A Painter's Story, at mga Iba pang Kwentong Siomai.

C-Beams near the Tannhäuser Gate

My friend's hobby is to count airplanes in the sky. He'd take note whenever he saw a plane pass by and make a mental tally of it. He told me about it once over drinks. When I asked him why, he said that if he manages to count a hundred planes he'd get a wish.

"What're you going to wish for?" I asked him. He simply shook his head and gave me this coy smile, like this. "If I tell you my wish then it'll never come true," he said. He told me he just passed his hundredth plane last week. I hope his wish comes true, for his sake.

He said his biggest problem when counting planes is distinguishing between the planes and the stars. Most nights it's easy enough, he says; stars don't move. Sometimes he'd see a shooting star and almost mistake it for a plane. Shooting stars are satellites moving in high speed, I said. Or debris burning up on re-entry, I wanted to add.

"Sure, whatever you say, spaceman," he told me. He gave me the same coy smile again, the kind of smile you just want to slap right off. I'd slap it right off if he was here right now.

I can't wait to get back from space. Right now the Earth reminds me of a giant blue disc the size of my house, slowly getting bigger. I can barely make out the landmasses from here. Maybe if I squint hard enough I can see home. I can't wait to see my wife again. I can't wait to see Hathaway again. I'm sure he's gotten bigger now. I still remember you tugging my shirt, begging me not to leave. "There's aliens out there!" you told me. You cried so much when I hugged you and you held me tight. My shirt was so wet that I had to change before I left. Don't worry, son. I'm almost home. Maybe you can see me from up here.

The first thing I'm going to do when I get back is visit this noodle place I used to frequent. Even now I can still remember every single detail about the place: the cheap alcohol smell that never quite leaves, the dimly lit lights, the glossy veneer of the tables, the little TV tacked on one corner that never seemed to work. Is the old man still there? Does he still make that dish with the thick noodles and spicy beef strips? I'll never forget the taste of those noodles. Soft but firm. Until now I can't believe how he managed to make those. I remember shaking his hands once. They were calloused and hard from years of experience, but his noodles were like eating clouds.

I don't even know if that place is still around. I sure hope so. I have too many memories in that place. Every single inch of that restaurant tells me a story. I wonder, will people remember my story when I'm long gone? When I'm just specks of dust in the atmosphere? Will my soul be descend to the Earth or will it become one with the clouds?

I'm getting closer now. The Earth is drawing me in.

Something else I would love to do once I taste ground: throw a party. The biggest damn party the planet has ever seen. Everybody will be there. Everybody I know. Everybody my wife knows. I'll even invite the President and the Pope and the Patriarchs and the entire Diet. Everybody who's anybody will be there. I'll spend the night talking to couples I don't know, listening to lives I don't care about and hear them give me congratulations that they don't mean. I'll even invite my enemies. I have more enemies than friends. I'll invite all my enemies. I'll even invite Richard.

Richard. I never really liked Richard. There was just something that rubbed me the wrong way, burned me up as it were. He wasn't a jerk or anything, but he was just unlikeable, I guess. I can never quite place it. I think it started when we were in college. My friend, the one who counted airplanes, invited us to go fishing. There were six of us: Me, two of my friends, my (future) wife, Amelia, and Richard. We got there early in the morning, just a little bit after sunrise. There was a faint glimmer of gold in the water, and the lake was so still staring into it was like staring into a mirror to your soul. There was a light breeze, and there were no clouds in the sky. If you looked hard enough you could still sort of make out the moon's fragments hovering in space, barely keeping itself together. It was one of those days you could never forget, you know?