June 2nd, 2007
My family and I moved to the house we’re living in now – if I’m not mistaken – in 1991. There was a small grocery store across the road and several houses to the right from ours. It was owned by a couple who had a baby boy. Everyone who lived in several blocks radius went to them to shop. It was quieter back then. The store was thriving because they were the only one selling groceries. I can still remember the day I moved in and went to that store. I bought a cold Fanta poured into a plastic bag and I sipped it with a straw as I skipped my way home. It was a hot day.
Some seven years or more ago, a shop-house complex was built right across the road from our house. Small businesses came and went. A barbershop, a cell-phone service center, a comic book rental, playstation rentals, noodles shop, a Xerox, and a lot more than I can remember had tried their luck in this complex. One grocery store at the corner began its business and stuck there right to this day and haven’t shown any signs of turning over like the others.
The neighborhood gradually became more crowded as more houses were built and renovated and built some more. Children grew and the complex was filled day and night with guys and girls aimlessly hangin’ or chillin’. A small supermarket emerged near the intersection. A sports center with a huge hangar, a tennis court and a swimming pool was built close from home, taking only a five-minute walk to get there.
Suddenly the small grocery store has competition. Lots of competition. I could feel how bad their business was going to get from the very first time the store across my house was opened. I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand why and how it happened. It happened. The small store, along with the family running it, was in more and more trouble as the years passed.
The new grocery store, being just a road-cross away, became my family’s new frequent visits, abandoning the old one. Abandoning the couple. We grew apart, in a way.
I can only watch as this nice couple struggled to keep their business going. At first I noticed their store became emptier and emptier. They’re selling less and less products. And then they switched to selling just vegetables. This last six months I saw them making a living selling gado-gado. By this time their store had been renovated into a two-storey building. The thing that moved me the most is their supposedly optimistic attitude, mostly noticed by the renovation, and their passion for children (They had a new baby almost every two years). I lost count, though. I think they have 5 now…
I used to come by to their store to buy stuff every day. We used to buy everything from them. The closest I get to them nowadays are the times I passed their store on the way to work and said hi. The couple are also getting thinner and thinner.
I heard from my mother that they’re moving out. They’re going to sell the store and move somewhere to somehow start over. But it’s been months and they’re still there. They’re still as nice as ever to me, and a part of me felt very guilty for it.
The man from this grocery store is a slender and very simple-looking man who’s never said much. He’s calm and takes his time in doing things. He’s also quite religiously-devoted, and his family’s fate doesn’t seem to change that. This man had sad, accepting eyes. I’ve seen him smiled and laughed several times and they were nice-looking smiles and laughs.
And then one quiet night I returned from work and found him sitting alone in the dark in front of his store. His rickety frame was leaning a little to the left, knees close together. He was rubbing the palm of his left hand slowly with the thumb of his right, with elbows resting on his knees. He was staring blankly to the ground in front of him with those sad eyes. He was still as a stone. He no longer looked accepting. He looked lost and desperate.
I wanted to say good night as I was about to pass him, but – noticing what’s going on – I changed my mind. Right then his predicament was made clear to me. He’d lost. It was his life and he’d lost. And he’s bringing his family down with him. And he knew it. And it was all his fault because he doesn’t know who else’s it was, and because blaming others was wrong and useless…
When I got home I entered my room, sat down and stared blankly at my desk for like ten minutes. It’s not like I was thinking of a way to help him. No. I’m a selfish man. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about how to make this situation easier on my conscience because I was already losing more sleep than necessary… The thing about living life is that you turn into a villain every once in a while, every one of us, even when the people around you don’’t realize it. It happens because it’s impossible to live life as just one complete person… You gotta be at least two…
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