It was one rainy afternoon, I went out of the premises of the school to meet my sister. We’re supposed to have a rendezvous at five p.m. but at 5:30, she informed me thru text message that she can’t make it on time and that we’ll only meet at six. Since I had nothing else to do and I was tired that time to go back to the office, I decided to sojourn at the Ninoy Aquino Freedom Park. After all, thirty minutes isn’t that long.
As I sat down under a huge tree along the pathway of the park, I began texting my contacts in my phonebook. There was a high level of excitement as I started texting. It has been more than two months now since the last time I reloaded my cellular phone. After exhausting my fingers sending messages to all the Globe and TM subscribers in my phonebook, I anticipated a lot of replies—I was gone for a long time, so I think that gives justice to my anticipation. But what’s next to happen is quite the contrary. To my frustration, I only received five responses, and what’s more frustrating is that three of those persons only responded a bold “Hu u?” Ouch! That must have been painful and insulting right?
After that, I didn’t bother reintroducing myself to them. I realized that people interpreted my long absence differently. They thought I changed my sim card, or maybe they thought I never existed at all. Whatever there reasons maybe, I was hurt.
I checked the time. I still have to wait for 20 more minutes. That’s when I put my cellphone inside my pocket and pinned my sight to a group of youngsters chatting from afar. At first I thought they were only playing, but staring closely at them, I realized that these children ain’t playing. In just a wink of an eye, one of the children wearing a school uniform started running. Then, the rest of the group chased him. When the latter cornered the former, they encircled the poor child in uniform. From my vantage point, I could easily guess that the child in uniform is the youngest among them. Despite his height disadvantage, the poor child abruptly removed his bag and clenched his fists. Yes, he’s aware of the next scene and hell yeah, he is prepared for it.
He picked one opponent. But just when he’s about to release his valiant punch, his bigger opponent’s kick landed on his stomach first. It ended the poor child’s valor. He knelt on the grass as he found difficulty to gasp for air to breathe. The kick badly hurt him and he’s down on his knees weeping now. The poor child’s opponent immediately ran to shun revenge—if there’s any. The rest of the little goons also flew away. The poor child is alone now. There were many college students along the area but nobody dared help him. But after a couple of minutes, the child recovered and started looking for his playmates despite what they did to him.
Before I was able to observe what’s next for the poor child, a group of athletes jogging at the park grabbed my attention. It was an ordinary exercise at first glance, but if you nail your sight, it wasn’t. They were led by their coach. I didn’t know how many times they’re planning to jog the entire park, all I’m seeing is that the poor coach is not aware that some of his students were deceiving him. While their coach is religiously enjoying the jog, some of his students at the back were taking the short cut so they could finish one turn faster. None from the group noticed this scheme until their third round. When one of the joggers turned his head, alas, the scheme was revealed before his very eyes. He immediately shouted to his coach and reported his co-members' cunning act. And that’s when the coach witnessed his three students taking the short cut. Being outsmarted by his students, the angry coach immediately asked the three students to give him push-ups. After that, the rest of the students laughed over what happened to their co-athletes who can’t move a muscle after serving their punishment. The coach also laughed for he can’t believe he was outsmarted by his students. Then, they continued jogging but this time, the coach chose to be the last person so he could man his students properly.
Seeing those spontaneous incidents, I can’t help but grin after. I missed seeing those simplicities of life. It woke me up from the reality that life is as simple as how the children change moods, or even as simple as how the coach had easily forgiven his students who deceived him. It also introduced me the realization that I have been soaking myself in various works lately that I even forgot how to smile truly—I mean without hiding anything.
I was mad a while ago because I thought I was forgotten by a lot of people whom I considered important, but suddenly I realized I was just overreacting. Yes, I was just overreacting. Sometimes, we just have this tendency to treat our lives too hard only to find out that we are just overreacting. And now I’m thankful that I spent that thirty minutes of my time at the park for it led me to this realization-that life is simple. It’s only us who are making it complicated.
Sometimes, believing that we are not the shallow type of person, we dig deeper for the things that can make us happy. As a result, we overlook those simple things which if we examine closely; these are our real source of happiness. It’s just a matter of laughing over corny jokes or being contented over simple life that we see the beauty of life. It may be shallow but it’s genuine. Of course I know that for I just figured it out.
At six o’clock, I found myself sitting again, not at the park but now at the burger stand while chatting with my sister. I also found myself laughing out loud as I tell to my sister the story of how I spent the happiest thirty minutes of my life at the park. And that’s how this simple story ends.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE
