Archives: Bittersweets.

Bittersweets.

Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 2:12am

Yesterday was indeed a concoction of bitters and sweets. Manong Rey, one of our cooks, (as mentioned in the blog entry named 'Peace. Please') died in the tragical Naga bus accident which brutally took the lives of 13 people. Three days after we have known this fact, we still feel a tinge of sorrow—perhaps this is an understatement. Nevertheless, life had to go on in the office and we did our job like before but we decided to spice things up a little bit.

Miss Maricris, our academic director was stunned by a message that her friend sent her. "I'm engaged," says her friend. Maricris was utterly astonished since that friend of her never had a boyfriend since birth. It was later found out that her friend was just pulling a stunt because it's April Fool's Day. Provoked, but in a graceful manner, Maricris decided to pull everyone’s leg as well, with the help of yours truly and Michael, our head teacher. The stunts include telling everyone in the electronic grapevine (a.k.a. the net) that she’s pregnant, telling Michael she lost her cherry, and telling an HR member how disappointed she was with the rumor the HR guy was spreading bout her. Hilarious. But all these are nothing compared to the ‘Rena stunt’ we cooked up. Rena, our assistant head teacher, has had troubles with her romantic relationships (Cough! If ever there was any. Cough! Cough!). She sort of channeled all her hurts with that one ‘special guy’ into another guy she met in through text messaging. And so, we machinated this act that will surely take her breath away…literally. Mission: to make Rena hate us and even cry (even for a few seconds). Accomplices: Me, in charge of telling Rena the ‘hideous’ secret about her text lover, Michael, the one who will back me up by adding side comments to the set-up and finally the Queen of Practical Jokes, Maricris (who thought of this plan (I’m giving out this information in case you people say we are very cruel, at least you know who to blame! Heehehehe!)). Maricris began the play by letting Rena sit at the center of a relatively small room and allowing her to settle down first. She started telling Rena that since the Lenten Season has begun, we needed to ask forgiveness, as Roman Catholics, to those people that we have hurt. “We are so sorry Rena,” added Maricris with innocent yet devilish eyes. “For what? Why?” remarked the bewildered Rena. Every accomplice started wiggling guiltily (of course this was just fine acting). “We actually…Umm…ordered…So Sorry…It was Mike’s fault!” I stammered (another fine acting). I then paused and gave her the bomb “Your special text mate (or text lover) was Arnold.” Now, Arnold was a staff at our school in charge with keeping our student’s room clean and he was also an on-call technician, electrician and repair man. Aside from the fact that Arnold already has a lover, everyone cannot imagine Rena and Arnold crossing each other’s path with a wave of awkwardness. Why awkward, you might ask. This is because Rena and her text lover (which now is presumably Arnold) had been exchanging “I love yous” and other diabetes-emitting sugary-lovey-dovey quotes and endearment. Suddenly, Rena was completely crestfallen. She looked at every one of us and then she began to cry. Her face morphed into a dreadful formation resembling that of a rotten cabbage (okay overstatement). What I’m trying to say is that she cried and we were sorry but it was so damn good (Forgive our being an ass). We immediately asked forgiveness to Rena, only this time truthfully. She smiled and then wiped her tears. Rena was fine with it; at least her text mate remained a mystery. For her, it was better that way.

Night came and we went to the wake of our dear Manong Rey. There, we shed tears and grieved for him but thanks to the small talk the priest gave, we were optimistic to live our lives again. We were reminded that time that these lives we have are not ours to keep forever. Life and death is and will always be a package; a package that cannot be separated by any force here on earth. This parcel comes in two and from the moment we are given life we are also given death.

As I munched the ‘Rosquillos’ (circular biscuits) and drank the juice when we were at the wake, it dawned on me that life is truly strange. Like the ‘Rosquillos,’ life and death is full circle everyone must complete. There is always a time for everything. Good times and bad times collide even everyday and we are forever in the sequence of laughs and tears. I just pray that we may find enough laughs and smiles to forget all our tears.