UPWC Applicants' Zine 2013a by G Refareal

CONVERGENCE ZONES UP WC Applicants 2013a

preface Let’s start off honest: this zine would never have been made if it weren’t for the intensity of our collective desire to pass the UPWC application process. But besides that, it’s also a zine about negotiations— negotiations of space, of identity, of time and feeling. These are pieces about flows and interactions, about the movements of our characters, and our progression as writers. We are each of us only beginning, and these pieces are our convergence zones: the meeting points of the artist and the art, of us with each other, and the creation of something much larger than the sum of its parts. We really hope you like it. —UP WC Applicants 2013, 1st semester

contents Propofol ◆ G Refareal

120 Yards Away ◆ Abby Caranto

My First Time ◆ Hannah Magtoto

Multi-Verse ◆ Katreena Ramos

Too Late ◆ Erin de Guzman

This is Where You are Buried ◆ Bernice Castro

At sa Ating Pamamaalam ◆ Jake Habitan

Against ◆ Augusto Ledesma

Relative Deprivation ◆ Brian

Choices ◆ Rizza

Bluffing ◆ Cielo Gozar

Sarah, and All We Ask For ◆ FNM San Pedro

The Same Song ◆ Lui Narciso

The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines ◆ B. K. Capinpin

“A space is a system...” ◆ Marianne Cadiz

from A Dead Affliction ◆ Rayji de Guia

propofol g refareal q

hat the fuck is that pain in my hand?

I found myself looking up slowly as my eyes adjusted and saw the metal railing above me where a bag of blood connected to the IV drip that pierced my skin and another needle for the hydrating solution hung. I tried to get up but failed and examined what was left of last night’s deliria with blurred eyes. Asan na yung salamin ko, puta? There is me, lying down on this almost bed with nothing but my flimsy nightdress and a very worn white blanket that I pushed off to one side. There is she, on the chair at the foot of my very uncomfortable pseudo-bed, cradling her little face as she slept so deceivingly peaceful—I knew the familiar storms that brewed behind those eyes and the way her eyebrows seemed to crumple into her forehead veiled with bangs, gave most of it away. There is the nurse who fell asleep at the examining table used for infants—yes I am 17 years old and I still qualify for the Pediatrics. There is a mother and her infant at the nebulizer station couch keeping to themselves. Am I in the right place? Apart from the steady thrum of the air conditioner— the sound way above my sound threshold, making it hard not to notice it’s erratic rhythm, like my breathing—the smell of alcohol and sterility—the familiar scent of sickness underlying in it—the whole emergency room was almost devoid of activity. Ano nanamang ginawa mo sa sarili mo at dito ka nanaman napadpad? I closed my eyes and I tried to recall what happened last night. Had I been drunk? No. Had I been skipping meds? Oo pero 1

hindi dahil do’n? I’m sure I was in bed at around 9:00 pm last night, completely sober and satisfied with my homework. The last thing I remember inside the house was all the blood—coming from my mouth and my nose and wherever else spilling onto my pillow, the stairs as I fell, and the bathroom floor —and feeling like all my insides want out and all my outsides want in. The next I remember was mom saying, “Ospital po, pakibilisan,” to the tricycle driver and it had been a bumpy ride—trust my city to have really bumpy and accident prone roads on the way to the city hospital—and I had vomited what remained of my insides out on the pavement: yes it had all been blood. But fortunately there were no guts or vital organs I still might need for later. I think I also remember being put on a wheelchair once I stopped vomiting, seeing disbelieving faces asking, “Ano ‘to? Aswang ba ‘to?”—but maybe that’s just my wild imagination and the fact that I had blood dripping from my face, looking pale as a ghost, and wearing a blood smeared but otherwise white nightgown to my knees, they probably asked “Ano pong nangyari sa kanya?” instead—, and smelling the stench of the city even as they rolled me inside. I remember my mom being interrogated while I was probably making dreadful sounds—groans and moans that can only be produced by pain so visceral and tangible you do not question its intensity—and doubling over in my chair a couple of times. The nurses were taking my temperature—damn that cold metal touching my otherwise hot armpits and making me jump—taking my height and weight—even when I can’t barely move—and all kinds of measurements I don’t know how they got me to stand. All the while, my mom was fussing over my hair and righting me if I fell, hugging me when I was cold, hugging me tighter if I started to shake from the tremors inside my body. Looking at me like she was going to lose me, my mom seemed even older than she was. From the ER, we were rushed to the room across because the pretty nurse said, “Ma’am lipat po 2

muna kayo, kasi baka may mas magandang maipayo si doktora sa kabila.” We waited for a few minutes as I kept my solo going—argh, augh, blech, oh my fucking gosh, make it stop!—a few missteps there, my face almost reaching the floor and we got inside the room. I distinctly remember my mother, doting over me with a loving yet pitiful and miserable expression in her face; she was brushing my hair and telling me: “Magiging okay rin lahat ‘to.” “Meron po siya, ngayong araw lang, okay naman po siya kanina,” this was probably my mom telling the doctor—she was probably an ob gynecologist and I hated the looks she was giving me. “May boyfriend ka ba hija?” I wanted to fucking scream, “Puta’ng ina mo doc. Mukha ba ‘kong may boypren? Mukha ba kong manganganak?” But I only probably made my sounds— augh, ugh, please, no, argh, bleargh, fucking shit!—with matching gestures of pain such as doubling over, clutching my hurting chest, or going completely limp as everyone panicked and screamed, “Anyare? Namatay na ba?” I probably mistook it for some other phrase. “Kailangan na niyang ipa-dextrose, ang putla na niya oh,” the ob said. Miraculously, I found myself saying—or screaming to her face—, “No! No fucking needles please! I’m normally pale—augh, fucking shit, make it stop!” At that point, I was dragged inside the cold ER again and was made to lie on the same bed I lie on now. The nurse was still pretty, but her nameplate says she’s a UST intern so I said, “I fucking want another nurse please—augh, ugh, ahhhh!” But I had probably been even more delirious and even less coherent, I believe I only said that in my mind. Tang’na nagdedeliryo na nga ‘ko English pa rin ‘yung mga iniisip ko. I don’t know which came first: my vision blacking out and going limp all over due to vertigo or the needle coming toward my skin. Nevertheless, I felt the pain as the needle perforated the barrier and punctured my 3

vein—metal inside warm flesh, injecting what might be the only salvation I am going to get—leaving in its wake a trail of clear hydrating fluid that might restore me to my normal levelly coherent self. I remember someone actually asking how much blood I had lost and again I wanted to scream, “Puta kayo ngayon niyo lang naisip ‘yun?” Miss UST was saying, “Ano’ng gagawin natin?” which made me want to punch her in the face some more but all I said was, “fucking shit—aaauggghh!” The other nurse ran toward my screams with yet another needle in her hand and said, “’Eto na yung gamot, ii-inject ko lang sa swero.” There was this space before the IV met my skin specifically for injecting medication and I saw the colored serum mingle with the hydrate and be sucked into my veins. As I felt the instant relief spread through my torso, the nurse procured another needle and said, “Eto lang po meron kami misis. Naubusan ng usual general anaesthesia.” I had gone limp again. My mom held my hand and said, “Gel! Gel anak! Ano na’ng nangyari sa’yo! Sumagot ka!” I tried to wave my IV hand in front of her face but produced only a twitching in my fingers. Nay, shut up, nakakahiya ka. She calmed down but I think I went even more limp and white all over when Miss UST came into the room with the bag of blood and announced, “Type O siya diba?” If there was any fluid left in me, I swear I would have peed on the bed out of fright—three fucking needles in one night. There on the hard hospital stretcher fixed in the middle of the room to form a bed, I, drugged and delirious, slept thinking, I’ll die in the morning, it’ll be okay. e 4 am na pala. An’yare? I picked up my glasses beside me and cleaned away the specks of dried blood with my sleeve. I put them on but every4

thing was still hazy and unclear—like watching a vignette movie screen with the edges smudged more than necessary. The little girl stirred in her sleep as I continued thinking about what happened last night. She wore pigtails today. I could just picture her now, in this pink dress—her pre-school uniform. Her face would be a picture of youth and innocence; her eyes glistening in the mid morning light, with no care in the world. In her right hand, she would be holding her lunchbox, and in her left she would grasp her mother’s. She would be smiling at everything. She would be smiling and skipping so much; greeting the flowers, the cars that passed by, even the people that chanced to look at her would be showered with the glow that emanated from her smile. She would be lithe on her feet, her little bag swinging back and forth. The pair would walk home as she sings all the songs she would be learning at school, happily chanting her alphabet, and counting the objects they passed by. I could write a novel about her with just that little face. She turned towards me and somehow she was all that I could see; her long eyelashes, a round face, a rose starting to bloom for a mouth. She could pass as my sister with those looks. As I looked on, her eyes started to open and I was staring straight into her eyes. I think the blood came back up my mouth when I saw her eyes. The same large irises switching color, staring intently, innocently, confidently into mine—were they black or brown?—you never see one color for long as the light changes. The same long lashes that would make whirlwinds if batted inappropriately shook the last traces of sleep from her eyes. “Oh ate, you’re awake!” she said. Who does this little kid think she is for haunting me like this? “Si nanay nasa labas po, sleeping,” she said. I couldn’t talk. A decades’ worth of memories threatened to 5

spill over—the way I know there used to be tears brimming over those brown-black eyes. “You really have long hair now ate, pa’no mo sinusuklay? Sinusuklay ba ni nanay?” she asked. She had shorter hair than I did and it framed her round cherub face nicely. Nakapangalumbaba siyang nakatingin sa’kin, her face nested in her hands. Her feet were probably dangling and swinging from the chair, too small for her feet to touch the ground. “I…” I began but could not find the words. How was I to tell her that mom had just brushed my hair last night, but I needn’t have for she said: “Kagabi sinusuklay ni nanay yung hair mo nung tulog ka sa chair sa labas.” The storm had come out in her eyebrows again, the plain emotions show on her face, unguarded and blunt. I wanted to make her smile again—this little creature so preserved in her innocence, so devoid of the problems that she is yet to face. To her, a hug would have meant all the world, and its absence would mean neglect. To her, a few story books would be better playmates than all the people in her apartment. To her, there were never any big problems. “Kamusta ka na? Nag-aaral ka na diba?” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Okay lang ate, kaya lang nahihirapan ako sa math,” she said as she fidgeted with her pony tails and turned her black eyes away. This was not the effect I wanted. “E diba magaling ka naman sa English?” I tried again, and this time she smiled. 6

“Opo, ako nga highest sa quiz kahapon eh,” she said. “Talaga ano bang ginawa niyo?” I asked. “Nagbasa kami out loud, one by one. Tapos nabasa ko siya ng maganda, with feelings pa!” Her eyes were brown right now as she looked up into my eyes, sparkling with pride. “Ikwento mo nga s’akin,” I said, pushing myself up with my elbows. Both my hands were still strapped with IV tubes. Tang’na ang sakit. “Baka po magising sila eh,” she said eyeing at the sleeping pair on the couch and Miss UST on the table a bed away from us. She was shy? What miracle is this? This little girl who could look at you like a hawk can be actually be shy? “Oh sige, kwentuhan mo na lang ako ng iba, kamusta sa school? Best friends kayo nila Nicole diba?” “Opo, pero hindi ko siya ka-classmate eh. Nasa Hope siya, ako nasa Thrift. ‘Yun yung section namin.” “Ahh, eh sino mga friends mo sa klase?” “Sila Kyle, kaya lang pag nakabraid ako ginagawa nilang paintbrush yung buhok ko. Kaya pinagalitan ako ni nanay,” she was actually laughing. I remember that day all too well. I laughed with her. I had come home with bruises because I jumped off a moving tricycle that was exiting the church parking lot in San Felipe Neri, the ends of my hair were red, my dress was dirty, and I had to redo my tie because it kept getting pulled by my classmates and therefore getting more paint on them. 7

I think I was the one who gave the belt to my mom and told her, “Nay, bad girl ako today.” I didn’t tell mom about the jumping off of tricycles part because that would have gotten me into a whole load of shit. I received a scolding but miraculously, mom only took the belt away and started undoing my braids and washing my hair. It was the last time I ever recalled mom brushing my hair when I was a kid. Was that only recently for her? Did she know what was to come? Does she realize the girl lying on this deathbed talking to her, is trying so hard to stay alive for her memory? Was I a part of her nightmares, or was she a part of mine this time? She was maybe the one on the bed at home dreaming and not me dreaming her up in this pseudo-bed. The all too familiar nightmares ensuing and going like this: She was all grown up. Mom and Dad sat by the window, staring out into space like there’s something interesting to look at. Their hands were wrinkly and worn—so was everything about them, even the expressions on their faces. She knew what was going to happen sooner or later. Even the medicine she was coaxing them to drink would be no help. They were going to die soon. Then she’d scream awake from this dream. She would hate that. Every night she would dream about it, and every night she would cry and wake up—or not sleep at all, fearing the dread that would mangle her heart because she knew that it was going to happen someday. I stopped thinking it altogether. Her eyes became black and stormy again. Was she following the same train of thought I have been having all this time? Were we thinking of the same thing— who was real and who was the dream character? Were we both in this one final nightmare that would subsume all nightmares? “Ano bang gusto mong gawin after you graduate?” I asked, attempting to change the subject. 8

“Gusto ko maging painter ate! Ikaw ate, gusto mo din ba ‘yun?” “Hindi eh, dati siguro pero hindi na ngayon.” “Bakit? Eh Masaya kaya mag-paint.” “Nagpa-paint pa din naman ako, pero hindi na gamit yung brush.” “Ha? E ano gamit mo?” “E di bolpen,” I laughed at her confused face. “Linoloko mo naman ako ate eh,” she laughed with me. But we weren’t really laughing. There were storms in our eyes that we cannot begin to comprehend why it was there in the first place—were they only hazes of drugs and medicine and leftover tears? Or were they the clashing of thoughts, the turning of the gears in our heads? Or were they the silences we keep when everything threatened to explode and scream ourselves into inexistence? Or were they just plain storms, there in our eyes, giving way to rain and more rain. We looked into each others’ eyes and through each others’ pretensions, each others’ problems, each others’ vanities, each others’ everything. We looked and we saw and we knew and at the same time we didn’t because we weren’t looking, seeing, knowing the same way anymore. And all at once I was the little kid at the food of the bed trying to find answers, angered by jealousy and hatred for people whom my mother loves—people who are more important to her than she was. And all at once she was the Ate lying on her deathbed, attempting to have some kind of transcendence before she dies, some kind of retrospection into her life, some kind of understanding and meaning into everything that she has done. And I saw through her my mother, our 9

mother she saw through me. All our similarities, our disparities, our everything that never meant to clash but still clashed and clanged and banged and exploded into tiny million pieces of I’m sorry, I hate you, I love you, I loved you. I saw and I felt and I sensed and everything went blank into a whirling abyss of blood and alcohol and valium and propofol before the time that there was only story books and ripped pages and belts and hangers and sticks and stones that break my bones. All at once we were the same person but we weren’t. All at once we see past time and space. All at once there was a point. All at once there wasn’t. There is just me, staring into space and realizing, I’m still alive. But as the blood steadily drip-dripped from the bag to the ducts of the tube, I looked into my reflection on the door facing my bed and I saw my own eyes and my own tears and I distinctly remember my mother, doting over me with a loving yet pitiful and miserable expression in her face; she was brushing my hair and telling me: “Magiging okay rin lahat ‘to.”

120 yards beyond abby caranto q

he game between the NY giants and Denver Broncos is the last big thing that happens before the truck side-swipes my car. My brother, Dexter, is on the wheel, because I am too high from watching NFL live for the first time in years and decided I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on driving the way home. The next thing I know, I am surrounded by a blur of red and blue lights. People are calling and crying and the place is swarming with paramedics. Three of them are pushing a body into the back of an ambulance. My head pounds, like I am going to black out anytime. I croak help and car crash over and over to the rushing medics but meet no response. In my impatience, I scramble over to the ambulance to tap a medic, but I stop at the sight of the body he is helping into the van. It is mine. It doesn’t look like me at all. My face looks like the board somebody’s glass darts targeted. My shirt, initially grey, is now dark and soaked with my blood. A long gash runs up my left arm, and there is something unfathomably wrong with my hipbone and left leg. A medic stuffs my throat with a tube, and then starts attaching me to machines. I shift a little in an attempt to comprehend the sight before me, but then I see another ambulance next to mine. Another ambulance, another group of medics, another body. I rush to that side to find Dexter, whose face is bathed in blood and showered with shards of glass, like mine. A part of his arm’s skin is peeled off, so there is a glistening red sliver of his muscle 11

peeking through. One of the medics points to his knee, which is bent so awkwardly under his other leg that he looks like a doll whose knee some kid snapped off. It doesn’t sink in. It’s like one of those long summer days when you stare so hard into the air all the structured lines of things distort into these waves in the heat, so you can’t tell if you’re still seeing real. My ambulance goes off first, so I climb in into Dexter’s, which follows mine within a close couple of seconds. Dexter is driven right to the trauma center after our arrival at the hospital. He is taken to a room for CT scan first, and then rushed to operation. A group of surgeons start the operation and call to each other. “Ribs are severely impacted. Where was this boy sitting?” One of them asks. His glasses fall down his nose, so he looks up the ceiling to slide them back down with sweat and gravity. “The other boy is doing better. Seems this one was hit first.” “We’ve got a ruptured liver.” Another one who is examining Dexter’s CT scan result says. This one looks young—thirty, give or take a few years. The surgeons fall silent, prodding Dexter with silver instruments and dabbing him with liquids. “Goddamn, we’ve got ruptured organs all over.” The young one mutters, setting the scan result on a table before calling on a speaker piece attached to a wall. “Three units of B negative, now.” I hurry over to Dexter’s scan result, along with the surgeon wearing glasses, and try to read the result, except they come off as blurbs of black and white in front of my eyes. I massage my temples with a hand. The surgeon who went with me goes back to Dexter and I pick his interpretation up. “He’s right. Torn liver, misplaced heart, collapsed lung.” He mutters. Dexter is bleeding profusely. The doctors are pathetically calm, but there is a fine line between calm and numb and I am the lat12

ter. There are two things downright wrong with this nightmare: the first is that it’s too fucking long, and the second is that I’m not waking up. In the first place I shouldn’t have fallen asleep on the ride home and left Dexter on the wheel, the only one left awake in the car. I pinch the inside of my elbow. I’ve never tried it before, but they do this kind of thing in the movies. My skin is unblemished, a stark contrast to what it looked like when I saw it earlier. When I don’t feel my nails digging into my skin, I try punching my forearm. But nothing happens, so I slump down the floor and give it a big punch. I don’t feel anything either, so I ram my fist into it again. Nothing happens. I’m not waking up. I’m not even feeling anything. I decide to relocate. People underestimate the power of relocation, and here I am betting my pulse rate that nightmares do too. I get up and jog to the doors, push them open, but my hands go right through them. I pull myself through; it feels heavy, like pushing against strong ocean waves. Maybe that should’ve made this feel more dream-like than before, but it doesn’t. Because in dreams I just either feel good or bad and float through for the rest of the time. Right now I don’t. Right now I feel numb and horrible and incoherent. Waking hours get it accurate for you. Somebody is rolled out on a wheeled cart by a couple of nurses. They are having a humble conversation, wrapped in murmurs and sorry feelings about young people getting into car accidents. It hits me that it’s me they are driving down the hallway, and us they are feeling sorry for. This is when it kicks in. I prop myself against a wall, clutching my head with both hands. No no no no no. We’re not dying. I’m not and there is no fucking way Dexter is either. I dash back to his room and see the surgeons crowding over his body. If we got 13

into a car accident, and I’m some sort of spirit, maybe Dexter is around, too. “Where are you?” I demand him. “You’re not dead. You’re not dying. Where are you hanging around in here?” It’s the absence of the answer for a minute or two that catapults me out of the room to find Dexter. I’m not sure how it works, if his spirit popped out of his body as soon as mine did, or if he’s going to appear later. But I round the floor, and then the hospital, hauling myself through the doors—I found my own ashen-white body in the ICU—and calling Dexter out. But he’s not anywhere, and when I go back to the surgery room, he’s been moved out. I freeze up in panic. There is too much of this and it’s doing my head in. It’s like the summer when Dexter drowned in the pool and we nearly lost him to it. I realize I am muttering no no no no no like a cold last song syndrome as I hurry to the ICU, my feet flying across the pavement floor like how they do chasing after a ball across the field. Maybe he was transferred there like I was. The room is bustling with nurses when I get there, and right now most seem to be attending to me. There are six beds inside, with only three occupied, none of which contains Dexter. I swear aloud. My head throbs heavily. I go back outside, and stumble upon two women mentioning my parents’ names. “...coming over right away.” Says this plump, pleasant-looking woman. The other woman, clearly a doctor based on the lab coat and confirmed by the small, silver plate pinned to her chest (“dr. alex dufrene”), nods in approvement. “You can tell them Dexter is in room 202, just that he can’t accept visitors yet. But he’s being closely monitored.” “And the other boy?” “Aiden is comatose. That’s him, in a nutshell. He’s also experi14

encing some internal bleeding like Dexter, but the contusions in his brain are the worst part.” The plump woman looks at her gravely. “Do you think they will make it, Alex?” Dr. Dufrene shakes her head. “I don’t know. We’re going to do everything for Dexter. But for Aiden...it’s up to him.” e We got into a car accident, and I’m the only one who has popped out as a spirit because I’m the one comatose. That much I’ve laid down the ground for the past hour. I’m back in the ICU. In the rush that I was in earlier, it’s only now that I really got to see my body. I look like a discarded puppet. There is a mess of tubes attached to my skin; my dark hair still has specks of dried-up blood, and my face bears bruises in varying shades of plum. The gash on my left arm is now a vinelike length of patchwork. I can’t stare at it any longer than five minutes. Danie, the plump woman Dr. Dufrene is talking to earlier, introduces herself to me as my social worker. Danie is nice. I mean, obviously she’s supposed to be, but I don’t get how people like her can come over to the hospital in the ungodly hour of two in the morning to attend to some stranger who got into an accident and tell him, “Hold on, sweetheart.” Granted, we don’t know each other, but how do you digest shock? Because I don’t think I’m doing it right. Not like I can claim anything else is right. It drives me insane when I remember I was just looking up a walkthrough for Metal Gear yesterday and I’m comatose today. That now Dexter is in a separate ICU room because he is a more serious intensive-care case. I clench my fist, jog one leg up and down. I still can’t be 15

solid about this. I mean, how can I? How the hell do these things happen? It’s not like there’s a walkthrough for this. It’s not even like I can logically explain why we’re suddenly here. Because isn’t that the big question? Why us? Just how fat is the chance that a truck will hit him and me? I may not be much, but Dexter is about to graduate from high school in a couple of weeks. I storm out of the room to visit Dexter. He is on the same floor as I am, except there is a zigzag of corridors you have to pass through before you get there. I’d gone there a couple of times after they removed him from surgery but every time my stomach still turns. Not even because there are all these tubes and machines that are feasting on him, but because I don’t know how much they can do. That’s why I rant to him. It doesn’t matter what I talk about. I just do. I guess you could say that’s a defense mechanism of sorts, but it’s about the only way I can help him out. e My parents arrive half past three, and I know because I’d just stumbled back into my room when a nurse notifies Danie. Danie looks at my body, taps my arm. “Those will be your parents, Aiden. Will you wait for us?” It’s not that I forgot them. But I can’t sit still through one thought of them. I can’t imagine who among us is handling this better. That just freaks me out. Danie disappears into the lobby. I watch after her, then draw the scene in my head: they sit down. Danie gives them the basics: that the truck swerved to the left and swiped my car. That that caused nearly all the organs there are in Dexter’s body to jump off of their frames, and my mind to pull me into a deep state of unconsciousness. Except I’m not unconscious. Not really. I file into the lobby. It’s empty, except for two fluorescent lights 16

in the ceiling and the hushed group that is my parents and Danie. It’s kind of incredible how usual and strange seeing them is like. My mom’s face is blotchy, and she has her arms crossed. There are white lines on her arm, evidence of skin-scratching, which she does under extreme anxiety. My dad has a different air to him, looking more like he is mentally wandering than involved. He is wearing a coat over a faded yellow button-down shirt with a swan and fan pattern given to him by his mother ages ago, the very same shirt he’d sworn he will never get out of the house wearing. “Have you told anyone else about the accident?” Danie asks the both of them. Mom nods gravely. “Their elder sister. My parents. Patrick’s mom,” she said, slightly cocking her head towards dad’s direction. “Almost all our relatives.” Danie nods solemnly. “We will need all the support we can get at this point.” “When can we see them?” Dad asks. Danie smiles at him. “Dexter is still being closely monitored. For the moment, he really has to focus on recovery. Aiden, however, will be ready for visitors in a while.” e We’re five in the family: my parents, Patrick and Carrie, my siblings, Hanna and Dexter. Then there’s me. Aiden Ross, born five years after Hanna and a year before Dexter. My dad is an avid baseball person. You’d see wine bottles in other kitchens; you’d see baseball bats in ours. I was three when I was introduced to the sport, of course by dad. We had a lot of those mini-game afternoons, and at seven I was already swinging a bat in school. He made sure it’s the first sport I would ever play 17

outside the house—not like he didn’t even do a good job making sure it’s the first sport I ever played in my entire life. A year later, I was exposed to football. My best friend’s dad had a spare ticket, thus my entry to a live showing. At first I thought the game was too rushed, and I couldn’t decide yet if I liked it the way I did baseball. But days after, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I caught a game on television once, and then twice. The third time I watched football, I bought a ticket with my best friend. The following year, I decided to join my grade school’s amateur football team. My dad was simply lying on the couch when I came home from the tryouts. I don’t know how I would have churned the news out of myself if he was polishing a bat. He’d caught me watching NFL on television once, and I was pretty damn sure he was the one who placed my football on my desk when I clearly remembered leaving it on top of my stereo. When I told him I tried out for my school’s football team, he didn’t look up. But he nodded and said, “I know.” “You know that I tried out for the team?” He shook his head quickly. I gave a look of confusion. Finally, still not looking up from the sofa, he said, “No. I just know you’re making a choice different from mine.” e More people arrive by six a.m.: my dad’s mother, Mommy Rosie, and my aunts and uncles with my cousins. Some of Dexter’s friends arrive a little later in a pack, take all or leave all. Around seven, some of my friends arrive. There’s Anthony, the best friend I went to football games with. There’s Coach McKenna, my high school team’s coach. And then there’s Wendy, my second girlfriend, who I’m only friends with now. And finally, Hanna, who works in Canada, is reported to have just taken a 18

plane headed here. I drop quickly by Dexter’s room to break the news about the people in the lobby. When I come back, dad and mom are gone. I rush to the ICU, and find them sitting on two chairs that have been put beside my bed. My parents aren’t always talkative, but right now dad is telling me about the article he read on predictions for week two of NFL. He didn’t chat with me much after the day of tryouts, but when I had my first game, he attended with mom. He has gone to all of my games after that. It was kind of a non-verbal acceptance. Baseball wasn’t entirely deleted—we still watch and talk about the games, and at times I’d help out dad teach my younger cousins—but football was welcomed. When dad finishes talking, mom, who has been sitting still for the past minutes, reaches out for my hand. She doesn’t say anything right away, just watches my face as if hoping that my eyes would inch open. I haven’t even figured out how to do that yet. She sighs. “Anthony is holding a barbecue party next week. The team is going to come over. Everyone else, too. You should go. Talk about university and how everything else is going.” A rush of comfort and anxiety washes through me. This is mom. She says something, you do it. There is a strong, silent discipline in the house because of her. She’s a health freak, too. I know that’s sort of out-of-the-blue but she made these banana and egg pancakes once. It was an annoyingly undecided piece of food, the best and worst pancakes I’d ever tasted. I remember that because it feels like I just ate one again. e Wendy told me this once. “You’re easy to figure out.” I’d just gotten out of morning drills then, and met up with her at the bleachers right away. “What about?” I’d asked, gulping down my second bottle of water. 19

“You love football.” I shrugged. “Makes it simple for you.” She didn’t say anything for a long moment, but she clearly wanted to. Finally, she did. “I actually can’t see what’s so nice about it.” I raised my eyebrows. She bit her lip nervously. I let out a short laugh. “I’m not going to grind you into liking it, you know.” I may have an infinite love for the sport, but I’m not about to convert people. She looked relieved and disturbed at the same time. I finished my bottle of water and shot it at a trash can we passed by, then I stepped in front of her. “Alright. What is it?” “I just want to know what you like about it.” She prompted. I paused. “The adrenaline.” “Are you going to make me think you’re all adrenaline-junkies?” Wendy pipes in, half-joking. “And that we’re fairies on grass?” “I’m not dating an adrenaline-junkie or a grass-fairy.” She said firmly, her face turning serious. “Anyway, that’s the stuff people hear from media.” I gave her a smug look. “Aren’t you too smart for media.” “I simply want to hear it firsthand from an actual player.” She said, flashing me an equally smug look. “I like to see how long I can endure it.” I started. “It’s two things for me. Physically, I’m spread out. I like how I lose myself in the movement. Mentally, I’m invested. I can’t lose concentration because I invent the game in my mind. There are so many routes and I have to keep rebuilding strategies with the team to 20

win. Like, you can fake plays to cut back the opposing team’s momentum for offense. Unless they read you. I like that. How the game can be unpredictable. A lot like you, actually.” I said. And then I rolled back. “You think I’m a real player?” She smiled, clearly contented. “I think you’re a real player.” Then she rolled her eyes. “But I didn’t sign up for your measly attempts on cheesy lines.” e There’s a freakload of things I’ve avoided thinking about, let alone admit, since the accident. I’m kind of staring at the space above Dexter’s bed now, not really thinking about it, but thinking around it. It feels more right to admit it here than anywhere else. Dexter witnessed everything, after all. He was everywhere with me. The guy got a lot of spirit in him. First person I watched football on TV with, and egged me on to try-out for what came to be my first football team. First person to know my game schedule—sometime strangely even before I know it. First person I showed my athletic scholarship letter to. First person to slap my back afterwards. First person I’m going to break this piece of news to. It’s not even myself. It’s him. “I know I’m pep-talking you to life.” I start. “But I’m not sure what I’m going to do with mine.” I blink at the space above him again, before my eyes finally drop down to him. The words taste rough as they cross my tongue. “I don’t know what I’ll do when I come back. I have nil chances of playing football again. Hipbone and left leg were damaged too much, apparently.” I have this strong need for Dexter to talk after that. It has been fairly easy to just be the one to do the talking until now, because I feel like I’m in need of a pep-talk myself. The space that follows my words makes it more real than ever—that I’ll never be able to 21

get back in the field. I nod at Dexter, like a punctuation. But then I nod longer than necessary, and I realize I’m nodding at everything I don’t understand. I’m this close to losing it. I have to get out of here. “Look. It doesn’t mean I’m letting you lose your fight. You’ve still got high school graduation. Freshman fifteen. Non-major majors. College sex. Thanksgiving with people who aren’t us. Papers and internships and everything. Another graduation and a life after that. You’re coming back. We’re coming back.” e Back in the lobby, mom has ordered breakfast for everyone. Uncle George is animatedly telling them about Dexter falling asleep on a man’s shoulder in the airport, the summer we went to Beijing. The same summer, we bought some jian dui and Dexter saw some sesame seeds sticking to the nose of a girl who was eating a piece. He kept telling her wǒ over and over, to which the girl gave him an incredibly odd look and stomped away. Later we learned wǒ was I, and that we only persistently thought it meant nose because the Chinese kept pointing to their noses when they refer to themselves. You could say it affected Dexter’s choice of foreign language in the future. Then they move on to the one baseball match where I nearly dived into a man’s crotch chasing after first base. I was a real kid, but it was batshit mortifying. Not even entirely a secret either; it has since been a Thanksgiving classic because of Uncle George, who was watching the game with my dad at the time. Like, thank you God because Aiden switched to football. None of my friends know, but I’ll give it a free pass. I guess desperate times call for people making light of things. By the end of it, I was chuckling along with them. All of these stop when somebody calls out a code. At first 22

nobody reacts, and I reflected that. Until horror dawns on mom’s face. I don’t know how sound travels slow sometimes, but it does this time. And when it reaches me, I hear room 202. My mom stands up. Dad catches up with her, and everyone else has sensed that something is wrong. I turn on my heel to speed like a fucking demon through the hallways. Like this is the last ball I’m chasing in my life. Maybe it is. Jesus, Dexter. I told you to stay put. e We almost lost Dexter twice. The first time was when he was a baby and a hole was discovered in his heart. He had the operation when he was three, survived, but could never exhaust himself. It was the main reason I was the only one taught baseball. The second time was at the pool. Dexter was seven, I was eight, and Hanna was just granted entry to the 12+ pool. I was the only one to watch out for Dexter and I didn’t watch him hard enough to know he’d aimlessly wandered to the adult pool. You’d think the lines drawn around him were visible enough, but it only made him cross them. I found him in our high school’s pool during senior prank night. He’d been practicing strokes. I didn’t immediately know what to say, but fortunately he did. “I’ve been doing this only a year. I’m not yet that good. But I’m thinking of doing it in college, when I’m good enough. I’m not in a rush.” Dexter’s tone carried a weight that says he wanted to prove it to himself first. I haven’t exactly been dragged back to my senses then. I was going back and forth through being an older brother and, well, being an older brother. I didn’t know how I could look out for this guy. He always made decisions without me. I missed 23

out again. “But it can open up. I clearly remember the doctor saying anything exhaustive was impossible. Sports first of all.” But he just grins. “Not by a long shot.” e The shock of things set slow in me. I’ve learned that darn well by now. But when it finally does, it’s all hell on the loose. I’d be everywhere and I’d be without a damn. I am right now. I’m smashing and chucking things and it’s no fucking use because I just go through them. But I’m causing a ruckus. A code has been called out for me, which only means something is happening to my body. At this point I can’t think anything other than you want a piece of that? There you go. I’m not even looking for the answer to the why. I’m just trying to meet the world here. Trying to bog it down the way it’s bogging me down. The hospital is like the aftermath of a battle after a while. Dexter is moved out. The lobby is quiet, but everyone is still there. Except me. I’m in the ICU, shell shocked and drained, staring at my still body and a thousand yards beyond. I wasn’t good at football right away. I had no idea how to play it because my family baseball-ed, and it’s not exactly a thing to declare oneself black sheep over dinner. Dexter was the only one in the family that I could share this with freely, and he relentlessly egged me on to the sport. So I learned on my own. Football training would be at the same time as baseball training in my school—we’d be just a bunch of kids doing laps together, actually. But when I do catch the games, I make mental notes. I’d tried dragging a football team member or two to teach me, but they were crass kids most of the time, the early breed for cocky athletes, and years later I’d be a lot crasser and realize they 24

played like crap. Luckily there was Anthony, who played coach. Anthony was simply a fan. No wannabe player like I was. I had an unholy admiration for football and died for it hard enough. Nine months later, I got in the team. It’s a kiddie dream, but it set ground for the years to come. The years I made football a dominant part of my life. The door clicks open and my parents come into my room. Dad’s eyes are puffy, and mom is clearly devastated through and through. Dad is the one who speaks. “I know I let you make your choices.” He starts. Mom reaches out for my hand, quietly bursting into tears. “But I’m begging you to give us this one. If you’re hearing me, Aiden, please live. We know it will be hard. We know it will not make sense. But we also know it will not have to stop there. It will not have to stop here.” Dad continues on, but I’m not hearing that anymore. Instead I’m hearing lonely dinners. Refusals to host Thanskgiving, or join Christmas. The shuffling of feet on the grass, on the way to two graves. Bedrooms that blare no music. I also hear the roar of the crowd, and the earth beneath me. The buzzer and the yelling coach. Finally, I hear Dexter say, and remind me, not by a long shot. My breath catches several times, like somebody is pumping all the air back into me. My chest tightens, and for a fleeting moment I hear my pulse. And then the whirr of the machines. And then I feel the searing pain. White-hot and real. I don’t open my eyes yet, but I know I’d be looking at the ceiling of the ICU once I do.

my first time hannah magtoto q

We start undressing ourselves, knowing what is to come. We move in an almost flawless motion. I can feel myself breathing, in and out,

in and out.

I am ready, I am strong. I say to myself. He keeps on saying that he loves me, I guess that is enough. Our bodies are intertwined and dancing to the rhythms of lust, Moving passionately with varying degrees of smooth and rough Here goes the first thrust, Tears stream down my face; Is it out of joy of finally awakening? Or is it out of the almost unbearable pain I am feeling? I reminisce back to the days When my mother used to say, Limbs placed together, It is not making love but the lover who gives the pleasure.

multi-verse katreena ramos q

I stand here trapped in the sparkle of your eyes as I completely surrender myself to the infinite possibilities of you and me to get her in some way in some world in some universe the reality of

space time

matter and energy everything that exists and can exist is all I could hope for because maybe even so absurd maybe thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a universe 27

where I can still hear your voice echoing my name like that old song you used to play every time I was in your car while you were driving just as fast as I fell for you maybe there’s a universe where you would still pick me up on a Friday morning, with the sun as bright as your smile in the time you opened the tinted window of your car that was dark like your wavy hair maybe there’s a universe where I can still feel your arms protecting my fragile body from the biting wind that came up in gusts which I took as an opportunity to breathe in your addicting scent maybe there’s a universe where I can still feel your soft lips against my cold skin, burning me like the fire in my wasted heart because here I am the arrogant dude and you are the perfect modern girl

instead of us being both swains

too late erin de guzman q

s I lie awake, the pitter-patter of the rain slowly lulling me to sleep, I can’t help but think about what happened to us. How did we end up like this? We could have been the kind of couple that people envied. We could have had the kind of love that people desired. We could have been everything. We could have had everything. Sadly, things almost always never go the way we want it to. e It was my senior year and I wanted nothing more than to leave that hellhole people call high school. As I was making my way to my first class, I was greeted by a couple of hellos and as usual, I just kept walking. I tried to wave at or smile, if you could call that a smile, at a few of them that I used to hang out with before they got tired of me always saying no to them. I reached my room, five minutes early, and went to my usual seat at the back corner of the room. That was how it had always been. It was a routine already. It was not like I ignored people on purpose. I did not really know what was wrong with me, or if something was wrong with me. I just had a really hard time connecting with other people. It started off like any other day but what happened in the next few hours turned my whole world upside-down. For the first time, someone other than me turned up for class before the teacher arrived. But what surprised me more was the fact that it was an unfamiliar face. “Are you new here?” I asked, 30

surprising myself. I found it funny that I had a hard time saying a simple hello to people I’ve known my whole life but it seemed natural for me to utter a complete sentence to a stranger. “Yeah. Why? Are you new too?” The stranger, who sat a few rows in front of me, looked back and smiled. For some unknown reason, there was a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. He stared at me, waiting for an answer. And it made me uncomfortable. The new-found confidence that I had just a few minutes earlier had flown out the window. “Uhm… I don’t know.” He looked at me weirdly. I did not think much of it because I was used to getting weird looks from other people. “NO! Uhm… I meant to say no.” I mumbled after realizing my mistake. He laughed at me and, to my surprise, got up from his seat. He sat on the one beside me instead. We talked while we waited for the other people to arrive-well, it was more of him talking and me listening and nodding once in a while. e Despite everything that happened between the two us, I am still glad that you were the stranger. I can’t imagine what life would be like had that stranger been somebody else. Well, I probably wouldn’t be here all alone, listening to the sound of rain, if that stranger wasn’t you. And I probably wouldn’t be as miserable. There, I said it. I am miserable, and depressed, and lonely. I know that is what you want to hear. I just… I don’t know how this whole concept of feelings works. I know you wanted to hear that I wanted this just as much as you do. You wanted me to tell you that I needed you, that I wasn’t okay. You wanted me to open up to you. But how could I, when I don’t even know or understand the things I was feeling?

e It’s really funny how things work out sometimes. One day, you’re an anti-social introvert and the next, you’re out there interacting with other people. I changed a lot during the first few months of my senior year. I guess I owed it all to you. It seemed a bit scary at first but you made everything easier for me. Who knew this socializing thing could be so much fun? We became inseparable and somewhere along the way, we fell in love. Who would have thought that a guy like you, a guy so confident and carefree, would fall for someone who was so troubled like me? But I guess it’s true what they say, as cliché as this may sound, opposites do attract. You became my support system, my shoulder to cry on. I tried not to become too attached to you. There was this persistent feeling in the pit of my stomach and it scared me so much how unfamiliar it felt. I knew it was love but there was something else there that I just can’t pinpoint. I felt like a whole new person and that was a good thing. I used to be so scared of change but you made me realize that it was not a bad thing. I felt happy and contented for once in my life. But all good things must come to an end. The end of senior year signaled the downfall of our relationship. College was fast approaching and unfortunately we were going to different ones. We tried that long-distance thing; we tried to make it work. I texted and called you every day. I always checked up on you. I guess I became too clingy and I guess I suffocated you. It came to a point where I felt like you just didn’t want it as much anymore. If I had paid more attention to that weird, persistent feeling in the pit of my stomach, I probably would have seen it coming. Just when I thought things were finally going my way, my world came crashing down again. It was a few months after our first 32

anniversary. I got home and was surprised to find you on my doorstep. My heart skipped a beat at the thought of you giving me a surprise visit. But my wide grin was immediately replaced by a frown when I saw the somber look on your face, which was followed by the oh-so-famous line, “We need to talk.” I thought that was the end for us. I thought it was over. A year after our break up, a year without any kind of communication, we met again. “Hey. What are you doing here?” “Oh, hey. Uhm… I was just… Uhm… I am here for a vacation.” “Really? That’s great! Are you busy?” “Uhm… No. Not really.” “Wanna have lunch? We definitely have a lot to talk about. It has been a while.” Then you gave me this heart-stopping smile and all those feelings I’ve managed to push aside for quite some time now came rushing back to me. I hated how awkward I was while you were the exact opposite. I had always imagined that we would try to avoid each other on our first post-break up meeting. I never thought it would end up with us reconnecting and trying that relationship thing again. It was not that different the second time around. It was fun and it was like we were back to our old selves but soon enough work and whatnot got in the way. I had seen it coming this time but it hurt just as much as the first. It again took me months to bury those feelings that resurfaced when we reconnected. I don’t really know how it all happened but after another reconnection and another break up, our relationship turned into a vicious cycle of reconnections and break ups. It was really draining but neither of us wanted to let go. 33

I tried so hard to ignore you. I let you think that I did not care anymore. And I guess it worked because we stopped. You stopped. It had been a year since we last talked to each other when I met him. He was a friend’s cousin and we met at a party. He reminded me of you in some ways. He was confident and mature. He was three years my senior and he made me feel like I could trust him. We became close and not long after, he asked me to be his girlfriend. Hey. Are you free for lunch tomorrow? Yes. Why? Meet me. I’ll text you the place tomorrow. I was stupid enough to invite you to lunch with my new boyfriend. I thought it would be okay but it was the exact opposite. I just wanted to see that you were okay with it. I wanted you to be happy for me so that I could finally be happy for real. You hardly spoke the entire time and barely touched your food. I felt so cruel and insensitive for doing that to you. I did not know what to do so I just let the painful silence linger. After a while, you stood up and told us that you had to leave. “It totally slipped my mind but I have an important meeting to attend. It was nice seeing you again,” you told me. “And it was definitely a pleasure to meet you.” you said, and then smiled at my boyfriend. Or at least, you tried to. I’m sorry. I texted you a few hours later. It took you a whole day to reply to me and it was just a simple okay. I did not know how I was supposed to respond to that so I did not reply anymore. I texted you again a few more times after that, hoping we could become friends again. You were important to me and I still wanted you 34

in my life. You never replied to any of them. The conceited part of me kept telling me that you were jealous because I had someone while you were still hung up on me. But the more dominant, insecure side of me told me that you never replied because you were already over me; you had moved on and had forgotten about me. A few months after our last interaction, something tragic happened in my life. My dad died after a long battle with lung cancer. He finally went with my mom up there, somewhere where there was no more pain. I was devastated and I had no one to turn to. As usual, you were the first person that popped into my mind so I decided to give you a call. “I need you.” I managed to say in between sobs. I asked if you could come over and I heard you sigh at the other end of the line. “Why don’t you go call your boyfriend?” Had you replied to my messages a month ago, you would have known that he dumped me for someone older. Apparently, I had too much baggage. I didn’t have the energy to explain things to you anymore so I just hung up and wallowed in self-pity. I thought you would always be that person that I can always run to whenever I needed someone. I thought I could always turn to you for help. I thought I would always have you. I guess my ex-boyfriend was right. I had too much baggage. I’m messed up and I need help. e It has been two years now since that last phone call. It has been two years since we last had any kind of interaction. After that phone call, and after my dad’s death, I went to London to “go find myself” or whatever that thing messed up people do to make themselves feel better. I thought I’d forget you while I was away. But now I’m back and nothing much has changed. I am a 35

whole new person now and I think I’m better now. But freaking hell! Two damn years and I’m still not over you. I haven’t heard anything about you and I still haven’t tried contacting you again. But I guess I’m too late now. You have probably moved on with your life. You have probably found someone new already. It’s already too late. Hey. I heard you were back. Do you have any plans for tomorrow night? Text me. Or is it?

this is where you are buried bernice castro q

he falls (and they say pride comes before, but perhaps it is vanity that pushes her). Her crimes are not as great, and she is beloved, so her salvation would later come in the form of a prince who is fascinated by her damnation. For now, the forest wages war because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lost its queen, and the wind and his warriors chase death away, but she is dead and dead she stays. She is adored, and elevated, but in the way people display their idols. Her corpse is laid to rest on crystal and roses, and they do not know that had she been alive, she would have plotted her funeral on the same bed of pretty things. She is adored, even in her fall, she is elevated. The princess falls, and they say pride comes before, but maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s her vanity that pushed her. e Dead bodies fascinate the prince, it is vital that they do. To be the second son to a king is such an unfair thing to be, and it is vital that something set him apart from his older brother, his august, older brother, with his sword and his spear and his secret safe in a closet, their father could not have been more proud, and the younger one, with bright eyes and red cheeks, and his position in the middle of their motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world. The prince was, it seemed, forever gifted by one parent to the other, unwanted, but an indispensable pawn nevertheless. He has no protector, no 37

one to carry a flag for him in, no one to rephrase mocking retorts into something that can be said to royals. And so dead bodies fascinate the prince, because the same cannot be said for his brothers, and something has to speak for him. His motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s handmaiden listens to him, though, behind curtains, under beds. She brings him his corpses, and he smiles at her when she does so. Perhaps this is why she murders more girls, prettier girls, because she likes it very much when he looks at her for a second longer. Perhaps this is why the kingdom questions the king, because under his monarchy, they are losing women. The royal family knows, of course. At the very least, they know enough to point a finger at the prince and fling blame. They know enough to tell him that he does not have to leave, and he also knows that there is no room in the kingdom for a second son who is more fascinated with corpses. e The princess wakes, and her eyesight is obscured by deathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fingers, bony and fragile and cold, her body unresponsive, because it is on the ground and she is not used to lower depths. The princess wakes, because a single person is not strong enough to carry her crystal resting place, not even when he so desires to be strong. There is an apple in her mouth, and she doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t dare swallow it again. Death is beautiful, but color becomes her. e They welcome him back, because the woman he brings is the first they have seen in quite awhile, and the prettiest. The handmaiden welcomes him back, because finally, finally, he has brought another she can murder for him. e Whoever said he wanted her alive? 38

and got us lost in our own translations, where our new reality echoed in our senses.

sa amoy ng nagsamang pawis at alimuom. the rainy season just started. hindi na naman tayo pumasok, sa halip, muli tayong nagtago i did not care skipping classes at naglaro sa mga anino nating nilikha, as long as we were together kung saan ay kaya natin maging malaya habang umaakyat ang tama ng ligaya in a place in our own universe na nagpapamanhid sa ating pagkatao upang where we could swim under our own stars, tayoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;y magkibit balikat sa walang awang mundo. as the feeling of ecstasy heightened up

it was already six in the afternoon. ayaw ko pang umalis sa iyong tabi sapagkat dito ko natagpuan ang pag-asa that we shared under the orange sky,

we heard the church bells rang because

jake habitan

at sa ating pamamaalam

i saw the ceiling started waving like the vast ocean, and your eyes started flickering like candle fires. your lipsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it tasted sweeter than before, as its softness pushed into mineâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;devouring me. your fingers started crawling like an alleviating heat, as it went down, and played along in our own rhythm. we were drifted into a noisier paradise - our secrets. years did not matter back then because i thought that living freely was synonymous with enjoying and messing life over and over again. i was wrong as i realized that our own sins consumed the innocence out of our feeble minds. and i was haunted by our memories together during hot sweaty afternoons and melancholic dusks. i learned that all we had was each other, and that we were living in a different world where we tried to fit in because we could not really grow along the paradigms of slow dances the analog radio, and under the moonbeams. instead, we found ourselves lost in gaps, speechless as i whispered to you I will leave you, too, soon

at kung ito man ang huli at sana ay huwag moâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ng kalim and hugis ng aking ngiti, an marahil isa, dalawa o tatlon babagtasin mo muli ang iyo at makikita mo ang isang bi na siyang bumasag sa ating 40

nagsisimulang anurin ang lahat ng bagay, at tila umiingay ang hangin at lumalamig ang init. lalong nag-aalab ang ating kapusukan, na tila nais kong magpalimlim sa iyong kahubdan, habang pinagbabaga ko ang aking sarili sa iyong mailap na apoy na siyang saksi sa ating mga kinimkim na lihim mula sa madla. ngunit natatakot tayo sa ating katotohanan sa ating nararamdaman, sa mga tao, sa lipunan naririnig nila ang bawat indayog ng ating musika habang dahan dahan nating sinasayaw ito sa pagitan ng bawat hininging likha ng kasalanan. gusto lang naman nating maging malaya, kahit sa ating sariling paraisong nilikha. huwag mo akong bitawan sa kapanglawan dahil saan pa ako kakapit kung wala ka na. kailangan ko ang iyong init, ang iyong kalinga. sa bawat buga ng usok o kislot ng laman, ang halik at yakap mo ang aking hinahanap. nakagapos pa rin ang aking pagkabata sa mga alaala ng makupad na takbo ng oras.

ikaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;y mawawala, mutan ang aking amoy, ng lambot ng aking labi. ng buwan o taon, ong mga alaala, inhi ng kamunduhan kamusmusan. --sanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;y huwag kang magsisi sa lahat ng nakaraan. 41

we were past tense in past tense we both struggled to make sense of the end on the edge of the bed small talk hovered above small talk hovered above the actual conversation we still spoke in the spirals of smoke from the tips of our cigarettes

augusto ledesma

against

The memory of the night he first slid his tongue between my teeth remains vivid in my mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye. I replay each scene in my head when I am haunted by a feeling I have no name for. This is when he ran his trembling fingers over the notches in my spine. This is when we slipped under the sheets like children hiding from an imaginary threat. This is when his tongue and mine danced around each other like snakes coiling around an invisible caduceus. I lie alone in bed sensing stimulation as I simulate sensation. This is not his hand gliding on the space between my navel and my pelvis. This is not his voice frantically whispering my name in orgiastic rhythms syncopated by gasps of excitement. I bear the phantom weight pressing down on me and come together with the ghost.

I thought that she and I were unwinding bandages once we stripped off our clothes to reveal our secret scars and compare and contrast our bodies before we finally accepted each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nudity but she took it too far by tearing her flesh off and exposing her skeletal frame with her dangling intestines brushing against my abdomen as she sat on top of me rocking back and forth and back and forth and back looking like Death herself in the danse macabre before le petit mort and she ripped my face off and covered her skull with my skin and stretched hers to place it over my face so we could fabricate love in public places with masks on.

relative deprivation brian villanueva q

the literary commodity i held in my hands elicited a how much? and an accusing look from mother dear: it better not be worth more than five impoverished childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meals. (this book by Doveglion might bode well; sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a sucker for villas, that I can tell.) i looked at the value, once more to confirm. seven hundred pesos (rounded up, because she prefers paying with zeroes). she squeaks like a mouse caught in a trap: perhaps some other time. i submit to the lady with the purse bought using taxpayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s money. so i hobbled back towards the shelf, unplucked the tenant it long held. 44

though i swallow words repressed, i find solace in the form of justice-driven protests (brief identification with the proletariat masses!): these hands, swift and steady, tore out random pages from insideâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; one, two, three, four! five! i left, wondered what our 8-year-old Mercedes-Benz in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;good working conditionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; will fetch; wondered how i can attain liberation as a son doomed to a state of alienation; wondered new methods for leaving my marks. but this oppression can no longer remain unsaid! so first i must write my (admittedly blunt) revolutionary text.

choices rizza edu q

aybe it was that exam in 3rd grade she didn’t ace. Or that one time her cousin disrupted a family reunion by bringing along her girlfriend. Maybe it was that board her mom forced her to make when she was twelve. “Indira, darling,” her mom called out. “I think it’s about time you put away your Barbie dolls and help me with this little project I thought of for you.” Her mom’s tone was sweet, but it reminded her too much of the tone witches used in Disney movies when they were cooking up something evil for the princesses. When she saw her crayons scattered on the living room floor, she was relieved. Then her eyes landed on pictures of pretty ladies in neat suits and this hammer that she thought looked like something Fred Flintstone would use. She later learned that the hammer was called a mallet, and that the ladies were actually lawyers. Her mom helped her cut and paste these pictures onto a huge illustration board that was later hung on a wall in her room. At the time, it was just an art project that wasn’t even all that fun to make. Six years later though, after what felt like a million family gatherings punctuated by talks about good pre-law courses she ought to take, Indie learned that the board was actually her life. And the life of every Elizalde before her. She toyed with all these instances one afternoon after yet another busy day in school. Their English professor who was always very specific with his writing assignments announced that the topic for 47

their final paper was about anything they were passionate about. Her classmates started talking all at once and threw ideas across the room that all seemed pretty generic to her. “So what will you write about? Please don’t tell me you plan on telling your parents about this.” Indie smiled at M and shrugged. She knew exactly what her friend was trying to say. The two of them have been buddies since kindergarten and actually came up with each other’s nicknames. M thought the nickname Indie didn’t suit her friend at all because of how her parents do all the thinking for her. It was meant as a joke but Indie bought it and commanded everyone, even her parents, to call her that. Mitch, on the other hand, was already an okay name but Indie thought it was just fair for her to come up with a nickname for her friend. She couldn’t think of anything that would sound as cool as “Indie”, so she just started calling her M. This is also because Mitch refused to be called anything without the letter M, so she settled with Indie’s idea. They didn’t think of themselves as sisters, and they didn’t have matching bracelets either. Their friendship was as plain as their grade school uniform and at one point they had to stop talking to each other not because they didn’t agree on something, but because they just didn’t feel like talking to each other. Their friendship was too much of a give and take relationship. As if checking on each other was more of an obligation than a form of endearment. They don’t even say “I love you” to each other, as if by saying it out loud would change something. Now this, this is something Indie thought of way too many times than she’d like to admit. They were kids when her closest cousin brought a girl to their family reunion. M was invited because she was always very prim and proper and the Elizaldes found her friendship with Indie quite 48

delightful. They were always asked to sit with the adults so they were accustomed to how the conversations would usually play out. Questions about school were thrown at them so they had to give updates on grades, their positions in the council, upcoming inter-school competitions, and the like. The maids were just about to serve dessert when the doorbell rang and Nica, her then 16-yearold cousin, stood and walked to the door. Her aunts and uncles were already frowning at the thought of Nica inviting someone over without their consent, so Indie just couldn’t forget the things that happened next. Her cousin came back with a girl who sported a white v-neck shirt and pants. Her hair was up in a ponytail, her face was quite pudgy, but her body was the kind of thin Indie wanted her own body to be like. They held hands the way lovers would hold hands, but since both of them were girls, Indie assumed they were just best friends. “Uh I know we aren’t allowed to invite people ourselves when it comes to reunions, but I’d like you all to meet my girlfriend Erika,” Nica said. It sounded like she was announcing that she was graduating with honors, or that she got accepted into a premier university. She sounded proud and happy, and it totally didn’t deserve the onslaught of questions and insults that followed. M and Indie were led to the playroom they never really played in, but it was the only place where they couldn’t possibly overhear whatever was going on in the living room. Indie’s mom fetched some ice cream for them and sat on one of the tiny stools. She had trouble sitting properly since she was wearing a long dress, but really it looked like she was buying herself time to think of what to say to the girls. When she was settled, she looked at both of them and smiled. “What your cousin did was very very wrong,” she stated. Indie didn’t think that inviting someone over without asking permission was such a grave offense. It was a good thing she introduced M to 49

her family a long time ago and that they liked her best friend a lot. “It is not okay to be a girl, and to have a girlfriend. It shouldn’t work that way, okay?” This left Indie very confused. So they weren’t mad because Nica didn’t ask first before bringing someone over, they were mad because she invited her girlfriend over. Indie knew nothing about relationships and how they worked. And although it was quite weird to be a girl and to be in a relationship with someone who is also a girl, she knew that there was nothing wrong with it. She kept silent during the whole time her mother was talking, and she tried hard just not to listen. The next day, she learned from her parents that Nica was grounded and that she wasn’t allowed to see Erika anymore. Apparently Erika’s parents didn’t know what happened, and were so dismayed when they learned about it that they grounded Erika as well. She talked about it with M, who found the whole thing funny. M found a lot of things funny, actually. Not because she thought everything was kind of a joke, but because she found people stupid and absurd very often. Like Indie’s parents. She hated them and Indie knew about it from the beginning. M found it funny that they required Indie to report her test scores at the end of each week, and that they try to encourage her to take up law even if they were only kids who didn’t even know the basics of algebra yet. They grew up knowing what each other liked and disliked. And M knew Indie didn’t necessarily dislike being an Elizalde. Indie was a topnotch student because she chose to be a topnotch student. Her name had nothing to do with it. M knew more than anyone else Indie’s love for music. That’s why when Indie graduated as valedictorian in high school; her parents didn’t mind buying her a record player that she situated in a corner of her room near her bed. And M knew things Indie didn’t know about herself. Like how she really 50

doesn’t want law school even though she showed her eagerness for it several times. But M didn’t know what it would be like if Indie disobeyed her parents. And that’s because she never has. So when M learned about their final project, she knew Indie would write about law because that would please her parents. “Why don’t you write about music?” M also didn’t know how much Indie appreciated her. Actually, Indie was comforted by the idea of her best friend not knowing everything about her. She already planned to write about music because they were in college for heaven’s sake and it wasn’t like her parents still kept tabs on her schoolwork like before. They went home at around 8:30 just in time for dessert. When they were all gathered in the dining area, the phone rang and the maid handed it to Indie. It was Nica. And it was a girl problem. Indie excused herself and ignored her parents’ looks of disgust. It turned out to be a full-on breakup story that took about half an hour for her cousin to finish. Indie’s parents didn’t know that their daughter was actually Nica’s source of strength for she was the only Elizalde who supported the kind of love her cousin had. Nica proved that what happened several gatherings ago wasn’t her shot at rebellion and neither was it a phase. She never got over it, and her parents got really close to disowning her when they learned she still met up with Erika on a regular basis. Their love was the kind of love Indie admired for years that it broke her heart to hear the details on how it fell apart. She got back in the dining room and used studies as an excuse to get herself out of having to explain the phone call. She said Nica had a problem with school, which didn’t surprise her parents, and she grabbed M’s arm and the two of them dashed upstairs into her bedroom. M loved Indie’s record player because it was the only thing in 51

her room that seemed real to her. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her shoes. Indie walked up to her desk and fixed her things. The silence between them was always comforting, but tonight Indie felt different. She told M about Nica’s phone call. M walked up to her and patted her shoulder. This was her attempt at letting her best friend know she understands. M always gave out small gestures, like a tap on the knee, or a punch to the arm. Indie knew what these meant and she always found it peculiar how they never seemed to go beyond that. Indie knew why though, why she settled with this level of intimacy with her best friend. It happened in 3rd grade, but she admitted it to herself a couple of years later. That test she didn’t ace made her cry like a 3rd grader would cry about a lost chocolate bar. She hugged M who pushed her away in return. Neither of them spoke for a while, but M made an effort by patting her on the shoulder. They didn’t even talk about the test anymore; it was about a different thing already. Indie reached for her handkerchief and started to walk. M whispered an apology and stayed where she was. That moment was a constant reminder of just how impossible it is for the two of them to move beyond being friends. It crushed her, but she couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t the kind of love that was too much for her to handle. She managed, like how she managed to perfect exams and please her parents. She couldn’t even bring herself to think of what M would do if she ever found out. So for the past couple of years she kept it. M eyed the board hanging on her wall. “Can’t you get rid of that?” “Nah, but I can get rid of something else.” M looked around the room for something as ridiculous as the board that Indie might have thought of putting away. It was ridiculous how she had no idea. It wasn’t her fault though, of course 52

it wasn’t. Indie thought about what her cousin said on the phone before hanging up. “I know you like her, you’ve liked her long enough. It doesn’t matter what she’ll say. Man up, will you? Follow tita’s orders all you want, but do this one thing for yourself.” She turned to her best friend who was looking through Indie’s vinyl collection beside her desk. “You know what’s crazy?” Her best friend looked up from the records and raised one eyebrow at her. “We’re best friends but we’ve never hugged.” M knew what she was getting at. And maybe she knew way before Indie did. “Sad huh. Kind of sucks too, considering how I’ve been in love with you for quite some time now.” She tried to keep it light, like how her cousin did years ago. She wanted to laugh to make the whole thing seem like a joke. And then they’d brush it off like they always do. M did the laughing for her.

bluffing cielo gozar q

ne eight.”

“Two eights.” “One nine.” “One nine.” “One nine…” “Bluff!” It was early afternoon. A handful of my classmates sat in a circle, talking and playing cards. Leaning against the walls were giant illustration boards depicting scenes from the lives of saints, abandoned for the rest of the day. For days on end we high school freshmen had worked on them, drawing and painting and writing cheesy, inspiring captions to match them. Now we thought that we had earned ourselves a break, and we sat around chatting, playing games, or drawing on the whiteboard. Some girls simply lay on the floor, basking in the afternoon heat. There were no teachers in sight. I was doodling on my school diary, having finished my share of the work. Sometimes I looked up and watched my classmates play as they placed down cards, called out their hands, and let the pile of cards at the center grow. Occasionally, a cry of “bluff!” would break the pattern. They paid no heed to me at first. From their point of view, I was being what I usually was: a quiet student who never stirred any trouble. 54

Soon my friend Gigi caught me watching and invited me over. I looked at Gigi’s companions, and they beamed at me. They weren’t my close friends, but I did like them. They cleared a spot in the circle for me, and pointed out: there aren’t any teachers anyway, and no one had been caught so far. For a while I dawdled, resisting their coaxes and their smiles. Gigi seemed to be grinning, half-convinced that I wouldn’t take the spot. For a moment, she was right; I couldn’t allow myself to do anything that was against the rules. I didn’t understand the point of the rule myself – cards were harmless, as far as I was concerned – but the last thing I wanted to do was get into trouble. Gigi and my other classmates seemed to know that as they watched me. Then again, I reasoned, there was nothing else to do. I looked at the page on my school diary, and found that it was covered in doodles. Boredom and coaxes got the better of me, and I joined their circle. My classmates cheered as I moved to a place in the circle. There I was, pressing my cards against my chest to keep both opponents and teachers from seeing them. At first I was too nervous to play. I kept glancing around, waiting for a teacher to pop out, but the chatter of my classmates and the spirit of the game soon drowned out my caution. I quickly became embroiled in the tensions of the game. At first, things went smoothly; I had a good hand and was honest with my cards at first. Then the pile began to grow, and my friends started to put down their cards faster and faster, calling out their hands louder and louder. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack... I could barely keep up with what number or face we were on. Then came my turn. I had no card to put down. My palms were sweating. I slipped a bluff into the pile and called “one king.” No one called me out. The pile grew. We put our cards down even faster. By the time the card pile was about half a deck 55

thick, I had nearly finished all my cards. “Bluff!” someone screamed. Gigi turned over the last card. It wasn’t a bluff. The cards went to the accuser, who groaned. She leafed through the pile until she found the bluff – my card. I pressed my cards to my mouth, trying to hide my grin. She stared at me, shocked. I burst out laughing, and we all did. “Oh my God!” Gigi yelled. My accuser finally grinned too, impressed that I could do such a thing. A new round began, and once again we lay down our cards slowly. A new pile formed. Then, before my turn came, the game suddenly stopped. Confused, I looked up. Our teacher had come into the room. At the sight of our revelry, her cheery air evaporated. Her smile faded and her mouth went taut. She stared at our cards. “Those aren’t allowed!” I dropped my cards. My classmates, on the other hand, remained unfazed. Gigi simply gazed back at our teacher, who walked over to where we sat. “We already explained this to you!” Her pitch rose with each word. “I thought that our explanations were absolutely clear.” She looked at Gigi, and raised her eyebrows; then she turned to me and frowned. I turned away from her gaze. “I expected more from honor students,” she said, as if her words were directed right at me. She had always looked at me with pride and even a sort of pleasure, usually as she handed me the highest test score in the class. Now, seeing me with cards in my hand, her eyes showed none of that. She gestured to Gigi and me. “The two of you, come with me,” she said. “You two first, then I’ll talk to the rest of you”—pointing at my classmates still in their circle—“afterwards.” 56

“Halaaa!” a few of them whispered, and they giggled. They eyed me proudly, seeming pleasantly surprised. My teacher ignored them as I obeyed her. Gigi dragged herself out after a while; she had had her fair share of scoldings over little things by now. We followed my teacher out of the classroom. We were at the right wing of the school building, close to the main stairway, from where we could reach the directors’ offices and the elementary school classrooms. Down this main stairway we went, through the main hall, and into one of the side corridors where the offices were. Further along the main hall, the younger students had already been dismissed, and I could hear their carefree shouts and rapid-fire chatter. I looked at Gigi. She seemed relaxed, except that she was trying to suppress a smirk. She looked back at me. I simply sighed, and I thought I heard her chuckle. I tried to picture scenarios of what would happen, but my mind went blank. I had no idea what they would do to me. Would they wipe out my good conduct grade? Would they give me demerits on the lives of saints project? I could only guess at these half-formed scenarios. At that point, there was only one thing I was certain of: the sight of my teacher, usually a cheery woman with extra pep in her step, reduced to walking somberly in front of us. I lowered my eyes, unable to stand the sight of it. I let my mind wander back to the fateful moment, when my teacher’s air had suddenly dampened. I tried to remember her face, lined with disappointment, and my friends’ faces, lined with shock, then a strange pride. What did I look like? I had been holding three or four cards at that time – less than anyone else. Before all that, there were the shouts of “bluff!”, the friendly sideways glances at each other, the quickening pace of the game, all just to make things a little more exciting. Suddenly I remembered that I had been winning that game. What a waste, I mused. 57

We entered a side hall, where our teacher knocked on one of the office doors in the corridor. A few moments later a little old lady shorter than us stepped out. I shuddered. It was the academic director. She looked at peace, her posture relaxed, as if she had been interrupted from meditation. At that moment I wanted to shrivel up and disappear into nothing. Oh God, not her. Our teacher spoke. “Ma’am, I caught these two students playing cards.” The director nodded and peered up at us from her goldrimmed glasses. Gigi and I looked at her. Slowly she began to stiffen, her face hardening a little, the calm air giving way to tension. Her short curly hair bristled, and she sighed. She hemmed and hawed for a while, wondering what to say to these two students who rarely failed her. We were both familiar to her. She would often greet us good morning as we passed by the hallways, and even give us a pat on the back to congratulate us on our consistent honors. “You keep up the good work, ha?” she would say. During award ceremonies, she would grip our hands and shake them, beaming at us as she did. She loved the student body, but the honor students had a special place in her heart. Now her mouth was taut and she scanned us head to toe, hardly recognizing us as the award winners who had climbed up on stage to shake her hand. There was no warmth in her gaze. I stared at the floor, not wanting to look at her. “Cards!” she said at last. “That is a violation of our rules, as you well know. You could be stripped of an award for that!” I sighed and gripped my skirt. My hands went clammy and my eyesight blurred. I had a streak of gold certificates and medals, unbroken since Grade 1. I had received them so often that my awards were now a given to my classmates. If I were stripped 58

of an award, what would people say? My brain went into overdrive, and millions of thoughts rushed into me in a split second. I could picture the next awarding ceremony: the academic director would call out the roll, but my name would be absent. The applause that followed would be muffled. My classmates – including those who had convinced me to play cards with them – would sit in disbelief, confused about how an honor student could suddenly break her streak. Perhaps some of them would whisper that I had done something wrong. My teachers would gasp and share questioning looks, thinking that some sort of mistake had been made. I would be the talk of the school. Everyone would wonder: what had happened to such a good student? Did she cheat? Did she cause a scandal? And then I would have to tell them that my broken streak had been caused by, of all things, a game of bluff. I managed a glance at Gigi, who remained unfazed. Her arms were folded across her chest and her head was tilted, as if she were listening to a regular conversation. I wondered how she could stay so sure of things, especially when our awards were at stake. She had a streak of awards, too. Then again, this wasn’t her first time to be stuck in a situation like this. Perhaps I should just be unfazed like her. I raised my head, trying to look dignified. My teacher and my academic director were now talking things over, and my eyes lingered on them. To me, it seemed like an eternity. I had never seen them so somber. They spoke in whispers, urgency washing over their voices, and they were hunched close together. It seemed to me that I was watching two shadows, all warmth from them gone. Perhaps Gigi was used to this sight, but it was alien to me. Was it really that bad? I turned away from them, unable to take the guilt. 59

I looked up at the classroom again. I wondered what my bluff companions thought of me now. The way they had looked at me as I exited with my teacher was different, I had noticed. Did they feel proud that a goody-two-shoes had the guts to break a rule and own up to punishment? If I had seen them, maybe I would have felt a hint of flattery. But the scene of the two authority figures in front of me, changed from their usual cheery selves, was all too real. At last, the academic director turned to us and cleared her throat. She squinted up at us again and breathed her words out. I turned back to her and inhaled deeply. “Since this is your first offense, and you are both honor students, I will only give you a warning for now.” Thank God! I exhaled. Gigi finally let out the grin she had been holding back. Perhaps she’d always known that nothing was coming. My mind calmed down and I let my shoulders slump. They let us go. They didn’t even come back for the other offenders, though I did not wonder why. We headed down the main hall, up the stairs and back to the classroom, and once again I sighed with relief. As we walked, Gigi turned to me. “See? That wasn’t so bad, right?” I laughed. “Yeah.” Back inside the classroom, not much had changed. It was almost dismissal time, and afternoon laziness had set in. No one was working on the posters, which still leaned against the walls, their paint dry. The whiteboard still had traces of abandoned hangman games on it. Everyone sat in groups, chatting and cracking jokes. Some were doodling on their desks. A few brave students had even resumed playing cards. It seemed that time had not moved at all since we had left the classroom. 60

Still, I didn’t go back to playing. Instead, I sat in my seat and organized my bag. Later on, during homeroom period, our teacher explained the ban on playing cards to us. She said that cards had served as too much of a distraction to students; besides, they were considered toys, and even the Grade 1 students knew that toys were not allowed in school. The entire class, having witnessed what had happened moments ago, remained silent. I listened attentively, absorbing her words. She was back to her old self again, I noticed, happy contentment radiating from her. She did not look at me, but spoke to us as a whole. It was as if she had never seen me break a rule. I never touched another playing card, with the memory of my teacher and my academic director frowning, their faces darkened with disappointment, still fresh in my mind. But by the next school year, the memory faded, replaced by the present-day reality of my classmates’ jokes and boredom-relieving tactics. I found myself sitting at a circle again, playing bluff or slapjack or whatever game suited our fancy. We would assign a lookout to check for teachers, and when one happened to pass by, we would stuff the cards into our skirt pockets and rush out of the circle. I would always watch the teacher walk right by our classroom, waiting for her to disappear. No matter which teacher it was, they always looked content, unsuspecting of the bluffs we were pulling off. Most of these teachers probably didn’t know about my last incident. In any case, there are some things that they don’t need to know.

and sweat

already moist

and virginal

and bullshit

groping your c-cups

you

and not fucking

into your ears

i’m shocked

you’re not vomiting

you take it like a pro

wetly sliding

spewing from that old prof’s mouth

from rain

white baby tee

is fucking and fucking

in the pink tightness of your shorts

suck-my-own-cigarettes night

buy-beer-for-one night

every night at sarah’s

I. Mistress

fnm san pedro

sarah, and all we ask for

cold

more chicken intestines

for my friends

for the hungry drunkards

but not pork

wonder if i’ll ever be able to move on from this woman

and if they taste similar enough

wonder who would serve tuna sisig

with your silent figure

wonder why do i have to fuck myself

by the time i exit the comfort room

too bitter

up with their laughter

leaving me to wonder

friends who are gone

too stale

and a year’s worth of lapped up dregs

some pig intestines

i see inside me

and semen-stained

my return to sheets

they call “professor”

my academic impotence

with gurgling and piss-stench

my whispered curses and pleas

clinging to the toilet

in the toilet’s gaping mouth

empty

the toilet who stalls

under that fucking thief

the toilet who knows

and answers

the toilet who swallows

i already am

inside her

I would wait by His locked office,

We were estranged before I found Him here;

but if I’m getting straight A’s, it’s to make Doc here proud.

Tita’s always pushing me to be like my workaholic absentee uncle,

and I’m his top student.

Beside Him here, I feel like a kid,

it’s here at Sarah’s where the real lectures take place.

trade the wooden desks for monobloc chairs,

His classrooms are legendary but Father Almighty,

night

fucking

every

wrinkled long-sleeves raising a Pilsen?

see the silver-haired professor in blue

Let me give you a free lesson, baby girl:

II. Mother

who lets me come

with a name of dotted lights

I don’t understand Him but I want to,

like some slut who grew up without a guiding light.

in some skeezy outdoor bar, craving attention

and here I am, brains and all,

get all His replies,

The jerks, who probably don’t even read,

Masturbating. Maybe vomiting. Maybe both.

who’s doing God-knows-what right now.

like the creep offering me a beer to cop a feel

talking to the stupid shits who space out during class,

holding discussions ‘round these stone tables,

I meet Him here,

And right when I decide I need a drink after all that stress,

but I could never talk to Him.

try to catch up whenever He rushed to His car,

It wasn’t until he stumbled

who would end at their endless quotes.

had already gathered dust on his shelf,

save for the few whose memorized bibles

they kept their silences opaque,

yet bound by desks and appointments

hunting for the fresh succulence of ignorance,

He had crawled to his students,

and still his throat was parched.

the universities, the peers,

He had dragged his feet through the books,

III. Muse

here at Sarah’s.

getting the life lessons I should have been raised with

because I’m only in His custody

so I’ll sit here, sipping awful apple beer with unwashed company,

promising pure fresh water.

simmering with bitter beer,

sweet on his tongue,

he could taste them,

But though unable to digest,

eating at his decay from the inside.

young grubs writhing with life

They felt like maggots in his guts,

from his protesting stomach.

only to retch them back out

and forced them down his throat,

and he grabbed at the words still struggling

that he heard the mute speak,

into this filthy watering hole

He will wait here imploring Sarah to give these drunk poets inspiration and through them speak to him.

the same song luisa narciso q

In the beginning, there was only Sky, and Wind, and Earth. For one thousand cycles they Sang into the world names: warmth, and sting, and blue, and howl sun, and soil, and gorge, and star. Every night a thousand names, And every day a thousand more, Until the world grew full. These names Sky gathered Into the cavern of their chest, And to these names Wind carried The messages Earth called out From the threshold of its home below. And so they were for a thousand more cycles, Until Sky grew lonely, And Wind felt fatigue, And Earth was made hoarse.

t was past dusk by the time they made it to the Center. The day vendors had long finished packing up, the stalls along the Third Avenue made empty of their usual riot of colors. Discarded fingers of flax, too dull and brittle to be of any use, staggered drunkenly along the ground in the growing wind. Across the way, the lights in the Sixth Avenue were starting up, and already Nena could hear the low banter between the night 69

vendors and their early customers. “I guess I should find us some twine to burn, to thank Wind for the swift journey,” Gami said, heaving the sack off his shoulder and onto the ground with a muffled grunt. He rubbed absently at his chin, the stubble there rasping against the calluses on his fingers. “Do you want me to get you anything, Na? Some water, food?” Nena opened her mouth, then cleared her throat, once. “Water would be nice,” she said, sitting gingerly on the nearest low bench. Her shoes pinched, and her ankles felt sore from where they chafed against the laces. She leaned forward to loosen them, squinting in the low light. Beside her, she heard a sharp snick and the hiss of a match burning; she didn’t need to look up to know that Gami had set the traveling lamp beside her. “I’ll be back in two sweeps,” he said, ambling off to what was now a respectable crowd of people. It had been a while since Nena had been to a big Sixth market; the nearest town to Ekoko was an hour’s ride, and she’d always been too tired after chores and chorus to consider going. The other girls had gone when they could find the time, and they would come back with little trinkets: a horsehair necklace with small pendants, a brass ring with the seven points of the sun. Last week Pumi had come back with a small booklet of love songs, and Nena had promised to join her on her next trip. Now, she was here, several days’ ride and what felt like an ocean of time away. A woman laughed somewhere in the crowd of people, warm and throaty. The last time Nena had been to Tanon, the Center had been arranged differently. She tried to remember which avenue had last been Sixth, trying to find something familiar in the brick-and-wood posts that stood sentinel at each entrance, 70

but couldn’t. In the small breeze, the bangle around her wrist felt very cold against her skin. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, trying to calm the fluttering in her chest and the back of her throat. It was growing much darker; any minute now Gami would come back with the water and the twine, and eventually they would have to go to the Small Hall. Her hands still felt sticky with juice; earlier, before they had entered Tanon’s limits, she had been crushing berries for dye so that she had something to do, but hadn’t been able to wash off the stains before Gami had said it was time to go. The low horn for the start of Sixth sounded, and the fluttering in her chest grew stronger. Nena took a breath and tried to find a name for the nervousness, like the choirmaster had taught them. Naming was grounding, and grounding was safe and right. She had just settled on ino when Gami came back, armed with a ball of twine, a flask, and a Singer. “Nena, this is Ti,” Gami said, standing a little ways away. His expression was somber and subdued now, and Nena tried to remember how to breathe evenly. Ti was short and a little older than Gami, and her eyes were shrewd and bright. “I welcome you,” Ti said, inclining her head three times. Nena mumbled the requisite reply, belatedly scrambling to her feet. Some distance away, a lute player struck up a cheerful tune, tapping his foot loudly to the beat. Nena swallowed, and Ti looked at her, then back at Gami. “She’s a little young,” Ti said matter-of-factly, over the lute player. Nena’s fists clenched and unclenched; over Ti’s shoulder were the lights of the Seventh Avenue, and beyond that the dark rise of a hill, and on that rise Danu. “She’ll serve, though. Well enough.” 71

With that, Ti turned on her heel and began to walk. Nena picked up the bag, and, trailing after Gami, followed. e “Why should I stay so far from you both to care for our children?” asked Sky. “Why should I climb so high and so far to carry your words?” asked Wind. “Why should I call so loud and so long to send them my love?” asked Earth. So Sky tried to send them down, And Wind tried to bring them low, And Earth tried to stretch high enough To wrap them in its arms, but Their children floated out of reach. “They will not go,” said Sky. “They move too quick,” said Wind. “They stay too high,” said Earth. So Earth pulled at itself to form homes, And Wind carried these homes to Sky, And Sky gave these homes to their children, That they might have shape. But of these homes there were only so much, and so it was That some of their children sank to Earth, And some of their children flew with Wind, And some of their children stayed in Sky. It was thus the world was made. e Nena’s hands shook as she wrung out the washcloth. In the low light, the berry stains on her brown skin looked like blood. Ti was whispering in the next room, the beginning of a lullaby for a penitent’s infant girl. The smooth, low cadence of her voice carried through the walls, reassuring. “Are you tired, Nena?” Gami’s hand was a warm weight on her shoulder; Nena tried to feel it for the comfort it was. “You 72

haven’t slept since you came back.” That was a funny way to put it, as if she’d been gone from Tanon a week instead of three years. “I’m all right.” Nena didn’t feel tired; in the excitement of the last few days, she wasn’t sure she could. There was a low buzz in the back of her head, growing by the minute. Everything was moving so fast, enough that it almost scared her. She tried to go over the steps again in her head, but kept halting, stuttering. Gami’s fingers tightened briefly before letting go, and she heard him leave the room, his footsteps slow and heavy. Nena kept her head down, intent on her task. She ran the cloth over her forearms, scrubbing hard. The stains mixed with the water, running down her wrists to drip into the bowl. She could hear the choirmaster in the back of her head, instructing. First, water, for cleansing and movement. Then, earth, for settling. Then— her fingers fumbled, and some water sloshed out of the bowl. She took a deep breath and put the washcloth down, pressing her hand against her eyes. “All right,” she whispered, trying to calm her breathing. “Again. Then. Then.” Then, the song. A song for protection, or luck, or strength. A song for a beginning, or an end. She mapped out the path in her head, the songwords clear as fresh ink. Here, the au, curling gently around the bones of the first finger. The diro across the backs of her palms, the tail sharp, piercing the bone of her wrist. Then pitala, and te, and the nena for which she was named, low on the arm, at the soft juncture inside her elbow. She pressed her fingers there briefly, feeling for her pulse. Then she picked up the brush and began to write.

e For many many years, the world remained As it was, and all three were content. They cared for their children, And loved them, until one day Earth woke And began to weep. “Why do you weep?” asked Sky. “What do you weep for?” asked Wind. “I am so lonely,” said Earth, and carved deep Gouges into its heart. “I have no music to keep me warm. My children grow silent and do not sing.” For although Wind’s children sang joyfully As they danced, and the chorus of Sky’s children Echoed always in their cavern, Earth’s children were silent and still. So Sky and Wind and Earth lifted their voices Once, twice, And from the tracks of Earth’s tears were born the Two: Pado, first and Mother, And T’kalo, second and Son. e Nena’s name-mother came into the room during the last hour. Nena heard her instead of saw; by then she had already wrapped the manou around her eyes, killing her sight. The songwords stung on her skin, pulsing gently with the beat of her heart. “You’ve grown so,” Yuni whispered, her fingers parting Nena’s hair for the braids. Her voice was low and husky but did not shake, and Nena was overwhelmed by a rush of pride for her. Yuni had come to visit her in Ekoko every once in a while, though by most standards Nena was already grown, and had sent her letters regularly. They had always been affectionate, but three years was a long time; Nena felt safe, but that was really 74

only the memory of safe. Nena’s fingers picked at the cushion she was sitting on, her fingers tracing blindly the crescent sky, the two lines for wind, the pentagon for earth. Yuni was young still, and she would be name-mother to other children for many more years, but Nena had been her first, and it was always the first bond that was hardest to sever. “It feels like only yesterday that you were taking your first steps.” The pull of the brush against her hair, the sound of Yuni’s bracelets clacking against each other as she brushed. The songwords stopped stinging so much; now they only ached. Nena swallowed, and her fingers found Yuni’s. “I haven’t outgrown you yet, though,” Nena said, and tried to smile. “I’m still only up to your shoulder.” Yuni laughed, and Nena thought about how beautiful her name-mother was, how tall and strong. Probably she would never see her again. That was how it always went. The letters would have to be enough, Nena thought. The letters would have to be enough. Her weight shifted, and she straightened her back, swallowing. Someone else was singing in the next room, a higher voice than Ti’s, a blessing for marriage. Nena exhaled. “I’m very proud of you, Na,” Yuni said, starting the braid. Nena brought her hands to her lap and bent her head, her throat closing up. “Thank you for choosing me.” e Of all their children it was Pado Who was most beautiful, And of her Earth was very proud. She walked the fields of the world for months, Her footprints gold blessings, Picking the fruit off the trees and 75

Drinking the rain that Sky gave her. In her shadow walked T’kalo, First a child at his mother’s side, Then a young man, strong and true. They shared, as mothers and children do, The same songs and stories. But as the first years passed, and the world Grew older, so too did T’kalo, and soon He became an old man bent double From the weight of his bones. Soon Pado carried him in her arms Just as she had when they had first Been birthed in Earth’s tears. Finally Pado cleared a field At the center of Earth’s greatest plain And lay her son down at its heart And cradled his head, waiting. “What is happening?” asked Sky, Peering over Earth’s mountains. “What is wrong?” asked Wind, Blowing through the grass. “Why does he lie so still?” asked Earth, Touching T’kalo’s papery flesh. “He is dying,” said Pado. And because Her parents could not understand What death could be, they too stood vigil And waited. e When they led Nena to Danu’s room, her legs had been trembling, but she stood it long enough to sit down on the stool beside Danu’s bed. Someone’s hand had squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, and then her soundless escorts left the room. Part of her felt like getting up and following after them so she could beg them to please let her go, that she had changed her mind, that Singing for the rest of her life was too frightening a prospect. The 76

rest of her stayed put. Finally, Nena felt for Danu’s hand in the sheets. She could hear her labored breathing, the wet, raspy whine in her chest. The blankets rose and fell with each breath, rustling. Danu’s room smelled of crushed herbs and incense. There were probably large windows— there always were, three of them for every Creator— but they were shut against the coming cold season. It made the room feel stuffy. Nena had never spoken to Danu, besides a nod or two once upon a time, but she could envision her room all the same. There, the single hearth with the low-banked fire. To its left, the stand with Danu’s nim, its hem still brushing the floor. Pieces of Danu’s life, in the same positions when she left, waiting for her to return. When the rider had come to Ekoko, Nena had been napping after dinner. Pumi and Nu had shaken her awake, and they had all made the journey single-file to the center hall. The choirmaster had said, “There has been a terrible accident,” and Nena had felt a swooping fear, and then a formless excitement that had followed at fear’s heels. Later, she had felt guilty, almost ashamed. It had been a feeling rivaled only in intensity by the excitement of her selection a day later. Danu had not been a famous Singer, but she was a Singer all the same. It was an honor to be selected, and an honor also to have your first song be an end song. It was lucky, people said. It meant your name-children would grow smart, and strong, and successful. Was not T’kalo— ? There were songs for creation and destruction. Nena had learned them, all their verses. The songs for safety, for a good harvest, for a healthy birth, for exceptional name-children. The songs of creation, even, with the gaps for where the words where left out so that Earth would not hear and swallow the Singer 77

whole. There were songs for forgetting, for remembering. Songs for being brave, songs for being afraid, songs for both, songs for neither. If Nena had not known her well then, then it was a stranger that she was faced with now. There was nothing of Danu in this body, with its slack arms and silent lips; whatever magic in there that had spun the stories was gone. Even the songwords on her arms felt faded, their movements a stuttering heartbeat. Nena sat, folded her hands over Danu’s, and tried to remember. e When T’kalo breathed the final time, Pado, first of all mothers, wept freely. Her tears fell into his hair and darkened it, And turned it the color of grief. Sky, who did not understand, pulled away. Wind, who could not feel her pain, blew to the world’s ends. And Earth, who made them of its flesh, Wrapped T’kalo in its arms and buried him close To its heart. But eventually Pado’s grief became resolve, And she began again to walk the lands of the world. As she walked, first one thousand leagues, And then a thousand leagues more, She searched, and as she searched, Her parents grew curious. “Where do you go?” asked Sky, Bending down for a closer look. “What do you search for?” asked Wind, Who followed at her heels. “When will you come home?” asked Earth, Who still stood at T’kalo’s grave. But Pado did not answer. She walked on and on, through mountains 78

And valleys, picking fresh reeds and putting them Away, fingering new-grown grasses and leaving them By the roadside. She knelt by creeks and listened To their conversations, dipped her hands Into the waters to feel the endless current. She picked up seeds And placed them on her tongue, pressed the skins of ripening fruits Against her lips. She pulled rain from the soil And watched lightning dance across the sky. She held The fluttering hearts of young beasts in her hands, And counted their breaths. She collected many things And names, and swallowed them. Her smooth feet Cracked, and bled, and healed. Her skin darkened And weathered in the sun. “She is grieving,” said Sky, and returned To their brighter, cleaner children. “She is mad,” said Wind, and left To play with storms and cyclones. “I still do not understand,” said Earth, and Waited. Pado walked, and walked, and walked. She walked Until Sky and Wind forgot her beauty. She walked Until even Earth turned away from T’kalo’s grave. She walked, and walked, and then one day, She stopped. Sky did not notice. Wind did not notice. Earth did not want to see. Pado knelt and began to gather The long grasses and vines by the riverside, And dried them in the sun. She gathered Colored earth and roots, and crushed them To make dyes that rivaled the colors Of Earth’s richest fields. She collected all these things and laid them Before her, and singing the words she had learned, Began to weave. 79

e Nena had chosen Singing because it made her feel special. It was old-fashioned, and hardly anyone took the songs seriously anymore, but there was something about the ritual of it all that made Nena want to Sing forever. She had cried the whole first week in Ekoko, but stayed. It was a duty, and as the months had passed she realized that it was the duty of it all that she hated the most, but even so she had loved it anyway. That was always hardest to explain to other people: the impatience, and the loving. She hadn’t found the right word for that yet, either. Danu had lived a long time before the stroke had felled her, long enough that there were songs that she knew that weren’t even in the books. It had been long enough, Gami had said, when he had come to fetch Nena back to Tanon, tipping his hat from under the canopy of the wagon. Long enough, Yuni had said, before kissing Nena goodbye for the last time. And this, too: the final moments before the Song, the sound of their breathing. A single breath to start the cycle. Long enough. e Pado’s basket was even more beautiful than she. It gleamed in the sunlight, filled with more colors Than the world had names for, and woven within it Were a thousand strands of Pado’s black, black hair, A blessing. When she was finished, Pado took it up in her arms and began The long journey home. She walked on, and on, and on, and as she walked The world awoke. Sky sat up and began to follow again her steps, Wind stopped running and turned to listen, Earth unfolded itself and returned to T’kalo’s grave. “Hurry,” said Sky, intent on the journey. 80

“Hurry,” said Wind, pushing her along. “Hurry,” said Earth, waiting still. Pado walked, and walked, and walked, And walked. She walked for a thousand cycles, And in those cycles the world forgot and remembered A thousand times. She walked through dreams And through mountains and through valleys And through clouds. She walked, And she walked, until finally she reached The lonely field of T’kalo’s grave. Pado stood over her son’s resting place and took Her beautiful basket. She held it up In the sunlight, the most beautiful thing In the world, and very gently She began to tear it apart. She split it seven ways, one strip For every century T’kalo had lived, And those seven strips she laid on the ground. The seven strips became seven great rivers, Each grander than the last, and these seven rivers Swept away the soil and the rocks until what was left Was the glittering bones of Earth’s ribs, And inside those bones the body of her son. Pado knelt at his side, her only child, And the world remembered her grief. Pado knelt, and cradled T’kalo’s cheek In the gentle palm of her hand. Pado knelt, and said to T’kalo, “Wake up,” And began to sing. e “In the beginning,” Nena said into the darkness, her voice strong and true, “there was only Sky, and Wind, and Earth.” Fin. 81

The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines (Prehistory-1589): isang tanacal hiniwalay sa apat na bahagi b. k. capinpin q

Doctor Bantug, m.d. diagnosed, “The beginnings of medicine in the Philippines are shrouded in the mists of time.”Doctor Bantug, m.d. diagnosed, “The beginnings of medicine in the Philippines are shrouded in the mists of time.”

“Tinawag kang metapiskio Sapagkat hindi nila munawaan Ang maghapon mong pagtitig sa kawalan At magdamag mong pabulong-bulong sa hangin.” —Oriental, Rio Alma

SAPA Tagalog aco sa cabisera ng tubig taga-ilog and purely the water rises in its innocence as in birthing the water erupts and gushes out obliquely.

ASAL When I saw her dancing never in solitude but aligned in transfiguration to assemble in the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mouth our shards of memory pag-aalay at paglulucsa iisa lamang iisang hininga iisang bunga though something happens disclosed as dreams behind rumpled clouds it disintegrates without interest like dried leaves under the pestle the momentary nature needs no guidance but the novice sits in sculpted stasis her lips chapped waiting for the trees to lend their essence

lumalabas ang dapog mula sa natutuyong tao dinarangan sa dambana ng lupa upang magunita ang himala sa mata ng pana sa bucal nagluluoal ng hingal nakalatag ang minsang pagtitipon ng taong naghihilom ng pinunit na pangako subali at sa panahong sumisibol at sa ngayon humhatac sa ating camay papuntang caoalan space has not yet provided a source of intimacy this mind this body eludes even us even as we circle around encapsulating synecdocheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s we cannot speak to it we cannot speak without it confounded as momentum contriving the air around the last order of things sapagkat puno ng luha ang kaluluwa dito sa daigdig ng anay pagkatao hinuha ng katawang pinagpalaan.

PANAMAN tabi tabi po

tabi tabi po

mga nuno sa libingan

mga cuoago sa dilim

sa huling tacipsilim natatacpan ang buong labanan ng mundong lumilipat-lipat sa iba at ibang daco ng himpapawid nguni at ito rin ang paraan ng pagpupugay ng paglalaho sa bawat hakbang sinisiyasat mayroong nakakubling kahulugan bata: dito namatay ang tatay ko dahil pinutol niya ang puno ang buhoc niya ay naging uban casingputi ng calalabas na buwan ibon ibon lumilipad magdalita kang lumagpak basahin mo yaring sulat padala ng bathalang anac sa bathala natin idalangin sala nila ay patawarin patawarin

matanda: ito na ba ang bagong salawicain na humihingi ng bagong panalangin true enough the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s potent light ebbs spoilt by somnolence when it wilts the blame is cast upon those who doubt yet in that last dawn the nude sun has impinged upon itself a new formation

SAMAYA The soul lies captivated by the image analogous to itself obscured in the slumbering mist drifting by cadal the predestined messenger of the moonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gaudy consciousness by oneself evil is by oneself suffers then by oneself unveiling by oneself seeks by oneself humbles by oneself mends by oneself called out of ages of slumbering rock repeat and bleed the divinities and prophecies gathered by constellations when they converged upon the woven mats delicate as morning

in our community we lose our place hack the deep surfaces of silver tide as it crashes monumentally on mounds we know that the soul lies fragmented lost in arrival that goes on reliquaries or relinquishes on its own abstinence payac pa ang pagliban mo sa araw hinihintay ko ang hatol mo tiyac sa aking pisngi bumabagong anyo lumilipas ang tadhanang sinimulan bucod sa mapanglaw na casaysayan bulag na bathala dito sa candungan mo nagbubuga ka ng babala ninanais co ang iyong halic cun babalic ang camalayang malaya ngunit sapat na ang acing gawain upang maibunyag ang mga bulong ng mga pulo.

“Space is a system...” marianne cadiz q

I Space is a system of matter and movement. Particles try to scatter evenly; every vacuum tries to fill. Energy changes hands through heat or motion, and the universe follows the trade, shifting as if to make amends. Bright stars dim in the blush of red giants going supernova, asteroids that once formed the faces of planets now drift as dust, and comets burn away their ice and fuel until they have nothing left to trace their orbit. Much like the small earth’s plates that push and pull and slide together, its bodies shift to accommodate each other’s presence. What must it have been like to feel you were first star only to realize that what kept you in place was the pull of others? II When they said I could have the stars, I waited for the sky to fall into my open hands when I should have kept my fists at the ready. I thought being six years old versus the world would be the worst of it, so I pacified myself by believing that victory was just one more weekend away. If I waited long enough then I’d be able to leave everything else behind because I was better and I was bright and I was meant for more than what I was offered.

I would like to thank my parents for setting me up for disappointment, but what difference does it make if it was my fault or theirs? It’s not like I should have expected them to lift me up when they said I could fly. III To fly, or simply just hover, an upward velocity of 9.8 m/s every second is required to compensate for the earth’s downward attraction. To escape the earth’s gravitational field completely, it takes thirty-four times the speed of sound. The universe expands, and some things, despite their abundance, feel like they’re running out. People push themselves because the highest hopes are set on the farthest stars—not necessarily because they are brighter or warmer, but because they are further and are becoming further still. I still count miles in terms of light-years like I’ll be able to travel them, but I’ve resigned myself to keeping my feet on the ground. I have chosen to be content with the earth. I imagine that gravity is trying to keep me close instead of hold me down.

from

a dead afflicion rayji de guia q

CHAPTER 1: THE LIBRARY

here was a a broad sign nailed on the wall with two words: SILENCE PLEASE. They were written in thick, black letters against an obnoxiously yellow background in case visitors missed their presence. Neri held one of the double-doors open as her other hand groped the wall for a switch of some sort and felt a button that did nothing.

The room was intriguing, and the paperwork she had just left on her desk was not. There already was a library in the second floor. This one seemed to have not been used in years, judging by the antiquated smell, too thick without the air conditioner to control the temperature. She gave the corridor outside one last check and, turning on her phoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s light, explored past the receiving desk. The carpeted floor muffled her footsteps. It seemed like a trip to a past century. The doors swung, first of all. She turned to a corner, raised her light, and was greeted by rows and rows of empty bookshelves merging into the unending shadow. She tutted in disappointment and turned back to leave. Just before she pushed the door open, her hand on the handle, she heard a familiar grunt. It was Ate, the heavily muscular woman who went around the building like the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s major-doma, relentlessly doing her rounds on all floors every day, but mostly remained not too far from this very door to guard the more del92

icate research laboratories in the lower levels. Neri had spoken to her on occasions she was feeling friendly and learned that Ate was a top disciple in the Academy so she was hired by Lady. Other than that, no information was extracted, not even a real nickname. “Shoot,” Neri said under her breath. The hulking security guard had always frightened her. She could reason, perhaps, that she was looking for the comfort room in this floor – but then this was her fifth year of apprenticeship, and in five years, she should have known where the comfort room was in this area, which she did, in fact, know. In five years too, this old-fashioned entrance gradually caught her attention. It was singular how ordinary it was. All the doors in the school automatically opened for recognized thumbprints, but this one was not even locked. She thought it was special, but apparently it was just some abandoned library the school was too lazy to clean up. There was no CCTV camera outside it too. Her phone told her it was already seven o’clock. She frowned. Not that she was worried Lady would be closed soon – it was, after all, a research center too, and scientists came and went at all hours much like a hospital – but her overtime, at most, extended up to eight. Later than that, she would be given a warning. A warning of any kind would appear on her record for college applications. “Watch the door.” It was another woman’s voice, low, cold, and unfamiliar, the kind that gave chills. Neri decided to retreat back to the shelves when she felt the door handle twitch, grateful for the carpet and the dust layer that thickened it. She must have forgotten to turn her plate three times that breakfast or something. She couldn’t even remember 93

the silly superstition. “Are there no l-lights?” Now this was a younger girl’s voice, high-pitched and shaky. “Unfortunately, no, but I have a flashlight with me.” In the gap between the shelf Neri was behind of and the one to her right, a glow of light appeared, slowly moving from one gap to another and farther. Neri deliberated for a moment and followed cautiously lest she made a sound. “Are you scared?” asked the woman. “A little bit.” “You are going to be all right.” Neri had passed six rows of shelves already, all empty – only a façade to fool curious sneaks. The library on the second floor had no need of shelves. All books were stored in the school database, and they could be browsed using the touch-tables. Traditional libraries that used shelves had stopped operating some decades ago. A small while later, the girl spoke: “What is this place?” “The library. We need a couple of files for the procedure.” Maybe the girl was a test patient. Last week, Miss Tan told Neri, in an excited but hushed voice, about the new research she would be heading and conducting regarding the still unknown disease that steadily shortened the lifespan of the population. Miss Tan said it might be related to the geographical position of the Philippines on the globe. She also said that a senior student would be chosen to join the team; however, if a certain student, one who was not a senior but a junior, were to pass the exam after summer, sometime in June or July, then perhaps, the administration would consider breaking the rule. It was, after all, a 94

very rare opportunity, and for a certain student not to be able to have the chance to join simply because she was just an incoming junior… it would be a pity. Neri had strived to be a more responsible scholar after that, working on her summer duties overtime to impress the authorities. A year of legitimate study would look very good on her record. She froze behind a shelf. The glow continued on deeper into the room and their voices trailed off to murmurs. Would being caught in a place she should not be lessen her already tiny shot at joining the team? Damn it, she thought. Her curiosity did not want to be left unsatisfied. She caught up to the two people and heard the girl talking. “– I abnormal?” “Your disease is common, but that does not mean it is healthy to stay that way.” “Are – are there other people who don’t want to be… you know, cured?” “Yes, there are those who refuse to get better. We try to help them as well, like how we tried with your –“ “No!” The voice echoed. It was followed by silence. “I’m sorry,” said the girl. “I mean, please, don’t me-mention anything regarding… that.” “I understand.” They halted, and when the woman directed the light to scan the shelves filled with books – bound on paper, Neri was sure, since her father had some of those at home – Neri tried to get 95

a longer look, which was useless as the two figures, a couple of meters away, blended with the shadows. She squinted but to no avail; only the woman’s arm, twig-like in appearance – thin and gnarled – as it reached for one book, was visible. In a few minutes, they left. Neri stayed where she was and waited for five to ten more minutes, just to be sure. Her mind was reeling. If this place held important data regarding anything Lady was researching, why was it not locked? Why was it not protected by a more capable door? Why were they on paper instead of a secure database? Her curio urged her to at least take a look at one of the books, which she did. Nondescript book, brown, and hardbound with only numbers on the spine printed in faded gold: 2020. It looked like a year to Neri. She sat on the floor cross-legged, the book on her lap. Her right hand lifted the cover, the other held her phone’s light aloft. The pages were yellowing and brittle, with cracks along the edges and small circular holes scattered about. 2020 January The Philippine Medical Society officially categorized █████████████ as a disease – Neri wondered what the blocked out word was. Obviously, it wasn’t blocked out before, since it was just a marker. – and Father Cory Eugenio of the Our Lady of Assumption Institute found the cure. She couldn’t help but smirk. Of course, the celebrated founder of Lady had done something brilliant. However, the book didn’t go into much detail. Many more words were blacked out. Sometimes sentences too. The ink bled through the paper and made the subsequent pages even less readable. She checked random 96

pages, and they too had been tampered with. She put the book back and picked the one labeled 2023, which she opened in the middle. It was not too different from the first one. –i██tially on newborn c██ldr█n, but the med█████ was to█ ████nt whic██incre█sed the in███t mo██ality rate ████%. After th█ success earlier ████ year in i███████ ██ ch██dren ████ e████████en, an e███utive order was p█ssed to m█n███e all barangays to ██ve free shot████ ev█ry cit██en. ██e World H███th Organi███ion urged█th█ ███ntry ████████the pra██ice against █████████████. Howeve███the █ountry reb██ed any for██gn interfe█ence████would fur█her d█ma█e o███n█tion█████ ██lture – Her phone rang, bringing her back to the reality of her situation. She immediately silenced it in fear of getting caught, but with all the misfortune in the world and the hand-me-down device that barely functioned more than a flash light, it did not quiet down. With haste, she put back the book and darted to the edge of the shelves near the wall, clutching the phone close to her chest in an attempt to smother the noise. She dropped on the carpet and sat on it until the call had stopped. In that moment, she considered that her resistance to her mother’s offer of fixing it was stupid. The caller was Sheena, her cousin. Then the call came again, and Neri cancelled the call, but a second later, another one came. Sheena could be so persistent sometimes. A text came through: hello you have a family to feed that worries abt u!! do i run off with ur money do u want that????more money on summer baybeh come oN. The time was ten minutes to eight. Neri told Sheena she would 97

be there at seven. Stop calling me, Neri typed and sent as quickly as she could, then removed the battery pack as a cautionary measure. Neri plodded off back to the exit. She peered through the gap under the doors – what a blessing these traditional doors were. Luckily, the guard was not there anymore. She hurried off the corridor. “Muriel?” Neri recognized the voice to be Miss Tan. Her heart pounded inside her chest, as she turned to the woman who was in the process of entering an office. “What are you still doing here?” Miss Tan said. “It’s late.” She checked her watch. “Golly, it’s almost eight. You should go home. This area is off-limits to students.” The teacher escorted Neri back to the laboratory so she could gather her things. Well, that was a relief, thought Neri, an early warning that she should not mention the incident to anyone. “I didn’t know it was off-limits, Miss Tan,” she said earnestly as they entered the escalator to go up the lobby. “I was looking for a teacher so I can tell them I’d go home, then I got lost. I am not very familiar with the area.” “You’re lucky I’m the one who found you. Gosh, imagine. Other students were suspended for so much as stepping on a tile! Some researchers are very sensitive, you know.” “Thank you, Miss Tan.”

CHAPTER 2: LADY’S HILL

espite summer officially being over, the hot temperature was inescapable. The surface was a forty-degree torridity that hardly anyone was in the beach; they filled the air-conditioned Ondon Complex buried between the cliff and sea, its roof insulated by various floras. Three levels down was Algebra, a pub for math enthusiasts, housing patrons from five in the afternoon to three in the morning, after Neri, the new owner of the place, had come out of her class. She sat on a stool by the counter, reading about the Bulaong Conjecture on her tablet. She had finished doing her homework before opening Algebra because reading a book on higher mathematics looked more impressive than answering a problem set on trigonometry – especially if your customers were actual professors and students of the subject. The University of Cavite was merely a two-minute walk from the complex. There was a rap on the counter. Neri looked up. The plump girl in front of her was quite bouncy, as if she had downed a liter of energy drink, and her wide grin seemed to radiate brightness. She had a round face, softly framed by her cropped hair. Neri became conscious how her long hair covered her face more than her nape. “Hi!” said the girl, fixing her fringe with her fingers, an action Neri found distracting. “I’d like to order apple pie.” Neri glanced at the cash register. Sheena wasn’t there. She sighed and put her book down. “Good evening. How big would you like your slice to be? We have pi over—“ “How much is a whole pie?”

“It’s three-hundred.” “Wow, that’s pretty cheap,” said the customer. She took out her purse. “Two pies then.” Neri raised an eyebrow. Two pis? “You’re ordering two-pi, right? Which would mean one whole thing. A tau pie.” “No, two pies. Two whole things.” “Well, actually, we measure pies here in radians.” “Uh, I just want two whole pies.” “Do you know radians?” asked Neri. She estimated that the girl was around her age, which would mean she was sixteen. “No?” “Oh, all right. What’s your name?” “Isa.” “Please wait a moment, Isa.” Leaving the customer looking bewildered, Neri went to the back room to look for Sheena and she found her just stepping out of the comfort room with the excuse of stomach problems. Neri pushed her out to look after the cash register and walked over to the food storage, then she came back out bearing a box of apple pie and a knife. She beckoned Isa to an empty table. “As you can see,” said Neri, once they were settled, “this is a whole apple pie, but I would refer to it as two-pi, as in pi, the Greek letter.” “Okay… the three-point-fourteen thing…” “Yes, good.” Neri took off the lid of the box. “Radian is the plane angle subtended by an arc equal to the radius. Assuming 100

that the radius of this circle – let’s not’s not call it pie as it will be confusing – the radius of this circle is one. To know the angle in radians, you divide the arc length by radius, but since the radius is one, the angle in radians and the arc length are equal. Did you know that half the circumference of the circle is exactly pi-radians or just pi?” Isa smiled. “That’s… awesome, I guess. And also cool?” “It is, isn’t it? That is where the pi comes in. I’m cutting this circle in two. I’ll cut the half with radians – one, two, three – so three radians plus that remaining bit is exactly pi. Thus, a hundred-and-eighty degrees in radians is pi. Now, in Algebra – this place –“ Neri rotated the box so the unsliced half was in front of her “ – we will ask you your slice. Normally, customers would want a pi-over-six, but there are some who want bigger, so they ask a pi-over-three, or over-four,” she said, slicing accordingly. “Oh, so I would be ordering two two-pis then, or four-pi.” “Or two tau pies, since tau is equal to two-pi. Are you sure you didn’t know this before?” “I think we’ll be starting this lesson very soon.” Isa laughed. “Two tau pies then.” Neri nodded and, carrying the sliced pie with her, left to prepare. She was already ribboning the box when Sheena told her off: “Really, you’re selling that mutilated thing to the customer?” Rolling her eyes, Sheena dragged Neri to the cash register and went to get an untouched pie. “Hey, aren’t you in the Krus section?” asked Isa, leaning on the counter with a grin. “Isn’t that the star section, or something, for the sciences? So you have a scholarship?” Neri shrugged. “I suppose so.” She tried to not smile to be 101

modest. “So, you’re from Lady too.” “Yeah, also in eleventh grade, section Puso. Star section for nothing since Lady doesn’t pay attention to artists,” said Isa, rummaging her bag. She pulled a purse and pushed the exact payment on the counter. “I’m not a math genius, but I love architecture. This place’s design emulates the style of almost two centuries ago. I love art deco. It’s not that consistent in design, but it’s okay. Who did the design?” Neri frowned. “My dad had an architect friend.” “See, this building-and-nature design is done by architects. I wish Lady would give more importance to artists.” “They are pleasing to look at,” Neri agreed, but vexed. “Also functional – “ “Excuse me,” said an impatient-looking man behind Isa. “I want macchiato, extra-large, and two mango muffins.” Isa looked sheepish and scurried to an empty table to wait. Sheena, who had just come back with two boxes, shooed Neri away from the counter and took over. “Go talk to your new friend,” she said. “Goodness knows you need to replace that tablet.” As Neri flopped down the chair opposite Isa, Isa was taking out a tablet and a pen. She zoomed into a drawing to inspect the detail closer. “Is that your design?” said Neri. She felt an urge to criticize it. “Oh, no! These are Lady’s building design. My mother was an architect, and she helped with building Lady, but she passed away, and she gave me all her designs before she did. She infuses old Filipino style with arkitektura moderna. Did you know she 102

was in charge of building this complex?” “Hmm.” “Yeah! She had old pictures of Maragondon before it became this busy city, and it was so simple. Some of the architecture in the pictures were architecture from way back during the colonial period, and also…” Neri had no choice but to listen. It was a subject she was not familiar with, but it was an interesting one, despite the girl’s slight on Algebra’s aesthetic choice. “Wow, she’s so talkative,” said Sheena hours later when Isa had already gone. “If she were a guy, you’d have been a match made in heaven.” “Yes, and if that were to happen you wouldn’t witness it because you’d be in hell.” “Ouch. What’s with the attitude? You seem to enjoy chatting with her. Aren’t you friends?” “She said Algebra is ‘not that consistent in design’.” Sheena rolled her eyes. “And you took that personally? Have you heard yourself?” She lowered her voice to imitate Neri: “‘Sheena, my classmate doesn’t know the Bulanglang Conjunction. He’s a complete waste of breath!’” “Bulaong Conjecture,” Neri corrected. “Whatever. You have a tongue as sharp as a knife, but you’re also an onion-skinned brat.” Neri turned and joined a table of two college students – past students of the previous owner of Algebra. They were animatedly discussing something, most likely a new problem that plagued the academe. Neri kept forgetting their name and referred to the 103

girl as X and the boy Y, and they did not mind. X was rail-thin, even skinnier than Neri, and that said something considering Neri had been looking especially gaunt since last year. Y was of average weight, and his most distinct feature was his long shiny hair that reached his bum. However, when Neri pulled a seat, they fell silent. Her brow furrowed. They realized the awkwardness the silence brought, and X spoke at once. “Sorry, we were talking about something…” “The accident at the foot of Lady’s hill.” Y shrugged. “It was my aunt.” “Oh,” said Neri. She frowned. “That’s sad.” “Yeah.” “I study at Lady. I heard about the incident just this afternoon. Is she okay?” Y shrugged again. Neri left without a word, thinking the two would like to be alone, and went back to her stool by the counter and picked up on the page where she left. Her eyes didn’t move. She was disturbed by the idea that some felon was able to break into her school and steal a bike on the way out. It was always so well-guarded since it was also a research center, but during the incident, there was no one around. At three, Neri and Sheena closed the place. Ondon Complex was still bustling with people, mostly students; they had to queue for the elevator for five minutes to go up. Through the elevator’s glass window, the underwater life was visible. However, it was still dark, and only the small fish that swam close could be 104

seen. The smell of salt lunged into their nostrils as they exited the building. Lampposts lined up the path to the main road, to which they sauntered. The walk home usually took thirty minutes. Neri was the only daughter of Adan and Lilia Muriel, the former a retired math teacher, and the latter a mechanic and tinkerer who could’ve been a teacher too, but preferred to be locked at home with her tools. Adan died at fifty due to heart failure; he had been weak three years before his death. Lilia was stronger, but not much. Sheena, twenty, was taken in when her parents died some years before Adan. Their main source of income was Algebra, which was, fortunately, enough for three on most days. If not, Lilia would take on repairing the neighbors’ appliances. The government only supported families with more than five children that were younger than ten; the country was starting to become underpopulated and this was the government’s solution. From the sky, the view of Nueva Manila looked deserted with most of its buildings covered with earth and grass, their interiors scattered beneath the ground. Either that or they occupied the mountains and hills, forming with its natural terrain. Filipinos used to live up to the sky with buildings piercing the clouds. Now buildings were built down. The tall edifices in the Old Metro were now almost desolate, leased by those who couldn’t afford to live nearer the ground in Nueva Manila. The city of Maragondon was at the perimeter, but it was one of the most wanted cities for living. The Muriels had ancestral lands – most of which were sold now – that they managed to live in the prestige metropolis. Their house, unlike those that populated Maragondon, was old and worn, an ancestral house that miraculously survived 105

time. Neri didn’t know how old it was, but its stone foundation was deteriorating and porous under a layer of moss, and its upper level of wood was, on some parts, coming apart. The windows were cracked glass held by tape and prayer. On the rare occasion that it rained, the roof leaked. There was no fence to surround the lot but it was hidden among clumps of bushes and trees. The door was wide open, and the bulbs in the living and dining areas were turned on, but no one was inside. “Could’ve closed the door, at least,” muttered Neri, going up the stairs. Sheena didn’t take notice and locked the door.

e “You’re gonna be late. You should wake up earlier.” Neri continued eating her breakfast – singangag and hotdog prepared by her cousin – without changing her pace. Less than three hours of sleep was not sufficient enough to provide her with energy to talk back. She briefly glanced at the woman across her who was stirring coffee with a folded empty sachet. Lilia was a portly woman with huge eyes distorted by the thick lenses of her bifocals, and even more so as she tried to meet her daughter’s eyes. Neri put down her utensils and went for the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth. Sheena had just entered the house with Neri’s plaid necktie fresh from the clothesline at the back. “I’m going,” said Neri, taking the tie. Our Lady of Assumption Institute was the best school in all of Cavite, proudly sitting on a hill commanding the attention 106

of all townsfolk. Neri Muriel was one of its best students from the eleventh grade section, Krus, a class concentrating on the sciences, and as such she was granted a full scholarship. She was also the president of the class, but that she was not particularly proud of. Since kindergarten, she had hardly evolved into a lady. She was thin and bony and the school uniform’s blouse looked like a sack on her flat torso. Her hair lacked any sheen and was too difficult to manage. The pockmarks on her complexion were the only evidence puberty ever graced her. Thus she was an easy target of taunts or made-up rumors. “Did you know Neri ate crushed Pentel pen,” Jesus had said. Neri assumed it was because of her rotting teeth in first grade. The trouble with spending all your life with the same people was that anything you had been in your childhood would be brought up still years later. Neri now had a set of perfectly white teeth, and she took pleasure at the knowledge that her classmates had their braces clashing in the dark corners of the school. As a scholar, she was required to accomplish thirty hours of service and apprenticeship a month. The stipends were not extravagant, but they were enough to keep her independent. The first class was homeroom, and the annual outreach and vaccination program in celebration of Lady’s foundation day was being discussed. The program was for the third graders in the public schools outside Nueva Manila. Sections were paired to handle the schools, and Krus was tasked to work with Puso, an arts class, for Eskwela 9. “All right, we all remember how the vaccine was not something we’d like to remember,” said Ms. Tan, the class adviser. Neri thought the teacher was pretty and wondered why Ms. Tan was not yet a Mrs. “And it is not a very quiet process too, so as much 107

as possible, we need the children entertained. What kind of entertainment would our class show?” “I vote Neri!” Neri peered across the room, at the boy sitting near the door, his hand stretched up. Jesus was tall and lanky, with a thin face and a wide grin. Everyone considered him the class clown. The class laughed at the suggestion. “I – I don’t – !” Neri tried to say. “I second the motion,” another said, tittering. It was one of Jesus’s friends, Ces. “All right, Muriel it is then!” she said, writing Neri’s name on the board. In truth, Neri was slightly flattered, though she was unsure if that feeling was right. After all, Jesus hadn’t always been too kind with her – she actually loathed him. She began outlining in her head what she could discuss on the event as Ms. Tan asked for more volunteers. Fractal, perhaps. Adan, her father, had taught her about fractals when she was nine. That would be good, she thought. At the end of the period, Ms. Tan called Neri to the corridor outside. “This will be brief,” Ms. Tan assured the Calculus teacher, Mr. Manuel, who was standing by the door with an inquiring look. He nodded with a smile and entered. “Muriel, good news!” she continued, grinning. Neri held the excitement in her chest, anticipating the teacher’s next words. “There was a discussion in the department yester – Divino, 108

Alintono, where are you going?” Turning around, Neri saw Jesus and Ces walking to the opposite direction. “Comfort room, Ma’am,” said Jesus. “Only one can go out at a time. Divino, you can go. Alintono, stay until Divino returns.” “Sir allowed us though, Ms. Tan!” Jesus grabbed his friend’s arm. “You know I can’t survive without my lover,” he said, pouting. Miss Tan sighed. “No, Divino. That’s the rule. One person at a time. No excuses.” He pouted, pushed Ces back to the room, and made a dramatic exit that teachers poked their heads out of the room to check the commotion. Ms. Tan shook her head. “Anyway,” she told Neri, “we had a discussion about your qualification for the program, so they agreed to let you take an exam alongside the seniors next week. Congratulations – are you not happy?” she added, seeing the teen’s blank look. “I am! I just don’t know how to….” “Smile, Muriel.” Miss Tan took Neri’s hand and shook it. “Good luck! Now, get inside.” Neri resumed her seat inside the classroom, sort of disoriented, but she quickly regained her alertness; Mr. Manuel spoke of a quiz for next meeting. He was a new addition in the faculty, but he had already made an impression on his students. Girls sighed adoringly when his back was turned and stared lovingly when he stood at a distance. They said, look at his gentle smile, his great hair, his cheekbones… look at this talking bamboo, Neri 109

would think. Not that Mr. Manuel was bad-looking, but Neri just couldn’t see the attractiveness others often mentioned. One of the few subjects conducted aboveground was PE. Students would rush into the comfort rooms to change into their t-shirts and sweatpants, though some boys remained inside the room. Neri was comfortable enough to change behind the classroom door though, so she never competed for an empty stall. While others fought over the elevator where the losers would use the stairs, Neri was already at the volleyball court, standing dignified among her riotous classmates. The school property flattened the top of a hill, its main building surrounded by courts and arenas for various sports, hardly used except for PE classes. In fact, the place was usually desolate as the students were always kept inside their classrooms. The outside was only lively during the annual intramurals. Neri saw the northern fence being restored by some men, from the splintered wood that it was after the robbing incident to tall steel bars, making her think of prisons. She frowned, her gaze hardening. There was a painful blow at the back of her head, and she lunged forward, almost falling. She yelped loudly, and, spinning around, she saw her classmates tittering. Her ears felt hot. “Sorry!” Jesus cried, his face without a trace of being sorry at all. “Sorry, Neri! Can you pass it back though?” The ball had bounced against a column and was now rolling slowly towards Neri, who decided to pick it up and throw it back as hard as she could – which actually didn’t do much. Not one of those laughing boys was hit. When the others had arrived, the hirsute coach whistled, and Neri trudged to join everyone else with a glower on her face. 110

e That night, Neri called in sick for her service, reasoning that her head was steadily throbbing since PE. There was barely anything interesting in the offices anyway at the early days of the school year. She treaded a path around the hill, tall grasses lightly scratching her legs. It was almost dusk, and the area, being surrounded by mango and banana trees, was difficultly dim, even with the makeshift lampposts of trees and bulbs – the path led to the small community of informal settlers down the river. People living there were told to not use this path to preserve the dignity of the school, but Y’s aunt was probably one of the stubborn ones. Neri looked up the top. She approximated her position to be below the broken fence. According to some seniors, the victim was now cared for financially by the school for all medical costs. Judging by the dark splats that sprinkled the rocks – blood, most likely – Y’s aunts would need quite a lot of care. “What are you doing?” Neri almost jumped, startled. There were rustles and footsteps somewhere in front of her, but the voice was behind. “Are you playing detective?” the newcomer pressed on. Spinning around, Neri saw a familiar-looking girl, wearing the same uniform as her, but she was sure the girl was not a classmate. “Do I know you?” “Isa, we met at Algebra –“ “Oh… oh! You’re the arts person. Did you follow me?” “Not really? Well, yeah. I saw you turn – and I mean usually you’d be at Algebra, right? – so I followed.” There were murmurs, low and incomprehensible, soft – then a 111

chortle. “I’m sorry if you found it creepy, I was just curious,” Isa added. “Shh,” said Neri, grabbing the girl’s arm and pulling her to a tree. They fit themselves within the trunk’s width, Neri holding both Isa’s wrists to make sure the girl wouldn’t do anything to draw attention. Neri recognized the voices, having spent almost a decade with them – and her guess was correct. A few meters off from the two girls’ spot was Jesus and Ces – they were wearing their uniforms still – sitting together on a rundown swing. But there was something different in the picture, thought Neri. Was it the fact that Jesus’s arm was around his best friend’s shoulder? That was a normal occurrence though. Or was it the fact that – … just now, their lips touched. Neri slunk back in blushing confusion and let go of Isa, realizing how awfully close their proximity was. She briskly marched away from the scene. “What were they doing?” asked Isa, still tagging along. Neri tried to shrug casually. “Osculation, I believe.”

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CHAPTER 3: ADAN’S TREE

riendship was a child’s child’s plaything. Neri liked to think she outgrew it, rather than it leaving her behind. It was an unnecessary distraction.

In kindergarten, she used to play with Marina. She couldn’t remember what had happened except one day, Marina, with another classmate, just laughed at her. Since then they never talked, except last week, when Marina asked her to pass the pencil that rolled on the floor. Early in elementary school – it was hard to believe but – Neri spent recess every day with Jesus. By third grade, however, he started ignoring her unless he teased her. In fifth grade, she hadn’t learned her lesson still; Jeany befriended her but they only talked when Jeany wanted to copy off her homework. Neri cut off their friendship after three months. After that, she never had anyone she could call a friend and it was okay. Friends were unnecessary distractions, after all. Sheena and her mother were enough. Her mother alone, really. Thus it was irritating how Isa always greeted her whenever they saw each other in the corridors. One lunch time, in the second-floor library, Isa managed to corner Neri, who was studying on one desk near the Mathematics shelves. “Only one student per desk,” said Neri, sliding a finger on the screen. Isa didn’t leave. “Are you avoiding me?”

“Not really, no. I am simply saying: one student per table. Ms. De Leon might make us leave.” “It won’t be long.” Isa took a chair from a vacant desk and pulled it beside Neri. “You know, that night when you were 113

snooping – “ Neri fixed a hard look at Isa. “Can we not talk about this?” she hissed, her cheeks hot. “Who else would I talk with about this?” “No one. Why do you want to talk about it? It was nothing!” Isa shrugged. “Not really talk, you know. I guess just chat. Those people were your friends, weren’t they? They’re your classmates.” “No, they’re not my friends. Yes, they’re my classmates. And so?” “I mean, what now? Is it… okay?” I don’t know. “I don’t care,” was what Neri said instead. “Anything else?” Isa smiled. “Well,” she said, “I’m the president of Puso. My adviser told me to meet up with you – get to know each other so we can discuss our plans for the outreach. And I’m just really new to this, you know, so please help me?” Neri was now lazily browsing the pages, not really paying attention to the contents. She had read this book before. “This is my first time being a president too, so there is very little help I can offer.” “Oh, not only that. I’m a transferee, so I’m not used to having this outreach thing.” Closing the book with a flick, Neri looked at the girl more closely. She hadn’t recognized Isa the first time they met. All the students in her batch, if she were to see them outside school, she knew she would recognize them all. “I didn’t know Lady accepts transferees,” she said, picking up 114

her satchel on the floor. She stood up and left, but the girl still followed. “Don’t leave me!” cried Isa, but then the librarian shot them a glare. She whispered, “Where are you going?” Neri continued walking out of the library and up the first floor where the cafeteria was. She was planning on studying for the apprenticeship test – tomorrow, Ms. Tan had reminded her that morning – but she had not a clue on what to study for. From what she had heard, intelligence would be based on grades so on that front, she was not too worried; the test alone would be about will and habitus. With this girl nagging her, there was no chance any form of study would be achieved. She circled the first floor and heard Isa chuckle. She frowned. There was a queue for the elevator on one side of the lobby since the bell would ring in ten minutes. Neri weaved in and out of the lines, muttering, “Excuse me.” Then she snuck out to the stairs when she had lost Isa. She would have to meet up with the Puso president at one point, but for today, Neri would avoid her. When she arrived at her classroom, she was panting heavily, though she tried to maintain her composure. ”Cold and aloof” was her attitude most times around her classmates to make it seem that she didn’t care – I really do not care, however, she thought to herself. Being affected would let her be an easier target for Jesus and his friends. Not that I care. At one o’clock, the class was settled. The Theology teacher and school principal, Father Eric, entered and everyone was quiet. He was a short man in a pristine white gown that brushed the floor when he hobbled around the building. His hair was gelled, and under his thin nose was a toothbrush mustache that was probably also gelled. Despite his shrilly voice, he was feared. He began checking the attendance, and each student respond115

ed when called. “Muscoda,” the teacher said after he had called Neri. There was no response. Neri checked the row at the back. Her tallest classmate, Gina, was not in her seat. Gina tried to sneak out during lunch time again yesterday. She would sometimes try to get past the lobby guards to eat at that cheap restaurant that had opened last month but she would always returned before the bell rang. Yesterday, she did not. Gina’s father called Neri last night, and so Neri reported the incident to Ms. Tan. Father Eric proceeded to the next names without a remark. It was normal now, after all: There were more people being abducted. The government said they were terrorists, but so far, no demand – for ransom or otherwise – were stated. The abducted aged from ten to eighteen years, boys and girls. Parents were warned to watch over their children. The lesson today was still in the gospel of Mark. Neri did not bother listening; it was the same lesson every year, so there was no need. She doubted anyone actually listened, but most pretended anyway. That night in Algebra, she kept herself in a corner table, her back facing the room, lest Isa pestered her. The girl sometimes visited the place. Neri did not stay long, however. At nine o’clock, she bid her cousin goodbye, bringing with her a couple of brownies as her dinner and stuffing them in her bag. She took the usual path on the way home, but walked past it. She continued her gait across the hanging bridge of lined planks that connected the town center to Ibayo. Some planks were broken, and others altogether missing, so Neri had to be careful. Baranggay Ibayo was less affected by technology, and its residents preferred it that way, but at least they put up some lamps along the rail to light up the path. Perhaps the fifth fall down the shallow lake 116

fifty feet under made them see some sense, even just a bit. The wind blew powerfully as Neri crossed, making the journey even more dangerous. She kept a sturdy hold on the rail, but her knees shook with every step. At last, the task was done. She had to go back some time later for another round, but she put that thought at the back of her mind. She trekked through the dusty road in between houses of oddly-shaped yero and plywood, illuminated by yellow lightbulbs hanging on thin poles. Farther along, she caught sight of a small chapel surround by a thick shrubbery of varying height. Underneath one of the shortest, behind the chapel, was Adan Muriel’s grave. He specifically requested to be buried in this baranggay where he had grown up as a child instead of the cemetery at the town center. It was tradition to be buried without a coffin and with a tree over, and Adan chose a mango tree. The young tree was planted in line with two other grown mango trees, both of them bearing the names of Muriel’s grandparents on bronze plaques. But when Neri found the spot, there was someone else. Lilia’s silhouette was obvious. She was sitting on the ground, a bottle in hand. Her cane laid to her right. Neri froze mid-step, unable to think of what to do, and before she could, her mother turned her head. “Come have a sit, Nene,” said Lilia, patting a patch of dirt as invitation. Neri felt her insides flare in anger but she acquiesced nonetheless. From her bag she drew the brownies and placed one on the plant’s base. She gnashed on the other one. “Sorry, I only bought two,” she said, her voice quaking. Lilia took another sip of her drink. “It’s all right, Nene.” 117

There was silence, awkward but wild – to Neri at least – occasionally broken by the old woman’s coughs and sniffs. The last time Neri was called Nene was years ago, way far back. She balled her hands into fists, but Lilia was too inebriated to feel the almost electric tension between them. Neri couldn’t remember when she began to resent her mother, but it all came down after Adan’s death last year. Finally she spoke: “Why are you here?” “Death anniversary!” Lilia giggled. “Adan was good. Very good. Very, very, very best.” That was true, of course. Adan was a great father to Neri. He raised her, taught her everything she knew. Most importantly, he was always there. Whereas Lilia… “You didn’t even love him,” said Neri. Lilia waved her hand as if there was a relentless fly in front of her. “I did! I love him. He was best. He was grood! Great. Good.” Liar. In third grade, Neri won first place in a math contest. It was conducted in front of students and parents. After she was awarded the gold medal, she ran back to where her parents were among the crowd. Adan was there, grinning, but Lilia was not. Neri looked left and right, until she saw her mother exiting the hall at the back. She followed, excited to show off. Then she found Lilia in the comfort room kissing someone else. Neri was young, but at that age, she knew that your parent should not be kissing someone who was not your parent. That confused her young mind. “I know you had a boyfriend. I saw.” Lilia guffawed. “I never had a boyfriend!” she said in between 118

gasps. “Besides your father,” she added. The laughter provoked Neri. She slapped Lilia, who stopped, who stared bemusedly. Even Neri was shocked at her own action, but she did not apologize. She had always wanted to do that. Since Adan died, how happy was she? How many men had she dated? One day, would Neri just find someone in the house introducing himself as her new father to replace Adan? Then Lilia started crying in between chuckles, until she was fully sobbing. She didn’t even shed a tear during her husband’s funeral, which had elicited Neri’s ire. “I love him. I love him so much,” Lilia whispered, but more to herself than Neri. Was she talking about Adan or someone else? Neri wondered. “Adan, he was best. He was best – my best, best, best friend. Good friend. Great friend. Best friend. We agreed, and he was best. We love you. I love you. He loves you…” Lilia’s voice trailed off into inarticulate mutters. She coughed and sniffed and wailed, hugging and rocking herself. She looked like a child, Neri almost softened. Almost. Lest the woman fall asleep on the dirt, among the insects and worms and the dead, Neri dragged Lilia inside the chapel to one of the pews. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be kicked out, and hopefully, Lilia wouldn’t be too noisy. Going through the hanging bridge with a drunkard was unsafe, without a doubt. “Be careful,” Lilia slurred, as Neri pushed her on the seat. “Bracelet. Be careful because I don’t want you gone, okay? Fight, Nene!” She grinned widely, but her eyelids fell. “Arch-architin… archisign…” “Archsynine,” corrected Neri, walking away. 119

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Archnine in bracelet, yes. I made. I love you.â&#x20AC;? Neri was already at the door, ready to leave her now snoring mother behind, when she felt hesitation tug her back. She thought of her apprenticeship test tomorrow. She was gone. On her bedside drawer, she found a braided and beaded bracelet with three long glass embellishments that tapered to a sharp point. It was pretty. On the surface. She deliberated and stuffed it into her bag before sleeping.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS b. k. capinpin has written The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines. brian alternates between playing Tom Hansen and Summer Finn in the movie of his life. But one role’s static: he loves to play Ted Mosby--the professor part, not the rest of the HIMYM part (okay, so maybe some of that as well). Damn it, Jim, marianne cadiz is a Biology major, not a doctor! abby caranto is a self-serving superhero by day and an artist by night. Unless she thinks you’re interesting enough (and she doesn’t), expect her not to make a conversation for the sake of one. Lotsalove. bernice castro doesn’t know the difference between flirting and bullying. Don’t take it personally. rayji de guia is in love with Mako Mori. She is also in love with Gaudi’s architecture. No, she is not an architecture major. Stop that. erin is a dab hand at procrastinating and sleeping after 1 am. The number of times she tweets is indirectly proportional to the number of times she talks in real life. rizza edu does not like tea, clean sneakers, and you most especially. She is also a pro at confusing people. cielo gozar has received at least 5 participation awards and a loyalty award in her long and illustrious career as a student. Her current major project is to see how many hours of sleep she can get in a day without losing time for her academics. jake habitan is an only son notorious for always being high with caffeine. He still wishes for an older sibling who can tag along with all his shits. hannah is a mean mean gurl. She still believes in the power of “kili-kili” power. katreena is a frustrated writer, blogger, and photographer. She wants to be wattpad famous someday. She’s a very weird girl. The end.

augusto ledesma was a hermit notorious for hurting little children and collecting their tears as a tribute to Satan in Portugal during the late 19th century. He was last seen planning an expedition to find the other side of his sofa. narciso is into anthropology, awesome ladies, and dinosaurs. She still isn’t sure what she’s doing here. g refareal found out mixing a stimulant (coffee), and a depressant (alcohol) will not neutralize its effect but make her more depressed while she’s awake. She’ll always be Dad’s kid because mommy issues. fnm san pedro keeps telling himself that he just wants a Game-Boywith-LSDJ of Time and a sequel to Goblet Grotto.