I Had Nothing Better To Do

by As Certain As Death

What would you do if Rinoa asked you to meet her?

Push it hard and loop it back….
Connect the ends, don't need no luck….
It's forever….

I Had Nothing Better To Do….
September 8, 2009….
It was a normal day for everyone.
A dull, cold, and rainy day with gray clouds up ahead….
Nothing much to do and nothing much to think of what you can do.
The narrow streets gleamed from the light that was reflected on its watery surface.
Little by little, and then heavier and heavier, the rain drops fell, covering every street lamp and pole,
every roof and house, every man and woman, every head on their shoulders. All of it, drenched.
An onlooker might think twice and double about going outside for fear of getting drenched himself.
I, on the other hand, had nothing better to do….
I woke up to the noise of my mom knocking on my door.
Enrollment day and she wanted me to get my uber amazingly high grades.
Reluctantly, I got up. Not because I wanted to get my uber amazingly high grades,
I saw no point in getting them in the first place for I know they're only going to be uber amazingly high, but because
the sound of that incessant knocking was getting on my last strands of nerves.
Again, I got up and stood under a stinging cold shower. And by the time I got out of the cold torture,
I saw my mom had procured a breakfast out of pork, rice, and plain water.
Liempo… For breakfast… Good and healthy living!

I marched in cadence to my usual morning routine, and ate super healthy liempo to the tune of going to
school and getting my uber amazingly high grades….
But I told you, I had nothing better to do. And this isn't something better.
So, after leaving the house, and after thinking twice and double about leaving the house for fear of
getting drenched myself, I went straight to the mall, hopped on a van, and went far, far, and far away,
to a place where students from another school and teachers from that same school met and discussed
and studied. A place where minds converged in an attempt to learn more, much like the place where my
own mind converged with others in an attempt to learn more.
I asked myself, and I have been thinking this over for the past few days, if I really should go to that far, far, and far away place.
But I've already made up my mind and my heart the moment she had said that she wanted to see me….
My heart had steered me to the conclusion that this is what I wanted to do….
Especially on this dull, cold, rainy day with gray clouds up ahead…. It has to be this day….

So, with nothing better to do, I arrived at that far, far, and far away place.
Right now, I guess you're wondering what it is that I had to do on that far, far, and far away place.
And you're asking yourself why it had to be that day.
Why suffer the journey? Why bother going there? Why not go someplace closer? Or go somewhere of easier convenience.
Have you forgotten? I had nothing better to do…. And not suffering the journey, not bothering to go there,
going someplace close, and going somewhere convenient doesn't fall on the "Something better to do" category.

I'm there and I waited…. The streets there were the same as the streets that lay in front of my house….
Gleaming from the light that had shied away from the gray clouds above and bouncing up from its watery surface,
the streets, and everything around it, was drenched. No matter where I go, the rain is quick to follow.

I walked around, and I waited…. I sat somewhere, and I waited….
Repeat this until you've grown tired and weary.
For was searching for someone…. But I couldn't find her….
So, I sat and waited at the place both of us agreed will be the venue for our long awaited reunion.
I sat…. and had nothing better to do…. (long pause)…. but sit.

Because of the rain, I became drenched... And my hair was wet, doing wonders to it, making it behave….
My shoes were wet too, and so were my socks and my pants…. The polo that I was wearing…. Wet….
Wet and wild seemed to be in fashion that day for I had seen more than a couple of persons wearing the same fashion as I was.
I was cold…. Hungry…. My phone died…. My feet hurt…. And I'm dizzy from the trip….

Finally, she shows up…. Coming up the stairs from my left….
First, I saw her head…. And not long after that, the rest of her body….
Conclusion?... She's short! Haha! Waahahaha!

So, we met, and I waited for her class to finish.

And after it had ended, in an attempt to lessen my earlier predicament by subtracting hunger from my list of things to worry, we decided to eat.
We eated canton with egg. Yes, eated! We eeaated it! (Insert maniacal laugh here)
Her eating habits and food preferences were of great delight to me, for I disliked girls who held back their appetites for fear of being judged by their sizes and weight. I disliked girls who were too cautious about their way of eating that even I too have to be cautious about my own way of eating.
Of course, this is not to say that the girl I was presently eating with had no apparent table manners.
In fact, she carries herself with great ease that one might think all of the good and gestured manners in the world would all seem too natural for her. Everything she did, to be honest, was so natural and of no subjective restraints, that one might construe all of her actions as the opposite. She came to me as such that any girl in any superlative sense would pale in comparison. This is not an exaggeration on my part, I tell you. I dare you to meet her, and I dare you to say she isn't what I just described her to be.

After gouging up our meals, and showing her a magic trick that I had learned only to show it for this one day, we strolled. We talked as we took each step towards our new destination. The rain still hadn't let up and the chill that came with the air had ever been intensifying. We came round 'bout a corner and went up a steeper inclination, into a building with a great view of the city far, far, and far away into the distance.

Up on a balcony, somewhere inside that building with a great view, we kissed.
The gray sky grew paler and darker, revealing the night. A still, quiet night, save for the footsteps of the occasional passersby. We kissed a kiss that no lips can possibly form the words that can truly describe how it was and how it felt. In the midst of that moment, my mind went astray, an unnatural silence had befallen it, and the only thing that was apparent was the kiss itself as I fell even more deeply into its warm and loving embrace.
So exactly had the kiss been repeated after it had abruptly ended, that these lips remembered how it was, how it once was, and how it once was with her. So softly was it pressed against that old memories flourished. And the manner that the situation had unfolded denoted that nothing had changed, and that, from now on, nothing may go wrong. And, fine it is as fine as finest can be, that she is and from now on and forever will be, I know, the one I love…. One who will give me the remembrance of happiness, of happiness that this gray world so selfishly refused from us, of happiness that old wretches had never gained. Of happiness that only she can give me. And of happiness which is love, and which love brings.

This is how I spent my birthday. I wouldn't want to spend it any other way, nor with any other person….
Really, I had nothing better to do…. 'Coz nothing could be better….

Alone, I went home smiling….
We kissed, and I kissed her some more, asking the mystery if all of this was real but found no answer.
For, every kiss we kissed, the mystery grew larger, greater the dream had become….