Adrian stopped playing as Kuya Bong entered the living room carrying two boxes in his hand.
"Sir, Ma'am Rocky sent these."
"You can leave them there.", Adrian pointed to the sofa. "Thank you."
Kuya Bong left the boxes and quietly disappeared into the kitchen. Adrian eyed the packages with disinterest, knowing what they contained. He took his time closing the lid on the keyboard of his ever-reliable Steinway. He moved his hand across its smooth surface, caressing it like a precious lover. It was his 'partner in crime' – a witness to many a sleepless night of creating melodies. His other 'partner in crime', his trusted guitar, was lying on the other end of the sofa. He padded barefoot in his white t-shirt and loose boxer shorts over to the sofa and carried the boxes to a nearby shelf. This was his trophy shelf, so called because it literally contained his collection of trophies.
Taking his time, he opened one box and pulled out its contents. This was a trophy from the Awit Awards, for his album "Transitions" which won Album of the Year. In fact, tonight was the awards night but he asked --- begged Ate Rocky to receive the award for him. He just wasn't in the mood for dressing up and smiling for the cameras. With a deep sigh, he placed the trophy on the shelf, alongside the other music awards he'd won over the past four years.
It was a little more than a year since he finished that album of all-originals. He stared at the trophy on the shelf, recalling what he went through to make that album. What would normally take him eight months to complete, he did so in a record time of three months. Eight songs in three months. It was pure madness. He was like a geiser ready to burst and his hands could hardly keep up with the words his brain was churning out. It was as if all the hurt and anger he kept bottled up inside after the break-up were ripe and ready to explode.
Transitions. That was his moving on album, hence the title. That was his way of telling the world that "Hey, I'm okay now and I'm ready for a change." That was his way of telling himself, "Let it go, dude." So he wrote about love and forgiveness. He wrote about sadness moving into happiness and back. He wrote about happiness moving into rapture and falling with a thud down to sadness. He wrote until he ran out of words, it was cathartic. And he wrote about her.
He looked down at the remaining box. Setting his lips in a grim line, he opened it and pulled out another trophy. This was for Song of the Year --- Transitions' carrier single, "Joey".
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Joey leaned against the balcony railings of her high-rise apartment in Manhattan, taking in the city's skyline for one last time. This was her last evening in this city that, as the song goes, never sleeps. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her thick sweater as the wind picked up speed. But instead of rushing back inside to the warmth of her apartment, she closed her eyes and took in the coldness nipping at her face. She stood there until her nose felt numb from the cold and then she rushed inside and shut the sliding door. She pulled up her sweater over her head and tossed it on the sofa. Then she kicked of her shoes and padded in her socks to the kitchen to make herself a cup of hot cocoa. With cup in hand, she curled her legs up on the sofa and clicked on the remote of her CD player.
As ZZ Ward's raspy voice filled the air, Joey sipped on her hot cocoa, rewinding her life for the past year. Ever since Uncle Laom secretly sent her painting to the Chelsea International Art Competition more than a year ago, her life was unknowingly starting to change. When she won that competition and was awarded a year-long scholarship in the School of Visual Arts in New York, things really turned 180 degrees. She marveled at how a year could fly by so fast. When the sun rose tomorrow, she would be well on her way back to Manila where Ninang Sol and Ninong Dante would be waiting for her. She'd be back at her job at their art slash photography studio – not that she left it. Thanks to her able assistants Jona and Tolits, she was able to focus on her studies while remotely managing the studio's operations.
