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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

She's a great little housewifeThough sometimes she talks like a foolBut she helps at the store in the holiday rushAnd she picks up the kids after schoolAnd she puts down the phone when her husband comes homeAnd she changes...

“Good morning, Doc.” “Have a seat Mr. Peñaflor. I am Dr. Anton Abalos, but you can call me Ant or Doc Ant, whichever makes you more comfortable. Before anything else, may I have permission to record our consultation?” “Will that be...

I watch my Mama pour a sachet of Milointo three cups, adding a lot of brown sugar to it—stirring them slowly, as though she could stretch the day out longer than it will last. Her shoulders droop, and a...

The night still outshone the day when Ms. Angeles, a public school teacher at Sagisag Elementary School, woke up in her bed. The crow of the roosters and the chorus of the crickets were the only noise. In her...

The children of the town had once belonged to the streets. Their laughter rattled off the cracked sidewalks, their games stretched across alleys and fields, and dusk was a sign, not for disconnection, but for one more round of...

An author is confronted by the protagonist of her 32nd fiction. She had written a story about the incident, more or less an undisguised one, populated by the same characters with little or no changes in name. I followed suit...