A Quality of Sadness

(EXCERPTS OF STORY ONE - A QUALITY OF SADNESS): . . . .6/12 WedSadness over him. Could he have left? It was torture all day thinking, hoping he could still be around. Maybe I should have tried calling him. Shan’t we see each other anymore? Have a last sad talk, say our goodbyes? This is getting sadder than I thought it would be. I feel like weeping. The sadness of my world since . . .4I DIDN’T SEE him again. He didn’t call. I knew he was leaving sometime in June. He had mentioned it before. On a scholarship grant. He would be away for a year. I remembered him saying, If I don’t leave by June, if I’m still here by June, then it’s lost. It was June now. I had occasion to meet friends who knew him and I always found myself asking, Is he still in town? Has he gone? Yes, he is still around. I wondered if he never really had the desire to lift the phone and call me. It was so easy then, after all, so easy. One day, not knowing if he had left or not, I dialled his number. Hello. Hello. You’re still around. It took him a few seconds to identify the voice. Or was it pretence? Oh . . . yes, it’s you. Yes, still here. How are you? Fine, I answered. Then I asked, You never called? No. Well, that was quite tough. When are you leaving? By the end of the month. Which means you’ve got only a week or so to go? Well, yes, I’m quite busy with my papers. There was a brief pause. Then I heard him say, I would like to see you. No, I said, not today. You’re going somewhere else? No. Has somebody made an invitation ahead of me? Oh, no. Which bastard would extend an invitation? He roared with laughter. Never on Thursday? He teased. Yeah, I suppose. Come on, girl, he insisted. No, I said, and added, how about tomorrow, if you can make it? I’ll be terribly busy, he answered. Well, sorry. Okay, he said and sounded like hanging up. Hey, I said, hey, wait, you wouldn’t have called? I mean if I hadn’t called, you wouldn’t have called to say goodbye? No. Well . . . Well, goodbye, anyway, I said, and do have a happy trip.I never saw him again nor heard his voice. I never knew exactly when he left, but he left all right. Two years later, I saw him at Matzuzakaya’s, Cubao, in a yellow, knitted T-shirt, lean, tall and frail, leaning over a counter, and I thought to myself, that is somebody I know. XXXXXABOUT THE AUTHOR: . . . A winner of the National Focus Literary Awards (1st prize Fiction Category, and Special Award for the Essay), GERALDINE C. MAAYO has produced four collections of fiction: The Photographs and Other Stories, A Quality of Sadness, both published by New Day Publishers, The Boys in the Boarding House, published by Central Book Supply, Inc., and The Sorrows of Rowena, published by Pantas Publishing. A story from the first collection was included in a German anthology titled ＂Women from the Philippines.＂ First published in the Philippines Free Press, most of her stories appeared in national magazines like Midweek, Fina, Mr. and Ms., and Expressweek. She attended the Silliman Writers’ Summer Workshop, and is an active member of the Philippine PEN. A holder of a Bachelor’s degree, major in English and Comparative Literature, from the University of the Philippines, she obtained her Masters in Public Administration, major in Organization and Management, and her Doctorate in Public Administration from the UP College of Public Administration. She spent most of her working life in the academe teaching graduate courses in Organization and Management, Organizational Behavior, Organization and Human Resource Development. She also conducted seminars (public and in-house) on leadership, problem solving and decision making, and supervisory skills development. She recently retired as Associate Professor in Industrial Relations from the University of the Philippines after 34 years, having started with Masters in Management program in UP Baguio. She also taught graduate schoo