SINNED and SIN

Aubrey Maye Arrieta

I stared upon my window the turquoise abyss of the ocean. There is no way to defy but welcome the cold breeze kissing my bare skin. “Here’s your food, John,” my mom exerted an effort to sound jovial but her voice and emotion say otherwise. She put the tray on my table and stirred the mixture of banana shake she prepared for me. My mouth watered just by imagining its palatability. “Are we not going to have dinner together tonight?,” I asked with my voice cracking. “I’m sorry, I have an important errand to run,” and she traversed her farewell walk out of my room’s threshold. I have been hearing that line for years now and the pain always felt like a struck of a bullet. I understand where she is coming from. She became the different mom I used to have after my father and sister departed life.

Flashback to the times my world started to crumble. I whimpered like a dog for the beloved lives that have been lost during that day—November 1. To say that I am shattered would be an understatement. My spine shivers beholding the blood spreading like a river inside the room. I cannot will back the tears showering from my two orbs as I put my ear to my sister’s mouth. There I confirmed she was not breathing…so was my father lifelessly lying in a fetal position with bullets pierced through in his torso.

“John, here’s your food,” my mom exerted an effort to sound jovial but her voice and emotion said otherwise. “Are we not going to have dinner together tonight?” I asked with my voice cracking. “I’m sorry, I have an important errand to run.” She was about to do the mantra she always exhibits when I hit the table where the foods are situated. I heard a clunking when both the spoon and fork fell down the floor. “Mom, can you please see the other side of the door? It’s not only you who suffers most,” I said hoping I could still tame the fury building deep within but I threw the glass on the wall—the milk spilled untidy alongside with the broken glass.

“John, inhale, exhale…,” she tried to calm my demons down but it wasn’t enough.

“STOP CALLING ME JOHN. THAT IS NOT MY NAME. MY NAME IS PAUL,“ I screamed with a volume like I would want to wake up Poseidon in his sea kingdom throne. But, it was not the person that I anticipated would wake up to. I see an old man wearing his round spectacles and his white coat entering my room alongside the two nurses. After them were two muscled men with guns inserted near their pockets.

“Mom, help me,” I begged for a rescue but my words fell into deaf ears. She stayed in her place doing nothing. “She is not your mom, John,” the doctor said to me while he tried to reach out my right arm. “I SAID MY NAME IS PAUL NOT JOHN,” I shouted. “YOU KILLED MY FATHER, YOU KILLED MY SISTER,” I continued.

“No, your real name is John Kennon not Paul Ster…” the doctor told me and dropped a bomb on the floor. I kneeled down and pick up the photos. “NO…NO…N--O…,” the only litany I could pull. I could not fathom the idea that I was here—in a mental health institution for criminals who shed life in the past life. I want to feel the zenith of pain what would it be like to be shot dead. I want to feel the pain-est of all the pain inflicted to my father and lone sister. I hastily grasp the gun that has been threatened in my direction awhile back. I put the head of the pistol onto my temporal. I recited my last prayer before I end the life I did not dream to have. “Forgive me for I have sinned. Forgive me for I will sin.” But before I could pull the trigger, a needle pierced through my biceps. Everything numbs and my whole being then fell into unconsciousness.

THERE IS NO DJ AND SOMEONE’S ON THE PHONE: The best worst eulogy I have ever heard

Nom De Plume

The night is cold black. Every point of gaze is a blurred nothingness of slum houses, but the church, in front, tried to break the autonomy with its olden bricks, desperately kept alive with its unevenly coated baby blue paint. It was the only place kept lit with unnatural white luminous lights, some flickering as if half-dead, half-alive.

Though such a dreary scene, the place was flocked with a crowd of almost a hundred people. All, intently listening from a poorly modulated speaker, a crying lady on a cellphone. What could have been a worse eulogy than this? Somewhere in a poorish apartment in Manila, someone is delivering her last message, to a barrio in General Santos, to her mother in a coffin through a video message.

Well, it could be looked at from another angle where it’s somehow fairly rich from the eyes of the people. They’re seeing the eulogy through a brandnew smartphone. But I don’t care if that smartphone is new, I’m more concerned about why the lady on the phone is not beside her mother, physically.

Covid, darling. That’s the answer. And the moment she finished her eulogy, it was not even literally finished as the phone ran out of data. It could not get worse, perhaps? So, I just take a cup of instant coffee from the usher’s tray, roaming the church once in a while to give a novelty drink. Ah, I think it’s Kopiko Brown, but I’m having second guesses as I barely can smell the aroma from my pandemic mask.

I don’t know if you’ve got the idea but we are attending a funeral — the last night of the wake. You might think we are all in ties or plaid skirts or slacks and black shoes, but you’d be surprised to find the mass wearing colored clothes ranging from sleepwear to sweaters to ragged mishmash of clothes. It’s casual province men crowd and oops, the phone had its electronic load backed, we find the crying lady weeping again on a glass screen.

The crowd from the back hurriedly stood up again to watch the phone displayed by the pulpit with daisies and candles and a yellowish dirtied linen of what we could describe as a cover. I sat back because I got tired standing up from the back. Anyhow, I can still hear the eulogy. It’s eerily crispy, something that would remind you of a radio with a DJ hosting a caller. But the caller is crying and there is no DJ this time.

So why a hundred people? Can someone be too loved to be visited by that number of people? Yes and no. It’s a casual thing here in the province to have that number of people attend your wake, erhm, I mean, a wake. Just don’t be surprised if their sole reason is to actually visit the dead body in the casket, no no no... They came here for the food after the mass, ranging from biscuits to, as I’ve mentioned earlier, coffee, to rice cakes and orange juices blended from a sachet pack and a drum of heavily watered-down liquid.

‘Mang! Ngano mo ‘ko gibyaan, nag-promisa pa ka sa’kon na hulaton mo pa ko matapos trabaho diri sa Bulacan,’ this is somehow so dystopic but also pitiful. ‘Mang...!’ and the static haptic cry over a bass speaker breaks the autonomy of the sharp chilled night.

This is the worst yet the most melodramatic eulogy I’ve heard in my life. I sip my Kopiko Brown and realized it was Kopiko Blanca all along.

A Few and More

Rolando L. Baisac, Jr.

No matter how far the lonely one traveled, I would always be the person where he belongs Forever, and then some more...

It took a split second to fall, And a few more to notice and admire his eyes; And a lot of trust to create a friendship; For everyone feels on their own pace; Everyone has their own time; Hours to know one another, It was easy to say forever and more, Because most people don’t know what it truly meant, Yet, within the second he fell, he understood it right away, As forever was right by his vision, Offering him his unique and brightest smile, Under the dim light; But then it only took a minute and a heartbreak, For him to shatter what could have been theirs; He was always certain about what he felt, But then, it was not the same for the other; So there he flew to find his calling; A journey that took him seven times around the sun, And a thousand miles across the earth

Only for him to realize that, No matter how far the lonely one traveled, I would always be the person where he belongs Forever, And then some more.

Ang