Hanging About in Dreams (1)

Coinciding with the beginning of summer is our first date at Tiananmen Bar along Makati Avenue. I am observing Gerry from across the table. I seem to memorize every feature, even his smile. It is still a getting to know stage, but embers of the feelings contained in the past, in a somehow different realm, are starting to take hold of the moment. Until eventually, a heavy, swirling mass of emotions engulfs me.

I wake up with my pulses racing, surprised not only by the fact that I just dreamt of the person lying beside me, but also with the crisp details of the dream which actually happened more than a year ago.

I sit on the bed and try to get a glimpse of the dark room we are in. It is a room devoid of personality, its strangeness exposed by a flickering sheen of thin, dancing ray-like lights escaping through the window curtain. That, and the furious noise of passing cars outside the motel, add more to the nostalgia. I struggled to check my watch. It says 4:15 a.m.

Snoring lightly, Gerry’s upper body is as bare as mine. We are sharing a thin, white blanket standard of cheap motels in the metro. A pinching, poignant feeling of missing this person strikes me. For a moment, I regret waking up from that dream - one that is reminiscent of the past and of the endless potentials of the could-have-beens.