unrequited

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

I have always been fascinated with children. There is something irresistible – something  so endearing in them that draws me. Looking at one now, sitting in his father’s lap opposite me in the overcrowded jeepney, I am being regarded back with an equally steady gaze. He is about two, with a slightly flat nose, wide forehead and curly hair.

Just like a cherub… I smiled down at him – can’t help it. He just keep staring at me with unflinching eyes and open curiousity. What is he thinking? Is he wondering why I smiled at him? That I look weird? That my nose look like his toy automobile? Or maybe I look like his stuffed toy….

As though reading my thoughts, the boy gingerly touched his nose with a finger. I almost laughed aloud.

After a while, he lost interest in me and shifted his attention to the woman seated next to his father & himself, probably his mother. He asked her something but his little voice was lost in the noise of the vehicle’s engine & the blare of what was supposed to be music from the jeepney stereo. I heard the father saying something about the mother going to work as he called “sa lugar lang”. to the driver.  As the mother stood up to come down the jeep, the boy smiled lovingly up at her & said “Babay Mama”. The mother didn’t even turn her head or said a word. When she was across the street, the boy waved and called again. She just continued walking, never once glancing back to the boy who was so dangerously leaning out of the jeepney window. Nobody seemed to mind that little scene but I did.

I felt the hot tears of indignation in my eyes. How could she? How could that woman simply ignore her child’s affections? The child’s face had been so full of adoration, of pure and honest love while he bade his mother goodbye. How did she manage to turn her back, just like that, without even bothering to acknowledge she heard him? A million reason she may have, but it still won’t be enough for me. I looked at the child and the eyes that met mine were now sad….

corrupted memories

Friday, October 2, 2009

A careless technician made my PC crash the other day, and now, I can no longer access the hard  disk. . I’ve had this computer for 8 years and i have stored all my important data in there. It contained over a hundred gig of priceless junk, a compilation of video and music collections, and a huge database of documents and images i’ve hoarded for most of 8 years.

Needless to say, I am terribly unhappy and frustrated. I have done everything to be able to recover/repair/reformat the disk and already sought the help of the best technicians i know, all to no avail.

8 years of my life was in that disk. How ironic that it only took but 8 secs to lose it. 8 years of a colorful, eventful online life and i have no single byte of data to show for it..

Now I am staring at my hard disk sitting at the top of my computer table. It looks to me like a small, square, steel coffin…