Been-there-Bean

May 31, 2008

(Conceptualized: April 6, 2008. 1:15am. By Glenn Michael Echavez and Minerva Miciano)

Next life is what we talked about. We imagined what we will become when reincarnated. He said gays waste their chance of being straight guys because they might become “Langaw” in their next lives.

He wants to live a simple life in his next life. Living in Sagada or Baguio. ‘Painting by day, lying sa duyan by afternoon and then drinking sa isang local jazz bar.’ I want to be in London, works as bartender in a classic bar.

I said I’m going to look for him, to remind him how good and special person he was in the past life. But how would I do that if I, myself, don’t remember how my life was. And here’s our solution:

In the market at Manila Below (the other part of Manila we imagined where the entrance is in the underpass along Lerma), we could buy a bean that brings back our memory of our past life.

The bean is called “Been-there-Bean”.

To purchase the bean, one must trade his/her first 10 years of memory of his/her present life.

“Yup. I will trade my memory. Magical experience eh. Pero mahirap din kapag walang childhood memories. Un foundation mo eh. Pero still trade ko pa rin,” he said.

So I thought of a solution for him to get his memory back.

We avail the bean. We die. We reincarnated. The bean will look for us. Eat it. Our past life memories back. Look for Manila Below. Trade something else aside from memory or bean for our first 10 years of memory.

Trade again our first 10 years of memory for the bean and get another bean for our next life.

“Parang immortals na tayo nun kase every lifetime natin kukuha tayo ng bean. May records tayo ng past lives natin.”

Immortals. The only difference is that we die. But after that we live again. We have no choice of who we might become in the next life. Its just we could get our memory back.

“Yep. Kung anong age ka nung pinurchase mo ung bean, same age sa next life mo makikita ang bean.”

We’ll buy Been-there-Bean for Jackpot, his dog – our noble buddy in Manila Below.

“Ganito ha, kapag tao ka, tao ka pa rin sa next life. Hindi ka pwedeng maging hayop. Same rule sa mga animals.”

And then we started giving background story for the Been-there-Bean vendor.

“Ung nagbebenta ng bean ay isang time mage, di siya namamatay, cursed to live forever for tampering and breaking the rules of natural laws. Tapos namatay only child niya nung 10years old ito. So nasasatisfy siya sa first 10years of memory ng mga customer niya.”

The bean is made from the flesh of his child. Its body is preserved. That’s why the bean is limited.

We’ll never know those secrets until we seek to know more about the vendor.

 

-End-

(For now. I hope.)

 

Updated: April 10, 2008, 11:30pm

 

The memory is stored in a tiny bottle. It becomes liquid as the vendor gets it from the trader. As he pours the memory in an old parchment, the memory comes to moving images.

After the images were seen, the memory turns into vapor and puts itself in the tiny bottle where it came from.

The first 10 years memory he got were treated as his prized possessions. (Nanakawin namin…hehe. )

The setting is changed to Divisoria – magical divisoria, underground market, there’s lots of tunnels to go through before getting into the actual market. It’s dark, murmurs here and there, dark stuff being sold.

*flashback scenes with vendor and child (girl, had a mysterious death at the age of ten.)