AppleS and OrangeS

Apples and Oranges

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by glenmore bacarro

Yesterday was one of my mates birthday. We came to their house late for lunch but too early for the party. I, in particular spent much time in the dinning table, I ate more “ulam” than “kanin” and “pumapak ng sugpo” till I bloat.

The videoke and the beer party started later after I’m done eating. The table outside was set (just along the street; the hell with city ordinance #0397!J!) The ladies made their cocktail drink as we had started our RH session. Generous slices of apples and oranges float on their bowl of sweet mixed juices splashed with vodka.

The party gave our fill for the day and we ended up empty headed and had unbalanced gait. I woke up today with a searing headache, not to mention waking up late in a very hot summer day elevated my symptoms. I took two tablets of pain killer and had my shower. Later, I’m more than fine.

I looked back to what had happened last night, again a moment worth remembering. Familiar faces, friends old and new, forgotten and remembered, new hands clasped for a new beginning. Friends, who are missed, remembering when was the last time been together, warm hugs and kisses showered the moment. It’s as if the long time of longing was just a minute before, for friendship never counts.

They are the apples and oranges on my cocktail bowl. They balance the bitterness of the vodka and keep me going through painful obstacles on my unsure path. They enhance the sweetness within me, never minding if they drown into the depth of my stupidity. They are the slices and pieces afloat that can make me whole whenever the aftertaste of every hasty gulp shattered my reasons and pride. They are my friends and forever they will.

The apples, it is in different shapes and color, some almost round, some are elongated; some are green others are deep red. But no matter what, its distinct characteristic is when you cut it half its shape resembles a heart and the meat is pure, white and clean. Friends have different personality, genuine in their own special way but no matter how different they may be there is this one thing that binds you together, together in pain, in sorrow, in tears, in laughter and in love. They can see the sweetness in you and they can tell when you will be ripe enough to go on your way towards your dream. When you’re sour they are there to accompany you on the cocktail bowl to balance and for the people to know that you’re different from the rest of slices floating on the bowl. People tend to look and seek for your sourness to wash out the bittersweet sting of the splashed vodka. When you’re sweet they tend to give you your special bowl for everyone to pick. That’s how they are, apples that can be pick young and unripe and yet they can mature and ripen within your heart as long as friendship stays, as long as love remains.

Never pick an orange when it’s not ripe because it’ll never ripen, it never will. Oranges, each of its pulp encapsulated its sourness, bitterness or sweetness. You’ll never know what you’ll get because its rinds can deceive you for what sweetness you can see outside does not always housed the sweetness you’re craving for. Sometimes its pulps are dry and hardened by its sourness and bitterness. And sometimes when you’re lucky when its sweetness touch your lips you crave for more but not knowing with this sweetness it hides its sourness, the acid that can destroy one’s appetite. However oranges will always be oranges, many crave for it, seek for it. They are just like friends whom ingenuity outstood every reasons and pride. Its juices cure every wound that can’t be healed by time. It comforts every thirsty heart from the drought of sadness and sorrows. Its bitter rinds can be sweetened just as one’s past can be rebuild a new. It deceives one’s perception of what is true and what is right. It shows the reality of what life should be, that not at all times, sweetness can give us comfort, that in the long run of this life sometimes we had to taste the sourness of every obstacles and the bitterness of pain and failures. Afterall we can’t be the one we are now without the failures of yesterday and we can’t be the one in the future without the pain of today. Remember, what makes the orange sweet is its bitter taste.

In the bowl, floating with the rest, apples and oranges bathed with the sweet mix of juices and vodka. Not for forever we’ll be together because when the bowl got drained and every slice had its fill, all will be gone. Laughters will mute and pictures will fade. Friends come and go but the memories made from this bowl of sweet moments will last if not for forever then at least for a lifetime!