I care to remember

5 minutes, that’s all it took for me to scribble the names of those I voted for the barangay election. The elementary school, BCS, which has been home to different elections ever since I can remember, has its usual buzz of food vendors, onlookers and supporters lined up at the entrance and outside the low concrete walls of the school. There were also those in motorcycles and bicycles scattered in front of the different precincts exchanging stories about days that are better not remembered.

After a BEI inked my forefinger, I readily went outside and was surprised to see more people scattered everywhere; most of them I hardly recognize though they seem to know me. They smiled and waved in weird ways and in turn, made me feel guilty. In my being so away from our place most of the time, I have forgotten a few faces and names.

Buds, the perennial hungry sister of mine, bought some hotdogs and isaw from one of those food vendors before we went home. Just as we were waiting for the food, a guy whose face I instantly recognized to be a former classmate, called me by my name. I was actually embarrassed because I would have wanted to return the greeting by calling him by his first name. But, my mind went black and I settled for a smile and “Hi!” Lame.

So this classmate of mine went on to ask about how things are. I vaguely answered him, cautious that he might find out I don’t have any idea what his name is. I said goodbye just as the vendor handed my sister her hotdog and isaw.

I have forgotten people, not everyone but some of them. And it has made me realized that the people that used to fill my former life has been blurred, if not replaced by new people who occupy the kind of life that I have now, the kind of life that hardly allow me to mingle with the people I used to know, with people in our place.

But, I would want to remember everyone as much I could and piece all the memories, especially when I was still a kid and believed in vampires. I would like to remember each of those faces that graced my life as a kid in gradeschool and as a struggling teenager in highschool. These are the people who might no longer have anything to do with me but they remain, essentially, the people who know me when I was still discovering the world. I care to remember them.