#would he be honest? would he be weirdly evasive and dismissive? would he tell us what's up with the mpreg jasmine and jade fantasy?

[asurrogateblog]

floyd people has anyone read/heard an interview where roger actually discusses incarceration of a flower child? like, it's not that we need him to tell us what's going on there, but I do need to know how he'd attempt to explain it

[jardingelique]

“Of course”

This is a short story about my friend and I running through the rain in our senior year lol probably the last actual instance I was in love with life?

In senior year, I had developed a thing for leaning over the railings in the second floor of our department’s building. It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to do at that moment… rather, in that period of time of my life. See, I could just walk up to the cool black railings, rest my arms over it, and press myself against it, and it would submerge me into a world where I was only an onlooker. I would always watch the trees, just assessing each leaf and wondering what shade of orange would a healthy green leaf turn into when the cold started seeping in in October or November. It was truly serene. It was like watching your favourite comfort film or your favourite song, already so sure about how it ends and what will happen next without really thinking about it. Those moments where I am leaning over the railings allow me to be a part of life and watch it pass by without worrying about my own life passing me.

Sometimes, that was necessary for me to do. Perhaps ‘necessary’ might even be an understatement but it was necessary all the same.

It had been a really exhausting few months to begin with; I had just gotten out of a really quite laborious friendship with the person that I thought would always be with me, my favourite teacher who was a senior citizen that reminded me so much about my own father left and stopped teaching in our school, and the most painful of all? Our other teacher whom we had built a strong bond with suddenly stopped coming to school. It was like some giant tore down all of my defenses and left me so vulnerable. The horrible thing about it was, I was not being attacked at all. It just felt like someone had stripped me bare just for the sake of it. That was what really messed me up, I think. And truthfully, I would have asked why that teacher left if I knew that person would not give me a vague, almost dismissive answer, but other than that, I did not care to ask because it seemed like a personal thing. Of course, it had been personal.

Probably as personal as leaning over the railing of our department’s building was to me. I would not share that feeling of absolution with just anyone, after all.

Until I did.

It was raining that day and I had tucked myself comfortably into my jacket, leaning over the railings as I normally would and just looking into the trees. It was our lunch break and I had almost 30 minutes or so of free time. I spent some of those minutes just listening to the rain. It was playing a weird and yet soothing rhythm as it hit the ground. It was almost hypnotizing. Knowing that I only had a few minutes with the song of the rain made it even more entrancing.  

And then, I felt a presence next to me before I could realize who exactly it was. He was one of my closest friends. He was quiet when he appeared next to me and something told me that he had not really meant to come up to the railings to be with me, but more of like he was just there for the sake of being just there. I was curious about what was going on in his mind at that moment. He was always one of those people whose face reflected their thoughts and out of habit, I started anticipating whatever was about to come out of his mouth.

“Gusto kong tumakbo sa ulan…” (I wanna run in the rain…) he said.

‘Diyos ko’, (My God) was what the voice in my head said at first. I thought it was a crazy idea. Plus, we only had a good 25 minutes or so to prepare for the next class and I found the idea of being late incredibly appalling. I looked down at the ground a whole level below me and watched the raindrops make the puddles grow bigger. ‘I mean, it is just one class, though’, I thought again to myself. I watched the other students walking around. Some were coming from the cafeteria; others, the gym. But they would all bring out their umbrellas and make haste to avoid getting wet by the rain. It was such a hassle. And then I thought, ‘Ayokong maging katulad nila’. (I do not want be like them.) Putting all that effort just to cross the rain? I mean, it was just the goddamn rain, was it not? Of course, you could get sick but you were bound to get sick sometime in life.

And so, it took me a few seconds before answering because I was also thinking about who my friend was addressing. It sounded like it was just him thinking out loud; ‘whispering his wishes to the air’ kind of loud. But for the sake of the fact that the moment was shared between the two of us just because of our physical and emotional proximity to each other, I had answered back.

“Tara!” (Let’s go!) I replied, almost too enthusiastically.

It was obvious to myself that the idea of running through the rain had grown on me. My friend had hesitated at me agreeing to his idea, though. He started fussing over me getting sick to which I just waved off because I have already had that conversation with myself a few seconds ago. Triumph washed over his face and it made me smile how clearly I could see it.

The next few moments were a blissful blur.

I remember having whisked through the string of students as I made it down the staircase with my friend in tow. Each successful evasion from the people I did not want to be like made me smile wider and wider. There we were, just two friends on a mission to run through the rain; I, with no clear purpose, and he, just in pure ecstasy that we were really doing it. There was something nostalgic about what we were about to do and ironically, I had started feeling it before it had even begun to happen.

“Saan?” (Where?) my friend asked me.

We were at the mouth of the gate of our department’s building. I was looking ahead then, like I would when I leaned over the railings that were now behind me, at the other building across ours. It was not the longest distance but it was spacious enough for us to run through the rain and really soak in the emotions of doing something almost bastardly as that. Of course, it was enough.

“Dito, dito. Isang diretso lang tapos pabalik ulit.” (Here, here. Just straight ahead and then back.) I said, with full mastery of what I wanted to happen; of how I wanted it to happen for him.

My friend was gearing up and we each had a crazed smile on our faces. We were looking at each other and silently hyping each other up almost.

“Sure ka na talaga?” (Are you really sure?) he asked, laughing.

I thought it was bullshit that we were hesitating now so I just made a face that said ‘Yes, I’m sure! What the fuck?’ while nodding, laughing, and then bolting across the rain the next second.

He followed almost as soon as I took my first step in the rain. I remember the other students looking at us as my friend and I wildly laughed and giggled, acting like we did not want to get soaked in the rain and yet it was the very reason we were away from the safety of the railings we were just leaning over a few moments ago. It was surreal. The feeling hit me like a freight train as my friend and I suddenly shared a similar want for not following the original ‘straight path’ we were supposed to run and instead making turns and running in circles to delay our arrival to the building across.

I suddenly felt incredibly childish, then. But the kind of childish that made me want to tell my parents I loved them without cringing. It was the kind that made me want to be as energetic and glad as a child. Because it weirdly felt like the rain washed away all the thoughts I was having just moments ago. The song of the rain changed, too, because I was not the ground it was meant to fall upon. I was a person getting soaked in the rain with another person, and that sang a different tune. It was a tune unlike my favourite song, though. I was unsure about what was going to happen next. I was just in the middle of finding out and to be honest, it was an exciting process I never knew I would even find exciting. I could only hope the same for my friend as I watched him blurt out curses probably because his socks were getting wet as we stomped on puddles.

When we had finished our run back to our building, one of the nuns in our school looked at us, displeased as all nuns are with the wilderness within the youth, but neither my friend nor I had given a damn and a half. We just laughed and shrugged, jogging up the stairs to catch our next class. Our other friends and classmates gave us looks but not the kind where they thought we were weird, it was just kind of that knowing look. The kind that just understood what had just transpired.

In that moment, I was quite violently reminded that I was, in fact, alive. I was not meant to live life as an onlooker at all. No, I was meant to make my own variation of the plot of life. I was meant to make my own life special, and I was reminded that I always have the option to do that. And there I was under the rain, laughing my ass off, as my friend looked panicked and yet ecstatic all at once. It was hysterical and the definition of ‘spur of the moment’ but of course, that was just one of the things that came with living.