Death validates our existence. Without it we will never be remembered. Who wants not to be remembered? Birthdays are no exception. As long as I can remember, my birthdays were always met with pancit- a Filipino noodle dish believed to bring good health and long life, a round chiffon cake with icing, if lucky and wax candles shaped into numbers to be blown at the chant of the never-gets-old “Happy Birthday” song. On certain occasions, when my parents can afford it, my party would be a mini feeding program handing out paper plates to all my classmates, including teachers, with serving of everything on the same carte du jour. Luckily, Zest-O tetra packs were already available in the late 90’s so I had little memory of drinking the infamous juice concentrate called Sunny Orange that doesn’t taste like the fruit but more like orange flavored cough syrup served in almost all occasions in the countryside. Almost every birthday, I’d get tons of coin banks in different shapes, the classic porcelain pig, the cylindrical plastic decked with super hero images from marvel comics and weirdest by far, a Buddha coin bank. My parents wholeheartedly embraced the art of coin bank gift giving over plastic guns that promotes violence however it didn’t encourage me to save money. Seriously, how many coin banks can one kid have? So I wrapped it on a fancy paper, put some red ribbons and passed it on the next kid on the birthday list. Today, I’m not sure if celebration is even on my to-do-list. You celebrate because you merit yourself for achieving something, a milestone. Celebrating on your birth date does the same; you merit yourself for reaching another year unharmed and healthy.
Three days ago, I received my HIV test, I tested POSITIVE. 72 hours have passed and it felt like I was still walking along the vinyl tiled hallways of Makati Medical Center, clueless after an obviously gay doctor handed me a piece of paper called HIV Confirmatory Test Result. For a minute or two I was just lost in the crowd. My body occupied a single vinyl square tile in the middle of a busy hallway. It was 10:37 on the digital clock hanging on wall of the laboratory section where I had been. It felt like the world suddenly decelerated its pace, like a scene from the movie The Royal Tenenbaums when Gwyneth Paltrow got off a bus in a camel fur coat and walked in a very slow motion towards Luke Wilson, her hair slowly blown by the wind and everything around them moved like forever, only, my version was ill-starred. On my right, a pale skinned Chinese woman on a wheelchair was being pushed by her personal nurse. Towards the elevator was a frail looking old man with a mask pushing the elevator button non-stop. On my left, a couple hand in hand waited patiently for their number to be called at the waiting section. I thought, they all must have had close encounters with the angel of death or wishing it comes to their beds at night and takes them away painless and unconscious. After all, they have maximized their life span and had enough carbon foot print left in this world. I haven’t. I’m only 28. Three fucking days before officially turning 29, my death wish came. Three decades earlier than expected.
As always, my parents were the first to greet me. A happy birthday text message with unwavering words of encouragement and reminder to hear the mass if I can squeeze it on my schedule. They were less forceful now that I’m grown up. I wanted to say, Can we skip today? I’m really not in the festive mood. Of course that will make things worse so instead I replied;
“Thank u Mom and Dad! I have work 2day. C u dis weekend? :)”
Right after hitting send button, my phone started ringing. It’s my Mom. I left the phone rang for a few minutes until it ended and sent a message to my mom;
“In d shower, l8er. :)”
Needless to say, I am avoiding any possible verbal conversation with anyone as I don’t want my current state of depression echo in my voice.
6:15 am I went down wearing the same shirt and boxer shorts I slept into last night to buy something to eat for breakfast. There are mornings when I eat real breakfast meals; egg, bacon and rice with Milk tea or coffee. Today, I just want some bread and caffeine in my blood. Elevator beeps, opened its door, thankfully empty. I like the elevator to myself in the morning. It gives me a sense of ownership over a public space, even for a limited period of time. Cheesy bacon, Cheesy Tuna, Adobo, I picked the Cheesy Tuna sandwich from the open 7/11 fridge. Below it were slices of cake, chocolate and blueberry cheesecake. Chocolate tasted better. I rushed to pay for the sandwich, cake and coffee I got just below the counter and went back to my place.
I found an old blue colored candle on top of the fridge, put it on top of the chocolate cake and lit it. “For another year Mico, Happy Birthday!” I whispered to myself before blowing the candle. I held my cup of coffee; brought it up, made a toast before I took a sip. It felt weird celebrating life when it is being taken away from you. Worst of all, you don’t know when.
7:00 am, I checked my phone for SMS. No messages. I guess no one ever texts these days, except my parents. After a few minutes, my phone started beeping. A friend from New York posted on my wall, “Happy Birthday Mico! Amishu! Xoxo, Dindi.” She’s my girl. We’re BFFs back in college. We could talk non-stop about art, sex, anything and everything over a cup of coffee or San Mig Light in our favorite coffee shop a few steps away from the University. Before she left for NYC two years ago, we made a deal, that we will travel the world if she doesn’t get married before 35. I wanted to tell her I’m not OK and will never be ok unless someone discovers a cure for my absofuckinglutely deadly disease and that I might not be able to visit certain countries with current HIV ban. I shrugged the idea. I wanted to tell her physically so she can comfort me, hold my hands and let me cry on her shoulders like we used do. Before I was able to reply, people started flooding my Facebook with Happy Birthday posts. That’s the thing with internet, everything goes viral. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s just impersonal. Not too long ago, people send greeting cards, plan surprises parties, or bring you cake and flowers. Now, everything is done on the virtual wall of your Facebook Page like a dog pissing on a wall, effortless and horrible.
I hit the showers around 7:30 for my usual hygiene ritual and started dressing up around 8. I want to look my best today in and out so I picked my favorite striped boxer brief, jeans, two-toned suit jacket over a white dress shirt and a pair of oxford leather shoes. I looked in the mirror and felt happy over my ensemble. A far cry from my usual T-shirt, jeans and sneakers work wear. It somehow encouraged me to go out and try to have some fun for the sake of my overrated natal date. It’s not every day you get to celebrate the first of your last birthdays right?
My day has been just about creating logo studies for a new clothing label for our client of five years. We have created dozens of hit seasonal campaigns for their existing brands and the pressure is on our team to come up with the best ideas for their new business venture. I might have consumed 4-5 sticks of Marlboro lights trying to calm myself from stress of meeting my deadline at exactly 4:40. That’s the downside of being a graphic artist. People think our job is easy because we’re using computer application instead of manual rendering. The truth is it’s as time consuming as doing an artwork by hand. Conception of a computer aided image goes through the same creative process. We’re only ahead from other “artists” in terms of output reproduction and revision which can be done in a matter of seconds. At 4:30 sharp, I presented the logos to my boss. He’s in his late 30’s I think, buff, was a model in his prime, gay and scuffily handsome. I was crushing on him for like the first two years of my stay in my ad agency but eventually gave up because my fantasy of us becoming us is never going to happen, not in a million years. He has a loving partner for a decade and goes for men his type, scruffy and gorgeously handsome. Today, he wore a crisp pink polo over khaki pants and a pair of Gucci moccasins which made me feel insecure once again of my overall demeanor. I told him my idea for the brand, handed him a print out, and discussed the logo one by one. This is the thing I know I’m good at and my primary source of confidence to face my boss every so often. After my presentation, he said the usual, “This is good. Thank you.” It’s also his way of saying you may leave. We never really had long discussions for unknown reasons. I can only assume he likes my ideas and the works I have presented or just completely the opposite. Probably it’s a gay thing; you understand each other just by looking at each other. Or perhaps it’s my birthday and he wanted to make my life a bit easier today. Before I stepped out of his office, he called my name and handed a brown envelope. “Happy Birthday!” he said in a very monotonous voice, gave me a little grin and went back to work on his laptop. I said thank you and left. I opened the envelope and found two Starbucks voucher worth 500 each. Great! A new Starbucks tumbler it is! Eric is a complete snob but a thoughtful and sweet boss. On my way home, I received multiple SMS from my friends asking me out to have fun but I told every one of them to move it sometime next week because my deadlines are sweeping me off of my social calendar. I don’t have a social calendar anymore. It was just a big lie, an excuse not to be merry and gay, at least for a couple of weeks until my mind is fully recovered from my HIV trauma.
I got home past 5 from work and planned to spend the rest of the evening alone. Dusk slowly swathed my living room inch by inch. Before I knew it, I was completely blinded by darkness. I turned the TV on across the brown two-seater sofa where I’m sluggishly seated. Pre-primetime movies are complete boredom so I switched channels from HBO to Cinemax to MTV. Christina Perry’s A thousand years MV is on. I reached for the Chinese take-out bought a few blocks from my office on top of the foot stool cum table. My favorite yang chao fried rice with fried Siomai. I took out the bamboo chopsticks, broke it apart and repeatedly rubbed it against each other to smooth away the shards. I’m not being rude in any way, just making sure my sticks are safe to use and won’t be the cause of my death. When you are POZ, a term used for PLWHIV or people living with HIV, the slightest infection can kill you. That’s what I heard. Past 8, I’m done eating my Chinese meal and watched a couple of music videos before I switched the channel to ETC to watch Glee TV series. I find glee hilariously campy. How on earth can people just burst into song numbers with complete choreography in real life? And there’s the Kurt and Blaine love story, a song away to become the reason for my suicidal attempt. It’s pathetic and I feel pathetic. How did I become this lonesome? Probably a side-effect of aging? Or the psychological effects of HIV? One thing is for sure, I am more engaged with myself now more than ever. I unconsciously had become introvert favoring late night HBO marathon over a night out with my gay friends in O bar, or treating myself out for a sumptuous dinner in a posh restaurant over coffee with friends who only consume sweets, coffee and nicotine. Have I foreseen this coming and mentally prepared myself into damnation? I know I need more “me” time. I need to feel that feeling of intimacy when I’m pleasuring myself, non-sexual, deep and rational.
Past 9, I went to my bedroom, reached for the starry night projector lamp sitting on my side table and lit it up. I laid flat on my back on my bed as I watched stars appear on my ceiling. It’s amazing how people re-create the nighttime sky in little cylindrical lamps. My completely empty ceiling now mimics the skies above my building. Bigger stars glow brighter. Smaller stars appear as dots behind the big ones. They say stars are souls of people who passed away and have found their niche in the skies. Which star will I be if I die? A big one that overshadows the small one? Or a small one that is necessary to fill up the big sky? Stars perhaps are representation of the living. Some people are destined for greatness; some are doomed for pre-mature death like me. Even so, the great thing about today was being remembered; by my family, my friends and even my snob boss. That sense of belongingness I may not be able to comprehend when my days on earth is over. I pushed another button and the stars started to dance in circular motion. There was this song that popped in my head as I gaze at the fake stars, Breathe me by Sia.
“Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And the worst part is there's no one else to blame
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me
Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me…”
The moment I heard the song on the finale episode of HBO’s Six Feet Under I knew it would be a song I can relate to. It is hypnotic, obscure and purely sentimental. Every word cuts deep, so deep it brought me an unbearable pain. Pain beyond any other pain I experienced my whole life. Like a bomb that suddenly exploded inside me, crushing my heart, shattering my bones, tearing every muscle, blood vessel and skin apart. I felt the warmth of my tears flowed endlessly like a river down my cheeks. For a while I just stared above, blankly and lifeless.
I held my wrist. Felt a beat, one, two, three and so on. I sighed with relief, sank into my bed and fell into a deep sleep.