Vital Signs - Pacemaker 2017

Pacemaker

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PACEMAKER THE OFFICIAL LITERARY FOLIO OF VITAL SIGNS WEST VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE LA PAZ, ILOILO CITY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN ILOILO CITY BY MALONES PRINTING PRESS & PUBLISHING HOUSE ZERRUDO COMMERCIAL COMPLEX E. LOPEZ ST., JARO, ILOILO CITY

LAY-OUT AND COVER DESIGN BY LEODEL T. BARRIO II

Vital Signs

FOREWORD Life is always a struggle. A battle to live, a war for existence.

Behind each struggle is a story.

A story of life or loss, love or betrayal, of blessing or burden, and trial or triumph. These are filled with inspiration or if not, they are cautionary tales of failure.

These are the pieces of life, the stories of survival.

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What’s Inside

Poetry

Story of Survival 5 Helpless 6 Great Expectations 7 Opening Doors 8 The Flood 9 The Hunt 9 I Remember 11 Bakit, Kapatid?

12 Bitiw 12 Iba 13 Tula 13 Ngayon Mawawala ang Lumbay 14 Numbered 15 Free Fall 16 I Only Knew Your Name 17 Imperfect Portrait 18 Resoluteness 18 Night 20 Ire 20 Ghost 20 Dark Fantasy 21 Dusk 22 Stranded 22 Two Minutes Away 23 1-10 23 The Hare and the Wolf 24 Seep 25 Blink 25 Ennui 27 When He Forgets 27 I Saw a Dragonfly Today 28 The Union 29 Admiration 29 Postmortem of Betrayal 30 Every day 30

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Vital Signs

Arm Yourself 32 Ren 33 Rigor Mortis 33 Hulat 34 Gintago 34 ‘Nay 35 Isa ka Adlaw 36 What Ifs and Its Certainty 37 Static 37 Cup of Coffee 38 Fine Dining 38 Underwater Graveyard 39 Alam 41 Undone 42 Biyaheng Langit 42 Tapat, Tunay at Totoo 44 Conversations in Between Therapies 45 Marjo 46

Short Stories Wondering Fearing Doubting Dreaming

Why You’re Still Alive The Bloodfruit The Adventure of Parsecman in the Infinity Vortex Iron Lungs Sa Atin Magwawakas Empty Nest The Backpack Her Song Half Remembered Si Maria

48 53 55 58 60 63 67 68 70 75

For Each Stranger I Share a Bus Ride With Finding Oppa Young Man

77 79 81 82

Seven Word Stories

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Essays A Guide to Survival

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Vital Signs

Story of Survival

LEODEL T. BARRIO

I awaken Through smoke and sea Questioning, wondering As water rushes out of my lungs Gasping like I came from the afterlife How in the world did I survive?

This earthly will, this deadly night Asking, screaming As I roll my hand into a fist On the sand as the waves crash in Why in the world did I survive?

When every battle I fought, I lost When freedom became free doom When every ship I sailed, capsized When darkness befell my eyes Running, rushing As the moon hangs above As the glow of its light fades to distance What will I do to survive?

In this primal fear, my soul’s revival Is to remember what is vital I am awakened.

Illustration RICKY G. JALECO

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Helpless

MARY FRANCINE B. ALFABETO

How do you win a battle that is already lost?

Make bright a shadow that has engulfed you?

To stop a ship that has set its course?

To try some thing you cannot do?

To turn back time with hands full of rust?

To remove these memories That were left from you?

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Vital Signs

Great Expectations LEODEL T. BARRIO

Twenty-five, young, broke but bold Quarter-life spent at his parents’ home Nothing prepared him for this situation Keeping up still, with great expectations Took a ride, took a stand, took a chance While his game boys at home got their Gameboys advanced While his friends gave him free meals and vacations Keeping up still, with great expectations Tried to mine gold but went bankrupt morally Served the system and he serviced it orally Crawled to his knees in human degradation Keeping up still, with great expectations Day to day jobs, in screens and paper Thought of the fantasy of high rise skyscrapers Part of him changed in abrupt alienation Keeping up still, with great expectations Through smokes and cracks in endless pavement Trying to squeeze in his four corner arrangement The noises, the voices, sleepless, in motion Keeping up still, with great expectations Every thing he owns, he owes to debit Stuck in the traffic, lost in city limits Realized his life needs re-evaluation Keeping up still, with great expectations photo MARY FRANCINE ALFABETO

Hope is not lost, unlike the jobs he did And every thing that his life forbid Nothing prepared him for this situation Keeping up still, with great expectations

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OPENING DOORS PAUL VINCENT S. BAYONA

Pressed against the window Candy on the stand Like a little boy I whimper I reach out my hand But the glass It begs to differ Far away It seems you are Like a jealous child, I moan Silent tantrums Distant star And so it begins That hopeless stare My hopeful heart My secret pray'r Loving in the shadows Adoring in the dark Chained in the hallows Devoid of any spark Admiring from afar Whispered kisses in the night My feelings in a jar Locked and stolen from your sight

Pressed against the window You on the other end Like a helpless man, I slither Through the greys, the blur, the bend

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Vital Signs

Illustration JIREH MARIELLE C. ZARAGOZA

Dreaming in a corner Driving blind in the rain It's an impossible feat altogether A hand of sand That certain grain

Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

The flood

LEODEL T. BARRIO

Nothing to hold on to, the heel balance Of trying to cross the overflowing streams Each little foot set on rock and wood ‘Til they reach a piece of earth to stand on Little children, trying to play games The current of muddy water right below A little slip means treacherous paths unknown Shoe in hand, girls’ skirts to the waist As the cool wind breezes by The sky sprinkles tiny tears of agony The sun barely having it’s time The gods of weather were not forgiving that day But the little boys and girls were “Just another storm” said one As they support each other’s arms

The hunt MARK ANTHONY P. CELESTIAL

It's your scent your noiseless presence in the air it dwells gliding through my nose my bloodhound nose I keep following it teasing me. where does it come from are you here or there in our broken past I lost your smell gone in two heartbeats back then they raced stronger as we perspired. .

I tried sniffing my fingers I tried sniffing someone's back the desk, the medtray, the cefepime cap I sniffed it all, just alcohol

I gave up the hunt and bothered no more the air carries many mixed insults in your breath in the morning from things you finally let go sweet in strands the nectar in your neck I kissed with caution I nipped with passion I went home, rode the jeepney it pricked me sudden in gauge less than thirty my nose upturned, my ears went up im sure of that it sprang out there, in a fabric of blue he wears you strong and true as you have always been his and never my bliss.

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10 Vital Signs

Illustration ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

I remember

CHRISTABELLE B. PREBILLO

I remember it vividly.

I remember the crinkles of your eyes When you heartily laugh, Seemingly amused by my twirling.

My hopeful little heart slept, Dreaming I would wake up the next day, A doctor who will treat you And we would be happy again.

I remember the warmth of your skin As I lay flat on your stomach My head on your chest, Feeling, hearing every heartbeat.

But then I opened my eyes, Still the six year-old helpless girl I am And you, you continued sleeping Dreaming, I assured myself.

I remember the random drives we take As though it is as quotidian As drinking coffee in the morning Or listening to the radio at night.

Every day, ever since Waking up is a struggle.

Knowing I would remember But would never really feel happy again.

I remember how every dismissal bell Serves as augur that it's your face I will see at the end of the day, Every day.

I cried myself to sleep, In the bathroom, at school There was just this constant sadness, Penetrated by nothing.

I remember it vividly.

I remember flying, Flying as you hoist me up in the air.

I remember I was happy.

Still life went on, Time passed and I found myself Having these brief moments, Where life wasn’t sad and painful.

And then I remember that it hurt.

Thinking about you hurt.

Like a hand clutching my heart, Tightening its grip every day.

And then I remember the vow I made, Each day, the hand clutching my heart Gradually loosening its grip I felt hopeful again.

I could still see Like it's right before my eyes.

The room though white, Sucking all the hopes with sighs.

I know you are still dreaming with me, And that drives me to survive, You may not witness it anymore, But I will claim that dream for us.

The sad look in mom's eyes As she longingly gaze at your tired face, How my fingers cling to her arms, "I will be a doctor and heal dad," I said.

The pain will never go away, But I wouldn’t give up the memories Both the good and ugly moments, I choose to remember them.

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Bakit, Kapatid?

SAMANTHA P. BARRANCO

Yakap-yakap ang aking mga tuhod, Nanginginig ang buong katawan sa takot, Bawat putok ng baril ay sabay Sa kada tibok ng pusong gustong tumakas.

Nagdurugo ang mga labi Habang pilit na pinipigilan ang paghikbi Ramdam ang diin ng mga ngipin Rinig ang mga sigaw at pagtangis.

Ilang araw nang ganito ang nasisilayan Hindi alam kung ano ang aming kahihinatnan, Ang simbahan walang awang sinunog, Ang paaralan at mga munting pangarap naging abo.

Bakit, kapatid?

Galit at poot na lamang ba ang nangingibabaw, Sana may kaunti pang pagmamahal, Na magiging lipos ng liwanag at kapayapaan.

Bitawan mo na ako dahil gusto ko nang lumayo Gusto ko nang kalimutan kung ano man ang naging tayo Teka sandali lang, huwag ka nang mangatwiran Wala ka nang karapatan na ako ay panghawakan

Bitiw HANNAH B. CARO

Ayoko nang makulong sa damdamin kong ito Hindi na ako tulad ng dati, hindi na ako isang indyo Minahal kita nang lubos Hanggang sa ako ay naubos

Kaya bitawan mo na ako Iyon ang pakiusap ko sa'yo Dahil ang totoo Ikaw naman talaga ang lumayo 12 Vital Signs

Illustrations ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

Binigay ko ang lahat Dahil akala ko iyon ang nararapat Kulang pa ba na ang puso ko ay nawarak?

Ano pa ba ang kulang?

Ano pa ba ang gusto mong mawasak?

IBA PAUL VINCENT S. BAYONA Iba siya Yung tipong ayoko na Pero ‘di ko magawa Yung tipong hinahanapan ko ng mali Pero lahat nang makita ko ay tama Yung gusto ko nang pumiglas Dahil alam kong walang pag-asa Pero isang ngiti lang Balik na sa unang kabanata Iba talaga siya Nais na sanang kalimutan Pero makita ko lang ang mga mata niya P*cha, siguradong ilang suntok Ilang beses akong matatamaan sa kanya

Photo CHARISSE ANN M. MONSALE

Yung tipong gusto ko nang tumayo Pero sa totoo lang, ayaw ko naman talaga Dahil ansarap madapa At mahulog nang paulit-ulit sa kanya Iba siya ‘Di mapigilan ‘Di maiwasan Kahit na T*ang**a Ano man ang gawin ko’y Wala talaga akong pag-asa

Tula CHRISTABELLE B. PREBILLO

Ang bawat salita ay para sa iyo, Bawat titik nakaukit sa aking puso Ang mga tulang umaawit ng aking damdamin Lahat tungkol sa iyo.

Ang pag-ibig sa mundo na lang ibabahagi, Ito’y malugod pang sinusuklian, Hindi tulad ng pagtanggap mo, Isa lamang pangarap.

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Illustration ANGELO BRYAN T. BUCQUIAL

Ngayon Mawawala ang Lumbay CHRISTABELLE B. PREBILLO

Sa bawat liwayway ng bagong umaga, Paputlang takipsilim ang aking nasisilayan Sa bawat maligamgam na halik ng araw, Malamig na dampi ng amihan ang sa aki’y yumayakap.

Unti-unti ang bawat araw nabigyan ng kulay, May mga panahong ang buhay ay hindi lamang puno ng lumbay, Ang mga boses ay napalitan ng ngiti, Hanggang sa naging mga halakhak at pagbunyi.

Isang maitim na kumot ang bumabalot, Sa bawat emosyong pilit na kumakawala, Ang aking puso nalulunod sa lumbay Humahangos ng hanging magbibigay-buhay.

Kung noon nagawa kong hindi mahalin ang sarili, Matututunan ko din itong isantabi Dahil nararapat kang mahalin, Ngayon, mamahalin ko ang aking sarili.

Alinlangan, takot, pangamba Umiikot-ikot sa aking isipan Bughaw, lila, kahel, esemeralda, Hindi makita, ang mundo sadyang malamaya.

Ngunit hindi sa araw na ito, Ngayon, hindi ko pakikinggan ang boses, Ang bulong na nagsasabing, “Isang kalabit lang” “Isang kalabit at matatapos na ang lahat.”

Vital Signs Signs 14 Vital 14

Maaring hindi agad na maiaalis ang sakit, Ang sugat, ang bawat hikbi, ang hinagpis Subalit, bawat ngiti ng aking mga tinatangi Sapat na upang maibsan ang pusong may hapis.

Numbered

MARY FRANCINE B. ALFABETO

Illustration PHILIP G. BALOGO

Her eyes, a rich brown With lines deep From a smile or a frown Her laugh, a golden bell That rings bright As if every thing was well.

The light in her soul That used to shine Fading to a dim haze, Not knowing her days Are numbered Her time couldn’t be saved.

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Free Fall MARY PIPKIN

We plunged into a dip of air Our piece of world in one orbit Our bodies free-falling Steel limbs clanking against gravity Paper buildings line the city A clean sweep of buzzed disorder So we can unload our shoulders To breathe lighter We live for days like this When everything’s illuminated from above

photo JADE MARIE M. SOBREPEĂ‘A

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I only knew your name DR. DARLENE B. MONTES-FETALVERO WVSU-MED ‘96 DTTB BATCH 11

I understand why you chose the road less travelled by many I also understand why you chose to stay A doctor with a heart full of compassion And an endless dream of possibility A belief that yes, one can be the last piece of puzzle In this broken world we are in But alas, this world is broken indeed, twisted, grim Never seeing what could have been Who would have a heart to take you down?

When you were without defence The treacherous act of a murderous psyche Is beyond recognizable belief I would never knew you, Drey I would only know your name You may be a sensation once But your legacy remains Kudos to you, a DTTB hero Ultimate maker of true medical warrior For you become one without regret And you left this world in so much grief

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Imperfect Portrait ARCHIEVAL S. GUITCHE

All have past, Some don’t last.

Memories kept, Counted every step.

You and I, From eye to eye.

It was just a lie, But made me smile.

Time will part, But in my heart, Leaves a picture, I’ll always treasure.

Filled with trust, The two of us, Enjoyed it while it last.

But it’s all in the past.

Leaving all behind, Memories of goodbyes.

RESOLUTENESS Talents everywhere Use it before it runs out Turn a blank to art photo JADE MARIE M. SOBREPEÑA

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Night

MARY FRANCINE B. ALFABETO

Like pins and points It came to me Lights in the dark You shown gently My heart too busy Looking down, giving up Until you came Telling me to look up The cold darkness That once life has given me became your gift Of the universe and infinity The air was cold and stale Hunger pangs assault you Your spirit weak and pale The ice crystal blue You go through these notions Of safety and salvation And yet another passes No fire to burn his ashes You each split his meat, In silent hunger you eat, The months felt like years, Yet you could not shed a tear Until, a year finally came, Were you still the same?

Through all the ire, After all, you survived...

HANNA DULCETTE

And there I saw it, clear as day amongst all the cacophony that surrounded it.

The answer that kept hovering, edging away as I reached for it.

I am running out of time.

I still have a long way to go.

Do I continue this seemingly futile pursuit?

Or do I move on to chase another ghost answer?

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FRANZ RUPERT L. BEDONIA

Illustration JIREH MARIELLE C. ZARAGOZA

Ghost

Ire

Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

Dark Fantasy JOSIAH

Her black heart dances to the beat of the death march And loving her is a walk in self-destruction An inescapable trap in deep dark cold water Her lips smothered with rare deadly potion But I am lost in her, caught in her spell Unaware of how long it will last A predator that took captive of her prey Like a venomous snake meandering in the grass I am hooked on this dark fantasy Probably worse than drug addiction Locked in a labyrinth of a dangerous game The prize is a kiss, death by poison.

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Dusk MARY FRANCINE B. ALFABETO

Illustration ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

As dusk you came With dark hair, a smile And promises not made In your glow, I alight As dusk it darkened A chill down my spine You were slipping, distant Hands loose against mine As dusk you left, With heart cold, full of lies From promises not made, In your darkness, here I lay

Stranded ASHLEY NATALIE H. AGUAS

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Illustration PHILIP G. BALOGO

Lost in the world Tired and hungry, angry and cursed I saw a ship sailing past Yet I’ve no gold to board it fast I smell soup and newly baked bread nearby I must be hallucinating, as my child cries No more milk for him to drink No more water as his mouth shrinks What can I do?

I am lost, they are lost too Stranded, in a jungle of cement As our poor little hearts lament The loss of father, brother, sister, home In a few more days, then we’ll probably follow In the night, the children scream my name The darkness makes them afraid I’ll hush them, cradle ‘til in deep slumber For now, another day is over My final thoughts longing for rich days in the sun For now, we have absolutely none For now, another day has ended Still stranded.

Two minutes away TOBEY M. AGUIRRE

All he needed was love That’s what she needed too Yet they couldn’t afford it Commitment was expensive Both hurt, lonely Both looking, searching Until they found each other It was a match A few quick exchanges No need for names No need for shame Location sent Two minutes away For loveless love

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PAUL VINCENT S. BAYONA Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

Here’s 1 for the day you were gone Here’s 2 for the times I missed you Here’s 3 for the piece you took from me Here’s 4 for the wounds that left me sore Here’s 5 for regaining the strength to feel alive Here’s 6 for this heart I had to fix Here’s 7 for the forgiveness that felt like heaven Here’s 8 for never having felt hate Here’s 9 for staying on the line And here’s 10 for being ready to fall in love again

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PHOTO LEODEL T. BARRIO

The Hare and the Wolf ARCHIEVAL S. GUITCHE

I ‘twas an exhort for the wolf, To chase for the wildest of dreams.

Odds beseeched him to stay, Felt ever betrayed.

VI The hare and the wolf unify, Got pressured by wolf’s try.

Attached by love, Passionately made the first lust.

II A suspicion of nothing, The hare sounds as the big thing.

In the first encounter, Skirmish of doubt and faith grows louder.

VII The two consent to trust, Both agreed to last.

Days spent with one another, Like years inlove forever.

III Upon seeing hare’s gaze, Why all of a sudden felt amazed.

Unfathomable desire, Seems alright with fire.

VIII Distance never a bother, For the two stayed together.

Counted as the thirtieth, Yearned for more set.

IV Dubious at first, Apprehension drifted by the wolf’s thirst.

Wolf’s promise shall define, Query of love and desire must intertwine.

IX Now the wolf misses the hare, While the latter has something prepared.

The first has come to an end, Unfolded letter of undying love sent.

V The real score has come, No second thoughts, no qualm.

The universe never retreated, Fate is timely, not late.

X ‘tis the day of the beginning and first, For you as the hare, you shall not rest. ‘tis the day of wishes and desires, For I am the wolf, I shall not tire.

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Seep

FRANZ RUPERT L. BEDONIA

Fragrance that runs so deep Embelished in ones own prayer What secrets do you keep?

Do they put you in danger?

Let the bells ring You know you cannot run Let the choir sing You clasp your cold, hallow gun What prayers did you chant?

As you held up your gun What miracles did it grant?

Now there’s nowhere to run The man staggered Was life truly this cheap Liters of blood spattered And began to seep‌

Blink

HANNA DULCETTE

I sleep, I awaken.

I drag myself from my bed.

I slip, I get shaken, As the skies turn from blue to red.

I sit, I think, I attempt to read.

I have a long night ahead.

I blink, then my eyes are suddenly wide open.

Why am I in my bed?

Illustration ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

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Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

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Ennui

CHARLOTTE P. DE LA TORRE

Trapped in a miserable state Ennui has come for me My life, acting as a reprieve Salvation, across the horizon To escape, it is now.

When he forgets

SKYE

Never mind that he’ll be shocked he’s married And his tongue’s diving on a soup he had forgotten how to eat Or when he refuses to be tucked to bed And calls you Melody instead of Margaret.

Ten, fifteen —- twenty years, A child again, you’ll be one of his fears Your underwear on his head he’ll start to parade As he begins to lose intellect you infinitely fell in love with Hold him still, love him still He won’t remember but he can feel.

Your name will not come to his lips, In succession of separation, you will lose every piece It’s more than just misplacing keys A bit more of running away and balls of fists Follow him, sit beside him As he cries why suddenly at 6 PM it all got dim.

When there seems to be no point, Try harder and remember for you both "What’s a spoon for?how many is four?"

As he bangs his head on the door But stop him, remind him That life doesn’t live an idealist’s dream.

You can play hide and seek With your love, he’ll always be found He is not sick, he has not gone mental Don’t blame him for his cells’ betrayal But tell him stories at sunrise Repeat again and again and again As each day will always be your little treat, For him, a big surprise.

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I Saw A Dragonfly Today MARK ANTHONY P. CELESTIAL

Illustration HAZELLE D. AGGABAO

I saw a dragonfly today.

Its wings were short, Withered and maimed, Brittle and impaired.

It took a flap.

A flutter to a flitter.

It hovered for a little while.

So aware of me, it clinged on a wire.

She can't fly anymore A creature fragile, alive and heaving.

She must have laid her eggs, In a strong plant within a pond.

How I wish it were me.

Waiting.

Seconds away from that tiny push.

Just a tiny little jerk of nature, It would cease to exist.

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It would rest.

A simple purpose I could have served.

And be one with the earth or flown by the wind.

And I realized, I was staring at it for too long.

Too long that trucks went by and stirred the earth.

And dust coated my glasses clouding my view.

In a heartbeat.

She was gone.

I stood up after the wiping I made.

My thoughts were too far astray Only 'cause, I saw a dragonfly today.

The Union

My fair lady, waiting must be tiring.

But I tell you, he’s coming.

Be ready, he’ll be carried by the surging undertow, will never keep you low. Go easy, the next day’ll start from you, a life that’s long overdue. Hail, hail, he who will set you free from the cell’s jail.

Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

IRIS DAWN D. TABANGCORA

Admiration ZION PATRICK B. CABRERA

Her silhouette soothes me As I stare at her lovely figure, I am sent to a state of euphoria.

I find myself drowning in the abyss of her beauty.

As I try to control my heightened emotions, I melt at the slightest touch of her.

I find myself thanking the heavens, For it brought upon a celestial creature.

Her wisdom, unrivaled.

Her nature, unmatched.

Her compassion, incomparable.

Her existence, not greeted with intimidation.

For her affection is mine, and mine alone.

Swim swim for the chance will always be that slim.

Move, move, rove, and firmly groove.

Sail, sail, there’s no time left, or watch your tail go frail.

Cruise, cruise, here is a paddle. | She’s waiting, the crowned Princess of the huddle.

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Illustration RANDOM SELECTION

Postmortem of BetrayaL ARCHIEVAL S. GUITCHE One rainy night, murder happened, Slain of past caught.

Horrendous, suspicious, “I shouldn’t have entered,” I muttered.

Every Another shot of coffee As dark as you can take Day Behind the eyes of fatigue,

His blood-shed eyes, Cuts and bruises all over the body.

Begging for mercy, forgiveness, Spared by chance.

MARY more than a day awake FRANCINE B. And through the fort of books ALFABETO

You scour back To drink the information You seem to lack

The battle of everyday and the weight of expectation, On your back you carry Without any hesitation; 30 Vital Signs

For the good of humanity, For the food of your family, For the lives of many, You push, tirelessly.

These and your dreams They drive you daily, To flip the page, write notes To get up and study A test of survival and Willing sacrifice you make “for the greater good” and all the lives at stake

Ran as fast as I could, Cried for help.

Feet aching, Stopped, instead.

‘Twas 11 in the evening, Mile from the basement.

No trace of him, Felt relieved.

Hands on knees, gasping for breath, Head banged on the wall.

Sight of leathered boots, I knew it was him.

All went dark, Can’t recollect what happened.

Faint smell of blood all around, All this time, never alone.

Under the moonlight, Room illuminated.

Something was odd, Cold body on the table.

Eyes in disbelief, Where was I?

Chills ran the spine, Waiting for my death.

Coming closer, Reaching the cold body.

Cover removed, Confused.

Saw myself, Covered with blood.

Under the moonlight, Wearing a sinister smile.

Tried escaping death, He with the leathered boots.

Ran away from me, Cried for help.

One rainy night, murder happened, Traces of yesterday caught.

Unforgiveable, inexcusable, “I shouldn’t have done it,” I whispered.

Was it my fault?

Am I really to blame?

Deceit of innocence, Victims could be tainted too.

It was me after all. photo MARY FRANCINE ALFABETO

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Arm yourself

ANGELO BRYAN T. BUCQUIAL

Life is a battle A struggle, a war Always prepare And you’ll go far

Arm yourself With weapons, or kindness For you’ll never know What happens

Illustration ANGELO BRYAN T. BUCQUIAL

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Ren HANNA DULCETTE

One sweet day can turn rather sour With a disappointing score on a piece of paper, Or a blank answer sheet, Or a missed deadline.

Many nights of toil, Still there’s little to show for it.

Many days of exhaustion, Yet to endure was always the name of the game.

You walk home when half the place is asleep, With the strong scent of coffee Still clinging to your clothes, To your hair, to every fiber of your being.

Illustrations ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

With every passing day You try to keep the spark alive.

And hope that one sweet morning, you wake up proud of everything you’ve been through.

Rigor Mortis LEODEL T. BARRIO

In a state of shock State of mind State of confusion Maybe even death Convincing myself A delusion A grandiose fantasy Over wine and tea In my bed and nightlight while my roommate sleeps I’m stuck, I can’t move In the same position Time in slow motion For hours now Maybe just a few more Pages of lore For the wanderer With the tired soul Pacemaker

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Hulat

ZENNIA PATRICE A. CABRIETO

Sa may hagdanan Ako gahulat sa imo Makadto ka guid man bala?

Hambal mo pagua ka na Sa imo nga puluy-an Manugduha na ka oras Ang ulihi mo nga text Basi na-traffic ka lang.

GinTago MARK ANTHONY P. CELESTIAL

Diutay man sa malayo Yarang mga tinuga sa langit Apang mga istorya gin sambit Gintago sa idlak sang tinuig.

Sa takna sang kagab-ihun May yara sang bulak nga gayuhom Pareho sang babaye sa dalanun Gintago sa mata sang kalalakinhun.

Ang hampas sang balud sa baybayon Makusog, halos ikaw lambuton Angay sang lalaki nga ulibaron Budlay magtago sang balatyagun.

Subong sang sa ginabusong nga bata Sa kural sang karnero nag-gua Gintuga nga manugsalbar sang atun sala Gintago nga gahum sang makahimaya.

34 Vital Signs

Photo CHARISSE ANN M. MONSALE

Sa katayugan sang mga panganud Masanag nga naga tika-tika Adlaw nga wala nagapakita Gintago tuyo handong sa duta.

Illustration PHILIP G. BALOGO

‘Nay

AURORA FATE A. MONTICELLO

Nanay, nabati-an ko liwat Ang imo nga matam-is nga kanta Ugaling wala ko na ini liwat nabati-an Kay sa masunod nga inadlaw Ang kaakig naman ni Tatay akon nga nabati-an Nanay, ano to kuno? Pagua-on na ako?

Indi pa ako handa, ‘Nay. Indi pa ako makaginhawa sang maayo Indi pa ako makakita sang maayo ‘Nay basi ako maga doktor nga alagaan ikaw ‘Nay basi ako maga pulis nga protektahan ikaw ‘Nay basi ako maga presidente nga buligan ikaw Ugaling basi indi na ako makalikaw Sa mga instrumento nga nagabunot Sang mga parte sang akon nga lawas Akon nga pa-a, kamot, kasakit ’Nay ‘Nay, buligi ako ‘Nay Pacemaker

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Illustration CAMILLE F. BELASOTO

Isa ka Adlaw

ZENNIA PATRICE A. CABRIETO

Nagmuklat kag nagbugtaw ako sa tunog sang sulog Nagasimbolo ini nga ara na si Haring adlaw Isa na naman ka adlaw Isa na naman ka adlaw sang pagpangabudlay Nagasuksok ako sang akon panaptun samtang may nagatawag sa akon – nagasinggit sa akon “Magpaninlo na sang panimalay, magluto dayon sang pamahaw, maglaba sang mga lago kag manggarab sang mga hilamon�, gapangakig nga sugo sang akon agalon Tinu-ig nga paliwat-liwat nga buluhaton Tinu-ig nga nagahandum nga makaguwa sa rehas sang piste nga kabuhi 36 Vital Signs

Tinu-ig nga pag-antos San-o ayhan makalakat nga wala gina tapakan ang dignidad?

San-o ayhan makakita sang katawhayan?

San-o pa maka-agom sang kahilwayan?

Balhas kag dugo ang bayaran Suno sa ila, sa likod sang panganod may kasanag Hambal ko, hugot lang nga pagtu-o Sa akon pagmuni-muni, natulupangdan nga naga dulom na ang kalangitan Nagahuni na ang mga kasapatan Nagapalapit na ang masubo nga gab-i..

Ginakuha ko ang akon panaptun samtang nagsulod si agalon Nag-ginhawa sang madalom.

Nagtulo ang mainit nga luha.

Kag ako, nagpiyong.

Illustration ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

What Ifs and its Certainty

ZIDANE

Our what ifs always lead us to thoughts that challenge our hearts to make decisions with confusing options.

But what if I haven't known you?

It would always be gray and blue.

What if I haven't tried?

I would seem to be wilted and died.

What if I haven't opened?

I thought it would be I that is hard to mend What if I haven't believed?

It might have been dreams not achieved What if I have hesitated?

It might have made me chilled and agitated What if I have suspicions?

It would be just ordinary imaginations What if I have given up, It would not be ready, not go but firmly stop.

What if I have left?

It would feel like my life was stolen by a theif.

And what if it is not you, It would never be the same brightest hue

Not everything is black and white.

In between is a vast field of gray.

Therein exists the truth of the story, Still people like to pick sides.

Static

HANNA DULCETTE

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Photo CHARISSE ANN M. MONSALE

Cup of Coffee ARCHIEVAL S. GUITCHE

You’re my ball of sunshine, My ray of hope.

You keep me aligned, Keep me holding tight on the rope.

My day couldn’t end without the glimpse of you, Heart beats fast whenever you’re around.

A breath-taking sight to look at you, You keep this thing called heart beating for you.

You’re my cup of coffee That keeps me awake at night.

No one else does this, But you, my ever source of light.

Too scared to fall for you so bad, I might give you ache to think about, That before you never had.

And it makes my mind go around.

You’re my cup of coffee, That keeps me awake just thinking of you.

Leaves my heart beating wildly for what I feel, Because I am nothing but a complete stranger to you.

Fine Dining

HANNA DULCETTE

Tonight, I dine by myself with nothing keeping me company, save for my thoughts that keep rushing in and out of consciousness.

The tremulous clink of ice as I touch the glass to my lips.

The unsteady scrape of silver On my untouched plate Only a fool would think I was dining in utter silence.

38 Vital Signs

Underwater Graveyard LEODEL T. BARRIO

By the sea World used to be Magical Now it’s chemical Where life used to be

Only silence occupies As the ocean dies Tangled mess Can’t breathe No Oxygen.

Illustration ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

Pacemaker Pacemaker 39 39

Photo JAN MARLO P. PALENCIA

POEMS FOR HIV AWARENESS

40 Vital Signs

Alam

GILBERT GUY D. MURILLO

Wala akong alam.

Ang alam ko masarap lang.

Mas masarap 'pag walang balakid, Mas intense 'pag marami, Walang pang huhusga kung hindi mo pa kilala, Kaya 'eto chat dito, chat doon, Eyeball sa kung saan, Lahat ng lodge alam, Mga discounted motels alam, Basta ba 'wag lang di makaraos, Dahil sabi nga ang sex ay isang pangangailangan.

Kaya heto ako, nasa rurok ng kaligayahan.

Wala akong alam, May ubo, may sipon may lagnat, Pa-ulit-ulit lang, Minsan nga natatae ng walang dahilan.

Nangangayayat at laging pagod, Nasa gym nga palagi at pulos healthy food.

Pero bakit? Ok naman ako a?

Wala nga akong alam, Unti-unting nanghihina, Ang trabaho ko naapektuhan na.

Kaya nga nung huli, nagpakonsulta Ang mga tanong pa ni doc kung hindi nakakilang, Ay nakakahiya, Parang ayaw ko ngang sagutin.

Pati dugo? Kailangan?

Ako'y nag-alinlangan, pero sige na lang.

Dahil na-uubos na ang araw na pwede akong lumiban At ilang araw na rin akong tigang.

Wala akong ka-alam-alam, Bago pa pumasok si doc Dala-dala ang isang papel, "Iho, may HIV/AIDS ka," aniya.

Ako'y natawa, kinabahan, nagulat, nagalit.

Bakit ako? Bakit hindi?

Ano ang sasabihin ni ina?

Ano ang imumura ni ama?

Ano ang sasabihin ng mga kakilala, Kaibigan at ng iba? Bakit?

Wala akong alam, At pinili kong maging mangmang At gumawa ng desisyong pariwara, At ang tingin sa akin ay marumi, Maling impluwensya, Walang lugar sa mundo niyo, Na puro husga at dura!

Pero wala ka ring alam!

Na ang pagkataong ito na alam ko ako rin ang dumurog, Ay araw, gabi hindi makatulog, Sa bawat sulok humihikbi, At, oo, nasa huli nga ang pagsisi.

Pero hindi gaya ni Marcos, ang patawad niyo, ako ay hihingi.

Patawarin niyo ako na isa ako sa naging dahilan Na ang sakit na ito ay kumalat, Kaya't patawarin niyo ako.

Pero wala kang alam, Na sa bawat araw na ako'y kinukutya, Ang puso ko ay dinudurog, Mabuti pa siguro kung ako ay magpatiwarik, Dahil lahat sila, naglaho na, Pati ang kaibigang matalik.

Wala kang alam.

Pero hindi gaya kong nagbulag-bulagan, Gusto kong inyong malaman, Na kailangan ko lang naman ay Pag-iintindi at kapatawaran.

Oo, ako nga siguro ay nagkamali, at siguro ang buhay ay umikli, Pero sa kakarampot na oras ng aking pananatili, Sana maging isa ka sa dahilan na ako'y manatili, At mabuhay ng normal.

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Biyaheng Langit PAUL VINCENT S. BAYONA

Undone FRANZ RUPERT L. BEDONIA

There they beheld her tears From one night of passion There began her fears This she could not fathom…

This she swore as she cried From the stale and dry air No matter how hard she tried Nothing in the world seemed fair Only then did she seek aid When lesions and malformations came When the pain could not be weighed She was no longer the same…

The fear, the tension, the anxiety How will she face this cruel reality?

This stigma formed by society…

Lost and without certainty…

So there she stood before its gates Of innocence and purity, How much longer would she wait?

No more will she fear the scrutiny!

And so she stepped forward Seeking the aid she wholeheartedly sought She would be helped She might finally have a shot.

42 Vital Signs

Dalhin mo ‘ko sa malayo Kung sa’n tayong dal’wa lang Do’n sa walang istorbo Kung sa’n ikaw at ako lang Doon sa nagpagkasunduan Do’n sa ating tagpuan Ikulong mo ‘ko sa dilim Kung saan walang makakakita Nang magawa ang lahat Nang matapos nang walang alintana Dalhin mo ‘ko Kung saan walang makakarinig Kung saan ungol at sigaw ay di mawari Dalhin mo ‘ko sa sulok At balutin ng yakap Lahat ipapakita Walang pagpapanggap Hawakan mo ‘ko at ilalahad ko ang lahat Hubad at buong-buo Halika, lapit pa Samahan mo ‘ko Dalhin mo ‘ko sa tuktok Biyaheng langit, hatid mo ‘ko Dalhin mo ‘ko sa malayo Kung sa’n tayong dalawa lang Do’n sa walang istorbo Kung sa’n ikaw at ako lang Gusto ko lang makipag-usap Gusto ko lang naman May umintindi Ikulong mo ‘ko sa dilim Nang hindi makita Ang mga bakas Ng aking karamdaman Karamdaman na tila’y Ginawa nilang tanging basehan Basehan ng aking katauhan

Dalhin mo ‘ko Do’n sa walang makakarinig Kung sa’n walang aninong makakapagtuligsa Kung ano man ang aking sabihin Pero para sa ano pa Dahil andami Andami naman nilang bingi Bingi sa mga sigaw Ng kaluluwang gulung-gulo Gulung-gulo sa mga bulong Bulong ng mga taong ako’y tinuturo Tinuturong madumi At di karapat-dapat Karapat-dapat na mahalin Na tanggapin At hindi simpleng iwan Dalhin mo ’ko sa sulok Lahat-lahat ipapakita Walang pagpapanggap Balutin mo ‘ko ng yakap Dahil ako’y nababalot sa takot

Takot takot takot Sa mundong pagmamahal Ay ipinagkait ng mga maramot Hawakan mo ‘ko at ilalahad ko ang lahat Hubad at buong-buo Halika, lapit pa Tulungan mo naman ako Hawakan mo ‘ko Dahil hindi Hindi ka mamamatay Sa simpleng daplis sa balat ko Hawakan mo ang mga kamay ko Nang makapaglakad akong tuwid At hindi gumagapang Sa paa ng lipunan Talunan At ina-apak-apakan

photo JADE MARIE M. SOBREPEÑA

Pero para sa ano pa Dahil marami Marami silang bulag Bulag sa mga luha Mga luha ng taong Lahat ay ikinubli Ikinubli nang hindi mapahiya Mapag-usapan Tawanan at pabayaan

Dalhin mo ‘ko sa langit Dahil ayaw ko nang mabuhay pa Nakatago sa ilalim Sa ilalim ng mga matang mapanghusga Dalhin mo ‘ko do’n Nang ako’y makatulog Nang mahimbing Nang payapa Dalhin mo ‘ko…

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Illustration RANDOM SELECTION

Tapat, Tunay at Totoo MARK ANTHONY A. TIBURCIO

Lubos ang aking pasasalamat sa iyo kaibigan Para ang iyong sikreto ako ay pagkatiwalaan.

Iyong panghawakaan na ako'y di magbabago Turing ko sa'yo tapat, tunay pa rin at totoo.

Nakakalungkot isipin ating lipunan ay di ganyan.

Marami pa rin ang hindi mulat sa katotohanan Na kayo rin ay kailangan ng pagkalinga at pagtanggap Upang kaligayahan ay makamit nang wagas at ganap.

Kung tutuusin ako'y bilib sa iyong katapangan Harapin ang pagsubok nang walang inuurungan.

Pero kaibigan tandaan, hindi mo kailangan mag-isa Narito ako para tulungan at suportahan ka.

Aking dasal iyong buhay ay humaba pa, At tayo'y tumanda ng magkasama ata masaya.

44 Vital Signs

Conversations In-between Therapies IRIS DAWN D. TABANGCORA

December 2nd and we are more honest tonight.

Our hearts sway like curtains to a production.

And we wonder how much time we still have to breathe.

We held hands so we shake less, I wanna breathe deeper than this But tonight, old ghosts are coming home.

Somewhere a newborn’s cry stirs the yawning moon A little life stares at the skyline Her mother has a red ribbon sewn close to her chest And bleeds in shame for clothing her in the same dress The doctor pulled her easily head first; no complications.

But they can’t wipe her off of the blood of her mother.

Soon she’ll lay in that same hospital bed, Pregnant with a new life that she’ll choose to end.

In a bar down South Love knocked and entered Made a home in the crooks of two strangers’ necks Tonight he sits by the Christmas tree Commemorating the great wars he survived, The holidays of failures, the anniversary of her leaving, The dark days that almost blinded him, The memory of her muted moans on his lap, Gone when he broke the news “Where does it hurt,” the nurse asked.

And he replied, “Where do you point when it aches everywhere” Across the globe houses are lit, friends gather and families held waists A person is standing in front, he is not ill. Yet. Hands coated in red he began to disrobe And everyone never saw him like that before It took him so long and it is taking so much from him To show the scars he could take pride in A love bite throbs on the blade of his shoulder, A pinprick needle hole on his arms the day he got tested, His chest heaving from breathing through corrupted lungs, And clogged on his throat are the false promises of his lover.

He could have sworn he worshipped him all night and he meant it.

And so we retreated slowly towards our bed, the dawn is creeping in; In five minutes, fluids will be flowing in our veins We found people who are part of the small universe that is good to us.

In this tiny space, there are no seats left for cruelty.

So please call 911, Tell them we’re not emergencies, we’re living, and we’re having fun.

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MARJO

JESON E. DE VICENTE

Nagsimula ang lahat Si isang simpleng sulat Nagsimula ang lahat Nang sa kasarinla'y namulat Nagmahal,lumigaya ngunit nasaktan Nagmahal, hindi minahal at patuloy na nasasaktan Nagmahal, nagmahal din siya nang iba Nagmahal,nasaktan at may sakit na iniwan Sakit na mas malala pa sa bato Sakit na tila ako'y nakapako Sakit na hanggang ngayo'y patuloy pa rin akong nagtatanong kung bakit Bakit ako pumatol sa may sakit Nang gabing iyon nagsimula ang kadramahan Pinasok niya nang dahan dahan Kahit walang proteksiyon hindi ako lumaban Sapagkat sabi niya kami'y nagmamahalan Pumayag ako dahil sabi mo "Mahal, hindi kita sasaktan" "Mahal,hindi kita iiwan" Naniwala ako sa salitang "mahal" Naniwala ako sa salitang "hindi iiwan" Pero mas naniwala ako na may tayong dalawa Yun pala naniwala ako sa may sakit iyon ang masakit!

Ngayon sino ang aking tatakbuhan Ngayon sino ang aking kakapitan Ngayon sino ang aking lalapitan Kung lahat sila ako'y hinuhusgahan

Tama nga sila Sa umpisa lang ang ligaya Pagkatapos mong tumawa Bukas makalawa'y pagdudusa Ito ang kwento ni Marimar Na minsa'y naging si Jomar Sa umaga'y namamasukan Sa gabi'y pinapasukan.

46 Vital Signs

Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

Matapos kang magsawa Hindi ka man lang naawa Ngayong ako'y naluluha Dahil nga ako'y nakakahawa

Illustration ANGELO BRYAN T. BUCQUIAL

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Pacemaker

Wondering Fearing Doubting Dreaming NEIL A. CARTUJANO

S

he felt it again. It was cold outside, the rain poured on and off for the entire day, fickle and indecisive. Now it had stopped but left, as it always did, a creeping chill that seeped into the bones. The cold never agreed with her. More, she knew that the cold she felt was not from the rain. What she felt was deeper, cutting down through the skin, past the sinew and bone, into the heart where each faltering beat sends icy blood coursing through. Freezing her.

She sat alone, as most people did on the train. The space between her and the person beside seemed like a gaping chasm, a yawning abyss wanting to pull her in. It lay there empty, stark and jarring, a wall of cold between their separate little isles of warmth.

So she sat there, silent, staring blankly out the window as the feeling of deep cold returned, along with heaviness settling at the bottom of her chest. The hairs on her neck stood. With difficulty, she swallowed the lump forming in her throat. Desperate to shake off the feeling, she looked up, to the upper edge of the foggy window. There was a lone droplet forming there. She watched it grow, become gorged on the other wisps of water around it until it fell. Her eyes followed its path down the glass, leaving in its wake a small line of smooth and mirrored glass. It was there, in that cleared strip of glass, she saw her. The girl.

Icy empty eyes stared at her through the reflection. She felt the eerie air of pity and longing in that strange gaze. The lump formed in her throat again. She turned quickly and found herself staring at and through it. Like a thin curl of smoke, only half there, stood the image of a frail brown haired girl. She glared and shook her head.

No. Not again. Not here. Not now.

She saw understanding dawn on the girl’s face, along with a hint of sorrow. The girl nodded and faded, with her lips pursed, and in the next moment, was gone. Her eyes darted back to the strip of glass, in time to see a small whirl of black and white as the girl disappeared. The girl took the chill with her.

She felt it again. The street she walked was already taken by the night, the dark asphalt almost oppressive in its emptiness. On either side, houses were lit by scattered lights, lights hidden from her by curtains the cold night and her own refusal to stare, to see. This left only a few street lamps, some sparking and flickering, to light her way.

The waning crescent of the moon overhead refused to aid her, its pale blue white light only serving to further deepen the shadows.

She didn’t need to see. She did not want to. Already, she could feel the gaze boring into her back as she refused to turn. There was a strange buzz around her, the slow chill that crawled its way down her spine, inching down, each lick of cold were like streaks of lightning on her flesh. The ticking of her watch seemed magnified, each twist of the hand beating to the steady rhythm of blood in her ears. The clock moved slowly, the seconds stretched long.

One. Still there. Strange how she could almost feel the girl breathing. Silence. All that she could hear above its sound was her heart trying to pry itself out of her chest and the roar of blood at her temples. Two. A renewed wave of cold came as the girl floated closer, apprehensive and fearful. An icy bead of sweat crawled slowly down her cheek, leaving a trail of coldness that left her flesh numb.

Three. She kept walking, barely feeling her steps as her feet carried her faster forward. She glanced to one side, seeing a tuft of white reaching at the corner of her vision.

48 Vital Signs

Four. A cold touch at her nape, a whisper. She stopped and felt time move again.

Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten. She breathed at every second before speaking.

“You’re here again. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“No, I’m not. Not really. I’m not really here. But I’m not supposed to be. You should be.”

“What?” She scowled at the shimmering shape. The girl’s face weaved in and out of vision, the girl appeared to smile.

“You’re supposed to be here. But you’re not. Not really. Not completely. You’re like me.”

“No, I’m not.” She began walking again. The ghost followed, gliding along beside her, matching her step without a sound.

“But you are. You’re not where you should be. And I’m where I should not be.”

“Stop speaking in riddles.”

“I’m not speaking in riddles. Or even speaking at all, really. How can you speak without breath?” The girl asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Why ask me? I’m not dead.”

“No. But not really alive either, are you?”

“You’re one to talk. You’re dead.” She regretted the words as soon as they left her lips sounding harsher than she had intended. She stopped, stared at her scuffed shoes.

“I’m sorry for that.”

She tried to look the girl in the eyes as she apologized. The wavering form made it difficult, almost impossible to look at, for something that wasn’t truly there. She persisted until her eyes ached. “It’s okay. It’s the truth. And at least I know what I am.

And I act like it.”

The words stung. She regretted her apology. Then immediately felt apologetic for feeling the regret. The feeling settled heavily at the bottom of her chest, adding to the weight of the chaotic emotions there. She looked away and left. Her pace was that of someone fleeing from something, the strides too long and uneven, knees shaking.

The girl followed.

The cold was constant now. The girl always half a step behind her.

Her pace slowed almost to a stop as she came to her house. Dark as the neighborhood had seemed, they looked bright as they were, compared to the bare façade of her home. She paused for a moment at the end of their driveway, staring at the garage which she knew was empty.

“You need to go on. Go home.” Her heart leaped as the girl’s voice came suddenly from behind her. Face draining of color, she glared at the girl. It flickered out of shape for a moment, the girl biting her lip and gazing sadly. Her gaze always sad.

Breathing a long heavy sigh, she spun on her heel and walked away. She felt tethered to the ground by the weight in her chest. A tangle of twisting and contradicting feelings was eating her-nagging, pulling, aching.

She stood staring at the door for a long time, shifting her weight from one leg to another, expectant and more than a little nervous. Overhead, the porch light was flickering, casting unsteady shadows on sun-bleached paint.

“She’s waiting inside.” She turned and found the girl floating over the steps, a meek half-smile on her face. The eyes were still sad, but with a tinge of what looked like hope or yearning. “She’s waiting inside, she looks sad too.”

She nodded slowly, faced the door again and pushed it open. Despite the light, the house appeared dark. Hollow. The living room to her left was empty, dust gathering over the furniture.

As soon as the door closed behind her, she heard the rush of footfalls from the kitchen. They echoed in the empty house. Her mother appeared, smiling brightly out of a face lined with worry and exhaustion. She smelled of smoke and stale spice.

“You’re home.” Her mother’s voice was too happy, too excited to be genuine.

There were crow’s feet at the corners of her damp, red-rimmed eyes.

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Saying nothing, she glanced at the clock by the stairs. It was a quarter past midnight, on a bleak December night. Her mother followed her gaze, her feigned look of surprise was less convincing.

“Oh, look at the time. You must be hungry.” She smiled hopefully, her hands restless as she held them together in front of her apron. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

She lied, still grinning. “Let’s eat.”

She felt the girl beside her, at her ear, whispering. “Say yes. Please. Say yes.”

“No.” She said, answering both. The cold left for a moment, and in that moment she almost felt the warmth she used to feel in this house. Almost.

Her mother’s smile faded for a moment before she forced it back on. “No? But I’m sure you’re hungry. Why don’t we-“ “NO!” She snapped, grimacing as she heard her own voice. “No.” She said again, softly this time. Her apology hidden in the word. The drops welling in her mother’s eyes mirrored hers as she struggled to keep her neutral expression. She sighed silently, avoiding her mother’s expectant gaze. She looked at the floor, at the clock ticking on the wall, at the old family picture hanging beside it, at the bookshelf beneath the stairs, at her mother’s once beautiful but now bite-worn nails, anything but her mother’s eyes. She sighed again. A shaky sigh between trembling lips.

“I’m going to sleep.” With great effort, she forced a thin smile. Seeing it, her mother’s face brightened again, oblivious to the insincerity. She felt the weight grow heavier as she walked up the stairs, her mother smiling up at her with the faint trappings of hope.

As she reached the top she thought she heard her mother say, “Merry Christmas, dear.”

There was no one in the rooms she passed in the hall. Long empty, silent and gathering dust. She could remember a time when that wasn’t the case. The weight grew heavier with remembrance.

Her room was at the end of the hall. Every few weeks she would paint her door a new color. It was painted a pale green. It had been green for months now. The flowers and animals she had painted at each corner were now scratched and faded. It didn’t matter. No one saw them. Not anymore.

She locked the door, wincing at the sharp click of the bolt. In the dark, she counted the memorized number of steps to her bed and let herself fall onto the covers.

This bed had seen the best and worst of her. She laid there when she was rosy cheeked and giddy, clutching the pillows to steady her racing heart while a smile stretched from ear to ear. She jumped up and down on the mattress shrieking with delight, happy tears raining down on the rumpled sheets. She let herself be lost in its soft embrace as she cried her eyes out, letting bitter tears flow until they were wrung dry. And she found herself there, strangled by the bedspreads when a nightmare woke her in the gloomy hours of the morning, wide eyed and screaming into the black.

She stared up now, into the darkness where it seemed endless. The weight in her chest felt heavier than ever, threatening to pull her into the blackness above. She drew a gasping breath, tears falling unbidden, tracing lines down her dust smeared temples.

Just then, she felt it. She glanced at the foot of her bed, expecting the girl. Instead she found a nightmare. Long spindly and spiked legs made of shadow, protruding every which way out of a slim and slimy torso, as if some crazed god of primal dreams, at the height of its madness, mashed together all that slither and crawl and bite and spit.

It had eyes she could not see, eyes the color of oil, darker than the blackness of its body. Glowing beneath its skin, were orbs of red and sickly green. The head lay at the foot of her bed, wheezing and growling and seething with smoky tendrils of grey. She was frozen, the weight chaining her down like so many crimson threads. Her breath caught halfway down her throat as she tried to scream in vain.

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Only her eyes and heart moved. The former darted everywhere, searching, seeking escape, anywhere, just away. The latter simply beat itself to exhaustion, the fear and panic flowed violently through every vein and vessel, setting the flesh aflame.

Yet she remained silent. Screaming soundlessly where no one could hear.

Then the cold returned, like a sudden, unwanted embrace. The thing was gone, the weight remained, unlifted yet unnoticed for the moment. She gasped, eyes wide. The girl was there, sitting silently and watching from her perch on the cabinet by the door.

She sat up, clutched her knees, breathless. The girl looked on. Still fighting for breath, she winced at the girl. “Why are you still here?”

The girl shrugged. “I can’t go just yet, I have to be here you know.”

“Why?” “Because you’re still sad, you’re not supposed to leave when someone is still sad.

That’s rude.”

“You’re in my room, that’s rude too.”

The girls forehead knitted, lips pursed in thought. “Is that why you’re sad?”

She scowled “No.” “Then I’ll stay so I can know why you’re sad. And I’ll fix it and I’ll make it better so you won’t be sad.” The girl shrugged again. She sighed and fell back to the sheets.

“Why do you want that?” Her voice was cracking, as were her lips.

“Beautiful things can break. That doesn’t mean we should toss them aside. A lot of people make that mistake, thinking broken means ugly, but they couldn’t be more wrong. What’s broken but remains beautiful can be whole again, and even more beautiful.”

“Beautiful?”

“What else can you be?”

Silence was her answer, not knowing what to say or if she should speak at all. Instead, she breathed and sighed. In the walls and wooden floors she could hear the distant echo of weeping. The tears came again. She lay there blank faced as they streamed. It was a long silence before she spoke, “I feel dead.” The girl nodded and stared.

“I move, I breathe, I talk, I laugh, I smile. I smile more these days, more than I ever did before. I have to. But I don’t feel them anymore. Not like how I felt them when things seemed right. I talk, but it’s-” A gasp, a desperate breath, the tears kept flowing. The girl stepped forward, the cold around her was palpable and numbing.

“-It’s just speaking without breath,” she continued. Her whole body trembled now. Her hair stood on end, “sounds and smiles that mean nothing, nothing to me and even more nothing to them. It’s all so… normal, like the world goes on, like it doesn’t care. And I don’t blame it because I don’t know if it should.”

“It should. And it does, but not always.”

“Why?” “If there’s a reason, I’m not sure anyone knows. Who knows? We’re just left to deal with it.”

“Did you?”

“I suppose I did, but not very well. I still try, everyone does. It’s all that we can do.”

“So what do I do?”

“You’re the only one who can answer that.”

“And if I can’t? What happens then?”

“You become me. An echo. In between, not really there. Walking onwards to nowhere. Hollow, nothing more than a shadow between what is. ” She stared at the girl in the long silence that followed, her face quickly going through a sequence of confused feelings as the girl gazed on with a melancholy Pacemaker

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smile.Sucking in a too deep breath, she closed her eyes tight, the tears pooling at the corners. “Is it such a bad thing?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I don’t think I want to. Because I was a coward. And I still am, in a way.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Someone has to be. Even if it’s just me.”

“I…” She trailed off, her thoughts streaming senselessly in a whirlwind of twisting images and chaotic emotion. “All that I’ve done is to stand there doing nothing, just waiting for the open doors to close before moving on.”

“As did I. But that maybe be where the differences end.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you aren’t alone.”

The echoes of weeping in the walls of room seemed louder now, hearing it, her tears began falling anew. It tasted of salt on her tongue. She wept for hours. The girl sat unmoving, watching silently, breathing deeply with each gasping cry that came from the figure on the bed. As the clock ticked to morning, her eyes grew bloodshot, her breaths rasping, rough, painful. Her flesh was trembling and numb. The girl just listened. When the first rays shone through her window, she was quiet, her tears long dry. Her breathing was steady and the light felt warm on her skin.

“Thank you.” Her first words after the long fall of tears. The girl, still sitting, looked on and nodded with a tight smile as if wondering. The girl glanced away and spoke.

“When I go, will you remember me?”

“I will.”

“You’ll really remember me? You’re sure? You really won’t forget even after years and years?”

“Never.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because I have to.”

“Have to be sure?”

“Have to remember you.”

“Why?” “Because someone has to. You were there. You did the same for me. I’ll do the same for you.”

“Then promise me something.”

“What?”

“You’ll say yes?”

“I have to hear it first.”

“No you don’t, just say yes. Just promise.”

“Alright. Yes. I promise.”

“Don’t be sad all the time. If you’re going to remember me, you can’t be sad all the time or you won’t remember, I won’t let you. You have to be happy to remember.”

Her brows furrowed, a fresh wave of confusion washing over her mind and expression. Then, with a resigned sigh, she agreed, “I promise.”

“Then I can go now.”

“What?” Only the silence of the room and the soft whisper of the morning breeze answered.

She lay back, let herself feel the comfort of the bed and closed her eyes, the beginnings of a small smile on her face. For the first time in a long while, she found herself hoping. Hoping that she could finally dream.

52 Vital Vital Signs Signs

Illustration ANGELO BRYAN T. BUCQUIAL

Why you’re still alive GIEZANNE MOREL

L

oud slams and slaps marked your birthday. You spent quite a number of years listening to your dad’s riot scenes and mom’s hysterical theatrics and mournful moaning. Listening to old people’s conversations, you wondered why they say the longer you live, the more polished you are. You looked at your parents and took one swerve instantly because you remembered that the fruit does not fall far from the tree, and you didn’t want the same core and seeds.

The need to run away was so strong you wished you were cut out of your mother’s womb. You hated the fact that there’s still a part throbbing for their affection. You were born head first; the doctor spent a good six hours of operation to save you, only to be left behind by your old, good, loving mother. You wished you sprang from your own thousand deaths instead.

In music class, students rose from their seats one by one like growing mountains while sharing the most beautiful sound they had ever heard of. The girl at your back answered it was her musical box. The boy at your left giddily answered it was his remote-controlled mechanical steel-winged bird. You never had those so when your turn came, your answer was the routine tinkling of your father’s goblet as he drowns himself in alcohol and its toxic spirit every night. It was the one sending you to sleep, and sometimes, the reason why we’re beaten up in the middle of the night. At least, it made you capable of feeling something. It’s better than being ignored at all.

The class’ excitement went into a sudden deflation. It was the moment you realized you like silence best.

You married silence and fell so deeply in love that you never spoke a word to them. But there was the ache and, deep into the flesh, the longing. You keep on telling yourself it was the ache that was keeping you alive but that small sore at the back of your mind knew that it is not.

That night, a storm raged on and you crept into your room in search for a small space of warmth. It was the longing after all that did wonders to the rhythm of your pulse.

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Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

54 Vital Vital Signs Signs

The Bloodfruit LEODEL T. BARRIO

H

ow far? I asked the driver. It’s been three hours since he picked me up at my home. Yet in this whole ride he did not utter a single word, even at my most pathetic attempts to start a conversation. He’s really dedicated to his work, I thought, with him strictly following the government protocols.

With only silence responding to my query, I’ve withdrawn back to my little corner in the passenger seat. I began to watch the silhouettes rushing through the car windows in the hopes of knowing where I was. But alas, the darkly tinted glass offered little to no help at all. Either I’ve never been to this place or it’s getting really dark I assume.

I caressed my pocket for my phone to know what time it is, only to remember that it was confiscated, along with my wallet, watch and my little Moleskine notebook. I did not expect that being offered this job was a big deal.

They only told me that I was to be the new “Inspector.” They did not give me much detail of this appointment, except probably that the previous one left for “personal reasons.”

It was three days ago when I received a mysterious letter with the government seal on it. It only contained a time and an address. Curious, I went to that place that day. It was a coffee shop, a popular one at that. Quite surprising as I thought it would be one of those “top secret” sort of deal. A woman in her corporate attire, greeted me and explained that I have been chosen as an Inspector - a prestigious and high paying post. I tried to interrogate her about how I was selected even though I did not apply. She was only able to say that the previous one knew me.

I thought about declining the opportunity, however she was so keen on convincing me. She said her boss needed experts like me. “I’ve been only practicing medicine professionally for five years” I replied to her. She was taken aback, but still she wasn’t going to give up. I remember the face she made when she was about to utter the words that finally convinced me. She took off her wide-rimmed eyeglasses while subtly hand-combing her bob of a haircut and leaned forward to place her hands on mine. She looked bird-like almost. She went straight to my eyes and said this to me with such conviction, “Dr. Simon, we need you, this is the future, you are the future.”

Then the car began tracking through rough terrain. For a good five minutes, I had difficulty balancing the start and stop on top of the rocky road. Then the car came to a final halt. I saw the driver’s prying eyes in the rear view mirror.

That was when I knew we were finally at the place for inspection.

As I hastily opened the car, the awful stench from the surroundings welcomed me. It was a deadly concoction of what I assume was of rotting animals, urine, feces and spoiled food. The place was a marshland, wet and muddy. Thick trees surrounded the area. Poultry can be seen roaming around.

A few pigs and cattle’s outlines were also visible from the distance. In the middle of it all, a warehouse. It was a tall grey structure, obviously very worn from time.

Patches of repair can be noticed from the roof down. I tried so hard to find dry areas to walk on, yet wherever I land, the mud-water still slowly crept through my shoes.

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When I finally reached the main door. I immediately noticed the out-ofplace feel that it got. It was metal against the moss laden wooden walls. A single red button was at its side, the doorbell perhaps. Before I was even able to press the button, the metal door began to swish open, and as I recovered from the surprise, I saw the familiar face that I met a few days ago.

“Greetings, Dr. Simon,” said the woman from the café. For this meeting, she traded her suit and glasses for a lab coat and safety googles.

“Ms. Nancy.” I greeted her back. She led me to a room, stating that I need to change to the appropriate wear.

She left me alone in the changing room. The walls were mirrors. She told me that I need to change everything I’m wearing to the clothes they provided.

I scanned across the four corners to find my clothes hanging from a single hanger. It was sock to underwear, therefore I needed to take everything off just to make sure.

I started to strip down to my naked self. Piece by piece, I began to feel discomfort. The coldness definitely sent the chills but the mirrors made me more uncomfortable, as if someone else was watching me. I can’t help but to observe my own body. I had been too busy with my career that I’ve almost forgotten to look at myself. I saw lines, pouches that were never there before. It was a rare moment of vulnerability to be inside the changing room.

One by one I put on the clothes up until I was ready to go out. My suspicions were on a high when the door opened just when I was about to go out. Nancy was there holding a suitcase which she handed over to me. Inside were medical apparatus, thermometers, lights and all kinds of scopes. She gestured her hand towards another door. It was time to do the job.

“Dr. Simon, it’s time for you to meet the head of this project.” Nancy and I followed the illuminated path. The warehouse is larger than what I initially thought. The worn down barn was actually a façade, inside was a vast technological marvel full of wires, pipes and computers. We went through different doors and pathways that seemed like a maze of corridors and hallways.

After a final walk through a dimly lit tunnel, there she was, a tall Caucasian woman, standing in the middle of a platform.

“I am Dr. Julia Sarkin and welcome to project Harvest,” said the six foot tall woman. She looked like she was in her fifties, she had blonde hair that cut where her broad shoulders start. Her blue eyes were glowing in the bluelight. She wore the same clothes as I was.

“Are you ready to see the harvest Dr. Simon?” She asked me. I nodded back.

I will finally see what I get to inspect. We went straight to the door that was labeled “Storage.” Two stern army officers were guarding it on both sides. They opened it for us and what I saw was not what I expected.

“The bloodfruit.” Dr. Sarkin pointed her finger to the hanging things. There were probably hundreds of them. Each hooked on different contraptions, each with their own shells. The bloodfruit was gruesome to look at. Their shapes were molded differently. Some looked contorted to unsightly grotesque figures, while others looked serene and perfect in all its fleshy madness.

Questions were burning through my head. Why? How? I tried to gather confidence to try and question Dr. Sarkin. But I guessed she was able to tell the worried look I had in my face.

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“The world war is coming, it will be a different war than what the earth has seen before.”

“But why?”

“This is a secret weapon Dr. Simon, the US has developed the technology for years, and all it needs are the harvests.” She told in a matter-of-factly way.

I wondered. Why in the Philippines? Surely the bloodfruit shouldn’t just come from the country alone.

She continued to explain. It turns out, most countries that are allied with each other do not view the country useful for the war. The only things that we have going on is our strategic location. But as Dr. Sarkin says, the other countries finally found a way to make the nation useful, by way of the bloodfruit.

“As much as your president thinks highly of your country, you won’t be able to survive the war.”

“Where did the fruits come from?” I asked.

Dr. Sarkin went into detail. Apparently, every year, the bloodfruit is being produced in what is called the “harvest.” When I asked her where and how, she did not specify, only saying that the fruits come from different parts of the country.

As we slowly walked through the whole room, I looked at one of the bloodfruit in its casing. The tag said 2029-05-03237, which probably meant 2029 being the current year and 05 corresponding to May. It was the last part I was quite unsure of.

“And the president agreed to this?”

She looked at me as if I just attacked her. “Your president views this as a solution to most of your problems. Let’s face it Dr. Simon, your country lacks resources, lacks the funding, and doesn’t have many allies, not to mention poverty, crime, and overpopulation that’s crippling your society.”

I was silenced for a moment. “What do I do here exactly?” I asked.

“You’re here to inspect the quality, doctor, to check for anomalies,” said Dr. Sarkin. “Make sure they’re in great condition, the US needs the best ones,” she added “And what does the US do with them?”

“I told you Dr. Simon, they’re weapons. Nuclear warfare, biological warfare and this,” she moved her arms in a circular motion, looking proud with the work she’s done. “Cheap, disposable weapons.”

“This is demonic,” I said.

“This…will save all of you.”

I looked over to Nancy. She was as speechless as I am. I have so many information to process. However, at that moment I feel like I already know why the previous doctor left.

“I will leave you to work on them, Nancy will brief you,” said Dr. Sarkin. She exited the storage complex while taking a call.

“Which one do you want to start with?” Nancy asked. I clenched my fists in discontent. I am quite unsure if I should go the way the last inspector did. I ran my fingers through the tubes that drain the “juice” out of the fruit’s orifices.

It was blood-red.

I was trying to convince myself that this is not real. Then, the thing started to move.

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The Adventure of Parsecman in the Infinity Vortex RANDOM SELECTION

Illustration KIRSTIE ANGELI P. PONTE

58 Vital Signs

S

lowly, slowly. I would believe the light if it weren’t for the shadows around me. And the dust thriving within every crevice of this suit, an armor to the alien elements—the molecules that only exist to rapidly degrade my own—hide layers upon layers of flesh that have allowed quite willingly a proud, self-absorbed tyrant to rule upon them.

It was The Greed that held them together for as long as this moment.

It was The Greed who believed if I touched the New Earth, the human race would call me a hero. If I could prove that this is the solution to centuries’ worth of collective ruin, they would assign a nonworking holiday in my honor. I may get away with having more than one wife.

Now as I let my vessel drift along the gravitational ripples, The Greed cries for me to save myself.

“Run!” Where to?

“How should I know? But hurry!”

Neither The Greed nor its followers can do or believe anything helpful at this time. So I let go. I watch them turning over houseware and furniture, beating their infant daughters, running around the streets with torches only to return to their own houses and set them on fire. Here and there are explosions of all sorts, and between each millisecond is maniacal, otherworldly laughter.

None of them have died yet, though.

Amidst the confusion, I hear a voice. “This is home,” I say. Upon these atoms I will build my kingdom.

By the way, who gets to decide what doom really means, if I disagree with your assumption that I am nearing my own?

And my tenants will rise from the microflora within my gut (and wherever else they’ve been hiding) long after I’ve passed my last breath. Let the council be overthrown! May your regime prosper for as long as there is oxygen in this suit!

There is hope! There is retribution! There is life!

There is not much to learn from a dying man’s thoughts. But did you know that ‘parsec’ is short for ‘parallax per one arcsecond’? Remember what a parallax is? Remember that its meaning lies heavily on your own perception?

The farther a thing is, the longer it stays in your sight, is what I mean.

The farther a certain danger is, the longer you stay in fear (or in general, anticipation) of it.

And an arcsecond is a very small angle, a mere fraction of the sky.

Parsecs were meant to measure the distance between stars. I suppose, ha ha, I suppose I was used as a unit of measure as well.

In your point of view, night becomes day when the side of the Earth you’re on once again faces the sun. In mine, there is no means to exactly define time.

So it all depends on where you are, really.

Slowly, slowly.

The photons from this star will surely reach me, as it will reach your vision when your planet turns away, you on the side that’s left cold and dark. The shadows have always been there, but only for the light. You can’t deny the light that’s coming for me.

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Iron Lungs PHILIP G. BALOGO

I

don’t know how to swim. Years of suffering from childhood asthma left me weak and way behind my age. Most of my playmates are kids of fishermen and were initiated into the sport at a very young age. In the rare moments that I would join them, the older kids would take the opportunity to drag me, and to throw me far from the shore. This is how toddlers were taught. It starts with a brief moment of panic, to bobbing up and down to awkward flapping, finally morphing into graceful sea creatures. The thing is, I never got past the panic part. Suffocating on saltwater was way too much like an asthma attack for my liking. So yeah, I don’t know how to swim.

What I do know, what most kids living in a coastal town learn, is how to gut a fish. How to slice them open into pinakas, season them and dry them to make lamayo. How to salt aloy and properly seal them, in plastic drums to make binuro.

How to salt, dry, and pound krills using huge wooden mortar and pestle to make ginamos. All I know of living in a coastal community, I owe to my Lolo.

My grandfather was a fish vendor. Out of their brood of nine children, only one was not able to go to college. It was out of personal choice. My mother, the eldest, graduated with a degree in education, works as a librarian in a state university and enjoys a certain amount of respect among the fisher folks. This is how important education is to the villagers. She always inculcates in us the value of education and fervently tried to keep us away from “bad children”. My father and grandfather, on

60 Vital Signs

photo JADE MARIE M. SOBREPEÑA

the other hand, believed in the value of “street education”. So they would let us play with mud in the rice fields, climb trees for bird eggs that we would later fry in tin cans, and interact with all sorts of life that thrive in a poor fishing village.

My grandparents’ house served like a crossroad to the villagers. At dawn, fishermen sold their catch to Lolo, followed by early bulk buyers who would flock around the courtyard to pick the best lot. What was left will be transferred in large plastic basins, mounted on Lolo’s old trisikad, and peddled around town. He would arrive by midday. Our first indication was the potpot of the bulb horn attached to his bike handlebar. There’s a simple unspoken rule among us: if you hear the potpot, you run. You run, grab the basin/pail/weighing scale you can get your hands on then scrub them with detergent and water from the compounds’ water pump. Then, the “ration”: katalugan, pan de leche, tablea, kalamay sa buri, buti, or whatever pasalubong Lolo bought will be equally divided among his grandchildren. We were in seventh heaven.

Lolo would play with the kids, eat lunch, then have his siesta. If the house served as a fish market in the morning, it would become a gambling house in the afternoon when Lolo woke up. The house would look like a casino, with an overhanging cloud of cigarette smoke. The smoke could sometimes get so thick that I thought I could swim around the room. Then, I would remember that I don’t know how to swim.

No amount of opened windows and fanning could disperse the haze, and the tables would look like shipwrecks of cards, coins, and mahjong tiles.

While playing, Lolo would keep a running commentary of expletives. Lolo didn’t curse like a sailor, he cursed like a vendor. What made him unique from other world-class cussers was his ability to bring common everyday objects like ‘chair’ and Pacemaker

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‘spoon’ into his phrases of dirty words. Then he would laugh a series of boisterous guffaws and end with a hacking phlegmy cough. Feeling impish one time, I cursed my sister using “rice” as a buzzword. I could still feel the three lashes on my butt up to this day. I realized that there’s a limit to the “street education” my father would allow.

Another thing that shouldn’t be missing in Lolo’s getup was the endless supply of lit cigarette perched on his lips. A chainsmoker, Lolo could finish two to three packs a day. Despite the fervent warnings of his wife and children, he still continued to smoke. He was a gambler, after all. And his biggest wager was against the Fates themselves. His favorite comeback:“[Jose/Pedro/Juan] was not a smoker, yet he still died young. Look at me, I have iron lungs! I’m healthy as a horse!”

His conviction was further resolved when my father died of a heart attack at the age of 44.

But this proved to be one of Lolo’s bad bets. What was at stake was his biggest loss of all time: his very life. It all started with a persistent cough without the guffaws and dirty words. After undergoing an endless parade of tests and imaging studies, it was found out that Lolo had an advanced stage of lung cancer. What the doctors saw were clumps of rust spreading in Lolo’s iron lungs. The rust had already metastasized to other organs. Nothing could be done. He spent his remaining days attached to an oxygen tank to help him breathe.

What followed was a series of disjointed memories, an accelerated reel of deterioration of Lolo and the family. I sometimes helped in nursing him, change his clothes. His ribs looked like fish gills, fanning out when he slowly breathed in, and then collapsing in a short and sudden puff of air. His stomach, devoid of its signature washboard muscles, looked so hollow that he resembled a gutted fish. His limbs, which I always remembered as cords of muscles covered in tanned leather and fish scales, were like dried twigs. How could this desiccated specimen be my Lolo, the man who was once full of life?

On his funeral, I was surprised by the size of the crowd. Fisher folks, clients, friends and relatives, wife and children, and a whole village of grandchildren all clamoring inside the small church to get a chance to say goodbye. I looked at the mob and realized that I was wrong. He won the biggest game, after all. His life was not his loss but ours.

We left a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on top of his coffin as a final blasphemy to the Fates.

Eventually, my family moved away from the village. I would occasionally visit Lola and play at the beach with my younger cousins. During a recent visit, I finally decided to learn how to swim. My deficiency brought me enough troubles in the past. I was once chased by a snake while floating in a river pool. Another time, I was able to save a child only because the water was just a little bit higher than my chest. In each of those epic moments, I asked myself, “What if?” And then thought, “If only. . .” I no longer have asthma attacks. I decided to make a wager of my own.

I hatched a plan and invited my young cousins to swim. I observed them for a while, then chose my victim. He was the fastest and the most graceful.

I approached him and asked, “Can you teach me how to swim?” Then smiled as if I just cracked a joke. My young cousin looked me up and down, doubt and judgment magnified in his eyes. I thought he was wondering how he could drag a carabao and heave it into the deep. I continued smiling, trying to conceal my discomfort.

“Do you at least know how to breathe?” he replied laughing, then proceeded to give my first lesson in swimming.

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Sa atin magwawakas CHRISTABELLE B. PREBILLO Mahal kong anak, Nakaukit pa sa aking gunita ang unang pagkakataong nagkita kami ng iyong ama. Isang gabing nag-uumapaw sa kaligayahan, puno ng ingay ng mga halakhak, ng salitan ng kanya-kanyang kuwento, at ng musika ng mga kabataang malayang nakikipag-ulayaw sa ilalim ng mga bituin, sabik sa pira-pirasong pangako ng bukas. Habang ako, isang dalaga na nakatago sa sulok, nakayuko at waring nakikipagbulungan sa hangin. Ang pakikipag-usap sa maraming tao ay mabilis na umuubos sa anumang baon kong sigla at sigasig. Kung kaya sa mga piging, mas mamarapatin ko pang magwalang-imik sa isang sulok. Habang pinagmamasdan ko ang daloy ng kasiyahan, ang mga mukhang puno ng sigla habang nakikipagkuwentuhan sa mga kaibigang tila ilang dantaaong hindi nakita, isang binata ang nangibabaw. Nakaupo siya sa gilid, may bote ng inumin na hawak.

Nakatitig siya sa sahig, may sariling mundo mula sa ingay. Ang mga kamay niya’y nakakamao, mahigpit na tila ba puno ng poot at galit. Hindi ko makita ang kanyang mukha ngunit ramdam ko ang hinanakit na kanyang nadarama. Bigla siyang tumayo at lumabas ng silid. Hindi ko namalayang ako’y nakasunod hanggang sa ako’y nagulat sa tunog ng boteng itinapon at nawasak. Lumingon siya sa akin at kanyang nasambit, “Patawad kung ika’y aking natakot. Sadyang nakagagalit lamang na nagagawang magsaya ng mga tao sa paligid.” “Bakit naman?” ang tanong ko sa kanya. Ipinikit niya ang kanyang mga mata at huminga nang malalim, “Pumanaw ang aking ina.” “Nakikiramay ako,” nasabi ko nang mahina. “Ilang linggo na rin ang nakalipas ngunit sadyang lumbay ang aking nadarama. Paano ba mabuhay kung nawalan ka ng minamahal?” Ikinuwento niya sa akin lahat ng tungkol sa kanyang ina. At hinayaan ko siyang ibuhos kung anuman ang emosyong gusto niyang ibahagi. Nakinig lamang ako at habang ako’y tahimik na nakatayo sa kanyang tabi, pinagmamasdan ko ang lalaking ito habang pinapalabas lahat ng pagmamahal sa kanyang ina. Noon pa man alam ko na kaya niyang magmahal nang sobra-sobra.

Lumipas ang mga oras hanggang sa kinailangan ko nang umuwi, nagpaalam ako sa kanya at ngumiti. “Sana’y magkita tayong muli,” kanyang mga huling salitang nasambit.

Isang tahimik na hapon, ako’y palipat-lipat sa iba’t ibang mundo ng mga aklat, habang sinasalat ang pagkakahabi ng bawat pahina, nilalasap ang amoy ng mga lumang libro, amoy ng kasaysayan at kalinangan. Isang pamilyar na tinig ang bumulong sa akin, isang dampi sa aking balikat na bago sa aking pakiramdam.

Ang marubdob na binatang aking nakilala isang gabing tumbalik, muli kong nakita matapos ang apat na buwan. Hindi ko inaasahang magkikita kaming muli. At ngayon, sa ilalim ng maliwanag na ilaw ng aklatan, mas napagmasdan ko ang mukha niyang bago man sa aking paningin, ngunit pamilyar sa damdamin. Sa balintataw ng kanyang mga mata, may galak na sumisilip, tinatabunan ng mapupungay na pilikmata. Ang bawat linya, bawat kurba sa kanyang mukha tila inukit ng isang magaling na manlilikha. At ang kanyang ngiti, tila humaplos sa aking puso. Sa Pacemaker

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mga sumunod na araw, linggo, buwan ay mas nakilala namin ang isa’t isa, untiunting umusbong ang masidhing pagsuyo. Ang mga buwan na iyon ay nagdulot ng pagbubunyi sa aking puso. Ako nga’y dinaluyan na ng pagsinta. Bawat araw ay ipinapakita niya sa akin ang kanyang pagmamahal. Ngunit mas lalo ko siyang inibig dahil sa laki ng pagmamahal na kanyang ibinabahagi, hindi lamang sa akin ngunit sa kanyang kapatid na babae, sa kanyang matalik na kaibigan, sa kanyang pamangkin. At aking muling nasabi, “Ang taong ito ay puno ng pagmamahal.”

Isa pang kahanga-hanga sa kanya ay ang kanyang mga pangarap, malayo ang lipad at ginagawa niya ang lahat para magtagumpay. Isa siya sa mga pinakamasipag na taong aking nakilala. Seryoso siya sa kanyang mga ginagawa at tungkulin.

At isa ito sa mga dahilan kung bakit minsan ay naiinis siya sa akin. May mga pagkakataong nagiging makulit ako kahit na may ginagawa siyang trabaho at minsan, napagtaasan niya ako ng boses. Nagulat ako nang una itong mangyari ngunit hindi pa niya natapos ang mga sinasabi ay humihingi na ng patawad ang kanyang mga mata. Agad niya akong niyakap at nagsamo. Alam ko noon na higit ang kanyang pagmamahal sa akin. Kung kaya nang tinanong niya ako kung pipiliin kong makasama siya habambuhay ay hindi na ako nagdalawang isip sapagkat pagibig lamang niya ay sapat na.

Masaya ang mga unang yugto ng aming pagsasama. Bawat araw ay pinaparamdam niya pa rin sa akin ang kanyang pagmamahal. Bawat umaga, ipinagluluto ko siya ng agahan at may mga araw na bigla na lamang niya akong binibisita sa trabaho, may bulaklak na dala-dala. Isang araw pag-uwi ko sa bahay, hindi ko inaasahang galit ang sasalubong sa akin. Isang regalo ang nasa mesa, nakasulat ang pangalan ko sa kahon ngunit punit-punit na ang balot nito. “Kanino galing yan?” marahang tanong ng iyong ama. Tiningnan ko ang nakapaloob na liham, “Sa matalik kong kaibigan. Ang kinukuwento ko sa iyong kababata ko.” “Kababata?

Kababata ba ang tawag mo sa taong may matatamis na salita sa iyo? Mga salitang para lamang sa taong kanyang sinisinta.” Nakita ko ang galit at selos sa kanyang mga mata. Mahigpit niyang hinawakan ang aking mga balikat, bumabaon ang kanyang mga daliri. Sinabi ko sa kanyang nasasaktan ako ngunit patuloy siyang sumisigaw sa mukha ko. Hanggang sa ako’y kanyang itinulak. Natumba ako sa sahig at natukod ko ang aking kamay at narinig ko ang pagkabali ng buto. Mabilis akong lumayo sa kanya at umiyak sa aming silid. Ilang minuto ang lumipas, naramdaman ko ang init ng kanyang yakap, ang luhang dumadaloy sa kanyang mata. Tinitigan niya ako, puno ng pagsisisi. “Patawad. Nadala lamang ako ng bugso ng aking damdamin.

Alam mong mahal na mahal kita. Hindi na ito mauulit. Patawad, patawad,” kanyang pagsuyo sa bawat hikbi. Naramdaman ko ang pagsisisi at pagmamahal sa kanyang mga salita. Hindi siya katulad ng aking ama, alam ko. Matapos iyon, hindi ako nag-aksaya ng pagkakataong iparamdam sa kanya na siya lamang ang tangi kong iniibig. May isang beses na nag-away na naman kaming muli. Ngunit bago pa siya makapagbuhat ng kamay, pinili niyang umalis muna ng bahay at magpalamig ng ulo. At doon ko nasabing tama ang desisyon kong patawarin siya. Hindi siya katulad ng aking ama.

Nang malaman kong nagdadalang-tao ako sa iyo, nagbubunyi ang aking puso at sabik na sabik akong ibalita sa iyong ama. Pagdating ko sa bahay, isang kamay ang bigla na lamang humila sa akin. Hindi ko maalala kung ano na naman ang nagawa 64 Vital Signs

kong kasalanan. Ang naalala ko lang ay takot na takot ako noon. Ang pagmamahal at seguridad na minsan kong nadarama ay napalitan na ng takot at pangamba.

Tinulak niya ako sa pader at pilit na idinidikit ang kanyang katawan. Ang mga kamay ko nakagapos sa taas ng aking ulo. Sumisigaw siya ngunit ang naririnig ko lamang ay ang mabilis na tibok ng aking puso. Umiiyak lang ako at hindi sumasagot.

Lalo siyang nagalit at ang kanyang boses ay palakas na nang palakas. Ang kanyang mga titig ay lalong bumabaon, malalim, mas malalim hanggang sa naramdaman ko ang malakas na hampas ng kanyang kamay sa aking pisngi. Natumba ako at biglang nagdilim ang paligid.

Nagising ako sa aming silid, may bulaklak sa gilid. Nalito ako sa kung anong nangyari hanggang sa naramdaman ko ang sakit sa aking pisngi. At lahat ay bumalik. Dahan-dahan kong tiningnan kung nasa bahay ba siya at nang nasiguro kong wala ay dali-dali akong nag-impake. Nanatili ako sa bahay ng aking kaibigan, ilang araw na nakahiga lamang at umiiyak. Hindi ko sinagot ang kanyang mga tawag, hindi ko sinabi kung nasaan ako. Hindi pa rin ako makapaniwala na ang taong mahal ko, nagawa akong saktan. Hindi ko alam kung ano ang aking gagawin, mahal ko pa rin siya. At hindi pa niya alam na magiging ama na siya. Nagdaan ang mga araw at hinarap ko na siya. Niyakap niya ako nang mahigpit at naramdaman ko muli ang pagmamahal niya. Ginawa niya lahat upang mapatawad ko siya at nang nalaman niyang magiging ama siya, hindi mapantayang saya ang kanyang nadama.

Nakita ko kung gaano siya kasabik na ika’y masilayan. Inalagaan niya akong mabuti, sinisiguradong mabibigay ang aking mga pangangailangan. Kinakausap ka niya sa aking tiyan, minahal ka na niya bago ka pa man makita. Alam kong magiging mabuti siyang ama.

Ngunit, alam ko ding maaaring mangyari muli na ako’y kanyang saktan.

Nasaksihan ko ito ng ilang beses sa aking mga magulang. Nakita ko kung paano saktan ng aking ama ang aking ina. Nasa tabi ako ng aking ina nang mga panahong humihilom ang kanyang mga sugat at pasa. Nagalit ako sa kanya kung bakit tiniis niya ang mga pananakit, kung bakit ilang ulit niyang pinatawad ang aking ama at kung bakit hindi niya ito iniwan. Ipinangako ko sa aking sarili na sa pagkakataong saktan ako ng kahit ninuman, hindi ako magdadalawang-isip na iwan ang taong iyon. Hindi ako magiging katulad ng aking ina, mahina. Ngunit sa huli ay hindi ko rin natupad ang pangakong ito. Pinatawad ko ang taong nanakit sa akin. Pinatawad ko siya at binigyan ng bagong pagkakataon. Pilit kong pinaniwala ang aking sarili na iba siya sa aking ama, na puno siya ng pagmamahal, na mas higit ang kanyang pagmamahal sa akin sa anumang selos o pagdududa. Gusto kong mabigyan ka ng kumpletong pamilya anak. Higit sa anuman, gusto kong lumaki ka na masaya kasama kami ng iyong ama. Subalit, hindi ko gustong masaksihan mo ang mga nakita ko habang ako’y lumalaki. Hindi ko gustong masaktan ka. Dahil sa huli, ang sapat at mas higit pa ay ang manatili ang pagmamahal mo sa iyong sarili. Magmahal ka nang hindi nawawala ang pagmamahal at respeto mo sa iyong sarili.

Ang sakit, ang sugat at bawat pasa, sa atin magwawakas.

Nagmamahal, Ang iyong ina Pacemaker

65

66 Vital Signs Illustration ALOE DANICA B. DEALA

Empty Nest LEODEL T. BARRIO

I

t was a painful trip going down the stairs. For her, it was like her knees were going to give way at any moment’s notice. Her fragile hands kept trembling as she slides them down the rails. She thought about moving her room downstairs quite a few times to relieve her the trouble of struggling every morning. She never did, she always forgets.

Her helper took a day off today. In days like this, she relies on her good neighbors if she needs help. She rarely needs it though. At seventy-five she can still do chores. She insisted to her children that she does not want a maid. But they took one in anyway.

Her breakfast was already prepared at the table. The food was cold. There were coffee, fried fish and rice, and a banana on the side. Normally she dines with her maid, as she has taken a liking to her. Years before that, her children provided the noise, rough-housing, screaming in front of the table while her husband tried so much to calm down the situation. She always hated those times. Although, she oddly misses it. For now, she dines with silence.

She can hear every crunch as she chews. She took the rolled newspaper on her side. She reached for her glasses dangling from the strap on her neck.

She used to read the news aloud. Her little children would then stop what they’re doing and look up to her with so much attention. She always read the good news to her children and each time she spoke every word felt like a gospel. When the children grew older they started discussing the bad news.

When they started leaving their home, she only had her husband to talk the issues with. When her husband died, only the help was left to hear her.

Today, no one listens.

She wonders how long it must have been since one of her children made a call. It was probably just yesterday, but for her, it felt like it’s been weeks.

Surely another one could make a call today. She has six children, three boys and three girls, now grown adults, living their lives elsewhere in the world.

She’s proud of them, her children and grandchildren. She would talk about them to other people all the time. She’d talk about how her eldest son works at a tech company in Singapore, her daughter that works as a nurse in London. Her granddaughter that’s graduating as a valedictorian in America.

She becomes bright and joyful talking about them. But for today, there’s nothing but the dimly lit home to hear the echoes of her stories.

Those years are behind her now. And, the waiting game commences.

Any minute now. Will she receive a call? A visit? Company seems hard to come by. Yet here she is, hoping and waiting.

Pacemaker

67

The Backpack ARIELLE ANGELIQUE S. CRUZ

I

Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

t was like I knew everything about her. I saw the same things she did.

Everywhere she went, I was always there. Whatever she did, I seemed to have a part in it.

Her name hung on my lips and I proudly flashed it to anyone in front of me.

I wanted them to know that I belonged to her and no one else.

She was what gave me purpose and the only thing that mattered to me.

Every day she carried me on her back while I carried the rest of who she was.

The physical aspects of her identity were tucked away within me, waiting to be used and be defined by her. I held the pens that realized her wonderful thoughts.

I stored the papers that chronicled her daily adventures and the pictures of her friends and family she had lovingly taken. The phone that connected her with others, the gadgets that serenaded her with music, and the wallet that provided her with anything else, have all been kept by me. She trusted me to ensure that they were always within reach and I promised to do so.

I would do anything for her if I could. Sadly, what I am limits me from being all that she needs.

I could never speak to her nor let her know of my awareness. I cannot act on my own to be of better assistance to her. All I am able to do is silently observe as her life goes on around us while I carried her burdens.

Regardless, I was happy with being her daily companion. It did not matter that I was not her everything. I was still something to her. I loved her and she loved me. That should have been enough.

Just as I thought I was finding peace with being an observer, things began to change. Her burdens got heavier as did my contents.

Classmates had begun to taunt her with harsh words.

They crushed her spirit and made her hate all of the things that I found beautiful about her. They blackened her name with ugly rumors and turned her friends into strangers.

Her bright smiles were replaced with tears while depressing papers filled the folders I carried. She had taken the cruel notes sent to her and stashed them inside me, away from prying eyes.

Vital Signs Signs 68 Vital 68

I wanted to tell her to throw them away and not to believe a word from those horrible people. I wished I could let her know how wonderful she truly was and that I cared about her.

No matter how hard I screamed, she could not hear me. I felt so helpless.

As the days and bullying went on, more unhappy items were added to my contents: tissues to wipe her tears, extra clothes to replace her vandalized ones, bandages to hide the cuts and bruises and finally, the blade that she used to “relieve the pain.�

The mess of objects inside me mirrored the thoughts and emotions within her.

Surely, we carried good things with us but they were buried under the unpleasant ones, leaving us disconnected from our true selves.

One day, the bullies went too far. As we were heading home, a boy followed us. He tried to get her attention but she continued to walk away. Angered, he ran over and grabbed me. In doing so, she was yanked backward as well and was now in the boy’s grasp.

I wanted to tell her to unhook herself from me and escape but she refused, holding onto my straps tighter as she tried to shake him off.

The boy laughed at her futile attempt before forcefully removing me from her.

He mocked her further as she made another attempt to take me back.

I begged her to leave me since I was more than willing to sacrifice myself for her safety but my pleas fell on deaf ears.

I felt every jolt and pull from both of them. Neither one was willing to let go.

My seams slowly began to tear until it was enough to make my contents spill to the ground.

I heard her gasp at what had occurred while the boy, having lost interest in me, dropped the part he was holding and ran away.

Relieved that he was gone, I brought my attention back to her who tearfully inspected the damage done to me. Her hands picked me up tenderly and held me close like a silent apology. I relished the moment before she stopped to begin retrieving her things.

As she did, I saw her take notice of my original contents. She found her old writings and the pictures of the people who loved her. She must have forgotten that I still had them with me. As she flipped through the pages, I caught sight of something I had not seen in a long time: her smile.

At that moment, I knew that she had remembered how wonderful she and the world around her really was. Like the cruel notes that were now being blown away by the wind, her feelings of self-hate were slowly leaving her.

That night, I watched as she began to pull herself back together. She discarded the blade and began to write happy thoughts and plans for the future. While doing so, she even seemed to grin. As she was finding peace with herself, I began to do the same.

I could not go with her to school anymore but I was still able to see her leave and come back home. Each day she returned, her smile grew bigger. It continued that way until I had almost forgotten that she had ever been sad.

The days turned into weeks, months and even years. Within that time, she had attempted to have me repaired, only to be disappointed when nothing could be done.

I was not upset by it. After all, I am just a backpack while she is now a happy and successful woman. I may not have survived the trials she faced but she had survived her own.

Pacemaker

69

Her Song Half Remembered NEIL A. CARTUJANO

H

e wouldn’t survive the drop. He knew that. He was counting on it.

Black water churned a hundred feet beneath him. All that was left was to lean a little ways forward. Then he’d slip from the rails and fall all the way down.

It would kill him, he knew. He wouldn’t be the first. A part of him that still cared hoped he wouldn’t feel it. He came here to stop the pain after all.

He breathed deep, tasting what could very well be his last gulp of air. Closing his eyes, he prepared to step off the edge.

“Take any longer and there’ll be line behind you.”

Startled, his eyes snapped open. The entire drop to the bottom of the bay yawned in front of him. His fear returned.

Like a hangman’s noose it tightened around his throat. Every primal instinct he had screamed at him, held him. His heart raced. His fists clenched. His knees buckled, nearly sending him to his wish.

He jumped back. Trembling legs gave out under his weight and he fell to the cold asphalt. A fire rose from his stomach to the knot in his throat. Turning over, he spewed out the remains of what he had intended to be his last meal.

“Well that is not the last thing I want to see.” The girl quipped, she leaned against the rail and spat a burnt out cigarette out into the bay.

Illustration MARY FRANCINE B. ALFABETO

70 Vital Signs

Gasping and shaking, he crawled away from the pungent puddle he made and sat on cold stone. He put his back against the rails. The cold stung through his thin shirt. Overhead, the clouds cleared to let the moon have peek at his pitiful state.

He closed his eyes, his mind too tired to think about the girl. She was humming something under her breath, a softly rising melody that broke the otherwise silent evening.

A cold shoe nudged his leg. “Hello? Are you dead?”

“I should be so lucky.” He groaned, opening an eye to look up at her. She looked bored. The wind blew her hair in whirling locks around her face. They were a black darker than the night sky behind her. Eyes the color of sun-bleached straw stared out from beneath her mess of dark curls.

“Well, the bay is right there if you want to jump.” Dark lips curled into lopsided smile, revealing teeth stained by cigarette smoke.

“I- “ He began to retort. He stopped, finding no use for it. Instead he sighed.

She sat down beside him. Her warmth soaked through his shirt.

“You still going to jump?” She asked.

He shook his head.

“You came here to jump didn’t you?”

“I thought I did.” Lips trembled as he closed his eyes to the memory of the bridge’s edge, the long fall, the death waiting at the bottom. “It felt like I would.”

“Sounds like a story. I like stories.” She settled comfortable beside him, lighting another cigarette. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of burning nicotine.

At first it felt like his mind was frozen. He didn’t know what was happening or what to say. So he said nothing.

The girl glanced at him, eyes half-closed and lips puffing away. In between puffs, she’d hum a tune. It was a melody that was strangely familiar to the him. A A memory at the edge of remembrance.

“I’m not sure what to do.” He finally murmured.

“Huh?” She asked, she raised a rather condescending eyebrow at his sudden lack of silence.

“I’m not sure what to do. Where to go from… here.” He remembered sleepless nights and tears. He remembered shouting. He remembered anger, so much anger.

And disappointment. “I’m not sure how to make things right.”

“And you thought taking a hundred foot dive would… what? Give you an epiphany?”

He scowled at her tone. He hated her words. He hated the careless way she talked, hated the mumbling through the cigarette between her lips. A heat rose from inside him, boiling to the surface.

He shouted as hard as he could. He only saw red and black through the streaming tears. The next words her screamed at her, he could barely hear. Words that weren’t even meant for her.

He screamed at everything. Howled at the night. Rage shook of every fiber of him. He shouted until his lungs ached. Until his throat burned from the cold air.

Until his own voice willed him stop.

He slumped back against the rail, exhausted from his tirade. Tears were drying on his cheeks beneath red stinging eyes.

“Was it nice to get that out of your system?” She asked.

He didn’t answer. He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling the cold only now. He cared little for the cold. He cared little for the night. He cared little for Pacemaker

71

anything when he walked out of his front door, leaving it unlocked, not intending to cross it’s threshold again.

Everything was ready. As ready as they were ever going to be. His house was spotless, cleaner than it had been in years. Every window shone in the moonlight.

Every floor glistened underfoot. Even the stain in the sink that his mother had berated him for was scrubbed clean. And on his bed… the new suit his father bought him. It would have looked nice at his graduation ball. And it would look nice in his casket.

She kept sing her little tune. It was sad tune. A tune he knew. A slow simple melody. A gentle lilt to each breath. It reminded him of a vague memory, neither happy nor sad, just a memory. Like a dream forgotten in the morning. A halfremembered harmony.

“Are you still going to jump?” Her whisper came as a surprise in their long silence.

He shrugged, his reverie broken. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I’ll tell you this. You jump. That’s only going to push that silver spoon you have farther in.”

“I don’t have a silver spoon.”

“Really? The clothes you’re wearing right now. Who’s money paid for that.”

He was quiet. He thought back to every single day of his life. To everything he ever had, everything he ever did. They never felt his.

“Might not be silver. But you’ve still got a spoon. Might as well use it right?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is. It’s simple. Not easy. Nothing ever is.”

“If it’s simple then why are you here?”

She shrugged lazily and stared past him, at the lights of the city beyond the bridge. Her smiled tightened, almost fading into a grimace. “I thought I’d take a long dip in the water. Like mother like daughter I suppose.”

“What?” He felt gut punched. His eyes went wide, jaw hung open.

The girl shrugged again. She spoke too casually as if telling someone about her day. Her words were empty. Too uncaring to be genuine. Too empty to be anything more than an escape.

“Mom decided to go for a walk and threw herself over the rails for nice swim.

Washed up a week later. It was a really long swim.” She paused and took a deep breath. A cold breeze blew in, both of them shivered. They moved closer to each other, trying to find comfort in their little circle of warmth.

She began to sing again. That half-remembered tune. The just sat there, felt the warmth, and stared.

A shadow fell over them as the moon was hidden from sight again. Her face in shadow, she made a sound between a laugh and a sigh. “Mom was a singer. No one famous or anything like that. She sang at small restaurants and bars, where ever she could work. Sometimes she’d sing on street corners or at parks. I’d be there to help her. I didn’t sing. I never sang. I just held the little box we collected money in. I was in charge of making sure it was safe when people tried to chase us away.

Mom loved to sing. It was what she always wanted to do. She’d sing in the shower, while she cooked, while we ate, while we walked. She sang to me in bed.

And then she’d ask me to sing to her.”

She glanced at the boy, who still listened intently, and smiled. Her song drifted through the air again. A sweet, sorrowful melody. A tune so familiar yet forgotten.

It tugged at the edges of his mind, a single note away from remembrance.

VitalSigns Signs 72 Vital 72

Silence overtook her again. A long jarring silence before she spoke again.

“She always wanted me to sing with her. She’d ask me to sing. When it was just the two of us. She’d tell, ‘Go on, sing. I want to hear your pretty voice.’ She’d wait there, sitting on the bed, smiling at me. She always wanted to hear me sing. She told me I shouldn’t be scared. That I’d be good at it. She wanted me to sing to her.” She breathed deeply, exhaling with a sigh. “I didn’t know if I could, so I didn’t. I never sang. But she’d still smile and tell me it was fine. Then she’d sing to me.”

“One day, she came home. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t singing. She walked out the door without saying a word to me. I followed her to this bridge. She didn’t say anything to me until she stopped and faced the sea. She hummed her song. And then she smiled at me, the smile she always gave me when I didn’t sing. Then she jumped.”

The boy stopped looking at her before she finished her story. He was looking at the horizon they faced, opposite the sea. All was silent except for the whispering of the wind their ears and the rumbling of the waters beneath. He felt cold drops fall on his arm, a chill growing deep in the night air. His own cheeks felt wet. He didn’t dare look at the girl, he didn’t know what to do if he did.

“I’m sorry.” He said at last, the words sounding hollow even to him.

“Don’t be. It was a long time ago.” Warmth enveloped his arm as she wiped the cold tears off his arm.

“Things take too long to get better.”

“True. In some lives I suppose.” She grinned widely at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You want to switch?”

The boy stared for a several moments, trying to keep his expression even, trying not to burst into tears.

“The grass is always greener.” Playfully elbowing him, she laughed bitterly and shrugged with a wistful smile. “Things are never as good as we think they are.”

“But you still came here to jump?”

“It was a whim. Got drunk, remembered mom, thought it was a good idea, saw you, thought you looked stupid, had second thoughts.” Shaking her head, she let a tired sigh escape her lips. “If I’m going to go out I’d want it to be dignified. And I guess my mother and I really aren’t alike. Like I said. It’s simple, but not easy. There are a lot of things that we do that seem like good ideas. Things that are stupid.”

“Yeah. I know all about those. I’ve done a lot a stupid things.”

“I’ll bet. Doing stupid things doesn’t make you stupid though.” A half hearted chuckle came out of her lips. “Not all the time at least.”

“But what if those stupid things are the only things people see about you?”

“That’s their problem.” She shrugged. “If it bothers you then prove them wrong.

If people see you as one thing, make them see you as something else.” Her laugh came as a cough, rattling her slim frame. “It’s better than people seeing you as nothing. Most don’t even care enough to look.”

There was silence, the boy not knowing how to respond. Her song filled the air again.

It slivered through the air. Weaving over the keening of the wind and sea.

The haunting melody scared him. Each note sent a chill down his spine. Yet he couldn’t stop listening. He couldn’t stop trying to remember. And he couldn’t help himself. It a song he knew he always sang.

He let the wave of melancholy take him. The tune flowed through his mind and memory. A thousand distant words and sights coming back to him.

Pacemaker

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“By the way, I’m-“ Before he could finish her hand shot out and clamped his mouth shut.

“No names.” She smiled. It was pretty, he thought. “Names make things more complicated than they should be. Life is messy enough. No names. Please.”

They shared another long silence. No words. Just her song that he shared.

“Thank you.” He said at last.

“For what?”

“For this. I think I needed this.” Shrugging, he looked up at the setting moon draped in mist.

The girl did not hide her grimace. There was a mockery in her chuckle. “Look.

Do me a favor. Don’t get all sappy. This isn’t fairy tale. I just said some words. I’m no princess and you’re definitely no prince charming.”

“Thank you for that. It’s refreshing to hear someone who’s honest.” To his surprise, he meant those words.

“I’ve learned that a beer can be just as refreshing.” She jumped up suddenly, startling him. He looked at the hand she held out to him. “Come on. We both need a drink.”

He stared at her face, her smile, memorizing every detail. Then he took her hand and stood up. “I… I think I have to go back now. Thank you.”

“Not even one drink?”

He shook his head. “Sorry. I have to go back.”

“More for me I guess.” She shrugged. “Take care of yourself. I might see you around.”

He felt suddenly cold as her hand left his, as she started to walk away still facing him, still smiling, humming her song. Finally, she gave him a small nod, waved, and turned around. To her side of the bridge. To the city lights and her life.

He started to walk away, beginning the long trudge back home. Every few steps he stop and stand there looking at her back until the city silhouette took her, another dreamer’s soul lost in its shadow. Not once did she look back. Just walking onwards. He could still hear her song.

Smiling, he looked at her one last time. His mind wandered to her little song.

The one he also sang. He found himself humming it again. He hoped it was the last.

Years later, he’d still drive out to that old bridge at midnight. He’d stand there alone beneath a clouded sky and stare out over the bay. He’d think back on that night, that girl who saved him.

He wondered who she was, where she was now. He’d balance himself on the edge and look behind him, half-expecting her to be there. She never was. He wondered if she also thought about him on lonely nights, when the wind carried the whispers of those forgotten. Sometimes he’d hear the wind echo the song she sang to him on that night and he’d smile sadly.

He never did see her again. He would never know her name, or that she would die young in a bathroom stall still humming her song with a smile on her lips, a needle in her arm, and her mind shrouded in a chemical bliss.

He would never know and he would barely remember.

On his deathbed, surrounded by his grandchildren, at the back of his failing mind he’d see a face. He’d remember a girl with a pretty smile. He’d remember a cold night over where the river met the sea. He’d remember whispered words and a strangely familiar tune.

He’d remember what they shared; a fleeting touch between two people lost in their own lives. Somewhere, that half-forgotten song still played.

74 Vital Signs

Si Maria

GIZENNIA JUDET MONTEGGIA-GALEAZZI

S

i Maria, isa ka matahum nga dalaga. Edukada, nagatuon sang kurso nga edukasyon. Tudo ang iya pagpangabudlay sa klase. Maalam nga dalaga si Maria, pirmi lang ini siya sa honor roll. Nagahimakas guid siya nga makatuon bisan ginakulang sa mga libro. Amo ina pirmi nga ara sya sa library para magtuon sang leksyon.

Si Maria, isa ka matahum nga dalaga. Mabuot kag nagarespeto sa iya isigkatawo. Bangud mahilig ini si Maria magsuksok sang mga bayo nga nagapagua sang hurma sang iya nga lawas, amo ina ang mga tawo nga iya masugata matalum ang tulok sa iya. Ginapalapos lang ni Maria ang mga sugilanon sang mga tawo sa iya. Apang nagapati ini siya nga iya lawas, iya man nga desisyon kung ano ang isuksok niya.

Isa ka gab-i nadugayan ini siya sa iya eskwelahan kay may ara sila ulubrahon nga project. Sadto man lang ini natabo. Pag-abot niya sa terminal, naabtan niya pa ang last trip sang dyip. Nagpungko ini siya sa tunga sang isa ka tigulang nga lalaki kag sa isa man ka lalaki nga estudyante. Bisan indi na siya makapungko maayo, guin antos niya na lang. Tungod sa kadasigon sang dyip, nagaundag ang mga tawo sa sulod. Nagakabudlayan si Maria sa pagbalanse sang iya nga bag.

“Ambot na lamang, tani nagtabon man lang siya” siling sang isa ka tigulang nga babaye sa pihak nga raya sang pulungku-an. Bisan matalum ang tulok sang mga kaupod ni Maria sa dyip padayon lang ini siya sa pagpanumdom nga indi niya kinahanglan ang pagbaton sang iban nga tawo. Sa padayon nga byahe sang dyip sige gihapon ang mga hutik sang mga tawo. “Daw alpot,” “Imoral.” Kalma lang sa gihapon si Maria.

Sige gihapon ang dasig nga pagpadalagan sang drayber sang dyip, apang abi ni Maria daw mahulog na ang mga unod sang iya nga bag. Ugaling, nahibalo-an sini nga hindi gali iya nga bag ang daw naga-hikap sa iya mga hita kundi ang kamot sang ingod niya nga lalaki nga estudyante. Hinay-hinay nga ginapasaka ang kamot ya halin sa mga tuhod ni Maria. Bangud gina tabunan sang bag sang lalaki ang iya nga kamot, indi siya makit-an sang iban nga pasahero.

Sa ato nga tiyempo indi na kasigurado si Maria sang iya nga pagabuhaton.

Maga-singgit bala ini siya? Ginakulbaan ini siya apang basi may dala ang lalaki nga sundang nga iga-buno sa iya. Mana-og na lang bala ini siya? Wala na galing sang galabay pa nga dyip pakadto sa ila nga puluy-an.

Sa kahadlok ni Maria wala ini siya may gin obra. Indi siya kahulag nga daw bato sa katig-ahon. Sang malapit na lang ini siya sa iya ginapanaugan, ginpadulog niya ang drayber. Dali-dali siya nagpanaug sa dyip. Daw matulo ang luha niya bangod indi niya mahibaloan kon magpangasubo siya ukon magpangakig. Sige nga pinamangkot sa iya kaugalingon kon nga-a wala ini siya may ginobra sa malain nga natabo sa iya. Iya man bala ayhan sala? Kon pamangkuton ang mga upod niya sa dyip basi sabton nila nga sala niya man kay ka lip-ot sang shorts niya. Ugaling napanumdom man ni Maria na basta ang tawo may malain nga ginatuyo, magaobra guid ini sang bulohaton nga parehas sang natabo sa iya.

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76 Vital Signs

photo JADE MARIE M. SOBREPEÑA

A guide to Survival DARK WIZARD

H

ow does one live his/her life? It would be incredibly easy if one says that happiness is the key, or success is the measure by which man has achieved life’s prime purpose. However, a life like that would be too unrealistic and uninteresting.

Just like the most of us, I have my own share of struggles. I’ve been depressed, angry and stressed. The thought of being the most unfortunate in the world has bothered my mind for a few times. I’ve contemplated about giving up and just allow the weight of the world trample me down. Then I realized, I still have more to give and giving up is not the best solution.

A friend of mine once asked me, “What do you want people to say on your eulogy?” It totally caught me off guard to a point that I was questioning him if he wants me gone. However, it was clear that he was asking me that, by the moment that I have left from this world, what kind of life story would the people hear about me? Was I able to live a wonderful and colorful life?

At that instance, I have thought of how far I have come and what I have become. Have I lived the life I always wanted? Or have I just been a prisoner of this earthly life?

So, how does one survive? One lives by living the kind of life he/ she has always imagined. A life that isn’t at all perfect. One that may be full of wounds, but each patch of bandaid that gets plastered makes it more unique and beautiful.

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Photo CHARISSE ANN M. MONSALE

Illustration RICKY G. JALECO

78 Vital Signs

For each stranger I share a bus ride with SKYE

A

t 10 I watched my knees reaching my chest and orbit around bigger girls and their wider smiles. Growing inwardly, my skin deformed at every pull of angle as each stretch gave birth to tiny explosion holes.

With newly painted craters, I stared at little astronaut boys fire their rockets to attractive stellar balls while I remain a satellite with faulty communication signals surrounding my very whole. There are things I’ve been meaning to tell my heart. I swear I have to prevent my pieces from falling apart.

I suppose life’s gonna leave you clothed but unprotected and you have to let out what’s too much to take in. Life remains a pleasant surprise despite of cracked lips and clenched fists. So I open my hands and look for traces of life, the veins popped like engraved forest in my eyes. I wonder if you sigh at every dreamy verse, if your heart skips a beat at every hit fault line. We all have moments of rejecting air inside.

But at 18 I remember needing to breathe as he stole each breath before I tuck myself to sleep. My mother said I should make peace with my feelings but I may have misunderstood it terribly. So I kept quiet if his hurricane self crashed with my floaty self and chased the wind to win his favor. I should have demand for the love I deserve and not wait for the time it aches even just to offer. You were abandoned but I feared you so you sucked my life all along. I still gasp at night now that I’m 20.

Scales are inaccurate. They can’t weigh the misery on my fingertips.

I’m still pressed between the heavens I wish and have but I’m carrying a lot, the pull of gravity’s too much. And as I sit here beside you, traversing this familiar road of my Sunday routine, I long to run for home, to knock without my knuckles turning white, to stop without my feet feeling strange, to have a space willing to be occupied.

There is a boy about to jump, the same one I saw reading by the bench.

I bet he writes too and sings to himself. But I know how to listen. There are things louder than a gunshot. His spine is a clapping thunder. His silence is a resonating war. Every word is a brave river joining the mouth of the world.

You see I will never be perfect and you have ropes to tie yourself and these knots aren’t meant to be loosened. I know the grips are as deep as Atlantic and the dents are evidently there but you have to carry on with your life.

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Illustration KIRSTIE ANGELI P. PONTE

80 Vital Signs

Finding Oppa AURORA FATE A. MONTICELLO

E

very time Erik Erikson is mentioned in class I always have this squeamish feeling of being told that my life is going to undergo stages and there are only two finite directions. Either you die a strong, fulfilled grandmother in the comfort of your family, or you become this bitter old woman whose catty attitude sits well with her 32 cats. Thirty-two fat, stray cats in a lonely apartment which smells of feline excrement. It could happen you know.

Kidding aside, let’s be real. Those situations are very extreme and each one of us is in a spectrum that enables us to fulfill indefinite destinies.

However, I’ve been always fixated by the thought of these two endings to my now 25-year-old self. Twenty-five and still single. Twenty-five while your friends are getting married and popping babies out left and right. NOT REALLY. I was scrolling through Facebook while listening to Beautiful by Crush while these photos of babies began dominating my MacBook screen. I can just hear the faint screams of my ovaries telling me “Hey gurl, don’t forget we exist gurl” and I immediately look over to my cat Doreena. At that instant, I almost accepted that in Erikson’s “Intimacy vs Isolation,” I would be the VIP over to the isolation line. Ticket and seat reserved! (Doreena is my plus one.)

Sometimes I’d tell myself, “career first” while I read Harrisons in my Ipad at a cafe, looming over to the sweet couple at a table in front of me whilst studying together. I realize, what good does it make if there’s no one to share the success with? And all y’all pretentious girls like me would collectively speak under your breath “there’s family anyway”, I see you girl. But don’t go pretending like “family’s gonna satisfy them ovaries because they won’t.” (you can quote me on that.)

But does love truly wait? I asked my friends if that’s the case and they said “Yes” (although in hindsight, I should have asked my friends who married late instead of those who found their boyfriend in high school, but still.) When will I find my Song Joong Ki to my Song Hye Kyo? Granted, I’m a modern, career driven woman who’s going to follow the trend of my fellow “sistahs” and put careers first before anything else, but still, when will I achieve that? When I’m 45 and my ovaries are as dry as the Sahara Desert?

It’s hard to live in a world where career is important. But it’s also wonderful to live in a world where there’s seven billion people and one person destined for you. The one who would make your heart race, the one who would complement you, and most importantly, the one who would eat samgyupsal with you. But in the end, patience is still the virtue. Love will come. I’m hopeful though, yet I’m not getting any younger.

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Young Man JTS

M

en drive stick shift, not automatic.

Men listen to Rock, Hiphop, not Pop. Men like blue, not pink. Men are into sports, not into fashion. Men don’t gesture a lot, men just keep their hands on their side. I’m pretty sure society defined that construct. I tried to defy it though. I used to wear pink a lot. I used to gesture a lot too.

But then they told me I move my hands too much. So, I started doing less of it.

Then I kept my life in a glass box.

People can only see what’s outside. Perfectly packaged, with the best features and all. For years, all they see is this young man I try to portray. Everything I say, everything I do, is calibrated in flawless calculation.

I only wore blues, I drove my stick shift car, I played sports, and I flirted with a lot of girls. I lived a life of pretending. How I wish the world would be more accepting of who I am. Or is it that I’m still not accepting of myself ?

Illustration LEODEL T. BARRIO

82 Vital Signs

ZENNIA PATRICE A. CABRIETO

“Like the sun at dawn, I rise.”

photo CHARISSE ANN M. MONSALE

“I praise thee God for my success.”

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“Forgetting you does not hurt me anymore.”

“He is fine, I am doing better.”

photo MARY FRANCINE B. ALFABETO

“I am watching you crumble beneath me.”

84 Vital Signs

calligraphy HAZELLE D. AGGABAO

Pacemaker

THE OFFICIAL LITERARY FOLIO OF VITAL SIGNS WEST VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE LA PAZ, ILOILO CITY

Editorial Board S.Y. 2016-17

Editor-in-Chief : Melbert A. Parcon Managing Editor : Leodel T. Barrio Associate Editor : Aloe Danica B. Deala

News Editors :

Opinion Editors :

Feature Editors :

Iris Dawn D. Tabangcora Christelle A. Villanueva Errel Vin D. Arboleda Archieval S. Guitche Mary Francine B. Alfabeto Philip G. Balogo Mark Anthony P. Celestial Jireh Marielle C. Zaragoza

Filipino Editors : Mylene Grace D. Gonzaga Christabelle B. Prebillo Sports Editors : Neil A. Cartujano Tulip Jan T. Micarandayo Photojournalists : Charles Jebb B. Juanitas Charisse Ann M. Monsale Jade Marie M. Sobrepena Cartoonist : Angelo Bryan T. Bucquial

Melanie Jane A. Tendencia, M.D., MPA, FPSMID, FPASMAP ADVISER Joselito F. Villaruz, M.D., Ph.D., FPPS Dean Giovanni A. Delos Reyes, M.D., FPCS, FPSGS Vice President for Medical and Allied Sciences Luis M. Sorolla, Ph.D. President