adieu to my old home.....

While on my way back to the web science lab at the Engg Lib 2 Bldg, an old housemate sent me an SMS telling me he dropped by our old place today. It has been a month now since I visited that place I once called home here in the campus and Jeff's text message seemed to be the perfect timing for my next visit. He told me he's at Manang Cresing's house where he left his stuff (Manang Cresing lives just behind the house we stayed) and plans to get the remaining boxes at his former boarding house this afternoon before heading back to Bicol. Well, I figured out I could spare maybe half an hour there and see what has become of our dear old "bhaus."

With an umbrella in hand and a bag on the other, I say it was like all the other usual walks I had to make when I was still a resident of Velasquez St. I recalled how I look forward getting home in rainy afternoons like these last semester where I would usually hurry to my room (which is at the basement of the house) and spend maybe an hour or so lying in that cozy bed, counting the lizards trudging the termite-infested ceiling just above me. I say I have the coziest and coolest room in the house. My housemates would come knocking at my door on hot afternoons where all the other rooms would be unbearable for habitation.

In the evenings when I forgot to buy food from SC, I would just go to the kitchen and do the magic face and hand trick to Ate Cresing. In a little while, I will have food served in the dining table. We would gather at the living room and turn on Ate Nene's chandelier-like ceiling fan, settle in our respective corners and somehow get lost with all our MPs, readings and papers, pausing occasionally for some chitchat and "kulitan" (Kristine! Caruth! Lorraine! miss you guys!)...And of course, who would ever forget the automatic lid opening trash bin of Ate Nene! It's so...ahmm..high tech?! hehehehe....

As Jeff and I walked through the hallways and rooms of the old house, it seemed that it has been empty for so long. No more furniture, no more beds, no more smell of Ate Cresing's cooking from the kitchen, no more of Kuya Butch's inaudible yells everytime someone comes in at the front door, no more of Ate Baby's voice on the phone just right below the staircase, no more of the laughter in the evenings on hell week. It was not anythong like this a month ago when I dropped by to sleep at Ate Edith's bed before a class. Geez, it was a 6-month stay yet it was memorable. I wonder how much it felt for all the others who stayed there for years, like Jeff for instance who stayed there for four years. It was just sad seeing the house in its current state: lonely, deserted, empty, all its signs of human life now replaced with the sound of the crickets outside, the rain falling down on the roof, and the smell of rat that somehow engulfed the whole house now. :(