A peculiar day

I arrived at the IRRC room around 7:30 AM. When I stood by the door, a dim-lighted room indicated that none of my office mates have arrived yet. 

A cold air welcomed me when I got in. Darkness seemed to have just escaped from the light of the day, which gets into the room through the big windows made of transparent glasses. As I turned on the lights only flecks of shadows have remained, indicating that darkness wholly owns this room as the night falls. However, darkness, like any heroes in the epic movies, has also its own version of villains. I am talking about this lovely lady who constantly makes the room bright until 10 in the evening.

About 30 minutes from now, the IRRC room would be filled with women. About a month ago, I came to this room only to find a man in a horde of eight lovely women. There are two of us now but have not engaged yet in a meaningful conversation, except hi’s and hellos. 

The usual but fleeting cackles among the women, which normally takes its peak at 8:30 and lasts for only about 10 minutes, was being replaced by a staccato sound which emerged from an aggressive yet passionate encounter between the human fingers and the keys of the computer keyboards. The two women, who have arrived a few minutes after me, seemed to have glued at their own computers. Although their faces were concealed by the walls of the cubicles, the irregular beat of the fingers on the keyboard has clouded the room with an ambience of haste. Thankfully, the intermittent good mornings and hi’s have broken the dull rhythm as the other women and some unexpected visitors from the other rooms came in alternately to say hello. 

Despite the fluctuating hullabaloos, no one has initiated to open up a conversation. Reading by the crescendo and decrescendo sound patterns of the computer keyboards , a few of these women must have a deadline to beat today. Making sense of the situation, the other women only dropped a message of hello and subsequently went to their respective cubicles.   

Suddenly, I have heard a high-pitched sound exploding just nearby, below me. For a minute, I felt that a biological warfare has just been detonated and I was the only victim in the pack. I seemed to inhale all the lethal gases and, eventually, hey got me paralyzed all over and left me was motionless for a minute. 

No one must have heard the explosion other than me, because when I looked around the women were seemed to be unperturbed. Then, I sneakily wandered eyes farther towards the women at my right side and back but they were so hooked up with their work. 

Then, a silent burst of laughter followed. If ever one or two would have reacted to it, I would just flash my marvelous smile and get back to work.

Teaching children to learn

Moth and butterflies

I have posted some still images of moth and butterflies on my flicker account. This was the first in my five years of stay in UPWARD that I saw these beautiful creatures just right in front of our office garden.

Nature lovers and aspiring photographers alike would absolutely enjoy the presence of moths and butterflies in the field. However, these magnificent lepidopterans beckon a threat to the farmers’ well-loved crop that feeds more than three-fourths of the country’s exponentially growing population. Click here >>>

Suitcase of emotion

Is still there a chance that you will also love me? A friend asked me thru text one inky night. I did not answer her. Instead, I replied to her with another question.

A few months ago, she told me in front of our friends that she liked me. Because she said it with her usual antics, I did not believe her. I thought she was just joking. If her purpose was just to tease me she was not victorious. Her joke did not even cause a sudden surge of my blood up to my face.

But, I admit that I found her attractive. Not because of wit as she is not or her physical asset because she is not well-endowed. But because of her color that captured my eyes. I wanted to court her. But, I needed to know more about her.

It was not difficult for me to follow her because we attended the same church and hanged out with the same faces. At first, I enjoyed her company and thought that she has a bubbly personality. Then days, weeks, and months passed and her true color surfaced before my eyes. Being with her has become a source of discomfort, and slowly the enjoyment has turned into displeasure.

Now that she asked me the same question, I have to respond to her before our friendship gets sour. “No, I don’t love you the same way you feel for me.”

Yes, personality really matters in a relationship, in the same way that human needs food and water to survive.

A closure

She arrived at the park ahead of me. I could not see other people but only us. At a distance, I could see her that she was crying. I knew why she was crying. I went to her and hugged her tightly. We both did not say a piece. We understood each other that silence can do better than saying a word.

I wanted to talk to her but no words came out from my mouth. What I could only do was to hug her so tight so she could feel my pain, too. However, knowing that seeing her again would mean goodbye was even more heart-rending. The pain was so overwhelming that I could no longer hold the tears in my eyes. So, I just let my tears spilled over her shoulder.

The last time that I talked to her was a few months before she left for a foreign country to study. Though we e-mailed and chatted each other, talking to her in person was more gratifying because I could feel her, see her beautiful smile, laugh at her teases, and listen to her voice.

Because she treated me as her kuya, our conversation was directed at guys who courted her, her plans in life, her admission into a master’s program in a foreign land, and moreover, her growing relationship with her Creator. When she had a problem, she would always come to me for advice.

We used to work together in the same office. But, I moved to another research organization, which separated our paths that we used to tread. We could still talk through chats and e-mails, but seldom had we seen each other in person due to geographical differences. So, I treasured every moment that I spent time with her after I left.

Spending a brief time with her in the park was so overwhelming. If only I could stop the time, for selfish reason I would have done it if I have the power to do so. But letting her go is a win-win situation for both of us. I am happy to where she is now and she is also happy to where I am as well. We might have been walking on an entirely different path now, but a day would come that our path would cross again.

Sayonara, my friend! Till we meet again up there.

Dusts and cobwebs

What do you see inside an abandoned shack? Yes, dusts and cobwebs intricately woven by a sliver of lights from outside, piercing through the tiny holes of the shack’s dilapidated walls.  The shaft of lights sometimes become a stage of confusion and agitated emotion when the wind found its way through the tiny holes and disturb the dusts that have been suspended in the air  for a while.  The cobwebs, on the other hand, reverberate a sound of misery as the wind whips at every white  strand that forms a web of life.

The  shack is my mind.

A creepy encounter

Source: http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/ent_images/8714_chinese-boobs.jpg

It was not a typical day for me to go to Robinson’s, but the swelling prod to buy a slack pants has led my feet to the only department store in this traffic-clogged town of Los Baños.

I arrived at Robinson’s earlier than expected because the heavy traffic, which builds up its peak between 5 and 7 in the evening, has waned down.

I was just fortunate that at these peak hours of traffic, the influx of vehicles was manageable. So by the time that I left the office and headed to Robinson, the road was no longer congested.

The available slacks in the men’s area of the department store were quite pricy. I looked around hoping to find some pants that may suit my budget, but there was none. I went down to a boutique at the 1^st floor if I could find one but ended up looking at bags and belts. I realized that Bench does not sell slack pants. I wanted to buy a belt or bag, but the available designs did not trigger a whim.

Instead, I bought butane gas at handyman store in the 2^nd floor. I remember that we only have one remaining and is about to be emptied after using it for almost three days.

I was heading towards the exit door when I decided to buy something at the grocery store. So, I turned back, took my wallet and celfone from my black knapsack and left it at the luggage counter.

I noticed a familiar figure standing by a shelf of beauty products as my eyes wondered around the goods in the grocery section, looking for something to buy. Her left hand was clutching something while she was looking at some beauty products on display. Her left hand was on her black bag which partly covered her right lower chest.

Before dropping a word or calling her attention, I moved closer to her to make sure that she was the right person in my mind. “Hoi”, my mouth quickly muttered. She turned her head, smiled at me and immediately the conversation started.

The last time I saw her was in 2009 when we were wrapping up a community-based project that she led and at the same time collecting data for our respective theses. We were both part time students at the Graduate School of the University of the Philippines where she took her PhD in Community Development. I took up my Master’s in Development Communication with Community Development as my cognate.

Were you able to beat the deadline? This was the first question that started out our conversation. She was supposed to graduate along with our Batch in 2009, but she was not able to finish her dissertation because she had a problem with her data.

I was about to ask her about the status of the terminal report on that community project that I mentioned earlier when suddenly she told me that she has not done it yet.

“I was sick for almost a year. I thought I would die,” she said these words with pleats of wrinkles on her forehead. She has grown a bit older maybe due to her ailment. She tried to finish the report, but her illness prevented her from doing so.

I thought she has breast cancer. While talking to her, I noticed that her breasts were abnormally large. “These were even larger last year. I could barely stand because the weight of my breasts was pushing me out of balance,” she lamented.

The doctors [that she consulted with] were baffled. She underwent mammography and other tests, but the results indicated that her breasts were normal.

During the mammogram test, the machine malfunctioned. The doctor was mystified because this was the first time that he encountered such incident. There was nothing wrong with the machine and there was no power interruption. How could that happen?

The doctor might have felt something uncanny when the machine stopped. When the results of her tests were negative, the doctor thought that her illness was possibly caused by a malevolent spirit which is beyond the realm of the modern medicine.

“If you have not come, you could have died,” the shaman told her. Her illness was inflicted by a sorcerer.

After several sessions with the shaman, her condition has slowly gone back to normalcy. She could already stand and move around like she had been used to.

“It was grace that a few people have led me to the shamans,” she said happily. She was very grateful to these people and was hoping that she could be totally healed.