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Blogs by Paul Cuenco
Predicament: Time Had Forgotten About
3/20/2012 7:52:39 PM
This woman. She was chubby but not in a cute manner; nor was she atrocious in her demeanor or appearance. She was just plain. Her face was scrubbed clean but her hair was unwieldy like an unmade bed in the morning and never meant to be made. She wore these garish clothes: green scintillating uppers, an embroidered and beautifully stitched geometric on black skirt and a shirt with flowers pasted on it. She was weird although not weird-looking; only that she acted strange.
She came over and sat on the next table with her friend, bought her a medium-sized cappuccino while she managed a smaller cup of coffee. Her friend was as strange as she was or even more strange. Her friend sat there awaiting her cappuccino like a Prima Donna or an elder sage, whichever you prefer. She sported a turban-like head dressing, flowing clothes with a tie along her belly. Her choice of colors was not as garish. She actually wore a middle of the renaissance flowing robe. She has a hand held cane, a thick stick which she laid at her back, against the window. On this occasion, they brought with them branches of pine tree clippings with leaves still attached to it.
In another time, they would be mistaken for sages, walking the avenues of an ancient village, lost in its complex simplicity. They would venture into some inn unbothered for they won’t be bothered. They were not the women men would go after. Perhaps in another time and place, maybe it might have been different. But they were not particularly attractive. As I mentioned they were just plain.
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Website: www.paulcuenco.com
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Sometimes, I would see her with her notebooks and books stacked one on top of the other. There seemed to be no particular reason why she carried a whole bunch of books. I didn’t think she went to school nor did she do some research. It just laid there on the table while she gets lost in some ideal, in some dream that it was hard for her to retrieve herself from. She daydreams. I didn’t know what she was daydreaming about but up until the café closes, she had hardly written anything on her notebook. As I pass her by, I would glance at it and all I see were scribbles and big do-dahs; nothing intelligent or decipherable.
But overhearing their conversation, I began to gather that they had more to their appearance than it shows. They talked about the French and the Italians. They grimace upon the tragic diasporas of some ancient people. They mentioned Shakespeare. They touch upon novels and operas. These were fighting words of the educated and the well-informed. These were not ramblings of the uneducated or misguided. And I thought that people like them would be so.
When I first met her, she was quiet and unassuming. She still sported her garment as she always had. We never said hello to each other except on that occasional accidental glance. She would disappear on some occasions and then return back to her seat, here inside the café; and I would wonder where she went to. And one time, I heard a beautiful voice singing opera from the outside. It was a cherubic hail of an angel that calls forth the unholy of the unholy.
As they fix themselves up to leave, she picked up the pieces of branches with pine needles still attached to it and then she hums a song.
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