It's almost 6 and dad's running late so he shouldn't really humor me, but he stops trying to get his belongings together and gestures to a scar right below his left eyebrow.
"Oh cool. When did you get it??"
"I can remember..." He says slowly and stares off into space in an attempt to remember. "I was seventeen... No, ah!" He starts. "I was fifteen. No!" He says again and I look up from my laptop a little annoyed because I have a feeling he has no idea when this happened. "I was sixteen. I was about to graduate high school."
(At this point I wonder if it's a really good idea to trust the memory of a man who occasionally falls asleep with the stove on)
I know the court he's talking about. It's behind his family's complex that you don't even realize it's there unless you're actually looking for the right path.
"I was at our place and I was playing with my friends. I was accidentally elbowed." He recalls.
"Do you know who did it?"
"I can't remember." He says after a minute of thinking, looking genuinely frustrated that he can't remember a childhood friend. "But I was trying to snatch the ball away and he elbowed me in the face."
He insists that he has to go to work, but I drag him under the ceiling fan anyway to get decent lighting on the scar over his left eye that he's pointed out to me. I have to take a few shots because it's as old and faded as its owner that it practically melts with the rest of his growing wrinkles."I was in Bolong. (It's the name of the barangay) There's a basketball court there."
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