THE TAROT CARD READER

There was a journeyman who travelled the world in search of life, a poet who fancied Nora Aunor and ate banana cue for lunch in his younger hungry days, an eccentric guy wearing a combination of old-style barong and jeans who invited me to a Century Tuna dinner in his blacked-out apartment once upon a time, someone who has learned to divine our lesser and greater secrets by simply shuffling Tarot Cards in Kilometer 0, who honored us with a dinner in fancy Provenciano along pricey Maginhawa Street.   

I would have wanted to ask him to read the cards and discern what we were thinking during our last bike rides of the holiday season.

Or perhaps where can I find the best dinakdakan at the SIDCOR Sunday Market, or a Lao beer mug that may be for sale in one of the stalls, or if Bulan will be able to complete his Psychology-Sociology course in the 4 years that we have agreed for him to do?

And whatever happened to Bulan's novel?

What was the fate of Paula and Claudia after the war?

Was Don Perico a Mason who later collaborated with the Japanese like his brothers Jose Laurel and Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo?

What would have happened if the spinster sisters sold the portrait to the American buyer?

But we talked only about old times, of LAHAR and the people who changed our lives, of growing old and the upcoming essay workshops.

Then it was time for the Tarot Reader to go.

So I consulted a Tarot to find the shortest way possible to his hotel.

It's called Waze.