour, without his pants, reading Hawthorne.

Somehow, robotic toilets fall in my list of “Useful and Useless.”

Though I must admit that life would be most incomplete without ever having used one.