(in memory of Dr. Norberto Navarette Jr.)
“—the uh,”
spoke the math professor
lying on
his deathbed, his cancer
spreading on
his head.
“Uh,” he said, now losing
memory, “the value of—
uh—is
not fixed: trans-
mutes…” His colleague
listens on, and in
sympathy he understands
that words
are just our means
of holding
down indefinite values.
Come to say
goodbye, a last problem
to solve,
he finally finds the value
of x (the elusive
variable) in the lapses
between
the dying man’s words.
Gabriel Millado is a BA in English student of UP Mindanao.