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...
“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...
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...
On Sundays and belonging,And when I used to mess around with Lolo’s typewriter:Clicking and clacking the worn-out buttons, it is legacySounding against my stubby child fingers.
You would often tell me stories about Mindoro:Of your father and the town hall—how he would walk a...
He was there again tonight. Seated at the last table of the small, dark bar, a lighted cigar in his hand, looking at me intently, almost unmoving. He must be around sixty, a bit on the heavy side, his Caucasian features blurred in...
this is the timewhen the greens are greener than beforeas above so belowthe midges regret worshippingthe false god of all false beingsthe dewdrops and dropletsof this rainforest in early mornings
they longed what it felt to prayand kneel before a deityears forgiven they could...
Her hands quiver
from sustained pressing of the beads.
When her voice starts to rise,
the light of the kerosene lamp amplifies
from an entirely lambent glow,
illuminating the...