The Citizen On Mars

Actually, it “was” my birthday since it had happened two days ago, last Monday in fact. Well, how does a 34 year-old man celebrate his birthday? I do not really have any idea except that like Abaniko, maybe I’ll have platefuls of pansit, doing it the old and reliable way—to have a real long life. Or maybe like Sam, in the oh-so-tender arms of his loving family.

When I was so much younger, I had always go for spaghetti and fried chicken, cooking them my own way and spending the rest of the days asking my close friends every now and then if my spags and drumsticks were great. Of course, birthdays is the only time where your friends would always say “Great” everything about you, making you wish that everyday is your birthday. Big wishes, I have.

Well for this time, I will have the most politically-correct wishes and they are, hoping and wishing that there’d be peace on earth, every nation has no nuclear arsenal, North Korea and South Korea would finally reunite, United States signing the Kyoto Protocol on the regulations of industrial emissions, the troubles in Iraq finally end, Israel and Palestine—as well as the rest of the Arab worlds—finally come into the most ideal compromise and stop kicking each other in the ass, Guns N’ Roses finally releasing the much anticipated new album and possibly reunite like The Eagles did, third world debts eliminated or reduced to a minimum, all religions be united in spirit in their entreaty to God, for He is the same God we all pray to, Jerry Seinfield making a movie and be successful in it (like George Clooney did or Matthew Perry), our country finally seeing economic stability for the first time in decades, Aha—that Norwegian band—finally coming out of their rut and hitting it big again on BillBoard Top 100, U2 making more and more music, like two albums a year as the Beatles did in the 60’s, and finally peace of mind and good life for me and my family.

So how did I spend my birthday the other day? Well, just kinda the old way, only a bit different. I made chicken for the kids, the kind with crusty bread in it and some sweets for the kids. We had a fun time at home. I had a drink or two, just about enough to make me dizzily blissful. The kids was pleased and perhaps the neighbors too. I had planned to have a drinking binge with the neighborhood friends but that would have to wait a while—money ain’t that overflowing this time, maybe in a wee, we’d be guzzling alcohol to our heart’s delight.

Funny that after I had this short nap in the afternoon, woozy from drink, there’s this memory that came to me so sharply and vibrantly, as I lay in the sofa so wide-eyed alone and the kids playing outside. It’s about those Chico trees in Carmen St., the old neighborhood where I grew up. There were actually two of them, standing side by side that their branches intertwined a great deal. Me and the kids played a lot atop it and guess what kind of game we played there, and would you believed we were engrossed playing catch-me-if-you-can in those trees. I mean, I realized now how we were threading dangerously among the branches of the Chico trees, for it shouldn’t be normal to play such games atop a tree, usually they are played on solid grounds. But there we were, moving speedily like monkeys to and fro and between the two Chico trees and now, as I recall those moments, I have dread and worry in my veins.

So there I was lying on the sofa, as if before a shrink in a New York City hotel room, thinking and recalling those moments atop the two Chico trees and feeling trepidation how careless we were when we were kids. Actually, I remember that while the rest of the kids kept on playing that dangerous game among the branches, I was the one who always slowed down and informed the kid that I am not going to be part of those risky maneuvers anymore. I always tell them that the branches could break anytime and any of us might fall and be injured so gravely. I even pointed to them that the particular branches that connects the two Chico trees the most, and the one we use as passageway or bridge between them, is not that strong although it fairly looks sturdy of all the braches there. They always told me that nothing bad could really happen and they always went on with the games while I just perched myself in one of the safer corner of the tree and watch them scurrying among the branches, in avid animation and in patent glee of such very excitable game of catch-me-if-you-can. I observed so keenly how the rest of the kids were so nimble in their movement and they were even laughing as they move quickly, from thereto to hereto, up and down, back and forth, and if my memory serves me well, I had thought that they were acting as if they were all put in a trance, playing so intensely and being so extraordinarily blissful about it, and completely becoming unawares of the dangers that could befall any of them. In fact, there were some moments when they were in the peak of their games, that they were already acting so queerly, like they suddenly become animal-like, like wild monkeys in fact, shrieking and so loud with glee, and their bodies became so light and fast that they were all over the Chico trees, despite the great danger and hazard. I wonder now if perhaps they were all enchanted by some spirits residing within the very old Chico trees, that they have become so engrossed and put so near to very grave danger. I don’t really believe about spirits—like dwendes, kapres & white ladies—but you know, old folk stories made me speculate like this.

At times, I climb the Chico trees by my lonesome, when the rest of the kids were not present. I go there and examined the branches of the trees and see for myself if my fears were unfounded or not. I kept on trying the strength of each branches where the kids always hopped around and I always thought that if more than one kid would be perched on it, and hump above it, it could break. With this, I kept on telling the kids that they should stopped playing those games atop the trees but they just wave away my concerns. What do I know, perhaps they would be telling me in the face that time, I am just a kid so much younger than the rest of them.

One fateful day, while the rest of the kids was humping and jumping above the trees I was down at the ground watching them play. They were so noisy like they were chanting and shrieking like wild animals. They might have been singing, I am not really sure about this anymore, but the noises they made kept on becoming louder and louder, like an African chant, reverberating throughout that even the adults who were present stopped what they were doing and stared at those kids being so noisy atop the Chico trees. And then suddenly, the branches were most of them were perched broke and some of it fell straight down on me and left my head bleeding with so much blood. I was immediately rushed to the hospital and the doctor had to stitch the wound on my head. It had hurt so bad that inside my mouth, was a wound so huge that I could feel so well its wide crevices whenever I run my fingers on it.

I didn’t know what happened to the kids that fell with the branches but it was me who had been so injured so gravely. It is kinda funny now to recall and realize that I was the one who had seen the dangers and when it came, I was the one who mostly got injured by it. But because of that accident, and mostly because of what had happened to me—bleeding and hurting so bad—the kids stopped playing those dangerous games altogether, as their parents had cautioned them so well not to ever play in those trees, or if possible, not to ever climb it again.

After that, the games atop the Chico trees have stopped completely and it had become desolate as the kids avoided it from then on. But I kept on coming back to it and climbing it alone and felt some enjoyment to be there all by myself, without the kids running thru and fro, and feeling that I own the two Chico trees in Carmen St., like I owned the world.