Intro: I Wish You were Here, You Crazy Diamond

It was more than a decade ago, penniless and tipsy under the shadow of a close store, facing the barrenness of the grassy field under the starlit sky, when you said that you can smell mysticism blowing in the winds, that good God! you can smell its rose-smell tingling the spine on your back; us, not knowing if you’re up again in your smart-ass intelligent talk, or probably the bottles of Red Horse, splayed on the gutter and on the street, had too much an effect on you that you’re imagination and the poet in you was talking, trying to create and impress ripples in our inebriated minds. You said, like a hint of what your soul would then take on as its journey, that you can tell heaven and hell. “You’re just drunk,” Mike said. But, you didn’t take it seriously. “We’re going to be a great band,” you prophesied, “we’re going to conquer the world; Pinoy-style music from the pits of my soul.” So, we let you go on with your dribble-talk, not taking any fancy thoughts about it since we knew anyway that you knew what you are yakking about, the leader of our band, our composer of metaphysical songs, our sleek lead guitarist, the older among us, the one who had read more books than us.

We stood nearer to the sun, its obliterating electric sunshine melting our faces. “Tingnan mo kung okay yung tunog,” you asked Eric. “Okay, okay.” Stoned and calm as a deep ocean wave, we faced the maw of hell as it broke loose and pushed on the surface the carcass of junkies megadeath. There was no blacker or as black as that that stood in front of us. Then, you said you saw white gold started flying in the air, its velocity and altitude the perfect parabola of what you had been imagining and seeing in your dreams, the perfect rainbow color, for they all landed on the stage soundless as they hit the wooden floor, violet-hue flowers. “Putang-ina nyo!” You turned around and walked away cool and grinning, still strumming your Fender.

“Pa-byahe ka pa,” you ordered, “katorse na lang.” You were an insatiable beast. “Tang-ina, pahinga naman tayo,” Mike would say. Days were turning more and more into gray color. Drat! I could not even see the blue beyond the clouds, or really couldn’t I since we were probably holed for days in your house, eating nothing, playing our new songs, your new songs, your new eulogies to the universe as you put them. Ivy wanted to go home already. But you did not want her to.