A/N: It might be my birthday today, but I hope my present will reach you. This one-shot doesn't feature Goyo but another tragic hero that I'd like you to know about. Happy reading! ❤️

# # #

Cavite is not known as the "Historical Capital of the Philippines" for nothing. Many are aware of the 1872 Cavite Mutiny at Fort San Felipe in Cavite City that had led to the Martial Law and to the deaths of the famed GomBurZa. Noveleta was dubbed as the "Town of Heroes" for being the seat of the Magdiwang Council of the Katipunan and be the municipality to produce brave military generals and tacticians. Maragondon's historic town became the hunting grounds to the whereabouts of Andres Bonifacio's corpse. And the misconception that despite being the site of the Declaration of Independence, Kawit may be known for the June 12 Philippine Independence, but Imus is the "Flag Capital of the Philippines" for in its barangay, in Alapan, that the first Philippine flag was flown.

But those are just stories that are highly marked due to parks and historical places being preserved. However, too many songs hadn't been sung at all. Not until now.

I've never been good with directions, to be honest. I usually get lost in places that I don't usually visit. But, no matter how often my father drives down these streets to avoid the usual traffic of the Aguinaldo Highway on our way home to Kawit from Dasmarinas or Alabang or Carmona, he would take the spider-web routes of Imus's town proper. After all, I know that he'll not be taking such roads as well if Waze hadn't suggested that it is the fastest route home. That's why, it is no longer a surprise to me how many times I've heard the names of the streets here.

Due to the lack of government funding for street signs, it is only through Waze that I learned most of the street names at all. Yet, it is always a moment that I've been eager to hear. The fact that only through it that I manage to know a particular name, and also feel a rush of excitement and sadness all the same. One that I don't understand why I am feeling such a moment.

Not until... it happened.

"Ma'am, gas o diesel?" the gasoline boy asks me by the time I lower down the window.

"Gasoline, kuya," I answer after unfastening my seatbelt at the same time. "Full tank. And may titignan lang ako. Okay lang naman maiwan saglit, ano?"

He looks curious at first before chuckling lightly. "Okay lang, ma'am. Akong bahala."

I smile at the gasoline boy as I unfasten my seatbelt, take my bag with me and head out as he proceeds in refueling my car. Walking around this place seems both strange and familiar to me. I can see hint of history and the advancement of time. And it is a little frightening to think that in the coming years, all of this will surely be much more different. However, standing on this very place right now had brought me to a distant place.

A so-called memory that is both not my own to call 'mine'. A recollection of a life I once live. One that people describe to be a 'past life'.

# # #

I grew up seeing snippets of that respective life. Until when I was in College, and finally saw one of the remaining street markings of the place and heard it through the Waze app the street's name when my father tried to avoid the traffic. Since that event, those fragments of memories became clearer. Until I've been sure that they were mine. Though in a different time, with a different name, and a different history. However, what reconnected me to it had been the point that I came from the very same family line as that of me from the past. To coincide with things as well, I've been named the same; no matter how I've dreaded the name for being so old-fashioned compared to those of people my age. By then, I learned to embrace and accept it.

From here, I could remember the dirtroad and the elegant house that had been situated in this very gasoline station. Across had been not just one ancestral house but a great lane of grand mansions of that long ago time. Horse-drawn calesas denoted the coming of the rich, the horses mounted by soldiers of the revolution, and the rest of the people passing through an otherwise busy street, usually packed in the morning by all of them, especially when the fighting had been way too close from here. I could also remember the memories of an old clandestine love that had been a bittersweet one, tugging the strings of my soft heart.

I could remember it starting on this very place. A romance that begun with crossing one another's paths. One that I deemed to be fate and a love at first sight. One that had been kept a secret from everyone else just because the families hadn't allowed it, and my great lover had been questioned to be a woman for being so posh and sophisticated. And the determination to prove his extreme love and faithfulness had led this place to be a witness to those stolen moments of being together, those stolen letters exchanged, those stolen smiles and love affair. And just as it had been where the romance blossomed to begin, it had also been where it was bound to end.

The revolution had been on its height in Cavite. Just a few kilometers away from this former house that had served as a medical camp for the wounded soldiers, in one of its beds I've been called from our house after being finally allowed to meet with my valiant soldier.

The medical care in that time was far more primitive than now, but it was a knowledge I waas unaware of back then as a rich businessman's daughter, engaged to be married to someone he had decided for as my husband and his son-in-law; all because he couldn't accept that my heart had been for a man who've been eager to fight and die for our beloved country. There were too many other soldiers in the house of one of the benefactors of the revolution, a renowned doctor of before that had taken me in a secret apprenticeship back then. At that time that I was called, I was prepared to see the soldiers on cots, makeshift bandages binding limbs that have lost a foot or a hand, and metal bowls holding medical instruments and blood. Amidst all the screaming, moaning, and praying that I've heard, my lover was silent.

I was immediately on his side, looking down at him in horror. He was swaddled in bandages for all other wounds, having the worst of all, his midsection. When I knelt beside his cot and took his hand, he stirred. His head lolled to one side, opened his eyes and when he recognized me, tried to smile. He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes once again.

I wasn't able to tell if he'd been awake after that, but in case he was, I kept telling him how much I love him, my ever light, and I kept holding his hand in vigil. Even though I knew, in viewing my past life's memory, I was watching him die.

At nightfall, he stirred once more. His eyes fluttered open, and my smile for him was wrecked with my tears. I whispered, "Mi amor."

"Mi vida," he said, and then he died.

# # #

That old house was already gone, replaced by this very gasoline station. And a part of me was moved by the fact that it was now gone. That the only reminder of its old existence was the memory of him, written in a short historical marker at the fork of the road between a street named after him and General E. Topacio Street.

I place my hand onto the historical marker, feeling the embossed letters under my palm. I can't help smiling at myself as I close my eyes, strangely remembering everything about him at this moment. Remembering too well the elegant features of his face, the tenor's tremble of his voice, and the kindness and love of everything of him. I whisper, "Mi amor."

"Mi vida."

It is strange to equally hear the response of words that I've been longing to hear. It is truly because I've missed him. A cruel fate this could be to be alive with knowledge of a previous life and not be able to meet that one great love you have before.

But, perhaps, it is just me trying to avoid the possibility. That it could just be a hallucination when it had been very present.

When I open my eyes and pull my hand away from the marker, about to return to take my car certainly finished from being refueled, it catch me off guard to find out that I am not the only one standing way too close to that respective marker. And before I can find myself in an accident of getting hit by an approaching car, the same man had pulled me out of danger.

Perhaps it is fate. Perhaps the world always leads two destined people together after a lifetime of tragedy. A cruel compensation, but all the same, a lifetime willing to be undertaken still. For that love that had returned at the most unexpected time and the most unexpected place for the most expected person.

It starts just the same as before. A shy greeting and introduction with both a glimmer of hope and recognition upon hearing the same names be spoken; however, in just a different time and generation. And it is bound to be completely different from that long ago, now that life had offered another chance for us to be together.

Mi amor, my great general, my midnight oil.

# # #

At a Caltex gasoline station at a corner lot in Imus, the historical marker of a young general could be found. Born in Tondo, fought in the revolution, and died in Cavite with his lover by his side. He was Flaviano Yengko.

———————————————

A/N: I hope you'll also check out my newest story, AETERNO, a one-shot. And also, join our book promotion group at PaperPlanes_LC !!! Please support us! Please? 🥺