By Reyshimar Arguelles
When you are stuck in a strange place, you wonder how you got there. Were you conscious? Were you not tied up, gagged, and squeezed into the trunk of a car bound for God-knows-where? Or did you agree to a friend’s crazy advice to “loosen up” and “live a little”?
In between the drunken madness of a festival, you realize if your decision to go is worth anything at all. You capture an ounce of reason that reveals the pointlessness of being where you are: in the middle of a crowd that reeks of cigarette smoke, alcohol, and burnt inasal, the sound of drums and infernal sound systems drowning out your brain’s desperate pleas to escape the ruckus.
But then the numbness returns. All the beer you drank went straight to your brain and purged it of any reason. Now, you are back in the madding crowd. You raise a can of Red Horse and affirm the joys of life by howling into the Kalibo air.
It was more than six years ago when I attended the Ati-atihan Festival for the first time. I was with my high school friends and their girlfriends. We marched along with revelers carrying icons, waving bottles and cans of beer, swinging DSLR cameras that hung on their necks, and showing as much skin as they can like exotic birds on mating season.
Of course, all of these details turn blurry once you have had drunk too much. You reach the state where everything just melts into each other: faces, clothes, even different odors blend into a rancid cocktail euphoric despair. You let loose all inhibitions and you suddenly lose all wisdom. And for what? For a night of debauchery that’s what.
You are arrested by such weird sensations when you are in a festival crowd. I could not remember seeing the faces of my friends that night, the night before the Ati-atihan concluded. When you lose yourself in events like these, time and space are irrelevant, and so are the very people who are making sure you go home in one piece. And there are risks, only that you choose to ignore them because you are going to die anyway.
It is events like these where people could either invite you to an instant fistfight or to a drinking session with couchsurfers from Switzerland or Israel. You get the same outcome either way: You go home and try to forget what you pushed yourself into. Fortunately, we were in Kalibo, where everyone knows everyone, and the troublemakers were travelers who wanted to bring their own festive flavor to the mix.
I wanted to make the most of the experience, but V suggested we rendezvous with his girlfriend and her mother at a fastfood restaurant. It was packed with people who were as drunk as we were, a noisy rabble who laughed and shouted like they owned the place. But everyone did own the place since festivals are meant for everyone to indulge in.
We finished our inasal meal and went back to the place of V’s girlfriend. We felt the night was still young, so V, F and I asked if we could drive around the city on V’s Rusi, promising to be back no later than 12.
We came back at 1, having visited several drinking establishments and passed by locations where EDM events were held. I could remember cursing as we maneuvered corners and stopped at checkpoints. I felt uncomfortable sitting at back and there were times I nearly fell off of the motorcycle, but the cold Aklan air made up for it.
The next day, I experienced one of the worst hangovers I have ever had. V and F were explaining themselves to their girlfriends, and things got better from there.
F, his girlfriend, and I left Kalibo on a bus while V stayed behind. My head was heavy and my eyes were aching, but I still managed to read a few pages of Crime and Punishment as the bus traversed the same roads where I thought I would die from a crash days prior.
I lost myself in this journey, but I resurfaced eventually. I only had memories I keep coming back to while I am stuck here at home, secured from a virus that had emptied the streets of Kalibo and everywhere else.
I have had my fill of life, and now as I ache for normalcy to return, I have nothing more but appreciation for the experience of losing myself, and not in regrettable ways, but in ways that will help me learn to search for life without a bottle of alcohol in hand.
