Verdi’s Dies Irae is playing in the background.
Carefully I listen, without wonder.
I am in the mood for it, as if I intended that
it be played.
No one cared.
I am alone and I feel very light.
Nothing seems to matter.
Slow is time’s passing
as if a second is forever
and a minute, unspeakable.
I see people around me;
their mouths moving as if speaking —
Whispers. Murmurs.
They do not talk to each other,
they are speaking to me.
Not a word is audible, comprehensible;
in fact, I hear nothing.
What they speak is silence.
Music is in the background, an orchestra is playing.
The conductor is obscure; his tempo very slow —
not how I wanted it to be played.
“Prestissimo!” I say.
But it is impossible.
They do not hear me.
They do not care.
I listen.
It is no longer the same;
I do not care;
I feel good.
Bliss is all over —
this feeling I have never felt before.
It feels like it’s going to last forever.
Am I blessed? Yes.
This is the life.
The people around,
all of them looking at me.
An object —
though I sense there is no admiration,
only melancholy — both authentic and unreal.
Tears are falling, I do not know why.
Do they not share what I feel?
What a pity!
Some of them brought flowers;
candles are in sight.
The men and women are in black.
A guy in white is performing a ritual;
for whom, I do not know.
Rain starts to pour.
One by one they leave.
Nobody wants to get wet, it seems.
Their roles have ended.
Tears are no longer distinct from the rain drops,
Which are of heaven’s
mourning — for someone who is dead.
He who dies still lives.
But in an anonymous existence;
People no longer mind.
He who lives anonymously cannot be invented, or even reinvented.
He cannot be a figment of anyone’s imagination.
The dead exists anonymously.
I am not dead.
I am alone —
seemingly anonymous.
I will have to return
to leave this blissful state.
Be one with the crowd again.
Be part of the crowd and
back to my famous self.
With an identity that is far from obscure;
never fake.
I want to dwell in this as long as it lasts;
Stay waiting in the rain.
There is nothing of feeling;
only blissful emptiness of a meaningless
existence giving meaning to my present.
I will wait —
Wait for that time I am able to
speak of this experience.
When it will be, I do not know.
The orchestra is packing up.
They are wet.
The obscure conductor is smiling.
“Great performance!” he said.
“Bravo!” I reply.
He does not hear me, I think;
And I am by myself again.
—-
Ron, or Kikit, was born and raised in Cagayan de Oro City. Now 21 years old, he is finishing his undergraduate studies in Philosophy at Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan.