MY BESTFRIEND WEDING

[February 13, 2012 at 12:30pm]

I was racing against the clock last Thursday evening. We finished our ballgame at around 6:50 pm. The last trip back home would leave a little past seven. I couldn’t take a taxi to the terminal ‘coz I suffered economic meltdown in the morning.

I was relieved when I reached the terminal and found the bus with just a handful of passengers. Thanks to a speeding Villa PUJ, I arrived therein at 2 to 7, still barking were the bus’ two dispatchers.

After choosing a favored spot I swiftly pressed my head against the backrest and slumped in the seat. I needed to release at the time the anxiety and pressure I had moments ago off my chest.

I was still looking at the floor when I felt someone sit beside me. I moved a little left to the window without looking at my seatmate directly. I closed my eyes and took a nap as the bus began to move. But the scent of a woman beside me forced my eyes to open again and they started to rove. MY nose just continued guessing that smell of signature scent of a familiar brand name. My mind was torn between Victoria’s Secret and that similar something local but of equal fame.

The figure at my right was wearing a see-through red blouse which was artistically sleeveless. I could feel the softness of a lovely forelimb against my right arm’s epidermis. Ahh, the rattling movement of the bus as it rolled down the highway raised more my b.p. as I felt more pressing of skin to skin. I knew if I’d let my mind to wander a little and allow my flesh to some kind of indulgence I’d be found guilty as sin. 

I distanced a little left to view a face to my right. And I instantly was so sure of the creature before my sight: It was my old college pal Wedo, from whom I always copied all my assignments in Psycho. My goodness, I was shocked to find him “transformed” which at first hard to believe. But there he was, now an “ex-men,” not a boy but a “girlash,” a certified “positive.”

I learned he was based in Manila now and I just couldn’t help but reminisce his macho ways somehow. I still quietly stared at him when he talked like a river: “Di na ako si Wedo, kundi si Weding na, Sister.”

He pressed on: “Uy, Beki, over ka ha, ang byuti mo’y over sa shokot. Chorizo ha, friendship, ang pagiging men ko noo’y isang dakilang charot.”

We talked more as shoulder to shoulder we noisily shared that seven o’clock ride. And I suddenly felt a stomach discomfort and wanted to throw up that I leaned my head on the window side.

I was not certain if it was still due to an “aftershock” or the result itself of that horrible Visayan earthquake, folks. But all I knew was when I reached home, though too tired, I scrubbed hard my right shoulder when I bathed and soaked my entire right arms in a basin of boiling water with muriatic acid and zonrox.