e

l onthePavement
i
TheCurousPudd
nFr
i ontof
h
asot
rr
eso
ty
r

nmr
ai
te
nz
i
-a
The Curious Puddle on the Pavement in Front of i2

Much about Cebu was a confused tapestry of memories sewn together by a drunk neurotic who
by day spends most of it lying in bed looking down at the city below from the lone window of his
rented condominium, while nights on the other hand were spent numb from the crown of his
head to his knees as he struggled to assert his freedoms with the aid of friends: Hendricks and
Glenfiddich. We were in Cebu for a wedding - a lovely couple no doubt, but scarcely have the
vows been recited when it became evident that the theme for the night will soon digress towards
the marriage of mind, alcohol, and the pavement.

After the beautiful and wonderfully elegant wedding - which was punctuated when the groom
passionately embraced and swept the six foot pearl fondant cake of her feet, I and some
newfound friends made our way into the flashy commercial center in Cebu City which they
called IT Park - in deference perhaps to that clown character by Stephen King who liked to
kidnap children. We somehow planted ourselves in front of CBTL coffee shop that occupied the
ground level retail space of the building with an i2 badge on the front facade. We each found
our spot on the ledge lining the pavement while we contemplated where else in this lovely city
inebriated people might find acceptance.

The state of drunkenness is not absolute. It ranges from paralytic pissed drunk to tipsy, and in
between is a purgatory where people can truly be who they are. If you see someone smelling
like rum and hopscotching like a child on the sidewalk, or a person sticking their tongue into the
ear of another they barely knew, you are not seeing a person manufactured by liquor but rather
a person liberated from the constraints of society and freed from self-censorship that we have
learned from decades of socialization.

So I, with large steps and locked knees, was walking like Galvatron in a dark suit in front of
CBTL when Thor, a rather heavy set man with rounded facial features called out to me to be
careful as I stepped on a puddle in the pavement, wetting my rather fine oxfords.

“What’s the matter? I can handle this one,” I tapped my toes on the puddle splashing the water
about and nudging the bright yellow CAUTION WET sign that stood over it.

“Someone died there you know,” he said solemnly.

I wasn’t drunk enough not to stop.

Thor wobbled up to me with his hands in his trouser pockets and with a hushed voice explained,
“I use to work in this building. Spent more than ten years here before moving to Davao in the
south.” He looked up at the building, a slight frown forming on his face. “A colleague jumped
from the rooftop ten floors up. He fell through the awning right there, and hit the pavement
where that puddle is.”
“Shit,” I said. “Right here?” I pointed at the puddle underneath my feet. I could feel the slight
indentation on the pavement that bordered the puddle. It can’t be I told myself. They probably
erased any trace of the tragedy long ago. “When did this happen, Thor?”

“It happened about 3 years ago,” he said while nodding and rubbing his slightly stubbled chin.
“The CCTV showed him walking up the staircase to the rooftop without any hesitation and with
no expression on his face. He didn’t pause at all. He went right up to the edge of the building
and walked right off it. He was really decided in wanting to die.” Still nodding, he continued,
“The rooftop is now restricted area. You can’t go up there anymore which is a pity because that
is where everyone use to hang out and smoke. It has a great view of the city too. Pity really.”

“You said he landed here. So what happened to the awning? He went clean right through it?” I
asked.

“Yes! He went right through there where the busted pinlight is and landed there,” he said
pointing at my wet oxfords. I wouldn’t say it’s funny. It’s really tragic, but it’s also amusing
because my friend was sitting right there at the edge having a cigarette when the person
crashed through the awning in front of him. Blood was everywhere and I think some bits of
brain and bone ended up in my friends mouth as he sat there mouth wide open in shock,” Thor
chuckled.

I sort of heaved as I suddenly imagined the metallic taste of bloody brains in my mouth.

“You ok?” Thor asked.

I spat a few times at the bushes lining the pavement as I tried to clear my throat of the stinging
cocktail of whiskey, gin, Red Bull, and gastric juices that momentarily came up.

He continued, “So they’ve fixed everything up quickly after that. It’s really disturbing to see
where he went through. For any company, I would imagine exposing your people to that kind of
negativity can really dampen their morale.”

“So what made him jump?” The question was inevitable and I felt whoever is left to deal with the
physical and mental aftermath of another being’s suicide deserved an answer. How can
something so outrageous and scandalous be a private matter? You can’t be spreading gray
matter all over people’s faces and not give them an explanation for such ostentatious behavior.
More than the broken bits of human tissues scattered about which can easily be done away with
with detergent and some good quality scrubbing pads, the real damage is on the minds of those
who had to witness another human being asserting their prerogative in ending their own lives.
I’ve always thought everyone was preoccupied in pushing to the back of their minds the thought
of their own mortality. I’m pretty sure witnessing brain splattering would make that pretty
impossible both in the near term and in the long term.

What can possibly be so devastating that a sentient being would put a stop to their existence
and remove themselves from a world that exists only because they themselves exist. The world
or even the universe is unique from the perspective of the person who sees it, lives it, and has
come to know it. I can’t tell if the yellow flower you see yourself holding in your hand is the
same yellow flower I see you holding. I cannot possibly know if the yellow you perceive in your
mind, is the same yellow I perceive in mine - complete with every subjective nuances my mind
has come to know that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with a wavelength between ​565
and 590 nanometer. To commit suicide is to commit to oblivion a world that can only exist in
that decided person’s mind. It’s a kind of waste I cannot fathom.

“So what made him jump?” I asked again.

“Love,” Thor rolled out his answer from his tongue. “The usual I guess. Girl broke up with the
poor guy and he jumped.”

I was going to say, “That’s it? That’s the reason he walked off the fucking roof?” but caught
myself before uttering the first word. Instead, I muttered, “Hmmm, what a tragedy.” There was
really no way to know now what had happened. If only you could walk in that person’s shoes for
a day, perhaps we’ll know what drove him to do what he did and not feel as much shame in
passing casual judgement on his choices in life. But that shoe is buried 8 feet below, and no
one really wants to step into a dead man’s shoe.

Thor pointed with his pouted lips at the puddle, “But you know what’s unusual? It’s that the
building’s engineering cannot seem to fix that leak.”

I may have involuntarily stepped back slightly from the edge of the puddle. I felt the edges of
the slope through the soles of my shoes and in the realization of the circumstances surrounding
its origin, I abruptly felt the need to move slightly back lest I fall right into this deepening pool.

“Everytime it rains, and sometimes even when it’s not, a pool forms right there where that guy
landed. They just can’t get that awning fixed for some reason. Look at that, even the lights
above the puddle are always busted.” He shook his head momentarily. “It was like that when I
left for a new job, and I’m quite surprised nothing has changed other than now they have a
handy CAUTION WET sign over it.”

“That’s kinda creepy,” I said.

“Yeah, when tragedy happens, it seems funny things starts happening. I don’t know if people
just starts noticing things because of what happened, or things really do start happening for
them to get noticed.” He paused and chuckled a bit. “I’m not really into the paranormal and
third eye shit, but that puddle there I cannot really explain.”

Our women companions had started to fidget and have asked for us to leave the area. There
was no way they’d be going to the bathroom in such a place, they complained.

We all got to our wobbly feet and started to walk down the sidewalk. A cold chill ran down my
back and I threw a quick glance towards the odd puddle behind us. A group of young night
shifters had come out of the building and scattered onto the sidewalk. They streamed around
and past the puddle rather instinctively while clutching their mobile phones and packet of
cigarettes. I saw not even one person throw a knowing glance at the puddle or the busted lights
above it.

Come to think of it, why should they? The universe where that knowing glance may have
mattered have evaporated about three years ago when someone from i2 decided to meet his
destiny at the pavement ten floors below.

-end-