I breathed in the cold air as I slowly walked towards you.  This place was much grassier. There were no fences and definitely not this overcrowded.  The place has changed so much since.

**********

A mi amor Maria Eliza,

I can never forget how me met.  It was 1925 when Mayor E. J. Halsema had invited us to his residence for a small gathering.  The bittersweet taste of tuba had me feel its warmth from my throat until it lingered all throughout my body.  I needed cold air. I walked towards the balcony and found myself alone. The cicadas’ singing was loud during that time of night but I paid it no attention.  “Corazon!” As if by magic, I could see her from below, I leaned closer to the balcony’s railings, to see her much clearer, to be closer to her. She’s there, she’s really standing and staring right back at me, but then she turned her back and walked.  “No, wait for me.” She did not stop. The balcony is not that high, is it? I have to go after my wife. I raised my legs to the railings and was about to jump when a hand pulled me and I felt the cold hard floor.  

It was there that I saw you or was it the morning after?  I remember you in your white traje de mestiza and talking to your helper when I opened my eyes.  The dizziness and headache started to well up on me. Ughhh, the tuba. But your presence must have made all that feeling go away.

“You are not from around here,” those were the first words you uttered.  I never realized I had been staring at you as you walked towards me. I should ask the same, I have never seen you when I visited the mayor during the past days nor did I see you at the public market or the parks.  I tried to speak, I really did but no words formed out of my mouth. I was utterly dumbfounded.

From the servant, I found out that you were spending the summer in Baguio.  I was doing the same thing, to get out of damnation that was my life. I tried to get out of your way, but somehow, we crossed paths with each other more than a couple of times.  Your smile and beauty were so beguiling you started to get a hold of me.  

I did not know how, but we became fond of each other.  We walked by the lake and viewed workers as they built a park based on the design by a Mr. Burnham.  The smell of pine wafted over our faces. Your father allowed me to come by your house for supper. You were dear to me, and to that, I am content.  To expect more is to invite chaos and heartbreak.

One evening, as I escorted you home from a banquet with the mayor, you stopped walking.  “I am starting to have feelings for you. Please tell me you feel the same way, too.” I stopped on my track, containing my emotions of how ecstatic I was feeling.  The two of us can never happen, and it pains me to tell you that. Instead, I looked at you and said words I can never take back. I pushed you away. Away from trouble, away from sadness, away from misery.

You see, I was born during the Spanish era.  It was 1630, I was newly wed to Corazon. She was a lovely, kind-hearted girl I adored before I met you.  I was one of the rebels fighting against the Spaniards. During our honeymoon, Spaniards came and attacked us in our nipa hut.  I was barely breathing, so was Corazon. She crawled towards the fireplace and placed leaves and other things in a mortar. I can see her breathing hard as she let out inaudible words and stirred the mortar.  I woke up with the mortar beside me along with Corazon’s lifeless body.  

That was how I survived.  That was how I was able to live, or how time stopped for me.  I watched as my comrades aged and died, I watched as their children lived and died.  I met a few people throughout my lifetime, slept with women, but none as beautiful as you.  I roamed the world, but none as peaceful as Baguio with you in it. I run away from people who thought of me as the devil when they realized I was immortal, I fled as they burned my house to ashes along with my friends who they thought was the same as me.  I can’t ever put you through that inconvenience. I love you so much to put you through that.  

How many ways are there to die?  Drown? Hang? Bullets? A knife through the heart?  Poison? I must have tried them all. But to no avail, I am still here.  I have never wanted this, wandering across the lands for centuries hoping to find a cure for this… affliction… this curse.  All I want right now is to grow old with you. What is the point of living a paused physical time when I am no longer with you?

Find someone who can love you unconditionally, someone you can grow old with, someone who can bear and raise you children.  Someone who is not me. Someone not so coward as me.  

**********

I folded the aged parchment and placed it inside your wooden box.  You kept it… all these years. Tears started to well up on my eyes as I read your tombstone:  Maria Eliza Gomez, February 8, 1905 – July 16, 1990.

Author’s note: One day, I’ll revisit and expand this story.