Destiny

She placed so much value on her privacy that I'm sure she would kill me if she got to read this. So I'll hide her identity by calling her Joey.

I bumped into Joey in 1995 when she was a member of the service crew of a fast food in Bacolod City. You see, I have the habit of mixing fun with serious talk even when ordering food. So even as I read the lighted plastic menu on the wall, I asked her, "Miss ano ang almusal niyo?"

"Sir, we have our breakfast set consisting of fried rice, fried eggs and fried chorizo," she replied.

"Sige, miss, bigyan mo na lang ako ng fried spaghetti."

She caught me sneering and gave me an angry look. "Maybe you'd like some pure cow's orange juice to go along with that jerk!" she said.

A few months later, Joey became my seatmate in psychology. But because of our first unpleasant encounter, I did not even look at her. I did not have too many chances to do so anyway since she was usually absent. And when she attended classes, she was always late, and then, she was the first to rush out of the door when the session ended. Still I noted that while she tended to withdraw into herself, she was really cool.

I finally got to knw her when we had our prelims. I caught her looking at my answers without bothering to hide it. When I was done, she grabbed my testpaper and quickly copied the rest of my answers before passing bot of our test papers and rushing out of the clasroom.

When I caught up with her, she was more accommodating and friendly. She thanked me for helping her, saying she did not have the chance to study the previous night since she was too stoned to do so. She had taken amphetamines to keep her awake but apparently too many.

Many of us are quick to judge people whose beliefs and outlook are on the unorthodox side. We label them as mavericks or iconoclasts , and refuse to acknowledge that at least they are more honest with themselves and that they do not have too many pretensions like the rest of us.

Joey taught me a great deal about understanding. She was fragile, quick to be affected emotionally, so she tried clinging to anything that promised support, like boys and drugs, only to wind up feeling more empty, used, and frustrated.

One rainy night when we were drunk and her room was left in total darkness by a blackout, I felt her leaning against me trying to kiss me. She asked if I wanted to make love to her- a very tempting propostion, if you ak me. But I declined, not out of over intoxication or fear, but because I felt it was terribly wrong. I could not take advantage of someone who was obviously close to being broken. I would have been no different from the other opportunists she had trusted and taken away what little was left of her self-respect.

She broke down and cried really hard. She told me her life story from the time she was abandoned as a child, to the maltreatment she suffered in the hands of her relatives, to her stint in the drug rehabilitation center and her sad affair with a married man.

Then I thought I had an idea of what Joey really needed all along: someone she could relate to. She needed to be listened to and understood.

Her own life was an interesting story filled with lessons everyone can learn from. Her words were full of wisdom, the kind that could make me philosophical about life. And the way she expressed her thoughts, why, it seemed I was listening to English poetry.

The following days I learned a lot more about Joey. Piece by piece, the facade that she put up to shield her from pain started to peel off. I saw more behind the bum image that she projected. She was artistically inclined and very intelligent. Her room was filled with books (some of which I borrowed and never returned). She told me she could stand not eating for two days provided she was supplied with a stock of good books she could "devour". She let me read a short story she had written, based upon the song "Human" by Human League, and I swear it was one of the best I have ever come across.

The following year, she went back to Manila to continue her life. I did not hear from her until six months later when she was back in Bacolod for a short visit. She told me she was pregnant, but she didn't want to have the baby. She asked for my advice, but I just could not say anything logical or comforting to her.

We spent the last night of her vacation together at the city plaza. Her hair was dishelved and her breath was reeking with liquor, when Joey blew cigarette smoke on my face, the moonlight seemed to be reflected by her eyes as her gaze turned to the mysterious, endless sea. She looked like an abandoned child who didn't know where to go.

"So you see," she explained, " this insane world, along with all the insane stuff and events that transpire are the bits and pieces that make up a great book crafted by an equally insane, sadist Novelist. We are all victims, for we are mere characters who flow with the story line made by the great unknown."

"Whether we like it or not," she went on, " our lives are already predestined and there isn't much we can do about it. I don't know if it's the Christian God or the stars revered by heathens who are responsible for our fate, but eventually, all our efforts will turn into nothingness because it is destiny which charts the course of our lives. If you experienced pouring your entire life into something you wanted so badly only to meet failure in the end, that's destiny at work. That was never meant to be yours in the first place."

"Even if we were given the chance to travel back in time to undo history's mistakes and tragedies, we will never become successful. Even if Hitler had been assassinated, World War II would still have taken place, and six million Jews would still have met their doom. For the Great Author of life finds great joy in that catastrophe and all the other miseries happening around us. We are all trapped in this terrible dungeon called life."

Months passed before I heard again about Joey. A mutual acquaintance told me she was gone. In the suicide note she left behind, she explained how she wanted to fight her destiny.

Now whenever I remembered that rainy night we were together, I am relieved that nothing happened between Joey and me, for my conscience would have bothered me for the rest of my life if I had acted restlessly and selfishly. But on the other hand, maybe destiny merely interevened, for my role was limited to just being one of the few true friends Joey had in her life.

Patrick Chua