Rowena

I don't know why I always remember this brief episode in my life. It was after classes in senior high, when Ateneo de Manila was still exclusively male. A co-student and I were walking to Gate 3 to commute to our homes. We stopped by an acacia tree outside the college complex because we saw some white stuff in a crook between the tree trunk and one of the branches. They were torn-up pieces of a black-and-white photograph. My co-student and I pieced them together and saw that the photo was of a naked Caucasian woman. On the back was a handwritten inscription that read, "To _________, In memory of our fun times together."

My companion found the photo very amusing. I, on the other, was beginning to get bothered by my playwright's mind. Who was the college student? Was his conscience being riddled by guilt? How did he meet the Caucasian woman? Why didn't he like her anymore?

It was always interesting to me to probe beneath surfaces and analyze the characters behind the smallest events.

Unfortunately, it still is.