Best Prend!

it was a long time ago. boring classes, the noise and the play, and almost anything that we could think of were the onl things that mattered. What recess time meant to you, when you always made me look even skinnier than i already was considering that i could have had literally disappeared right behind your back while we played hide and seek and as you finish your hamburger (pronounced HamBerjer).

Everywhere is our playground. the vast field of red rocks after classes, that made us look like real little martian brats, no that was only me. looking back, i wonder why they were red? it was odd but it didn't reall matter, did it? as long as we had the place for sipa, teks, or simply wage a stone war against the other section.

ah the stone war, i remember that battle we had that afternoon. it was raining stones and wooden sticks, flying all over, i was on the cover with my wooden shield at the back of a post, our enemies had there base camped behind a bunker of rocks and sands. i remember taking a one man assault, the thuds of stones against my plywood shield, and i remembered quite vaguely that i hit someone in the forehead. i remembered red, it mustn't have been blood, yet i made myself believe that it must have been one of my comrades who was covering for me. i don't remember going to the principal, but i remember quite well the next day in the gym, at field demo practice, that i saw someone with a bloody bandage on his forehead. he saw me but he didn't say a word so i assumed i was innocent. but of course now i realized how seriously brutal those games were.i could have been a 10 year old murderer. cool.

everyday we rode the same red tamaraw service to school. Kuya Nido (how can i forget such name?) was always there to make sure that every one was accounted for and no little rascal was to be left behind, and made sure all our knapsacks and those gigantic stroller bags, that were almost as tall as us, were secured and strapped in. i don't remember the name of that driver though, who never failed to wear his retro eyeglasses and long hair that made him look like april boy gerino. nobody knew april boy back then so i surmise he was a guns and roses fan. i never knew where your house was really and i don't recall you coming to ours as well, or maybe i just forgot. you see i'm really not good with memories. any memories for that matter. especially of memories 13 years ago.

ah that afternoon just after the last days of classes coming in to vacation, when i said we were going to move someplace else but dind't tell you where..., "di ba ikaw yung best friend ko nung elementary? sbi mo lilipat lang kayo ng bahay? bigla ka na lang nawala. text mo naman ako gimik tayo."

what i failed to tell you that afternoon my friend was- we're going to move a couple of thousand miles downsouth, and we'll probably not see each other again- the reason perhaps could have been either i was too busy playing with your game boy or simply because inside it was difficult.

good to hear from you again my friend