Fiction

This is a story about a story. It was told to me in a whisper by a friend who was once part of the story. He is older now, and his face is lined with all sorts of discoveries and disappointments. His hair has turned grey and now, he spends most of his time shaking his head while reading a book or mumbling to himself or both. This story he cannot remember anymore or even that, once, he was part of it himself.

When she looks out the window from the second-floor apartment she is in, it strikes her that the blueness of the late afternoon sky over Los Angeles does not have the same familiar aquamarine comfort of home. How can the sky be so different here? And yet here it is: there is a cobalt deepness to the blue that makes it feel like a gigantic void closing in, and when she thinks about it deeply, she finds herself shivering a little.

“They’re still having a meeting. You can sit here,” a friendly woman offered me the plastic monoblock chair beside her. I couldn’t tell her age. Her voice sounded like she was in her early thirties, although her coarse skin and hunched posture told me otherwise. But I said friendly, because her eyes told me ‌she was smiling despite the face mask covering half her face. Also, she was the only one who greeted me and gave an explanation why even though the hallway was full of people waiting, no one was coming out of the office to talk to any of us.

I was careless to let the small house gecko fall from my hands, and my heart sank to see the creature torn into two. Its own tail wagging on the ground, opposite the head! “I’m sorry!”

It is mid-morning on a weekday along Ayala Avenue, and the stretch I’m on is no longer as toxic as it was during rush hour. The most rabid of motorists are off the road, although this is no reason to let my guard...

I grew up calling her Tita Patch. To me, she was like my real aunt and not just my mother’s best friend. We would frequent her large house on Kamuning Street where she grew up. My mother was among her childhood besties who...