Friends’ fry. 2005 August 21, I’m on a bus going to Santa Cruz , Laguna and coming from Cubao, Quezon City. Behind the row of seat across the aisle to my left sit two girls, good-looking. I saw the face of one and instantly I knew this applies: ‘Tell me your friend’s face and I’ll tell you who you are.’ Still, that’s not my story.

I happened to glance in that direction, very briefly, and I saw the girl on the right, nearer to me, bring a French fry to the lips of the girl next to the window and whose face I saw, the one in a hugging red T-shirt, and I saw her more-than-a-Mona-Lisa smile: She was at peace and enjoying the whole thing. I wondered why. Was she disabled? Was she a little sick perhaps?

I had to look again and find out. Surreptitiously, I glanced in that direction again and I saw why, or how. The girl in red was holding on her left hand a plastic cup of drink (probably tea) with the straw sticking out of the middle of the cup’s cover, and on her right hand a tiny plastic cup of white dip on the left hip of the other girl, both in blue jeans of course. You get the picture? One girl dips the fry on the cup and the fry goes to the open lips of the next girl. What do I call that? Friends’ fry.