Saturday, May 21, 2005

healing a bruise

i would tell you why yesterday was not my day.

started as an easy morning, dilly-dallying on my bed. mornings such as this doesn't happen much in kabacan.

i have just finished reading neverwhere by neil gaiman (pronouncing it as "guy-man" sounds better than "gay-man" don't you think?); and was telling anj, how i found the perfect actor to play mr. croup, danny de vito by the way. my joy was almost complete until i learned about the bad news - the jvp funhouse just got burglarized!

helplessnes and all that shit.

i decided to come home, but i just needed to do some stuff in katanayanan. just a few hours maybe then i would be on my way home.

then it happened: it was about 12:00 high noon. i was standing flat on my shadow. i saw this yellow multicab with a carmen sign. woohhooo, quite lucky! for carmen jeeps are the alas-puno kind. i hailed the multicab. as my arm came swinging down, i suddenly felt a violent tug on it, causing me to almost loose my balance.

i have just been hit! by what i do not know. i have composed a very long list of expletives all ready to hurl to the thing that hit my arm.

i clutched my right arm and looked at the source of the impact, in time to see a scooter falling over, a girl at the steer, and a child falling back first on the hot noon pavement. everything happening in slow motion.

she goes (at least, those that i remember):
"sorry, hindi kasi kita nakita e!"
"naa kay samad, piang?"

i go (in no particular order):
"damn!"
"kamusta ang imong bata?"
"ingat mo, kay...." i trailed off.

no broken bones i suppose. for i can still use the full faculty of my right hand and arms as i type. although, the arm is not really used in typing... anyways, i know you got the drift.

i was waiting for the skin to darken, to turn into an ugly bruise. when i arrived at carmen, a good 15 or 20 minutes later, i checked my arm again. no bruise, just a red welt forming the plateau of a swell that almost encompass my arm. hah, my skin was probably so burned already, that a bruise would not be noticeable.

and now i will tell you how a moment changed it all...

in a few more minutes, i was at the tondo habal habal terminal already, negotiating with drivers to take me inside the community. i do not understand exactly, what they are saying, but nobody seems interested with my PhP20 offer, as they talked among themselves in maguindanaon. then this driver arrived and asked me: "indaw kan pawangagn?" he delivered it in the normal maguindanaon fashion, which was too fast for a bisaya-tagalog speaker like me. he asked again: "intay kan upoden?"

i finally shook my head to say i do not understand.

then he broke into an almost laugh and said:

awww, akala ko muslim ka.

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