A Manila Encounter

“Nasan si Lei?”

The question was faint, almost a whisper. Impulse made me glance to where the sound came from and I found him standing a few miles away, in a gray shirt with his hair tousled over his shoulders.

He had his back to me and I hastily looked back at the computer screen, pretending to busy myself. My hands felt cold and my chest, in that instant, began to dance the tarantella.

He had always fascinated me. I grew up seeing his name in photos that captivated me, in pictures that made me feel emotions of awe, happiness, nostalgia and sometimes, sadness.

I loved his photos.

In the time when landscapes and artsy photographs dominated the travel magazine scene, he focused on people. His subjects were not just places; they were actions, scenes in life he successfully captured with his lens. The thought of seeing boys’ smiling faces made me smile too, as if I can feel the childish bliss when the picture was taken.

He has a certain way of capturing the movements around him, as if serendipity shone on him, enabling him to freeze moments in frames that enthralled me. I found life in his images, where the scenery, the people, and the place pulsate in one enchanting rhythm – boys playing in a balsa in Palawan, Moriones conquistadors in a festival, a Vietnamese woman leaning on a motorbike. I knew if an image belongs to him as if it belonged to me, as if I was there, in the instant when he pressed the shutter.

When he was finally featured as the photographer of the month, I was ecstatic, especially when I found out that he was not as old as the others in the same field. No wonder he has a fresh eye for his subjects – he was just a decade older than me! And we belonged in almost the same generation. The idea thrilled me. Maybe I’d meet him someday.

And that someday happened to be now.

A voice brought me back to the reality. I turned around and smiled at him, a quaint smile I practiced in front of the mirror countless times. He reached out his hand and I returned it with a mild handshake. And then he spoke again, in a mellow Ilonggo voice. He talked and I listened, his voice drowning in the continuous beats of the tarantella in my chest.

I looked at him and realized I can’t say anything. What do you say to someone you admire? Someone who was so familiar but you’ve never met before?

“So what’s new here?” He asked.

“The usual…you know how things are around here.” I said, quite snappily. He stayed there, watching me select photos I hardly even look at.

He talked again. Asking for the magazine where his article and pictures got published. I walked to the other end of the room, his eyes following me. I reached my table and looked for the copy I have kept for him. Ah, found it.

“Lei…” He called me again in that familiar tone. I glanced to find him holding a magazine. “Is this the issue?” I nodded and walked toward him while he abruptly flipped through the pages. He was looking for his story.

“Kape naman tayo…” he smiled. My heart leaped.

“Lei!” I turned around and saw my officemate. “Meeting with sir.” I implodedly cursed. I went to my desk, grabbed a pen and notebook, and hurried to the conference room. The door closed and everything went away with it. There goes our moment. That was our first and final encounter – I never saw him again. Afterwards, we exchanged a couple of emails and that was it.

I saw the world from his eyes. And somehow in my heart, I knew I was hoping I’d see myself too. My fascination for him was more than a crush—nor was it love. Rather, it was familiarity, the feeling that I knew him for a long time, like a nostalgic feeling for an old friend. An old lover. Or perhaps, selfishly, for an old possession.

Pathetic as it may sound, I considered him mine. I considered him a part of me, a part of who I was. But talking to him proved otherwise. He belonged to nobody. His photos were not just for me. I just imagined it.

A few months after, we published another batch of his photos, taken from a series of collections when he still resided in Manila. Old and beautiful. Sacred. Then I felt it again, the affinity.

I still love his photos.