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Fiction

Under the Withered Roof

The tears I dropped on my mother’s casket were wiped off with an off-white handkerchief by a hand filled with bulging veins and dominating wrinkles. I heard a comforting scolding, hinting to me that this man is too long in the tooth to...

Rise in Love

A ping sounded on my phone, and the words blinked on the screen at six in the morning.  “RISE IN LOVE.” I squinted at the screen, half-amused. The message could only be from Kim—always dramatic, always turning a simple morning greeting into something that promised...

The Man with Horns

Close to the end of my ties with Catharine, I was inconveniently reminded of the time when I learned that I grew up with a father from whom I wasn’t exactly begotten. This—this sudden act of remembrance—happened as she and I had just walked...

These Invisible Forces

There was pain, lots of it. And it seared. It felt like fire, or like being eaten alive. Vincent screamed, using that one scrap of energy he had left to aim the dartgun at the sheath of Pretenders making their way up his...

Someone Else Will Help

Is the goodness of a man determined by the purity of his intentions or by the deeds he brings into the world? And what, then, of the man who stands idle, neither acting nor choosing? Some claim that those who are caught between...

Deliverance

Odessa accepted the fact that the Metro Manila she had known thirty years ago was now a mere memory. Seated inside an old van that barely moved beyond 20 kilometers per hour, Odessa stared at the promenade that was now unfamiliar. She imagined...

Random Pickings

The Cold War Aswang Incident

In the year 1950, my village knew little of the Cold War although its geopolitical tremors reached even our mountains. The Philippine national government,...

If I Could Be Free

“I envy all of them.” I greatly pitied myself for just observing what was happening around me. Sitting up straight in my bed, I...

Ulo ng balita

Sa loob ng silid, sumisigid ang lamig ng aircon sa aking hubad na katawan habang minamasahe ng mga ekspertong kamay ni Fe. Kagaya ng...

The Virgin

In 1952, "The Virgin," written by Kerima Polotan, won first prize in the Philippines Free Press Literary Contest and in the Carlos Palanca Awards. He...