Life is a Beach

This story is from one of  the friends of GoBoracay.com - a website whose offering great Boracay packages.

Just last week ago, I was at a travel agency booking tickets to Boracay. I have always been fond of the beach. If there was any other place I wanted to propose to my girlfriend to, it would be at Boracay. It would be at the place where I first fell in love with nature.

Ideally, I plan to go there by boat, as I have always done, from Manila to Iloilo, then from Iloilo to Aklan. 8 years of this back and forth sea fare, I saw how, in every bus ride from Iloilo, more people would be hankering for a seat. The tug boats from Tagbilaran going to Boracay Island were almost always never on time anymore as hundreds if not thousands of local and international tourists scurry about, trying to catch a ride.

Today, for the first time, I’m taking a plane.

Ideally, I plan to be there as an advanced party. My girlfriend doesn’t even know I’m on this flight. I’d set up everything, from accommodations up to the dinner where I intend to pop the question. But my plans, I think, will not work as well as I had hoped.

I’ve seen Boracay go from pristine to commercial. Ideally, I have always imagined making the perfect proposal to the perfect girl in the perfect ambiance in the single perfect beach that I thought would always stay the same, in the perfectly dim lighting of a flurry of fireflies with the perfect accompaniment of nothing but the crashing waves and swaying palms and coconuts, under a perfect starlit heaven. Nowadays, spotting a firefly in Boracay is a privilege. The silent places are the ones the beach never reaches. The central parts of the island where the locales live. The beach is almost always busy with street parties and is flocked by both wandering tourist and local merchants. Even the sand is confettied with litter. The starry night sky has become an indigo memory.

Ideally, I’d call my girlfriend right now but I hadn’t charged my phone thinking I would not need it during the flight. My plans aren’t working as well as I had hoped. The Pilot on the PA tells everyone “kindly empty your pockets of sharp object.”

I do so and think of how, used to be, I made snow men out of the white sands of Boracay when I was a teen. Above, I hear the same voice in the atmosphere say “please strap your seat belts”

I remember how I plan to kiss my girl when she says yes. I remember memories that have yet to happen.

“kindly brace yourselves for--”

I hear metal hit water and see the walls of the plane collapse on themselves. I remember my favorite beach and feel cold metal hit me hard on the neck.