AT THE STOA

The table next to ours sits a woman and a child of perhaps seven. They did not talk much, as the lady was somewhat engrossed with her face. She kept taking her phone out of what looks to be like a designer bag, the kind of phone with the front camera that one can coddle one's systemic vanity with.  Once in a while she would bring out a cosmetic artifice, once a compact, then a lipstick. All this time she turns the camera phone on and off, adjusting her dyed-blond hair this way and that. Only once did I hear the child speak, saying "there's a fly on your food," waving his tiny hands over the plate. She did not appear to notice.

Sabi nga ni pareng Murakami, ang sofa ay hindi lamang sofa. Marami kang masasabi tungkol sa tao base sa sofa niya; kahit wag mong seryosohin ang kanyang pananamit, pagkain na kinahihiligan, o relihiyon, kailangan mong seryosohin ang kanyang sofa. Ang upuan ko sa opisina ay tuwid, makintab, itim, at lubusang hindi pagbibigyan ang scoliosis ng kahit sinuman. Kahit na ito'y malambot, ito'y matigas; pinapaalala sa akin na kailangan kong magtrabaho, magbasa, yumuko sa mga papel at kung anuman ang kailangang tunawin ng aking sistema bago magklase.       Kaya lagi akong nangangapitbahay para matulog. Kinukuha ko ang unan na iyan at nakikitulog sa cubicle ng may cubicle, dahil, ayon nga sa unan, kailangan kong hanapin ang kasiyahan ko't pumunta doon maya't maya. Samantala, ang upuan ko sa bahay ay malambot, puno ng bilog-bilog, at tiyak na pasasayahin ang likod, puwit, tiyan, at kaluluwa ng sinumang maupo. Isa itong nilalang ng mahabaging diyos, isang salungdamdam...

Start with ginger beer, go through ridiculously small doughnuts, pass through a memorial park, end with coffee and an extremely orgasmic sunset in a coffee shop up in Baguio. A family lunch capped off these three weekends, and all I can do is describe them in pictures, having no words for how it is like to leave my hometown and family again; having no words for how I am supposed to recalibrate my existential compass after life has done its work - happen. We bought two when my sister went down to Manila for a while, and they made me burp a lot. We went to the Loyola Memorial Cemetery one afternoon one day, and all I can take pictures of were dead plants among living ones, and a rusty chain on an equally rusted post, its yellow and black stripes peeling off the metal.   And one day we bought what are called "baby doughnuts" from Eastwood, where the resident band proved to us that some people still appreciate good, old, music. Without my...