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Fiction

Lighter

It was Kimmy’s last night at work. Before the shift ended, she grabbed a box in her locker where she kept all the lighters random people had left lying around in the designated smoking areas in the building. At lunch break, she went...

Echoes of the Blue Fire

Our ancestors believed the butat-iw were bad omens. They appeared when I was alone—wild orbs of floating blue fire, the size of my Baba’s fist. When in great curiosity I tried to reach for them, they would vanish with a soft hush, only to...

The Weight of Small Things

Fear is at the back of her mind, a shimmering heat in the distance, a glowing ember in the dark. Silently acknowledged but never confronted, because naming might push her off the deep end. But it is there, biding its time, like a...

Something More

BY THIS TIME next year, Teresita could be elsewhere, unmindful of the biting cold. She could see herself walking along a cobblestone path strewn with scattered leaves from maple trees that lined the streets. It would be October, and the foliage would be...

Mawr

“Do we ever win, Mom?” Raniw smiled at the young ginger cat, barely out of kittenhood, who asked the question. “No, Runi, we will never win. Death finds our hooman in different ways. It’s just that the people we seek to protect could be used...

House of Lola

Notwithstanding its idyllic ambiance, Dumaguete City in the early '70s was a cheerful city overflowing with enigmas and desires. Amidst the brackish environs of Escaño Beach, a few kilometers from the city proper, an old house stood. In that rustic 18th-century house, there...

Random Pickings

The X-Ray Tech’s Love Story

We began speaking Filipino when we learned we were both from the Philippines. I had gone to him for x-rays ordered by my primary...

Fence Sitter

THE SWEETEST RAMBUTAN she had ever tasted grew on their neighbor’s tree. When it was in season, the tree brimmed with loose hanging clusters...

Just a Pomelo Fruit

No, not again! Mayla heard herself complain when she saw the long queues. She could not make it on time for her favorite TV...

The errand

The kid walked opposite the direction of the waves. At dusk, the wind crashed the trees and the squat houses by the beach—an olfactory...