Ode to the entities who taught me smoking

High School life was the best until I stepped into college.

First two years were boring. Boring subjects, boring teachers, boring lesson, boring classmates, boring everything and boredom stirred up the quitter in me.

But I woke up one day and realized there is no such thing as boring everything, only boring minds. Incontented with the same sh*t, I tried mind boggling, mental aerobics but I settled for mental masturbation to anesthetize myself and encapsulated boredom in the back seat of my mind. For happy thoughts I needed for my flight, I took amphetamines to get my life a life.

Infringing the redundancy of my so-called life, three entities disturbed my full circle.

I don’t know how I find them or how they found me or how we found each other. Or did we, really?

The three creatures kept me hanging between sanity and lunacy during those days when I was trying to find myself for I am not sure if how I lost it. Actually, we still hold on until now for my sake and for theirs, too.

Fate was maybe weary that time when it played a joke on us, as it collected me and Allan in the back seat of the dark room where Ms Judy tried to grab our attention.

Ritchel didn’t exist at that moment as far as I am concern but she was somewhere in that same dark room. King? Who would have thought he was alive?

Tell me who your friends are. I have 3!

Allan — An apparition! That was what came to my mind the moment I sat my eyes outside the little chapel where we pay our last respect to my father. He was there standing, hands in his jacket. Though I can’t see his eyes, he was watching the scene inside. I thought he wouldn’t show up for he was somewhere in some part of the Philippines working his ass to earn a living. That was in 04.

It was a relief for me just with his presence. Maybe that’s what real friends are for. Just mere presence is comforting enough you could go on with the fight.

With my series of unfortunate events, he didn’t fail to show up. He has this power (attributed to mind reading or maybe we’re some kind of connected?) of being there at the right moment when things didn’t go on the way I expected it to be. Shock absorber. He can calm my storm over bottles of beer, loud music and few words while we pass time at Manong’s (we’re resident tambays of Manong’s). I was unaware of his influence in me same way I guess that he was unconscious of the effect I have on his life.

Some hard lessons in life I learned from him. How would I forget the way he showed me the simple way of enjoying a stick of ‘chongki’. To escape from the harsh reality of college life, the four of us hid in our little valley, cover our selves with smoke and real laughter.

He told me in between demonstrations using a stick of lighted yosi  “Hold the smoke in your lungs as long as you can. Feel it swimming inside of you. Slowly let it go. While doing so, enjoy whatever comes to your mind.” I followed suit. It felt good. But we didn’t do it with a real ‘chongki’, too bad.

I hold on when circumstances cause me to bleed or put me to death laughing. Feel it swimming inside of me. Slowly, painfully, I let go. There’s not much of a choice. While doing so, be thankful for people like Allan who taught me that life is more than smoking a ‘chongki’.

Ritchel — So much self-confidence that was how she projected herself on the first time we both accepted our existence.  She was part of the elite group and me, the loner, the outcast. I dunno how it started; maybe same hands of bored fate brought us together. Same venue, backseat of semi-dark room. She was okay. We didn’t share the same opinion and often we clashed trying to outweigh each other. But as time pass us, again we get bored, we learned to listen. I am good in listening, I prefer to listen. And Ritchel? All she wanted is to speak up what’s in her mind. She’s my balancing factor. My devil’s advocate.

Runway. Our sanctuary. With sticks of yosi, we would shy away from our confusion and offered each other the consolations we knew.

I still remembered how she stood up for me when a girl from the university bullied me. She bullied the girl! With her big frame and mataray looks, who wouldn’t be afraid of the big bad wolf? King called her Yakult – Yawang Kulot!

After college we headed different directions. She found job right away while me, I tried to find myself armed with only my ideals. Not only she found her career, she had found the love of her life! That made me a loser. But I was happy for her.

“I am no longer woman of the police but a policewoman!” she proudly announced.

She maybe in the other side but the fence doesn’t separate us. We didn’t see much of each other. In fact I don’t remember when was the last time we saw each other.

But she called me in the middle of the night to listen to my cries. She was there for me. She took time to pay attention to my heartaches. Yakult has her soft side softer still.

We knew that unlike the runway we used as tambayan, life would not be smooth and straight. But we knew that like runway, no matter how long and hard the travel we will nevertheless have time to carry our sticks of yosi, shy away from the world and embrace the friendship we have.

King — We met in different space, not in the same dark room where three entities done the orgy of thoughts. It was not hands of friendship I first offered him but a stick of ‘chongki’. We were passing time behind the university chapel waiting for the next class to begin which we prayed it would not. Every girl who passed by the area would be a victim of his malicious intent. Lacking of better things to do, he raided my wallet for pictures of boys and anything that would amused him but found it boring. He caught the smell of the stick then savored the scent. He planned to light it up in broad day light, in public place, in that university campus worse behind the chapel.

“Sige lang para mabangag si Jesus!”

King is not that brutal.

Like a knight in shining armor, King would rescue a damsel in distress. Not any damsel but true friends like me and Ritchel. How many times he proved he would kill for us, how he willingly would jump over the bridge for us, his friends.

We may not agree on certain issues, we may discuss things in loud voices but certainly we cling on to and for each other. In between beer tournaments, conflicting matters, maoys, we knew we are still of the same mind. I wouldn’t trade him for any gorgeous and sexy boys for he claimed he’s gorgeous enough for me.

“Bugo ba ko?”

I just can’t help but laughed in his quest for self-introspection.

With King around, I wouldn’t be terrified to light my stick for I knew he would be there and together we will be flying high.