Category: Fiction

New Year's Eve

Fiction by | May 30, 2010

You have been very busy preparing for tonight. It is the last day of the year, and you have been on a holiday rush, along with others, who are milling about in the mall, jostling one another in the supermarket. You decide to tag me along so that you can have someone to carry the bags of groceries, which are enough to last for a week. I suspect that all of them are for tonight; you’re the type who welcomes the New Year lavishly. Have you checked our purchases? Have you noticed the seemingly countless round fruits in Styrofoam and All-wrap bearing their weight in my hand? As we ford through the crowd, I try to keep close to you, lest I get lost and won’t be able to make it home with you tonight. (Walking the distance between the mall and our house is out of the question; it would be too far. And I can’t call you up on a cellphone—you simply refuse to give me one although I have always said that I’m old enough to have one.) I can already imagine myself—while we hurry through the throng of the holiday-fevered shoppers—being alone in the huge mall, crying, like how a child would, looking for you, running through the maze of people, beset with fear that will last until the stroke of midnight. I don’t want to spend the rest of my year wailing. It’s one of the countless things you have taught me—to welcome the New Year with happiness.

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You Never Had Me at Hello

Fiction by | May 16, 2010

For James

There are at least two things that you yourself wouldn’t want to miss. One, seeing your dad at the audience area during your first ballet recital. Second, having your firsts.
 
Mama bore me with a furious mole on my cheek that swells every time I grin and has been resting itself for years on my eyeglasses’ rim. Next to that, I’ve never tried Victoria’s Secret for my scaly skin. Perhaps that was why my classmates never shared tables or sat with me during recess, or else they also thought I was a complete freak who lived in the attic. Although sometimes, I did believe Mama when she said that it was because of my high mental capabilities (Mama taught me that) that I’d get chewed gum on my skirt and lose my desk during Homeroom. But you see, that was more of the “not so good” part of my life. Just like Cathy and the girl behind her and the janitor who cleaned the girl’s restroom, I did have fun too.
 
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Sunday Light

Fiction by | May 9, 2010

It is 3 o’clock; the perfect time to have a snack in this cool, air-conditioned restaurant. A couple walks in, trailed by two little children. The man stays at the doorway and surveys the room for a table while the woman heads for the the bar to ask for a highchair. The smaller of the two children, a boy of about three, latches onto his mother’s navy blue skirt. The girl romps her way to the toilet and turns the knob. It is locked. She stamps a foot and runs to her father, who has chosen a table by the window and is now reading the newspaper. He feels his daughter tugging his sleeve. He lowers the paper and glances in the direction of the toilet and pats the chair next to him. Sit down and wait for your turn. But the little girl refuses to sit. Instead, she walks back to the door. She shifts her weight impatiently: first on one leg, and then the other. She does this for a while, the intervals becoming shorter as her discomfort increases. Finally the door opens and an elderly woman walks out.

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Baby Hopes

Fiction by | April 25, 2010


I didn’t want to see pain in Mama’s face as much as I didn’t want to see anguish in Papa’s. I never wanted to look at their faces twisted in a way that I have never seen before, or hear unfamiliar gasps and cries because they wouldn’t have words to scold me. It was not like breaking my Grandma’s urn, or my mother finding out that I had just transferred the mess inside my room to my locker, piled underneath my clothes. It was much, much more profound and complicated than that. I was pregnant.

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The Young Sultan and the Plague

Fiction by | April 4, 2010

sultan
In the days when the Kingdom brimmed with prosperity and good fortune, the dining room of the Palace flowed with food and wine for the many revelers. Expensive draperies festooned the windows; servants brought in exotic delicacies on platters made of gold and silver.

Now, the days of such merriment were long past. The young Sultan shuffled into a dining room dim and empty. No revelers, no food, no wine, windows closed, an eerie silence pervaded the room. Only a flickering candle on the round table held back the darkness. The sultan said sat on his throne, still uneasy.

While he was though how all this came to pass, the three Rajas, whom he was expecting that day, arrived one by one.

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The River Rages

Fiction by | March 28, 2010

river rages
She slept at the balcony on the banig that Andres laid down for her. He had given her the mat the night after the fire burnt their house down. Earlier that morning, he came to her and gave her money to buy merienda at the store. He had this light aura around him and smiled generously as he had the night he offered his place for Minda’s family. Her mother, Manang Leticia, did the housework for Andres who lived alone in his house near the river.

The river had a stench because of the garbage that the people dumped into it regularly. Minda could hear the wet rustling as pailfuls of dried leaves, candy wrappers, and bottles are thrown on it. The river swelled as the trash mounted and created pools of stagnant water. She smelled them from the balcony and she buried her face in the pillow that had Andres’s hair gel scent on it.

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Zeta's Quest

Fiction by | March 14, 2010

Because she was the last girl on earth, Zeta’s only friends were Sally the Seabird and Terry the Turtle.

Every day, the friends would meet on the island where Zeta lived. Terry and Zeta would swim in the water. Sally would swoop from the sky to catch fish they could eat.

One morning, while at play, Sally dove in for a catch. However, unlike before, she did not emerge from the water. “Something is wrong,” said Zeta.

“I see something,” said Terry. He swam out to sea. When he returned, he bore Sally on his back. Her neck and wings were trapped in a yellow thing.

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Probabilities

Fiction by | March 7, 2010

Assuming that Rudolf is in front, there are 40,320 ways to arrange the other eight reindeer, he boasted as he came up to me with a new book about probabilities. Peter stood about 5’6” but he looked shorter than he actually was because he was duck-footed and because he always wore oversized shirts. He sat beside me, brushed his nose and gave me that kind of ‘you-don’t-know-this-dummy’ look, and I wanted to break his nose for it. Except for the fact that I couldn’t, of course.

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