Silver Lining

Where Do I Love

Where do I love is back in Tanay, Rizal. Way back early in 2000 I’m always having this dream about a white, chubby girl with a blurred face. The scenario was she’s asking for a bottle of water and hand it over to her while I’m wiping my sweat off.

Last March 2004 I attended a concert at CCP Open Grounds, it was the first time I attended a foreign concert and one of the biggest and my favorite band; INCUBUS. I went there with my cousin, we arrived at the venue almost four hours before the concert starts and before even the gates were opened. I and my cousin bought some sandwiches for our dinner and roam around the area so we could get a nice view at the stage. While we roam around the area we cam across this mini canteen that serves hot dog sandwiches and decided to but another one, while waiting for our order I saw this girl who caught my attention and somehow reminded me of that girl in my dream, they do actually look alike except that the scenario wasn’t completely close to what’s in my dream.

I tried to talk to that girl and;

“Hi! Excuse me miss, is that your order?” I asked.

“Oh yeah! Thanks dude” she replied with a high-five.

“So you’re going to the concert alone?” I asked again, this time a little more confident.

“No! I’m with my sister, they’re just around the corner probably smoking there somewhere with some of her friends. How about you?” she replied in some-what like boyish manner.

“Im with my cousin we just ordered some sandwiches to load some stuff in our stomach”

“Shawn! Shawn!” my cousin, calling me so we can get in front of the line.

“I guess I have to go now, my cousin is calling. See you when I see you” I said, while stepping back and staring at her.

I hate the part where my cousin called me up, we didn’t get the chance to prolonged our conversation.

We went in front of the line ahead of time at the nearest gate we saw and when the gates opened everyone hurries and run through the barricades because our ticket was on a first come first served basis. When we get there, I saw this girl again, the one I talked to at the canteen ordering her hotdog sandwich, then I said Hi and;

“It’s you again” she said.

“Yes. Don’t tell me you’re following me?” I asked her in jest.

“You wished!” then she just laughed out loud and stick her tongue out.

While she was laughing I couldn’t help but notice that she was pressing her left hand with his right, so I ask her what happened;

“Hey! Are you ok? What happened to your hand?” I asked, acting too much concerned about it.

“Nothing I just scratched it on our way here, people at the gate couldn’t calm themselves and I scratched and this one has been cut on the wire back there too.” She explains.

“You really should clean it, I have a hankie here if you wanted to” as I offer my handkerchief to her.

“Do you have an alcohol there or anything I can use to clean this up?” she asked.

“I do have cologne here, I hope this helps”

While I was handing her over the cologne I thought about my dream, because that girl really looks a lot like her physically and due to that scenario I thought that the bottle I was handling over to that girl in my dreams wasn’t a bottle of water but a bottle of cologne for the cut she got on her hands. I was looking at her from time to time during the whole concert, keeping her close during the mosh pit until there’s this group of guys who is slamming behind us then they run around and in an instant, I lost site of her. I didn’t even have the chance to ask her name or her phone number and I know that’s so stupid of me.