worse than an alien abduction

MojoJoJo, we sometimes called him, though he was nothing like the large-headed villain of powerpuff fame.

he was our timid, funny, diligent, patient, and uber kind maintenance guy at the office.

note how I use the past tense.

this afternoon, i passed by the bakeshoppe near the workplace jojo and i used to share. i half-expected to see him there on an errand.

Jolito Evardo -our Jojo - is gone. that is the only way i can speak of him in the present tense. he was murdered, along with at least 56 others.

brutal. yeah, tell me about it.

before jojo came to work with us, he did not know anything about computers. but he was more diligent than most of us. he learned and learned and learned. photo editing, shooting videos, video editing. jojo learned. several months later, he left. to work as a video editor in a national news company.

that was how it happened. that was how he became part of the massacre (how i hate to use this word when i am talking about jojo). they were covering that news story. he was in the leading car of the convoy.

such diligence, such kindness, such potential, such patience. all gone now.

how jojo made all our lives easier back then. how he gave us things to laugh about, things to think about, things to smile about.

once we all arrived at the office finding his blue slippers just outside the door, pointing in. but there was no sign of our quiet guy anywhere - not the receiving area, the offices, the post-prod suites, the wash rooms, the balcony, the SouthSpot area, the roof, the space between the roof and the ceiling (yep, we looked). he wasn't there.

the boss's theory: alien abduction.

we spent the morning laughing, imagining jojo flirting with martian girls. he has never had a girlfriend, you see.

we never know what to expect from beings from other planets. and from beings that are from this one, we want to believe that we do know what to expect. but we don't, do we?

the murder of 57 innocent, unarmed humans. it's all so heartless.

i try not to imagine how it went - those last hours of his life. for when i do, i find myself wishing it was one bullet to the head or heart. jojo deserved better wishes.

i have nothing to say about those who took his life; i do not know them. but i knew jojo; he was a good guy. for a life well-lived, jojo will have his reward. for their crime, the villains will have theirs. of that i am certain.

funny, it still feels like one of those times when an officemate would look to another and ask, "naabot na si jojo?" "kita ka kay jojo?" "asa si jojo?"

a few minutes later we'd find him. maybe bent over the broken swiveling chair in the balcony, or sleeping on one of the suite couches, or arriving from an errand, or coming down the stairs with mop in one hand and bucket in another. but always, we found him.

heh. it's not one of those times, is it?

11/05/2009