These Are His Stories (Not Mine) Vol. 1 & 2

Volume 1: His Life at the Waiting Shed

He’s been doing not much at work for the last few months, because he is still ‘benched’ and despite him turning one year at his job very soon, there seems to be very little signs that he’ll be rolled-in to a new project anytime near. Somehow, people think that he is lucky where he is at right now since he earns just the same without the normal pressure people have in an actual project. His IM is open the whole day at work, he gets to surf all the sites that are not blocked by this thing called Websense with less worry that someone’s watching over his back. He gets to slouch on his office chair sometimes, and he doesn’t recall the last day he needed to work overtime.

While people think that he is lucky, for him, he is seriously left behind. All his colleagues are not with him anymore and are rather having actual job experiences for a long time now and are getting the most of what they can have out of a professional environment. While he is making very little progress on his career but then he realized he didn’t have any choice. Undeniably, he wasn’t happy with his situation.

It’s like sitting at the waiting shed with no idea what time the next bus will stop and pick you up and where will the bus actually take you.

Volume 2: His Old Friends and New Textmate

He rarely texts his friends or forwards text quotes/jokes to them and this is as rarely as he receives the same from them. But whenever they plan get-togethers like group dates, he would always volunteer to inform everyone through text and this is when he finds it most practical to own a cellphone. He was holding his phone firmly and looking at it, he recalled how his phone unit model has changed from when he was still studying to now that he is already working. Suddenly he realized that just like his cellphone, some friendships have changed too.

Despite this, he has found a new motivation to hold his cell phone more often as he awaits the next text message from his new friend. Well, not really new, since they’ve known each other way back in college. It was yet another ‘friendship’ based on text exchanges, he thought. And although he ought to be more careful with handling this one, somehow he has managed his expectations that this could be temporary as well.

For the meantime, he is happy.

Fire

Everyone in our house were alerted and awaken by a voice from our neighbor yelling 'Fire!'. This was before 6 in the morning on Easter Sunday, and the first thing I did was to call out my mom who's in the other bedroom with my younger, and go outside to confirm and see how far the fire is from our house. It wasn't long before we knew that the fire was starting from our neighbor’s house, the one near mom's bedroom and not from afar as we all have initially perceived. I started to panic. While mom and E-jay were outside to help put out the fire with the rest of neighbors, I was deciding what to do first: a.) call up the fire station b.) contact my 'kuya' for help c.) begin saving items before the fire becomes uncontrollable which leads me to yet another decision making—what to save first? Thank God the fire was discovered early and was able to be extinguished before it could cause further damage or loss. About 15minutes only, without the need of firemen and only the 'bayanihan' of neighbors, the fire was put off and it became an instant talk of the 'barangay'.

How the fire really started is somewhat a mystery. The dwellers of the house couldn't figure it out themselves—it wasn’t due to short circuit, candle left unlit, or gas stove explosion. On the other hand, how the fire has been controlled and eventually put out fast was the luck story of the day. Indeed, God was good to us.

I remember the last time there was a fire in our place, some two years ago. It was farther from our house, in New York compound almost near the elementary school I went to but the fire was bigger that we can see the flames and smoke from our terrace. Yet, we were already getting prepared for the worst scenario—that is loosing our house so we started packing things. It was much easier then because Dad was home for vacation and I realized that it was completely different then when we had a strong man in the house who would keep us safe despite the panic scenario. How I wish dad was here when the fire happened earlier this morning.

I can’t imagine loosing our house from fire. The house I lived in for all of my life. The house I go home to every night after work. The house mom and dad have invested for our family. It would be really hard for me to let go of it especially if beyond our will but if then the situation calls for the inevitable… like many things in life we have to let go of it.

Let’s appreciate what we have now because you can have many things today and by tomorrow loose everything you have.