COOLING DOWN WITH A STRANGER

A fluent little boy with his cheeks reddened after running some rounds in the oval caught my attention. I can see the sweat in his forehead while observing the people around him. I have mistaken him as the son of the couple sitting beside him in the stone bench.  Apparently, he is just a cute little neighbor of Ena, the girlfriend of Joni. They were the couple who tagged McNeil along with them for a jog. 

“I don’t like to go in MOA, there’s like an army of people who jog there,’ he complained. This seemingly 7 year-old lad never failed to amuse me throughout the conversation.

It’s funny how the children of today talk to the adults around them. All the more, how children deal with the people around them openly, and more interestingly, to a stranger.

“I don’t have problems with my body, I just like to do this,” McNeil answered directly with no but’s-or-if’s tone in his voice. With a blank face, he answered it in fluent English.

Whenever I asked questions, he’s always the first to answer me. Ena was making faces while the kid was blabbering about his reasons of jogging around the Oval. There were only few instances that the couple was able to butt in their side of the conversation.

“I do this every other day,” Joni said. Academic Oval, however, is not where he always jogs around. It’s in a nearby place called Juan Luna. He shared with me his few notable complaints about the Oval pathway.

“Ako naman, I do this every weekend, if I have time,” Ena said. She prefers to jog around UP to pay a visit at the same time in the College of Mass Communication.

They well-accommodated my random questions about them jogging around the University. After sparing a couple of minutes with me for a short friendly conversation, we bid goodbyes, and they’re off the place.

I just hope that I did not scare them away.