To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 6 - Full Circle [#26]

Rafael arrived at the Silay City Cultural and Civic Center at 7:00 in the evening. The structure was spacious enough to accommodate a thousand souls if tables and chairs were arranged properly. The place held events or activities like graduation ceremonies, wedding receptions, concerts, or alumni parties. A building where celebrations are held becomes the pulse of a city like Silay if you talk about something cultural, something to take away the city's boredom, something new and alive once in a while. It throbs with the city's populace and add some expectancy to the mundane life you lead in a city of ancestral houses and antique buildings which you wouldn't want to be a part of if you know nothing about them. Talk about the wondrous stories of the past but you don't care; they don't interest you because you have your tedious task to attend to. But tedious as your job is, it sure beats watching traffic as you stand beside the street all day.

Rafael scanned the scene before him. He was standing in front of the building before the entrance. The Civic Center was a single-story structure standing on the west side of the Silay City public plaza. Wow, I'm about to enter the oldest cultural center in the country, beating the Cultural Center of the Philippines by twelve years, and was inaugurated by no less than a President of the Republic in 1957, Rafael said to himself silently. Alumni and guests arrived in groups, attired for the party, cocktail dresses for women and polo shirts for men. Rafael wore a white long-sleeved cotton polo shirt and black pants.

He checked his cellphone. No text yet from Rica. He hesitated to call her. She giving him her number was good enough, at least for the moment. I'm already here. No need to rush things up, Rafael thought. The convenience and necessity of this new technology in communication. Mobile cellphone technology had just been recently introduced in the market. It had replaced the pager that his airline company had issued to him years back.

Rafael entered the spacious hall. The blare of music played in his ears; in fact, he had heard it outside, even before he stood in front of the door. Suddenly the party came to life as he felt it as if a sort of mind filter activated the sensation he had perceived.

Rafael stood on one corner near the entrance, avoiding the people busily going in and out of the Center. They might be the organizers of this year's alumni homecoming event, the silver jubilarians. Tables and chairs covered in plain white cloth were neatly arranged in the middle of the hall and rows of plastic chairs lined the sides. Alumni and guests talked ceaselessly, adding to the din inside the hall, mixed with music emanating from the stage, filling the air with sound 'whose beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion' are sure to wake the many memories that had been kept quiet for a long time before this event.

Rafael had stood for about thirty minutes and yet there was no sign of the lady he's been looking for this evening. He scanned the faces of the crowd inside the hall, some of them had started to dance in front before the stage even before the official start of the program. He walked slowly towards the left side of the hall and edged his way among the alumni and guests standing or sitting on the side, in groups or scattered individually around tables. When he reached the area in front of the stage, Rafael decided to proceed to the right side of the hall. He looked at every face he met and stared at one or two ladies' faces he mistakenly recognized as Rica's. The loud music reverberating in the air and the cacophony of stumping feet on the dance floor, clapping of hands, and boisterous laughter all combined to make his head spin as he forced his way through the crowd. When he reached the end of a long line of chairs on the west side of the hall, he stopped and gasped for breath.

Call her or text her, it's that simple, the only way to fix this, get out of your predicament. It wouldn't take a minute or two to know. Rafael was too proud to realize he needed to know if Rica was here. He wanted her to be here tonight, of course. He wanted to know something, confirm his feelings in her presence. But why couldn't he get his cellphone and call her? But...wasn't it she who invited him? It was she who wanted him to be here tonight, wasn't it?

His mind still filled with doubt and indecision, Rafael found himself traipsing towards the east side again, this time to go outside the hall, to the open space at the side of the building. There to get fresh air, to clear his mind, to gather his thoughts. The night sky sure looks lovely, he said to himself, as he raises his eyes at the sky filled with stars, twinkling unmistakably in the firmament. The sight was one scene he could never be bothered to become bored seeing. But it sure looks lovelier if Rica is here tonight, Rafael thought. That would complete the evening for him.

"Are you looking for me?" A woman's voice. That was one voice he could not miss, even in a thousand years...