It was his birthday last March 31, and I remember leaving a generic greeting on his Facebook account and then he replied a couple of days after. I didn't even suspect anything, like how he changed his profile name and picture and how his status updates since the beginning of February were all about being bullied, stalked and verbally abused.
I checked the internet for news but nothing was ever published. It was from Chie, a common friend in Italy, that I learned all about it and when I asked my sister to check on the details, all that she got was that Noel was robbed and shot to death. Nothing about the gory details that Chie recounted.
Noel was already my friend even before I started to go to school. He was adopted by an elderly couple who owned a tailoring shop and who lived right next to our house. He was the only flat-footed person I know. They weren't very rich, but he had the coolest toys: Matchbox cars, GI Joe action figures, Lego blocks, Justice League playing cards and whatnot. And what's more, they've got colored TV. I was practically in their house every afternoon to watch the Three Stoogies and Batibot and then later, Voltes V, Bioman, Shaider and Daimos, and would stay there until my parents came to drag me out of their living room. During play, we never spoke much, but our imagination ran wild: the rubber tire swing at my father's backyard was our galleon tossed by tempest and the high seas; the aratiles and the guava trees were already our Pandora even before James Cameron envisioned it; we drew treasure maps that would lead to toys we buried by the walls of our homes; though we never went beyond a mile, we made quests to forests and vacant lots and hunted for ghosts or monsters or dwarves until we, ourselves, would be too scared of our own imagination; we bruised each other trying to recreate the fight scenes from the TV show, The Kung Fu Theatre but we never held grudges for hurting one another, we retold for the Nth time the last episodes of a cartoon we watched until they were so embellished, they no longer resembled the original plot....
Then, next thing I knew, school started and we just got separated. Although sometimes, I would invite Noel over and by our porch, we will talk about our life until it's dark. But those times were very far and few. Until the time that we just lost contact of each other. Then, years after, his mother told me Noel entered the seminary. I was secretly envious, because I was thinking of the very same thing, and because of my timidity, he beat me to it. When I announced to my family that I wanted to enter the seminary too, they thought I was just copying from Noel, and that peeved me. That actually stalled me from bringing up the topic of priesthood with my family, for the fear of being unoriginal. Later, I learned that Noel left the seminary and it was a surprise because Noel was seen then as a sort of prodigy by his formators. Apparently, one of the priests hinted about his being adopted and poor Noel, he didn't know about it. In fact, everybody knew except him. Even I, on the first time I met him, knew that he was adopted, but I guess no one bothered telling him because it doesn't matter anyway. This accidental revelation by some imprudent priest actually broke Noel and he felt betrayed by all, including me.
Noel had a natural talent for music and so, later, he learned piano from a local music teacher in our town, and went to become one of the regular church organists during Sundays. Every summer, during my college days, I would join the choir and every after practice, we get to talk a bit, but other than that, we just went on each other's ways. With no nostalgia for our childhood memories, we just drifted so far apart that we no longer have much in common to talk about with. Later, after my mother's death, my father sold our house in the countryside and with no home to return to, I no longer had reason to go back to that neighborhood, effectively cutting all communication with Noel.
The last time I saw Noel was two years ago, on the afternoon after I celebrated my first Mass. My sisters and I decided to visit our old house, and we were surprised that nothing much has changed since it was sold. Then, I went to check out the neighborhood and, next thing I knew, I was at Noel's. He was there and he embraced me with joy. Until the time I had to leave, he kept on repeating to all the people around us, "Look, everyone! Here's my best friend, here's my best friend."
As children, we tore up
our treasure maps and tossed
the pieces to an open fire,
and so today, some cherished toys
are still buried somewhere in our mind.
Whatever we imagined as our boat,
a spaceship, or a time machine,
tossed hard by every quell and tide,
now lies quiet and worn at the backyard.
The trees that used to shake
under our weight no longer cast
cool shades on childhood,
browned by dirt and sun.
But we were never bothered
by the passing of time,
until now that it is too late to say,
"Thanks, I had so much fun."
