Somehow, when I go out and find doe-eyed guy smoking by himself in the veranda, the perfunctory small
talk seems more necessary than awkward. As an exhausted pair of eyes looks into another, I smile weakly 
and he nods slightly. The retreating sun casts shadows in his face that finally reveal an inner turmoil 
that is not visible in the height of noon and the company of friends.
     “Where are you from?”
     “Sydney. But I’m originally from Spain.”
     “Ah.”
     “You?”
     “Manila.”
     “Who are you with?”
     “Friends.”
     He puffs, inhales, and blows smoke to his right. I put a cigarette in my mouth, he sluggishly fishes 
a red lighter, and flicks it in front of my face. The ritual of smokers is the same anywhere in the world.
     “You here for vacation?”
     “Well, work initially. But you know how things get in the way.”
     “Things.”
     He chuckles. I do the same. The ensuing silence is not the uncomfortable kind, broken only by the 
occasional vehicle – SUV, tricycle, jeepney – that dares invade our view of our raised feet.
     “What was the song you were playing?”
     “Ray Montagne. Hold You in My Arms.”
     “Why is it so familiar?”
     “Some movie about a guy with a lot of issues.”
     “Baggage.”
     “Uh huh. And he expects this girl to take it all away and make it better.”
     “Did she?”
     “She did, but it was still too heavy a task to assign to anyone.”
     “Anyone other than yourself, you mean.”
     “Wen, manang,” he says, and the hilarity of the local dialect directed to a red-haired Caucasian woman 
strikes us, and we can’t stop laughing.