If I could stay
We fall, we fail, we drift apart, we die. Music reminds us of everything we have and everything we’ve lost.
We open with a scene that could rightfully be described as idyllic. This is Samal Island, a short boat ride away from Davao City. Palm trees swaying in the breeze. Sun and sand. The unceasing sound of the waves meeting the shore. It is the off-season; not many people are about. The camera pans to show a floating gazebo; an attractive wooden construct complete with deck chairs, raised above the water by concrete pillars. It is connected to the shore by a long wooden walkway. From the camera’s perspective — standing on the beach, as it were — the figures of two people, a boy and a girl, can be discerned, standing at the gazebo’s edge, looking out at the waters.
Cut to a medium shot of the two facing each other. They are standing about half an arm’s length away from each other, and are now staring at each other in silence. They are both damp, apparently from swimming; they are still wearing bathing gear. The girl has a black one-piece bathing suit on, and a towel wrapped around her waist. The boy is wearing a pair of bright flowered trunks. They are in their late teens/early twenties. Behind them, across the gulf, we see a glimpse of the city’s buildings.
A close angled two-shot favoring the girl. She raises her hand and touches the boy’s face. Her face is troubled, caught between disbelief and tears. Next shot: the boy takes her hand and lowers it, but does not release it. Medium shot of them staring silently at each other, their hands clasped. Aside from the sound of the wind, the waves, and an occasional bird-cry, it is eerily silent. No human sounds: no voices or motorboats or passing airplanes.
Finally the silence is nudged aside by a question. As she asks it, she knows the answer. This isn’t real, is it?
No, he says, it’s not real. But you remember, right? You remember that week, you remember this island? I could never forget, she says — and immediately the hot sting of intertwined regret and longing threatens to spiral upwards from deep inside her. She has missed him more than even she knew.
Silence again, for a while, as they think about how long it’s been, and how much happened in between.
He shifts the subject: You remember Michael Learns to Rock? And the Macarena? he smiles. She laughs, and her tears are forced to retreat. They kept playing those horrible songs, he recounts, I couldn’t believe it. Speakers attached to the tops of the palm trees! He is shaking his head slightly. And then, by day two, you stormed out of your cottage and tracked down the exact office on this side of the island where the music was coming from. And stopped it. And replaced their horrible playlist with a mix of your own.
She is nodding. You remember the first song I played? she asks. I could never forget, he says — it was U2, it was Stay.
And that was how we met, he says. I went up to you, pointed to one of the speakers, and said, Thank you for that. That was how we met, she agrees.
The camera pulls back. Their voices blend into an indistinct murmur; they are drowned out by the unceasing sound of the waves meeting the shore. We leave them to their conversation, two ghosts taking temporary shelter in a memory.
We fall, we fail, we drift apart, we die. Music reminds us of everything we have and everything we’ve lost.
Somewhere, someone is singing: Stay, and the night will be enough.
