The past few days had not been so nice to me. An illness attacked me. I’m somewhere between having a bronchitis and having a pneumonia. And it had taken too much toll on me. Night chills, heavy feeling, and a chest pain that feels like someone has tap danced over my chest the other night. And most of all, I failed to join our theater workshop, more particularly, the Tanay outing (it’s a great blow to me, you bet). A friend called me "weakling", but it doesn’t cut it. Even Muhammad "The Perfect Human Specimen" Ali had pneumonia once, what chance would I have?
And while the rest of thespians were enjoying sixty kilometres away in that rustic and untamed paradise called Tanay, I was in my house feeling the metaphorical and cold prison cell of this illness. I’m trapped in my house. And so, with nothing to do, I piled myself under - no, not blankets - but books. Yes. I read. Anything. Old pocketbooks, magazines, high school essays, college papers, old song hits, DVD cover summaries, pamphlets. Anything that can feed my head and kill boredom, I read.
Not too long when my materials were exhausted, so I searched through drawers and old stockpiles for any other book that I hadn’t read yet. Deep within the recesses of my cabinet, I found something. Wrapped inside a white plastic bag, it was an orange card board box. Not so big, about 8 x 10 inches in size. It had been there for four years now, untouched, unvisited, and unearthed. Then a flood of memories came, and it came like crashing dominoes.
An ex-girlfriend gave this box near the end of high school years when we broke off, that’s four years ago. She did not have a graceful exit, nor did I. The relationship was fantastic at first, seemed like "Tristan and Isolde". But then it had become tragic in the end, more like "Alien vs. Predator". She gave this souvenir. It contained a broken picture frame, torn pictures, shattered CD’s, and other memorabilia that had gone through otherworldly disorientations. She had given me this as a souvenir, a constant and friendly reminder of how malignant, heartless and callous monster I was. Something I don’t personally think I really am. Nice gift.
Now the box lay in front of me. My plan was to throw it to just vegetate in the comfort of our garbage can. I don’t want to open it. Fearing that her wrath would come out and haunt me again, much like the Pandora’s Box. Is it guilt? Is it weakness? Am I really a "weakling"? I don’t really know. But I had to face this fear, or i wouldn’t get out of it. As what the diminutive Saiyan prince had put it, "What fails to kill you, makes you stronger". So I pulled the "Pandora’s Box", unwrapped, and opened it.
No wrath came out. No haunting. Just a bunch of things that I regret I had not paid much importance in my high school years. A stained "Pinakamagandang Script" sash (yes, I won this in my second year for writing "Florante’t Laura"), torn pictures of our field trip in Subic (much like a jigsaw puzzle), torn pictures of our high school escapades (also another jigsaw puzzle, but much more funnier), birthday cards (with one that read "Ryan! You are a year older now! But it looked three to you!") , among other things. No, I don’t see fear in the picture, not even guilt, something that she seemed to want me to see at that time. I saw only memories, things that remind me how happier I could be, if only I had paid more attention to them. My friends.
I returned the orange card board box neatly to the cabinet. Still wrapped in its white plastic bag, it looks much more the same, but it seemed to be different now. I forget the idea of throwing it. Who wants to throw memories? Especially when they are so long ago and beautiful. The box would lay there for, say four years again, or perhaps more. It will be brattled by years, or be yellowed by age. Or maybe time will totally decay it. Souvenirs are so fragile, so impermanent. Fortunately, memories are not. But by that time I can be sure I’m a different person, someone somewhat stronger, because I faced my fears, and they failed to kill me.
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