After hearing that line, Richard's attraction to morbidity awakened. He asked Raissa about that line and she told him that it was part of a song composed and sung by Vienna Teng. Later, when they arrived in the condominium, she pulled out the CD and played it for Richard to hear.
Instantly, Richard's eccentric musical taste became addicted to Vienna Teng's Music. Out of sheer curiosity and admiration, he researched about her and he found out that she was a so like him in many ways.
They were both Asian. They were both in lucrative careers in their respective countries but most importantly, they both let go of those things to so that they could follow their hearts and answered the call of their passion.
Being Asian is actually just a minor similarity. Richard was just thinking of something to add to his list of similarities with Vienna. Seriously, though it is just a minor one, Richard felt an affinity with Vienna. You may not know it and he may not look it but when he was in college, Richard was always asked if he was Chinese.
"My grandmother on my mother's side of the family is from the Nim family so I guess so. I couldn't really prove it but I want to believe it's the truth," he said to one guy from the business organization booth beside his org's booth during the recruitment period in their university.
Vienna, on the other hand, is pure Chinese, or so Richard thought. He was so obsessed with her that he researched her on the net. According to her website, ViennaTeng.com, Wikipedia got most of her information right so he believed what he read there. After reading that, he learned that she is Taiwanese! There, he learned that she was as Cynthia Yih Shih and her birthday is celebrated every October 3. When he read that on October 14th, he felt somewhat sad because he wanted to celebrate the day and thank God for creating such a talented lady.
As he read on, he found out that Vienna started out as a software engineer in the Silicon Valley and she graduated from Stanford. Richard thought, "Hmmm.... it seems that she's also like me in that aspect. I'm also in a good paying job." He was working as a customer service representative for a call center then.
"So how did she become a singer-song writer?" he asked the monitor facing him. He tried looking for the answer and according to the official biography he found on Wikipedia, while she was at Stanford, she joined the Stanford Harmonics, an a capella singing group. She studied and wrote her music as well. Reading on, he found out that she recorded her songs and distributed her music around campus. It seemed to him that she was so great that it was just a matter of time before Virt Records signed her on as a recording artist.
Likewise, he was also like that. He studied psychology in De La Salle University. On his first year there, he mustered enough courage to undergo the Malate Literary Folio's application procedure to become a poetry staff. He got in as a probationary staff but to become a full-pledged staff, he needed to get published in the folio. Deadline after deadline, he submitted his works but he never got anything published until he joined the university's 10th Literary Awards. He won first place under the Filipino poetry category. More than the prize money, he found that seeing his name on the staff box of the Lit Awards edition of the folio more fulfilling. However, after graduation, he set aside his writing for a call center position. "Money for food before starving," was his motto then.
For Vienna, the rest was history after she quit her software engineering job. As for Richard, he has just recently abandoned his call center career to become a writing tutor. He figured that he could hit two birds with one stone with this job: he can live la vie bohemme and earn at the same time. He thinks that history will come for him soon.
For now, he is just dreaming through the noise with Vienna. Her tracks makes him happy everyday. He is inspired by Vienna to continue writing. Realizing that he had similarities with her makes him feel that his time will come.
A dash of flash poetry:
