Actually, today, I'd like to talk about a very old Philippine short story that was originally written in English called "Dead Stars" by Paz Marquez Benitez.
In this story, there's this guy named Alfredo, who is in his thirties. He has a long-standing fiance named Esperanza. Now society takes it for granted that he will eventually marry this Esperanza, but he feels that he is growing out of love recently. Now, once upon a family dinner party, he happened to meet this sister-in-law of a Judge named Julia Salas.
After a brief comedy of errors, he discovers that he had presumed that Julia was the sister of the judge and kept calling her by the Judge's surname of Miss del Valle.
When the judge confronts him about his error, he goes up to Julia to apologize and quite amused, she relates a similar experience she had with a Mr. Manalo whom she kept calling Manalang and the two form a sort of connection. There is all kinds of CHEMISTRY between them!
Anyway, they spend six weeks flirting with each other but nothing sexual and it culminates at the end of Holy Week with them saying a somewhat bittersweet goodbye to each other.
Flash forward eight years later and now Alfredo is married to Esperanza, but he happens to come back to the same place where he met Julia so many years ago. He sees her and of course, his heart starts beating fast... until they actually meet and then have a long, casual conversation together.
Later on, contemplating on the moment, Alfredo realizes that he is not only quite satisfied with his marriage, but also by the calm order of his life in general. He no longer felt the same way for Julia Salas even though he had never forgotten her over the course of eight years. He likens his feelings of longing for her to the light of a dead star -- seemingly bright from afar, but actually dead when up close.
Well... isn't that familiar? Isn't it sad, A-tan?
Ok, that concludes this week's Hayate Reflections. Have a Happy Halloween and see you next week!
Fanart Corner
It would take I know... a Hata Kenjiro... and he would need the glow of dawn that paints the sky above. To try and paint a portrait of my love~
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| Hayate's birthday is coming up. This painting will form a part of his birthday art which I'm working on right now. |
Hi, I am commenting after a long time here. There was a quite similar poem written by Tagore named 'sudden meeting(hothat dekha). There a man meets his former lover during a train journey. After some chatting, the woman asks if their feelings for each other have really gone. The man replies, each and every stars exists hidden behind the sunlight. But after they bid farewell, the man wonders if his words were true. Really, AthenaxHayate could have been gone well, but it just didn't click somehow.
ReplyDeleteNice to see you around here again.
DeleteI think the story of the Dead Stars and the story of Hayate x Athena is a recurring theme across different pieces of fiction.