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BY RHICK LARS VLADIMERALBAY
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I WROTE this piece a few years ago, but I believe it has remained very relevant to my life, even to some of my friends. This was originally published by the Central Echo, the official student publication of Central Philippine University in their literary folio with the theme “Lost”.

Seven pairs of hands gathered around in a circle. Hands that once dyed a stream red with scrapped crepe paper, hands bruised from playing amongst cylinders of concrete. I no longer remember their names, or their faces, just the sound of our laughter mingling with the humid air, dirt being scattered by our running feet.

The memories we chose to keep tell a lot about who we are. Like little jagged puzzle pieces, so unlike each other, yet still interconnected, pieced together they make us whole. A lot of times I’d wish there was a machine that would allow me to thumb through my memories, watch them all from start to finish, not once skipping or fast-forwarding, just letting myself be drowned by the atmosphere, observing my own actions from a different perspective; maybe even laugh at myself a few times, or cringe at my embarrassing moments, just to learn about myself better, and see the small details I may have overlooked when these memories were actually happening to me.

Up here, on the steps passengers climb to board the ferry, the pinwheel’s colored propellers are spun by the wind uninhibited. Mother had bought it for me before we left for the pier, a candy dispenser with three turning plastic fans at its tip. I took an instant liking to it, not once letting it go since my mother handed it to me.
Near the top of the boat’s rusted stairs, a strong gust of wind catches the pinwheel’s plastic talons, seizing it from my grasp. Quickly I lean against the ferry’s railings, trying to grab it back, nearly losing my footing, almost falling to follow my toy.

Before mother tightly gripped my arm, pulling me back in to safety, I saw it one last time: My pinwheel falling towards the water below, still spinning, forming circles in midair.

Most times we never really realize when a memory leaves us. There is no sharp kick to our side or sudden pain in our chest when we forget something, no indication that a part of us may have just been lost. Time has sly methods of removing from us our recollections. Often, we consume days, months, years, so caught up in our everyday lives that the past just seems to not matter anymore. Let bygones be bygones they say, but those bygones may be pieces of us that we’ll never have back.

Mother guides my hand, tracing shapes on paper. “Small circle, small circle, big circle…” she sings to me softly. “This is the boat we’re going to ride on. Here’s mama, here’s papa…waving goodbye” Lines and curves spilling from the crayon, a blank sheet making way for a drawing. “Sixty times six is thirty six, six times six makes magic…” After my mother finishes singing the rhyme, she shows me a doodle of a bear on the piece of paper.

Once you try to put together all your memories, you see how each occurrence, each event has molded you into what you are today.

Strange a realization it may be, maybe even unbelievable to some, I’ve found that the circle is a recurring figure among my most distinct memories. I do not know exactly why this is so, though I have my own assumptions, it adds to why I want to have a better grasp on the thoughts and memories floating around in my head. I want to see the larger picture, myself as a whole, all of my pieces put together.

The points meet and form a circle./PN
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