The Lazy Dreamer :

Once, in a small village, there lived a poor Brahmin. He was very learned, but did
nothing all day. He lived on the alms the villagers gave him every day.

One day, as usual, the Brahmin got up in the morning, performed his morning rituals and
set out to beg for alms. As he went from door to door, people gave him several things.
Some gave dal. Others gave him rice and yet others gave him vegetables. But one
generous lady gave the Brahmin a large measure of flour.

“Ah! What good luck. I will not have to beg for alms for a long time," thought the
Brahmin to himself.

He went home and cooked his lunch. After he had eaten, the Brahmin put the flour into a
large mud pot and hung it near his bed. “Now, it will be safe from rats," he said to
himself as he lay down in his cot for an afternoon nap.

He began to think, “I will save this flour until there is a famine. Then I will sell it
at a very good price. With that, I will buy a pair of goats. Very soon, I will have a
large flock of goats. With their milk, I will make more money. Then I will buy a cow
and a bull. Very soon I will also have a large herd of cows. Their milk will fetch me a
lot of money. I will become very wealthy. I will build for myself, a huge palace and
get married to a beautiful woman... Then we will have a little son. I will be a proud
father. In a few months my son will start crawling. He will be mischievous and I will
be very worried that he may come to some harm. 1 will call out to my wife to take care
of him. But she will be busy with house work and will ignore my call. I will get so
angry. I will kick her to teach her a lesson like this..."

The Brahmin threw out his leg up. His foot hit the pot of flour hanging overhead and it
came down with a resounding crash, spilling the flour all over the dirty floor. The
lazy Brahmin realised that his foolishness and vanity had cost him a precious measure
of flour. The laziness and foolishness taught him a lesson. Thereafter he lived an
active life which took to heights.
Not Another Drunken Memory
Nonfiction by Catherine Llego | August 25, 2019
I was walking down the unfamiliar streets of Ecoland at 10 PM, when I finally answered
my mother’s phone call. I had missed nine calls from her.

“Asa na ka? Pagdali na kay nag-inom imong Papa,” my mother told me with conviction in
her voice.
I shivered at the tone of her voice and the thought that my father was drunk once
again. When Papa was drunk, we should all be at home, either asleep or doing our usual
evening routine. He would start acting like a teacher—checking the attendance of his
students. After all, he was my first teacher who taught me how to be a good daughter by
always choosing to be with my family no matter what.

I walked towards the bus station, unable to find a jeep. As I waited for our bus to
depart, I thought about my groupmates whom I left with tons of work to do. We were all
cramming to pass our Movie Trailer for our Literature subject that was due before
midnight. I did not want to leave them but I had no choice. I had a greater deadline
from a more terrifying teacher.

It was already a quarter to 11 when the bus driver started the engine and readied to
go. My mind pondered on the things that might happen if Papa would home before me. He
might not let me go to school the next morning, just like when I accidentally broke the
left-side mirror of his motorcycle when I was in Grade 6. He would bring up that
memory, and other memories of me letting him down, whenever he was drunk.

He never congratulated me whenever I get an academic award nor did he utter a simple
“Kaya mo yan!” whenever he would see me studying in our sala. Every quarter of the
school year, I always had a certificate to show to him how I was achieving academically
in school things but there was never a hint of a smile on his face that would tell me
he was pleased.
The remarkable thing about Papa when he was drunk was that he would always bring
burgers and fries from Jollibee for us. I never knew the real reason why he always did
that but I could only assume that maybe, by bringing home a snack bought from my
favorite fastfood chain, he would catch a glimpse of the child who used to run out of
the house whenever she heard the sound of his motorcycle.

At the corner of our kanto, I saw Papa waiting for me with a cellophane full of Jolibee
snacks hanging from the side mirror of his motorcycle. That moment, I prayed he would
treat me like the daughter he always played chess with. I asked for his hand for a
mano, but he suddenly slapped me on the face.

“Gago kang bataa ka! Ganina rako naghulat diri. Unsa kang klase…” my father barked,
furious at me for going home late.
The rancid smell of alcohol and cigarettes welcomed my nostrils. I touched the part of
my face where his large hand had been. There were warm tears, like acid, which burned
my face. I never thought that my father would ever lay his hands on me. He never beat
nor hit me before.

I tried to calm myself as I sat at the back part of his motorcycle. I did not grasp his
shirt nor hugged him for support like I did when I was younger where I hung on to him
for dear life, not because of fear from falling off, but because I wanted to be always
close to him.

My father waited for me at the right corner of our sala. He told me to sit down and
offered me lousy and cold fries. We were silent for a moment. I stared at his dark
complexion and sad eyes.
“Unsa na oras? Ngano dugay ka niuli?” he asked why I went home late.
“Nagbuhat man gud mi’g project. Unya na dayon ang deadline. Daghan kayo mi’g gibuhat.
Kung di nako to mapasa, basig mabagsak ko,” I answered, explaining how busy we were in
college.
“Sige nalang ka’g eskwela. Wa na kay oras diri sa balay. Pangutan-on taka. Unsa ang mas
importante? Ang imong pag-eskwela o kami na imung pamilya?”
Tears began to fall from his eyes. What was more important, family or school? Did I
have to choose? I thought by choosing to be great at school, I was choosing my family
by making them proud.

I had never seen my father cried before. The image of his tears falling down from his
cheeks weighed heavy in my chest. I started crying. I realized that I’ve been
preoccupied with my studies that I’ve forgotten how to communicate with the people at
home. I recalled all the times that we shared together back when I was younger. Montage
of images, our memories together, ran through my mind. I remembered how excited I was
every time he came back from his work, how we used to play my kitchen set together and
how he taught me to play chess games. I even remembered one time, when I was five years
old, when my Lola tied me outside our house. I refused to get inside because I was
waiting for him to come home. It felt like a thousand of years had passed since I felt
close to him.

I said my apology for going home late. He said sorry for slapping me earlier and
explained that he was just afraid that something might happened to me on the streets. I
just nodded, making him believe I understood what he had done. Part of me wanted to
tell him it was not fair for me to choose between them and my studies because I didn’t
know which one to choose. But I kept my silence, hoping that this very moment would not
be one of the memories he would bring up again when he would be drunk.
Leaving Mrs. Joy
Nonfiction by Neil Teves | August 18, 2019
Thirteen years ago, my brother Nicko and I were given away to another family. Mama
never told us to prepare anything that could have enlightened us why we had to come
with the two women waiting outside our doorway. She told us to be good and the rest
would be provided. I had no instinct as to where those women would take us.It was as if
I was deceived by the absence of any instinct as a child. But now that I have already
arrived in this age with a little courage to confront my own ghost, I think of the
woman named Joy who treated me as her son when none of her children would love to.

Out of Mrs. Joy’s meekness, I oftentimes found it difficult to utter any word when I
was with her. It made me hesitant to tell her that I was hungry, that I wanted to take
a piece of pan de sal she had placed on the plate. She was a woman in mid fifties who
wore a loose duster all the time. Her crimson hair clipped back. The thread at the end
of her faded blue scarf began to lose. I always found her sitting alone on her chair. A
mug of coffee slowly grew cold by her hand. She would look at the vacant chairs as if
waiting for the arrival of a long gone beloved or friend. I knew nothing about the
silence of her mornings. What I remember was that no one had arrived to join her.

I was living in a house that was different from ours, in the village called Novatierra,
Lanang. There I couldn’t see large trucks passing. The only sound I could hear was the
growling of her dogs caged in a dark cell.

On the first week of our stay, I found out that the two women who fetched us were hired
as helpers. They would move every couch in the sala where my kuya and I had slept.
Behind those were the dogs’ excrements which they had to remove. They knelt, scrubbed
the floor with rugs, almost to the point of breaking their backs. I was handed a cloth
too, and rubbed the floor until it was clean enough.

Outside, at the back of Mrs. Joy’s room, I discovered a roofless bodega. The bodega was
unlocked and could be visited by anyone in the house. It looked haunted because of
thick cobwebs. Dead leaves had fallen. I wonder whether the impossibility of cleaning
Mrs. Joy’s whole house made the two helps leave after a few months.

Some strange things were on the corner. There was a white cabinet with empty picture
frames inside. The shards were scattered on the ground where I was standing. I also
found a small bike, but its one wheel was detached from the bike. One of Mrs Joy’s sons
must have owned it before. I tried to ask Mrs. Joy if I could fix the bike since I had
no toys to play with in her house. But she only scolded me. She told me not to touch
anything in the bodega because those were meant to be thrown away. What was wrong with
her? The bike was still in good condition. I could’ve fixed it and call it mine, but I
thought someone in the house had really owned it? Who was that child?

I learned Mrs. Joy had two sons. The elder son, a long haired man was just living in
the same area with his small house built a few meters away from Joy’s. The youngest son
would always come home late with smell of liquor invading the house. Three of them were
left in the house, but it seemed surreal to witness how uncommunicative they were to
each other. It was as if their words were only meant to be said if the elder would
reprimand the younger after not flushing the toilet bowl; or if one had to mock the
other when a foolish remark would be released out of rage.
My kuya and I were obedient. We would bathe the dogs on a certain day, but we had to
tame the dogs for it might possibly bite us. And I knew that Mrs. Joy had loved what we
were doing, even though we were not commanded. When we entered back the house, she
would caress our heads because as she said, we were kind. I began to think that maybe
we were also sent as helpers to help Mrs. Joy. But I never had the courage to ask her
if the case was true.
A few months after, my brother admitted that he had missed our family, and that he
wanted to go home. I had missed my family too, but what more could we ask for? We
couldn’t eat friend chicken everyday in our house.

The following days, Mama and my two younger sisters came to visit us. I was happy to
know that mama wanted us to go home because she said that she had missed us too. But
how I didn’t understand why Mama would bring kuya only. It was difficult to find out
what goodbyes meant. At that time, neither Mama nor Mrs. Joy had explained why I was
left. What I only knew was that Joy and Mama were close friends. I stayed for more than
a month. But when the third week of August came, I was surprised to see my elder sister
knocking at the gate. She introduced herself to Mrs. Joy. She asked if she could borrow
me because it was Kadayawan week. My sister had promised that she would return me that
day, so we left. But ate lied, and never returned me that day. Then I heard that Mrs.
Joy was looking for me. She said I should have said goodbye.
The Prisoner
Nonfiction by Diana Katrina May Agcambot | May 12, 2019
“Bomba… bomba! Halin dira. Bomba! Ahhhhh… Ahhhhh… bomba!” He would mumble words, words
that were hard to understand, plain nonsense for those who pass by the store near his
isolated room. People in our neighborhood were used to hearing him shout. Sometimes it
was very loud that even the ones living in the next block could hear. Whenever he tried
to break free, we could hear the sound of clanking steel.
When I was a child, my mother often asked me to buy ingredients and other things in the
sari-sari store. Our neighbor, Auntie Alma, had a store in front of her house so I
didn’t need to go far every time my mother asked me to buy something for her. But it
was a Sunday and Auntie Alma was out to go to church. I had to walk around the street
to find another store so I can buy a sachet of Sunsilk and Safeguard. My mother
instructed me to return immediately because my father needed it. I walked to the end of
the street and found a small sari-sari store. I was very happy that I didn’t need to
walk far to buy the shampoo and soap. “Ayo, ayo!” I called. There was no response
except the barking of dogs and a voice of a man screaming. I was surprised and scared
for a moment. I stepped back a little and hesitated to buy but I remembered my mother’s
instruction. I looked at the dog and noticed that it had a leash so I was confident
that it would not hurt me. I looked at the small room connected to the house of the
store owner where the voice of the man came from. It was locked. I took a step forward
and peeped inside the store but there was no one. “Ayo, ayo!” I called louder so that
the tindera would hear me. I thought that she was watching TV because I could hear the
sound in full volume. When she didn’t come, I called louder, competing with the barking
of the dogs and the screaming on the other side of the store. She went out of their
house and walked toward the store. I noticed that she was a bit mad because I called
her. I asked for the things I needed in exchange for P14.00. When I got the sachet of
Sunsilk and Safeguard with me, I turned toward the room, curious about the man
inside. “Ante, sin-o nang sa sulod sang kwarto? Sagad tana ka syagit ah. Kag ngaa sa
guwas sang balay niyo ang kwarto niya?” I had a lot of questions in my mind but she
just dismissed me and told me to go home straight.

I called him Kuya Manong. The first time I heard him scream, I thought that he was just
angry about something so he needed to vent his anger out and shout. Later on, I learned
that he was crazy. There was a story that if he were released, he would roam around the
neighborhood and harm people. So his parents put him in a room made of hollow blocks
they built outside their house and locked it with chains. They said this will prevent
Kuya Manong from harming people. They built a small rectangular window with bars for
him to have a peek at the world outside. His room has no paint or something to make it
colorful. It was just a dull isolated room. That was just one version of the story. I
believed it until my father, who lived in the neighborhood for about twice the years of
my existence and knew some secrets in the place told me the real story about Kuya
Manong.

Papa told me that he was an ex-military who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder or PTSD after his last encounter with the MILF’s during an all-out war
declared by the former president Joseph Estrada. People in the neighborhood were
curious about the things he often screamed about. It was as if he was commanding a
group of soldiers during an intense encounter. Papa explained that Kuya Manong was a
leader of a squad who went in the war. He was the leader and it was traumatic for him
to see his comrades being shot and killed, leaving him the only survivor.

“Bomba, bomba… Halin dira, Juan. Hindi ka magkadto dira. Marlon… halin. James… bomba!
Ahhhh… ahhhh,” he would shout these words together with the names of his comrades. His
voice cracked from time to time. His parents would leave their store for a moment to
check on him. After a minute or two, the shouting would stop and then a temporary
silence.
Kuya Manong doesn’t pick a time when he wanted to shout. I would sometimes wake up
early in the morning hearing a loud screaming from afar. Knowing that it was him, I
would force myself to go back to sleep. Sometimes before noon, I would hear his cries
and it would stop me for a while from doing the household chores assigned to me by my
mother. In the late afternoon or sometimes at night, he would once again scream
disturbing those who were taking their rests. The cycle repeated every day. I sometimes
wondered, didn’t his family try to get him treated? Maybe he could have been cured in
the hospital.“Pa, daw dugay naman nga amuna siya? Ngaa wala man lang siya gipadoctor?
Wala sila kwarta haw?” I innocently asked my father why Kuya Manong was never brought
to the doctor to at least get medical help. My father answered, “Dapat gani ginpa
undergo man lang na siya sang trauma debriefing. Hindi man siya buang. Nawarshock
lang.” I nodded in agreement even though that time, I didn’t understand what my father
was talking about.
Trauma debriefing. I searched on the internet and opened a window that says CISD or
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, a process where a traumatized person undergoes a
treatment. Clinically, traumatic events have a big impact on the person. Some cases of
traumatic stress or what used to be TSD or Transient Situational Disturbance can be
traced to military combat. This was the case of Kuya Manong.

“Bakal ka didto sang kamatis kay magluto si Papa mo sang escabetche. Hindi magdugay ha.
Lapit na baya mag gab-i.” My mother then handed me three five peso coins. She asked me
to spend all of it to buy tomatoes. Despite my mother’s instruction to return
immediately, I took my time walking toward the store. Auntie Alma’s store was already
closed so I walked further. I was kicking pebbles while humming a happy tune. I juggle
the coins in my hands. When I caught all of the coins back in my hands I looked up. The
sky slowly started to darken and the trees turned into silhouettes. The flowers lost
their colors as I passed by them. My humming continued. When I was near the store, I
heard Kuya Manong’s cries. It wasn’t loud like the usual but it still caught my
attention. I bought fifteen pesos worth of tomatoes and the tindera handed me a plastic
bag of tomatoes. After I got what I need, I turned around and started to walk back
home.
“Bomba… bomba! Ikaw bata, halin dira. Ahhh… ahhh… bomba!” his eyes were filled with
fear and panic while he tried to get his one arm out of the window to point at me and
told me to run away. I was holding the plastic bag in my hand and placed it near my
chest. I looked back at his direction. He peeped through the window, his eyes were
round with shock when he saw me still standing outside in the street. “Ahhh… ahhh…” His
cries were louder. I stepped back a little in fear that he might get hysterical. He
cried. I ran away. I stopped in the middle of the street, his little room was still
visible in my eyes. His cries rang through the air. I was thinking, will he be able to
forget the memory of the war? Will he be able to break free from the guilt of losing
the lives of his friends? Will he be able to break the chains outside his door and be
able to live normally?
I turned away and relaxed, took small steps toward our house. The sun was setting down
and it filled the sky with a shade of dark orange and red. The sun and the clouds were
nowhere. The birds flying turned to silhouettes. The trees and flowers turned to black
and the road I was taking became dark gray in my eyes. I remembered one of the silly
questions I asked my Lola Aning before. “La, gapangakig man gali ang langit noh? Tan-
awa oh, ngaa amuna ang color niya haw?” I asked pointing to the sky while we were
sitting in a chair outside the house. My Lola just laughed. “Mabal-an mo lang na sa
sunod ah. Ti dali na, lapit na mag gab-i.” She didn’t answer my question. Instead, she
told me to go inside the house because it was getting late.
When I was just a few steps away from our gate, I looked back to where Kuya Manong was.
I took a deep breath, looked away and went inside the house. I made sure that the
tomatoes were safe in my hands. When I kicked the door open, my mother was already
waiting, her hands both on her waist, ready to scold me for taking so much time to buy
tomatoes for Papa’s escabetche.

The Fish
Nonfiction by Ali K. Satol Jr. | April 15, 2018
It’s a cold and cloudy Wednesday morning on this twenty-fourth day of January when I
find myself sitting on this green chair, writing on a circular, wooden table of the
school library. Beside my journal is a coffee that I bought straight out from the
vending machine in front of me. Every day, I make it a routine to reserve a ten-peso
coin in my pocket so I can pay for this drink. I suppose drinking coffee every morning
has been my ritual. It’s what keeps me going these days: making my heart beat faster as
it normally does; evoking emotions for every beating of it; and finally turning these
emotions into words. So whenever I am lost for words, I only pause for a moment to sip
this coffee of mine until the right words come along. It seems to me that it is the
only thing now that keeps me writing my troubles out, so to speak.

The weather today has surprisingly turned into a gloomy one when nobody expected it as
the sun has been shining brightly as ever since the last few days. I suppose life is
akin to the weather: it glooms in an abruptly way just as when it has made you used to
the sunny days. In this particular instance, however, I think about life and how I
spend my every waking day with the same strict routines that I follow. I think about
how people unconsciously forget what really matters in life because of “other things”
they would rather immerse themselves into. I think about how our routines gradually
consume us and divert our attention intensely focused toward worldly affairs and
trivial matters. I think about the reality of life: that one day, all of these things
surrounding me will vanish; that one day, I, too, shall die.

It happens every day that we wake up in the morning, take a warm bath, have some
breakfast, drink a coffee, and drive or commute to school or work. We would attend to
our classes, our appointments, or sometimes to our organizational meetings. We would
then watch a film or a series if we have the time. We would talk excessively with
friends about almost anything. We would laugh out loud and think of a good restaurant
to have some meal together. We would go to our most desired coffee shop, read a book
therein, or perhaps study. We would prepare for a scheduled presentation, or surf the
net for how many hours. We would go home right after, have a good night sleep, and in
the next day: repeat the same routine.

It happens that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday all seem to
follow the same path most of the time. It seems as if our entire life had been
programmed to be in harmony to the same, continuous rhythm every day. Can we transcend
this?

As we are living the mundanity of our lives, we are gradually absorbed into this way of
thinking where our perception of everything around us becomes constant and typical.
Everything seems to flow with the current. Everything is under our careful control.
Nothing seems wrong, at least hopefully. And everything seems so orderly,
systematically, and accordingly just as the way we expect them to be.

This absorption has become so efficient in fixing our perspective. The process too is
so transparent that, without our consciousness, it has successfully placed
authenticity, meaning, purpose, and death to the background. Because of this, we are no
longer aware of them, nor perhaps even spare a minute to ponder upon them. Like the
fish that is unable to recognize the water as it has become ordinary for it, we are
living under the mundanity of our lives oblivious, deliberately or not, to the reality
and value of life itself.

While we are trapped into this matrix, somewhere out there are people who have already
made an abrupt escape—people who have woken up from the illusion that hid the true
reality of life. I refer to these people as those who are suffering: those who are
afflicted with illnesses, diseases; by war and genocide; depression, worry, and grief;
those who have recently lost a loved one; and many others alike. More than that,
somewhere out there is a father diagnosed of cancer and a son anxiously bothered of his
old man’s condition.

Unexpected things always happen in an instant. It doesn’t remind you beforehand. It

It was on a Monday afternoon in the middle of a class discussion when, all of a sudden,
I received a distress message from my eldest sister, telling me that our father has
just been diagnosed of a suspected cancerous cyst in the kidney according to his
doctor. I was in the middle of a recitation then when I received the message. My
teacher kept on asking the class questions about a previous lesson of which I still
could remember. I uttered an answer to my teacher and then I half saw the text message.
I read it afterwards properly. Even then, I knew that something doesn’t feel right even
though everything around me seems as usual as they are. I didn’t know how to react. All
I could ever recall was the sudden blurring of my vision of my teacher, my classmates,
the chairs, the Power Point, and my notebook.

I reached for my handkerchief inside my pocket to dab my eyes. Tears were already
filling my eyes, I realized. I was captured by the moment. Even though my body was
physically present in the classroom, I felt mentally, emotionally, and spiritually
isolated from my classmates. I could not hear my teacher speaking as if all the noises
had suddenly been muted. My eyes were fixed towards my teacher but I could not see her.
It seemed as if my consciousness went to somewhere else, but I knew I was arrested by
the moment—a moratorium amidst the mundanity of life.

All the memories suddenly flashed back to me like a new episode of a TV series
reviewing the previous events before it begins. I thought about how, in my kindergarten
days, my father would buy me a box of Cloud 9 chocolate every time he arrives home from
work. I recalled how, during my early elementary days, I used to borrow his screw
driver to enact Harry Potter casting a spell. I recalled how he used to spoil me with
almost all the things that I wanted: from toys, shoes, guitars, drum set, clothes to
cars. I thought of the times when he provided me with everything that I needed in
school. I thought of the times how he supported me with my decisions and my choices in
life. I thought of how often he would give me words of wisdom that would always soothe
my heart. I thought of how during every meal, we would share our favorite fish that my
mother would cook for us; we would cut it into half so that his would be the head part
and mine the tail.

While my mind was mentally traveling, I pondered upon the idea of death—that death is
the only thing certain in this life. I reflected upon how short life really is that in
every passing minute, someone somewhere is dying. I reflected on the simultaneity of
things: that while we are here in class listening to our teacher’s discussion in the
comfort of our air conditioned room, someone else from somewhere else is suffering from
an illness, from a loss of a loved one, from depression, from poverty, from war, and
from many other unfortunate events. This parallelism of world events made me think that
just because it isn’t happening here at this very place that I am currently sitting
into, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening at all. What would seem so little to me, to
anyone might be all.

All the people suffering in this world because of numerous reasons such as
international disputes, politics, religion, terrorism, crimes, and even stretches out
to the people afflicted with different kinds of disease such as brain tumors, cancers,
dengue fevers, malarias: these are the people who have to pause in the rhythmic
patterns of their lives, who have to drop whatever they are doing in order to attend to
the crises at hand. All of these sufferings are what we normally hear on the news, from
other people, and from the hospitals, yet all the same we do not lend an ear to them.
All of these do not seem to matter to us. Why should we even care? Who are they to us
anyway? We do not really understand something so deeply unless it finally happens to us
or to our loved ones. We do not really value the true essence of life until an alarming
situation comes forth. We do not really know how something truly feels until finally it
knocks on our doors, disturbing the comfort of our lives.

Many would pity these people, but I say that this pity is misattributed. I say these
people are lucky enough because life has given them a way out from their routines which
have gradually made them forget the essential things in life—routines that have blinded
them to the reality of life. A breakthrough in this so-called “everydayness” of our
lives would make us value our existence even greater. It would make us rethink on the
essentials in life: our loving relationships, our family and our ties with our
relatives, our behaviors, our faith, our mistakes, our shortcomings, and the people we
may have hurt or wronged. It would also make us reevaluate how we are living our lives,
how hardly do we forgive others, how easily do we get angry over trivial reasons, and
how tightly do we clutch on to our grudges. The possibility of death is an enough
lesson for us to learn about the most important things in life that we wouldn’t
probably learn in the four corners of our classrooms. Suddenly, I regained
consciousness from my mental journey in one of Mitch Albom’s famous lines: “Once you
learn how to die, you learn how to live.” I then immediately told my seatmate that I
won’t be able to come to class for the next subject. “I have to go now. I need to see
my father.”

I drove on to where my father was on that Monday afternoon. I was driving really fast
without minding the speed limit, recklessly beating a lot of red lights on the way. I
did not even bother warming up the engine upon ignition anymore. I knew Papa would
scold me had he known.

Somewhere in the traffic-laden roads of Davao City, however, there was one intersection
where I was so close to traversing, but I was caught up by the red light the moment I
was near. Abruptly, I stepped on to the break really hard and brought the car into a
full stop. Annoyed and anxious, there was nothing else I could do but wait. So, I
looked around instead and I saw a sticker of a fish in the car ahead of me. It was a
simple fish, but beneath its existence is an underlying truth of which has rendered me
in deep thought.

A fish’s natural habitat is the water. Once it is born, it does not need any “swimming
lessons” like we humans normally do; rather, it just automatically learns how because
that is its nature. It probably doesn’t have any idea at all that what it is doing is
actually called “swimming” in human language; it just is. More so, the water is the
fish’s safe haven. It goes around to it every day, swimming in its vastness. The fish
probably does not recognize the water anymore because for all its life, it’s just there
made available in its whole lifetime.

Because of this, I suppose the fish no longer acknowledges the value of the water
because it has grown used to it every day. However, this recurring pattern in the
fish’s everyday life reaches a point of cessation when it has been caught by the
fisherman in his net. In that way, the fish wouldn’t have seen it coming. Once it is
trapped into the fisherman’s net, it would desperately grasp for the water. It would
try its best to reach for the water. But, when it is already too late for the fish to
return to the water is the only time when it would regretfully realize the true value
of the water that it had ignored for its whole lifetime. Sadly, there is no going back
for it now.

Finally, it’s becoming quite chilly here in the school library. I reached for my cup of
coffee but it was already empty. I am still very worried about my father’s condition
and I guess this would be the only thing that will occupy my mind throughout the day. I
guess a short title would be most suitable for this essay—perhaps that one simple thing
that struck me most during that Monday afternoon. It would be enough, I hope, as life
as well is short-lived.
I suppose we have all been too hasty in trying to meet our academic and work-related
deadlines, notwithstanding the fact that even our personal lives are inevitably
subjected to it. Nevertheless, I must always keep in mind that I should not become the
fish that has made used to the water so much that it has become transparent to its
eyes; rather, I should learn to value the water even before I am caught into the
fisherman’s net—a “not-yet” and also a “will-be.”

On that Monday afternoon, the sticker of the fish in the car ahead of me had slowly
become smaller and smaller in sight. Loud horns from the cars at my back made me
shiver, bringing my attention back on the road.

The green light came, and I drove on to see my father.