9 days. 9 stories. 1 wish.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the Simbang Gabi Project again this year. I didn’t know if I would still have the time or the energy or the skill to do it again. This year hasn’t exactly been my most prolific, writing-wise. I didn’t know where to begin, or what to wish for. I didn’t know if I could still do it; I was afraid I’d fail this time. But fear of regret trumps fear of failure any day. It needed to be done. The stories are still out there. And they’re not going to tell themselves.
Welcome to Simbang Gabi and Other Stories — Year 2, Day 1. Here goes nothing.
_______________________________
The Hesitant Immigrant and the Overheard Dream Sequence
*Based on a true story. And a true dream.
She was the only person talking on the train that morning. Everyone could hear what she was saying over her cell phone. Especially me. Not that I could help it, seeing as I was sitting directly in front of her. Forget about having a quiet train ride to work today.
I could tell from the conversation that the person on the other end of the line was one of either two things: her best friend and closest confidant or her shrink. Because I seriously did not know who else you’d read off the entries from your dream journal to at 8 in the morning while riding in public transit. Sigh. I needed coffee.
“It starts off with me in one of those old-fashioned bookstores,” she began, reading from a small notebook she pulled out from her purse. “There’s a bed out front with books strewn all over it but none of them were for me. I continue to walk towards the shelves inside.
I keep searching until I find the book I was looking for. It’s a red, leather-bound hardcover. On the front, it has three white concentric circles on it, with a dot in each circle. There’s also a man on the cover. You know the Da Vinci man? Yeah, that’s what it looked like.
The title of the book? It was Fidelity by Mark Ryan.
As soon as I found it, I immediately ran to tell you. You were wearing a powder blue shirt and jeans. ‘I found him! I found him!’, I said. And that’s when I woke up.”
By then, she decided to end the conversation due to the bad reception she was receiving. We’d hit one of several underground tunnels and it was only bound to get worse. She said goodbye and hung up the phone.
The silence gave me an opportunity to play dream interpreter, if only in my head. I always liked playing psychologist. I figure people out for sport.
For starters, the old-fashioned bookstore simply meant she was a very conservative person. She liked to read and keep to herself. I could imagine her using the book as a figurative shield, reading on so as not to have to engage in actual conversation. The reference to books on a bed was her search for a romantic partner (“none of them were for me”). She kept looking and looking until she found exactly what she was looking for. And what was that? Fidelity by the guy she’s probably dating and whose name is most likely to be Mark Ryan.
What happened to this woman? And why was fidelity from this man so important that she had to dream about it? Was she hurt before? And did he do it? Despite her long, very detailed and very revealing conversation, I never got any answers. I only had more questions. Well, just one. The most important one.
What’s the story here?
Writing and Other Creative Works by Shirley Tan 