Dawns would not exist without Fernando. Cloudy skies, golden sunsets, and starry nights all would not exist, because Fernando was in charge of painting them all. With a stroke of his brush, he turned night into day, and day back into night–which was...
It’s post-dismissal time when you see it again, although you won’t appreciate this one small consolation until later. At the moment, same as any other weekday, the fetching cars are advised to claim their children within ten seconds near the blue school gate....
Barangay Captain Osorio finds himself caught on the horns of a dilemma.He has an angry mob outside, ready to tear the suspect to shreds, and he’s afraid of having blood on his hands. On the other hand, every minute he spends stewing in...
Night 0
I am left the only occupant for the whole third floor. Out of the cramped six units, everybody just seem to have slowly left: the med students in 302 for internship, the nosy single mother at 304 who was reunited by their...
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 experience he’d regard as religious, almost sacred. There was the sound of the water creating violence against the sharp...
We all become stories when we die.
That’s what Lola Mimay would say each time I chance upon her by the sea. Her house used to stand there, but it was washed out when a big storm surge hit our city almost six years...
“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.