SCRIBE Volume 20 - 2017

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SCRIBE

Volume 20, March 2017 The Literary Folio of The Spectrum Published by the students of the University of St. La Salle All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or any part or form.

LI TER ARY EDITOR

Chad Martin Z. Natividad L AYOUT ARTISTS

Jowan Dave G. Guides Glen Jed E. Descutido Shara Mae L. Pelayo I LLUSTR ATOR S

Katrina Y. Nemenzo Karen D. Panganiban Seth V. Pullona Sophia Inez A. Bilbao Cedric Lance M. Militar C OVER CONCEPT AN D D ESI GN

Jowan Dave G. Guides Set in Iowan Old Style BT and Chronicle Text G4

Foreword Greetings, aviator!

Time to get you primed for take off. Listen to each instruction I say carefully and for your own safety, do not abandon a single step. As you go about each one, never hesitate for, surely, gravity would not. Let’s begin?

At this moment, I want you to put aside all you know about flying. Lift, thrust, weight, drag; flight test, flight path. Crumple the memories that remind you of flying: planes, copters/dismissed kisses, lovers; of insects persistently beating their wee wings against air, of sizable beasts using less effort.

And personally, demolish the idea that you’ll ever need fire for flying, an absurd delusion, for fire can only consume so much of one thing before it deviates, resolved consuming you. These are all dead weights, aviator; you won’t need ballasts, where I’m leading you.

Next, learn how to unravel your extensions. I’m not talking about unfurling a couple hidden limbs, goodness no. Accept the fact that you are capable of flight, aviator. Recognize your human flight potential.

About a century ago, people laughed at the attempts of two brothers who were determined to prove that humans could sail through the skies. Today, as a 21-ton fighter jet somersaults on top of clouds, like it was nothing but a pancake flipped for good measure, what have you?

Several theories and myths, in time, reveal to have just been estimates of things prospected to be true, lacking only addition and correction.

I believe that no handicap can ever truly cripple a man as severely, aviator, the way stubbornness can do.

And lastly, as advice for landing: you never really have to. What I mean is you never really land, for you are only as grounded as you are conscious of the seconds you breathe. Whether that means being stationed 50,000 ft. beneath the surface, or 100,000 ft. in the air, you land the moment you accept that each one is a being of his/her own moment, a design of your own accord.

That’s about it, aviator. If you’ve absorbed my advices adequately, you could very well take off anytime now. Maybe do a few spins over there, as you like.

You ask if I forgot to mention something? No, I do not recall ever requiring a chant to get my ass soaring. Maybe you’re waiting for me to sprinkle a pinch of special dust at your feet? A ritual? Chargeable rings? Nope, I’ve stirred about enough, nothing of such nonsense.

Truly, aviator, I have taught you all that you immediately need to know; that’s all there is, whether you believe me or not. No less than the birds, or dreams and devastations thrown at the sky, you, too, have a right to be there.

But are we not an advanced species, aviator? Beyond those fire-breathers who show off their capacities, humans too, have been strolling the spacious blue for a long time. Ever found out why objects, other than rain, have been recorded of falling from the sky? Ha! Well, me neither.

But we do know that humans can be clumsy, you see?

Okay, okay. How about this: in this folio is a collection of flight records, tried maneuvers and transcripts: notes written or illustrated by seasoned sky-travellers themselves. Peruse it, and take a documented crash or liftoff from their stories to stimulate your own.

Do not doubt, young aviator! Observe the vastness of the sky, aviator, not because you need to but just because you can. Feel Gravity’s hand resting over you, a friendly tease, as he patiently waits for the day you muster the courage to push back. Capsulate the sight of one cloud and then another and pretty soon, you’d have mapped a tiny airspace in your head. Bon voyage!

Your underpaid Flight 101 professor,

Chad Martin Z. Natividad

Contents POETRY ���������������������������������������������������������� 1 mababa, mahina, ‘di tumatagal ������������������������������������������������2

The Wind’s Resignation ����������������������������������������������������������5 Notes on the Use of White Space ��������������������������������������������6 T W O P OE M S ��������������������������������������������������������������������� 12 Sa Himpapawid Kung Nasaan Ka ����������������������������������� 13 Sampung mga Daliri ������������������������������������������������������� 14

icarus ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 17 War Song Overture ��������������������������������������������������������������� 19 When monkeys spread their wings and learn how to fly, the world will become a better place. ����������������������������� 20

Soft Drink ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 23 In Transit ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 24 kissing a smoker ������������������������������������������������������������������� 25 Asleep ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27 An admission of guilt ����������������������������������������������������������� 28

I Know Places ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 31 To Not Bite the Dust ������������������������������������������������������������� 32 Dragonflies ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 33

buoy ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 35 Neither Here nor There ��������������������������������������������������������� 37 I am here ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 38

NON- FI CTION �������������������������������������������� 41 Passengers Passing By ����������������������������������������������������������� 42

S H ORT STORIE S ���������������������������������������� 47 The Flightless Dragon ����������������������������������������������������������� 48 No Gold Can Stay ����������������������������������������������������������������� 62 Si Christian sa Araw ng Kalayaan ����������������������������������������� 79 That Banned Incident on Tuesday Morn ������������������������������� 86

COMI C S ������������������������������������������������������ 91

BY D AL E G U G U D A N ���������������������������������������� 92

BY K EANU J O S E P H R A F I L �������������������������������� 95

S CRI B ES & SC RIBBLE RS ���������������������������� 99 ACKNOWLE DGM E NTS ���������������������������� 110

POETRY

ART BY C EDR I C L ANC E M I L I TA R

mababa, mahina, ‘di tumatagal K I RK STA. ANA

Sino nga ba ang dapat sisihin Sa mababang lipad ng kalapati’t pati rin Sa mahinang hampas ng pakpak ng paruparo At sa ‘di pagtagal ng tandang sa paglutang nito?

Sino nga ba ang dapat sisihin, Sa paglatag ng batas Na dapat lahat ng may pakpak Ay lumilipad nang mataas?

Mali ba ng kalapati na siya’y puta, Ng paruparo na siya’y mahiyain, Ng tandang na kakayahan niya’y di tugma Sa ating mga layunin?

Sino nga ba ang dapat sisihin Ang kalapati na nagpakababa, Ang paruparo na ayaw bumukaka, Ang tandang na nilikha, para kumahig bago tumuka?

Mali ba ng kalapati na kailangan niyang maghubad, Ng paruparo na ayaw niyang maghubad, Ng tandang na di niya kayang tumupad, Sa pangakong siya’y lilipad?

Ano ba ang pinagkaiba Ng kalapati sa buwitre, Taas ng lipad, Trabaho sa siyudad?

Ano ba ang pinagkaiba Ng paruparo sa ibang insekto, Kulay at bango, Bangis at bilis nito?

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Ano ba ang pinagkaiba Ng tandang sa agila, Laki at anyo, Narating at talino?

Ano ba ang pinagkaiba Ng puta sa’kin, Ng maganda’t mahiyain sa’yo, Ng walang narating sa’tin?

Sino nga ba ang dapat sisihin, Sa paglatag ng batas Na dapat lahat ng may pakpak Ay lumilipad nang mataas?

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PHOTO BY N I C H O L F R ANC I S ANDU YAN

The Wind’s Resignation ROMA JANE A. H ECHAN OVA

(dedicated to he who loves to fly— away)

How do you catch a bird, dear tree, when he breaks free from his shell mid-afternoon, and chooses

to chase the sun than stay in your open prison?

How do you catch a bird, dear sun, when he tires of entreating you for more warmth, more wonder, and swoops for the sea and shore, sure

of its

embracingsolitude?

How do you catch a bird, dear sea, when he starts to weep your tears, to see aloneness in your limited vastness, and dream of flying to where his wings would find rest?

But he told me birds

never

rest.

He flies with me, against me, near me, far from me, ne’er for me I fuel his flight and catch (touch) him with my hand that can hold none, not even my carefree heart which he took with him at first flap of wings that never ceased since. fly.

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Notes on the Use of White Space RJ LEDESMA

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In a hotel room for two, there is a family of five. The youngest, a boy of six, learns proxemics. In other words, he learns that love, no matter how immense, can be contained in any space, constricting or expansive.

Cabinet, cupboard, train, tower, shoe box, envelope. And sooner, he learns hate, too, enfolds in corners, bright and dark. Classroom, ribcage, comfort room, pool, car, book, word.

2.

I am bad at giving directions. Once, an old woman asked me where So and So was located. I had to lie and tell her I was not from this city.

I walked as fast as I could away from her, as she continued to stare, perplexed.

3.

A phone call bypasses distance. It also exempts us from facing guilt.

You said you were in love with someone else, and I said, okay, thank you for being honest, I guess this is goodbye. You only had to hang up.

4.

If I build a wall that separates myself from the people I hate, or the ones who challenge my preconceived notions of the world, I would lose the rigor of argument. Once, my mom and I screamed at each other inside the car. My dad, driving, handed us a pillow to mark the space of our divide. I punched the pillow and shut up. She didn’t for a little longer.

5.

Here lies my grandfather. I step on the marble headstone to see if anything budges. In my dream something did. But it was only a dream.

6.

The boy held himself underwater as long as his lungs allowed it. The boy likes another boy, which he learns wasn’t supposed to be. The itch and the yearning (he learns this, too) subsides in the blue of the 6

pool’s floor. For it was an itch he cannot seem to take away and was consuming him, as if to asphyxiate. It was clinging to his skin like a parasite. He cannot get it out of his skin.

7.

Every morning the cock cackles but I do not awaken yet. I do in the silence of noon and I catch the disparity between where I am and where I should be. In other words, I am late for class. In other words I am still in the shower singing birdsong.

8.

Give me space, you said. I mistook it for wanting more. Only when you went away did I understand what you meant. You only meant that I hide inside my closet for a while. I wish you never spoke in code.

9.

Parse the poem as gently as you would the hair of your mother, looking for the white that juts out. The older she gets the more you become overwhelmed. They spread, first like drizzle of salt, then as unstoppable as snow. The same applies to poetry. Eventually she gives up and let it overcome her. Sometimes she goes to the salon without telling you and comes home a different woman. But this, too, is an illusion. As she opens her mouth to speak you realize she is the same, was always the same, woman. She is the poem.

10.

There are more ways to look at the situation than you think: from the rear, from a drone, from a small boxed screen on your cell phone, from the eyes of a Bengal tiger crouching like a king, from peeking through a hole in the closet door, from stone made into a likeness of a beautiful man atop a fountain, from the distance a longing lover contends with every night framed as a window, the stars only a consolation for what is sought elsewhere. There are many more, too long a list that it becomes another way to look at the situation: the vision of hopelessness. The 7

knowing that every perspective is futile when we starting digging with our hands, eyes closed. Seeing everything and nothing solves nothing.

We dig, dig, dig, hoping to reach at something, but neither a clam or bones. Nothing.

11.

The house is our corner of the world. I forgot where I read this but it’s stuck to me like a pop song. I understand it differently depending on my mood: sometimes I remember that corners are usually sharp and that they can cut. And so we must resist its tenderness at all times.

12.

When the boy pees in the comfort room, he has to constantly check behind him. It was the unsafest place in the world. The sink even looked on with malicious eyes.

13.

When inside an elevator, I make sure that the other occupants feel comfortable. I do this by avoiding eye contact.

14.

When you open the room, a city is dismantled. You cannot be lost as long as you have all the keys with you. This way, the city is no longer a conundrum. Every accident a blessing.

15.

In someone’s house there is a girl in a blue frock, twirling in front of a mirror. She watches the hem of her dress fly at her will. She does this in silence. She is alone in a big house. She is completely unaware, still twirling until her world feels like a rocking boat, the danger she is putting herself into. We blame this on naivete.

16.

Regret is a form of stasis. A boy learns this upon reflecting on a bad 8

deed. It feels like a dream, he says, where everything is flying midair, the papers, the pencils, the armchairs, the teacher, his classmates all faces animated and mid-sentence, while he kneels down and screams without sound. In this dream, what’s outside the room runs perfectly, too perfectly, in fact: an all too bright morning teeming orange and bustling with life.

17.

Eyes closed, I can tell by rote where I am currently passing on the jeepney ride home. Each street bears a particular scent, and at the corner I go down on, even more so. I have never tested this theory yet.

I forgot to tell you this is just a theory. I am positive it may work even though I can’t read maps.

18.

I had a lover who scolds me for the way I put things on the table. Once, he told me to give him more space. I struck my fists on the table when I should’ve hid in the closet instead. Pain does not solve anything, it only aggravates.

19.

A father forcibly pushes the face of a flamboyant boy in a drum full of water. If it was really his father, the viewer can never be sure, but I assumed so for his large built and commanding voice. This scene is plucked from the source material. Isolated without context. In some variations of the scene, the whole body is sunk. But there’s always a shot of the gay boy’s face panting for air as his head bobs out of the water. We zero in on the pain on his face, and that is supposed to rouse a gut reaction of empathy in us. I am watching this and I remember that time one of my classmates punched me on my arm and called me a faggot. I remember not because this was a scene of a similar violence against my kind, but because I wanted to kiss that boy and that old man, too, lunging the kid’s head on a drum full of water. This was a familiar itch.

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20.

Your lips tasted like my kitchen. I should have known then not to trust you.

21.

Images of childhood often conjure restless movement. But what of the belt, blurred by motion, about to strike my skin, a price I heed from mother? In those images the belt is perpetually caught midair. It never hits my skin. There was only regret and a helplessness I can barely pronounce correctly.

22.

Once, I dreamt of the future. My mother was decades older, her death imminent. She was so weak she couldn’t raise a spoon. Utterance was painful and so we communicated through soft and hard hums emerging from the nose. It was this language, instinctually understood even with minimal context, that struck me the most about the dream. Its eloquence.

23.

He was hurled in the air by two boys, laughing, and he wished, in the seconds he was flying like a wingless angel, that it wouldn’t be the trash can this time. The scene jump cuts to the boy, in another space and time, slicing through air, knowing exactly where he wanted to land. There was laughter and applause and a pool of red above his head like a halo.

24.

My mother and I are watching a local talk show while my dad was asleep. We were inches apart yet I couldn’t tell her I love her.

25.

The birds have nothing to do with your sadness. The city doesn’t owe you squat. Maps only give us solace that space can be quantified. When 10

you move farther to me I can count the houses between us. The trees and electric lines.

26.

The boy grew up to live an unremarkable life. He was lowered to the ground in a cheap coffin, with a few of his friends and family as witnesses. His face never looked so satisfied. Even in death we yearn for something closed and warm.

27.

Once, I dreamt of the apocalypse. There was no fire, no great flood, not even a single quiver from the earth. Everything just dissolved into its most basic shape, what that means or looks like I cannot even describe with the limits of my language. To be completely honest, and now I’m leaning forward to whisper, the dream felt like a lie. But I insist it did happen. I am not lying. Please, please believe me.

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TWO POEMS KE AN U JO SE P H. P. R AFI L

ART BY AI KO NEM ENZ O

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Sa Himpapawid Kung Nasaan Ka Sana ito na nga.

Kalayaan mula sa kalayaang mahalin ka.

Katahimikan sa tahimik kong pag-asa Na bukas makalawa, hawak-hawak na kita.

Sana ito na nga.

Pagbabago sa pagbabagong dinala mo.

Espasyo sa espasyong matagal nang pumapagitan Sa mundo mo at mundo ko.

Sana, ito na nga.

Paggising sa gising kong pananaginip.

Pagdilat sa dilat kong pagbubulag-bulagan Sa katotohanang pilit binabali ng tuwid kong damdamin.

Sana, ito na nga.

Pagtanggap sa pagtanggap mo sa mga binitawan kong salita.

Sagot sa sagot mong ayaw ko na sanang pakinggan.

Na hindi kasya ang mga daliri ko sa pagitan ng mga daliri mo.

Sana, ito na nga.

Baitang sa mga baitang.

Hakbang mula sa mga nahakbang ko na.

Kahit alam ko na ang dulo nito’y hindi kailanma’y magiging ikaw.

Sana, ito na nga.

Pagihip sa ihip ng hanging nagdala sa’kin sa’yo.

Paglipad mula sa nilipad kong pagsinta.

Na ang mga pakpak ko’y hindi kailanman magdadala sa akin Sa himpapawid kung nasaan ka.

Ito na nga.

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Sampung mga Daliri “Sampung mga daliri Nawala ang lima Hinanap ko, hinanap ko Hawak ka pala.”

Sa malamig na samyo ng hangin, Binibilang ang mga ulap at bituin.

Habang nasa ilalim ng abon ng gabi Balot sa hamog, init lamang ang dikit nating mga balikat.

Mga tuyong dahon ang nagsilbing higaan Ang lamig ng gabi ang mistulang kumot, Sa mga oras na iyo’y gusto kong itigil ang panahon, Na sa bawat sandali’y pabango mo lang ang aking naamoy. . . . .

Dumagungdong ang kalangitan, Mga bitui’y naging mapusok na mga ilaw, Ang hangi’y naging isang malupit na dapyo, Tangay ang patak ng tubig mula sa aking mga mata.

Kanina’y hawak ka, nasa tabi lang Ngunit ngayo’y kandila na lamang ang natatanaw, Apoy nito’y inaapula ng isa hanggang isang daang patak ng tubig.

Nasa isang kamay ko ang nalalantang rosas na kahapon ko pa binili.

Sugatan ang kamay ko sa pagsuntok sa semento, Sementong isa lang sa libong karamay ko, Pangalan mo ang binabaybay, sa ilalim kaarawan at petsang ayaw ko nang maalala.

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Sariwa pa ang nakaraang buwang, Tawa mo ang pinakikinggan kong musika, Mga mata mo ang pinapanood kong palabas.

Ipinikit ko ang aking mga mata, umaasang nandiyan ka pag dilat. . . . .

Gumising akong, naninigas sa lamig ng umagang inaalmusal ang bagyo ng kagabi.

Wala nang ilaw ang kandila at gutay-gutay na ang hawak kong rosas.

Hinaplos ko ang sementong putik na ang nakabalot.

Isang malamig na hangi’y dumapyo sa taenga ko, bulong ang isang himig. “Sampung mga daliri, Nawala ang lima, Hinanap ko, hinanap ko, Sana’y hawak pa kita.�

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PHOTO BY N I C H O L F R ANC I S ANDU YAN

icarus S. PULLONA

strangled feathers on a branch under the shade of pomegranate. the weight pulled him to the ground, his vision, tinted red. he looked up. he smiled as the sunlight came through the leaves. he looked down. he can’t feel his feet. i nibbled down his open flesh; it is tender, still fresh. the gore of the scenario is a delight; a feast for a couple of days. he struggled as he carries all his weight, as he turned to see the other side of the horizon. the living corpse smiled, and few drops of blood came out of his lips. hot melted wax planted with ivory feathers hardens to the ground—flowing from his back cold, everywhere is cold. but i have continued salvaging whatever my stomach could absorb. the living corpse cried, and a break of voice came out and died permanently. i accidentally pecked out some of the wax on his back. i choked on it, then went back again. i ate out the blue ball out of his skull. he didn’t react anymore. and from there i saw a vision, a white blur from a distance. a hundred yards away, the image is clear. the white-robed man is a threat to my feast. i cawed. the man still becoming closer. i scratched the dry sand as if leaving a wound to an opponent. the image magnifies and the pace becomes unstoppable.

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he shooed me away and i flew back he hugged the remains of my feast and cawed a strange sound water came out of the man’s eyes he is making inaudible noise he carried my hunt away from the shade of pomegranate to the scorching of the open dunes and i, barely armored to fight for my feast, flew in circles above the moving blur.

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War Song Overture J OSHUA MARTIN P. GUAN CO

Soldiers marching through the fields Carrying guns and heavy shields The ground they walk on is trembling The hearts beneath their sleeves are pounding Sound of gunfire start to fill the air As they shoot everyone without a care The war song is starting, now listen Wrath and Hatred have awakened With death the only thing they shall find The soldiers start eliminating humankind Innocent children caught in battle Mercilessly slaughtered just like cattle Armies bent on killing their oppositions War-encrypted minds, walking abominations The blood of the innocent stain the ground Cannon fire, dying voices are the constant sound War maledicting its curse on earth To usher in the end times’ birth

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When monkeys spread their wings and learn how to fly, the world will become a better place.

D EO FLOR ES

For Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche; Some dreams are meant to be denied, though often most are shattered and crushed coldly by the improbability of circumstance and spite of fate; oh well, what can we powerless mortals do against a false divinity’s will—all we can do is stare into the abyss until she stares back at us.

No one is safe from the culling of age and time—for we are destined to fall and to be eroded—devastated and ultimately, forgotten—failure and stagnation is our apparent endgame.

Can we please our own egos by claiming that “we can achieve what we sincerely yearn for through hard work and perseverance” despite our atrocious lack of talent and inherent penchant?

Optimism surely cannot save the damned, whose accursed futures are woven intricately with cosmic thread and starlight upon the dark firmaments—ergo, the damned are damned forever—salvation for them is but a distant hallucination.

The vile concept of “Me, fulfilling whatever desires and aspirations I have as long as I dream and work hard for them” is an absurdity—no, it is inane and critically foolish, only a madman chases shadows in absolute darkness.

Our individual potentials chain us from our ideal “self ” (rather than ideal, call it illusory), it hinders our growth naturally, restricting us from the will to power, just as how mountains serve as buffers against tempestuous stormwinds; which in the end, renders us as blasé organisms with bovine desires, as though cows.

Decadence is inevitable—and so is the advent fall of mankind from his self-proclaimed “glory”, for what he toils for, and what he sheds blood 20

and tears for, will be sundered from him, leaving him as a withered husk of departed wishes—everything he does earnestly is in vain.

Thus, at the end of the day, nothingness will consume our souls, emptiness will fill us, ripping us apart—limb from limb, flesh from bone—dismembering our existences until we are nothing but voids that get emptier as each second dies before us.

Despite these truths, we still hearken the voices inside our heads, albeit those being saccharine-sweet lies and grand aphorisms—which are in reality, prosaic, and secretly acrimonious—woe, we humans are surely a sui generis among fools.

But still, we are not daunted by our futility—of our obvious inability, we remain stubborn and sadly, a mighty Gibraltar of mental resilience and folly, never to be swayed or uprooted by the gales of a far more cruel truth—but know this; our natural weakness and incapability to know our standing will be the wind that will catapult us unto vistas unknown, eventually into the maw of our long-awaited demise.

We are stalwart simians that believe ourselves to be gods—my own self and you, all of humanity to be precise, not knowing that we are lower than the uncultured of apes—we are worms that crawl our bellies on the pitiful dirt, yet our shortcomings and sheer knack to get through life by the skin of our teeth give us a myriad of wings that will take us to places where we rightfully belong.

Humanity is a stellar disgrace to science, man, pathetic with his heart worn on his sleeve, is yet to fully actualize himself—which makes him supreme amongst nature’s failures. Within our shells of worthlessness, there is still room for transcendence. We, to become men above men— overmen. That is why, dear monkey of this concrete jungle, you halfevolved, and half-devolved primordial; overcome yourself, seize your wings and take to the sky—become the noble soul you ought to be.

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PHOTO BY N I C H O L F R ANC I S ANDU YAN

Soft Drink HEZR ON PIOS

shake, shake, shake this tin of soda. acid forming bubbles. bubbles begetting bubbles. do not open the lid. open the lid & unleash its liquid bursting skywards like that of a geyser jutting jets of steam. releasing, relieving.

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In Transit STA RL ENE PORTILL O

I wanted the window seat. My head half-bowed between the rifts as I sifted through the burning houses and the spaces they leave empty below. How they pepper the earthly creases like Braille: only parsed best by those who cannot see. Instead, what I got was the gritting of a tongue I no longer spoke. And then my ears popping. The lift ended as an overhead light gleaming with what seemingly were white coils into my line of vision. Months later, you hailed a sweltering cab. That way we both get window seats, you said. I stifled a reply because my side was smeared with tint. You then chose to close the girth between us: not on the lips. I chose to open your pack and stealthily grasp the lone stick of Marlboro. The rearview mirror notes how my eyes hit the brows of the naive, still steering the wheel. I have no time to pop the filter, I say as I let it dance between my fingers. It was then you told me to stop playing around. I puffed a cigarette that reeks without smoke, and I suspect the unsuspecting now suspects—yet he never said a word. You heaved for it to stop three houses farther down. As I got out, I made sure to leave no trace of ashes.

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kissing a smoker BES

kissing a smoker will not guarantee you a healthy relationship in fact you might even taste a hint of nicotine kissing a smoker will make you curious wondering if a cigarette tastes the same kissing a smoker will be one of the best and worst feelings in the world. kissing a smoker will make you think twice about smoking kissing a smoker will bring you luck kissing a smoker will take your luck away kissing a smoker will ruin your good girl reputation kissing a smoker will not get you high kissing a smoker will not get you arrested kissing a smoker is not a sin kissing a smoker will only be legal when you’re not a minor anymore kissing a smoker will not afford to pay your student loans kissing a smoker will not get you that job interview kissing a smoker will not pull your failing grades up

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kissing a smoker will become a hobby kissing a smoker will make you sleepless at night kissing a smoker will only get better with practice kissing a smoker will not require your parents’ permission kissing a smoker will get you excited kissing a smoker will make you feel sore kissing a smoker will feel like your flying and after numerous kissing sessions kissing a smoker will make you feel like a smoker

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Asleep D APHNE TANYA

If I cannot feel any longer, let it Let me stop looking at things with lesser clarity For more variety and look at the dull point in the middle, The monotonous idle, the “I don’t want to know what is in between Your sighs and the steps you take towards the liquor” Another bottle won’t answer the “what is” when “it” just is and what “isn’t” won’t become a “probably” because I hear all too often of past times and bad rhymes I don’t want to be either I don’t want to feel the similarity between good days and runaways, I’ll only feel the difference between Heart felt from half meant, Consolation from desolation Words Never offered any dedication, A writer herself echoed That words are indeed cheap and Usually I can’t tell irony apart but if the romantics are tired Then I’m asleep.

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An admission of guilt C HR ISTIANA CL AUD I A G. GAN CAYCO

First, let me confess of how I wish this was a prayer rather than a confession of how I wish I had the halo I was told I had rather than thorns protruding from my thick skull Now let me fill the confessional with all the words I shouldn’t speak with all the colors painfully and disdainfully bleak You make me want to pray to all the gods I don’t believe in taunt the heavens till it’s grieving You remind me of my grandfather telling me to stay away from the wolves how many times he said it how emphatically he said it But somehow, you make me want to caress their fur risk thrusting myself to their red eyes and rabid growls hoping against hope I come out leading the pack You remind me why people sin why it’s bad but also why it seems so good You remind me of why I’m trying to be an angel ever pure ever upright ever divine But hell you also remind me that even angels fall sometimes And what if I do or what if I did what if I fell for you 28

They say flight is an admission of guilt But I wouldn’t mind, really so long as it’s toward you so long as it’s with you by all means take me as you please Take me Please

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PHOTO BY N I C H O L F R ANC I S ANDU YAN

I Know Places I AN KR ISTOF FER V. GA

I know places where my puberty-stricken thoughts once tiptoed.

They were as unfathomable as the tides the silver moon brings.

They surged and I drowned in them.

There’s more to them than meets the eye.

I know places where my bleak eyes once rummaged around.

They were as complex as the stars dangling in the gray-hued skies.

Their light reaches me in a jiffy as opposed to what stars normally do.

There’s more to them than captures the soul.

I know places where my old soul once sought.

They were as obliterated as the black holes in the infinite space.

They used to be my playground and hide-and-seek was my favorite.

There’s more to them than strikes the heart.

I know places where my heart once stood a chance.

They were as untold as the sound the foxes make.

The burrows where these earthlings hide turned out to be my safe haven.

I thought t’was only for transience, but I stayed too long... bobbed too long... that my feelings forgot to resurface.

I ran away; I hid away, to keep the blues away, or so I thought.

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To Not Bite the Dust HEZR ON PIOS

They know of his keen specialty for shapeshifting— The boy that turns to A dog that turns to A bird scouting over the rice field, pleading.

A lifetime is so little: to brave is to endure is.

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Dragonflies HEZR ON PIOS

Call them dear like my own siblings, you said.

The odonata are wafting overhead without you noticing this time. The kids are racing with multicolored kites as gossamer as dragonflies.

Wouldn’t it be great if you stayed much longer?

You catching dragonflies. You piloting aircrafts.

I don’t know it yet, but I believe I’m only after flight.

How I yearn release from the pull of gravity.

To sever one’s ribcage is to allow earnestness: A stubborn heart is screaming out your name!

Claim me like how kids claim independence.

It must hurt since there’s no such thing as a bloodless love—just limbs afraid of free fall.

Tear your wings apart then we will jump.

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PHOT O BY J H O N A LD R I N C AS I NAS

buoy MAR IA ANG ELICA AP E

she was floating down the river like that biblical boy, Moses but she wasn’t in a basket she was just floating - not even breathing she could be dead but people ignore her they think she’s just floating like a buoy in the ocean but there wasn’t air in her lungs. she is in the air now. she used to be the flowers, the weed the dandelion little kids picked up in the holy fields she used to be the butterfly sucking the nectar out of that one flower she used to go out on Friday nights and Saturday nights then would go to church in the morning and repent all her sins she’d made the night before and the night before that she used to be the girl who’d sing Paul Simon and pearl jam all while she knitted a pair of socks she used to be the girl nobody cared about she’s just the girl who cried wolf the girl who wanted to fly the girl

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the girl

the girl still floating in the river the girl not breathing the girl who wanted to be everything except herself

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Neither Here nor There LEX DIWA AL ORO

Suspended midway in the midmost of the meridian Hovering in the middle of the heavens and the abyss Entering the doldrums, it rides no other median, yet Suffering the absurdity of being restlessly motionless Born with feathers on its arms and stones on its ankles It’s cursed to never touch the wispy clouds or the rough-edged pebbles Something about it is quite off as its grime neither floats nor dribbles Even when the gusts are strong, even when the south drizzles Xeroxed in the allure of those condemned and taboo Unaccepted by those below nor those above Afloat in its filth surrounded by who knows who Let the misfit be, it is happy though unaccepted, unloved.

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I am here SAR AH L O R AB EL L E E SGU E R R A

I am here.

I will transform my body again and again to give back what was taken and to speak to the sky above that I had always been a part of this world and without people noticing I’ve been dancing with the wind, I am already a part of every living being; consumed and rotten but I have given more lives than I could take, and as I die, in the forest I shall live again.

I am here.

The feet that walked the grass will become the roots of the tiny seeds that’ll soon grow; Elm, Acacia, Fig and even the wild things.

The deserted lands will be green and the critters will rejoice for there is food for my people and they, all the animals, depart from their mouths.

I am here.

My hands that picked the roses from their bodies, will bloom to give miracles to life and in the nights when darkness is out with my hair as strings, they will then serenade the moon to illuminate, and to conquer against.

I am here.

From my healthy lungs, the ashes of the burnt forest reincarnate and with the liquids swimming inside my body, the river regains its purity.

It flows the Earth with fresh water for everyone to drink to the wealthy and the necessitous, to all the children of the world.

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ART BY K EANU J O S EP H R AFI L

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I am here.

In my eyes the animals will look, see a million sunsets drowned in the palms of the ocean.

They take my sight and give it to the exploding red star and from it, the sun will rise from the water that once owned it.

It will gleam and smolder the waves thus, will osculate upon its return.

I am here.

Although my skin was made for me, it flies away from my dermis with its magnanimous wings; sweeping all that we have lost then transcends itself to protect the Earth, we have destroyed.

I am here.

For all the seasons changing, the winter, summer, fall, autumn and even to the one known only by the broken hearts.

The wind takes my decisions and all my varying uncertainties that if the Earth might alter the years we’d still live, here is my brain, thinking and even the knowledge I gained.

Then, the wind can transcend good lives lived and forgive the thrown and the wasted.

I was here, then I was gone.

I sent myself away to pay for the crimes of men and if this is life after death this is heaven.

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NON-FICTION

ART BY K EANU J O S EP H R AFI L

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Passengers Passing By I RI S R IVER A

1. Star and I were barely 5 years old when we met for the first and the last time. We were at the boarding gate of a foreign airport ready to depart on our first vacation back home.

In a dusty album, back at the old house, I still have a photo of the two of us. In the photo, we were both sitting on the red leather benches with our tiny feet barely reaching the edge. From the stories my parents have told me, we acted like the best of friends the second we caught each other’s eyes.

I find myself wanting to meet her again. I want to know what she’s taking up in college or if she dropped out in her first year to focus on a budding musical career. I want to know how many lovers she’s taken to bed and whether she’s taken up a bad habit. I want to know if she thinks about me or if she remembers me at all—the 3-year-old she met in a foreign airport so many years ago.

I want to know if she ever dreams of going back to that moment. To meet someone and have an inexplicable connection in an instant.

I want to know if she ever thinks about the secret language of children. I want to know if she ever thinks about how easy it was for the two of us to say goodbye because of a naïve dream that we’d see each other again.

If she does, I want her to know I’m the same way.

2. I met Aldrin more recently.

We were on a plane back home after a trip to the sand box. It was a few years after high school graduation and neither of us knew we spent all 10 years in neighboring schools until that moment.

He annoyed me. I thought I’d have all three coach seats for the duration of my 9-hour flight when this pair of glasses on a lanky 42

frame plopped down on the aisle seat. Dammit, I thought. I was hoping for some peace and quiet, approximately 30,000 feet off the ground. I wanted to get back to writing (something I haven’t done in months then). I spared him an irate glance before looking back at the inky black through my window.

I came prepared—jacket, boots, socks, a book, notepad and pen.

Aldrin was not a variable I could’ve predicted. He was just sitting there all smiles behind his spectacles and trying to be friendly. He annoyed me.

A while later, he took out a notepad of his own and started writing and I couldn’t help but glance over. The little shit’s handwriting was impeccable. I felt uncomfortable writing in my messy scribble so I decided to swallow my hostility and acknowledge him.

He told me about his life which pretty much mirrored mine.

Growing up in a foreign country and being expected to move back to a homeland that was never home to you is a difficult enough adjustment. Having someone who understood that burden was comforting, to say the least. We studied in neighboring high schools, and never met until that plane ride.

I took off my boots and tucked my legs underneath me as we exchanged stories. I told him I was travelling alone and he told me he was with his brothers, but some force unknown to us—call it fate or destiny or serendipity, found him on a seat away from them and beside me.

He was writing a fantasy novel with his friends, he told me. He wouldn’t let me read it (and I couldn’t read it without my glasses, anyway) but I glanced at the flawless print, nevertheless. That was when the cabin crew announced that they would be dimming the lights so the passengers could get some shut-eye. Aldrin put his 43

PHOTO BY N I C H O L F R ANC I S ANDU YAN

notepad back into his bag and took off his spectacles.

I watched as he rested his head back on the seat with closed eyes.

The yellow lights highlighted his tanned features. His eyelids fluttered open bringing his long eyelashes along to rest above his brown eyes. He looked over at me and smiled. He had a nice smile.

Aldrin was attractive, I had to admit that. He asked me for my name and I told him.

I haven’t seen him since that flight but based on his Facebook posts, he has a girlfriend now.

3. I joined the mile-high club on a trip to a friend’s party last year.

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The girl I hooked up with had doe eyes and non-smudge lipstick.

Her hair fell just above her ears and it tickled my belly when she went down on me. A stewardess knocked on the door asking what was taking so long because a queue of cranky passengers started to form outside. I hurriedly put on my clothes while she just laughed and told me to relax. I stepped out with a bowed head while she was smiling cheekily.

4. Number three was a lie.

5. My latest encounter actually did happen on a trip to a friend’s party last year. I was supposed to be on a 5p.m. domestic flight back to the city, but as late afternoon domestic flights always are, my flight was delayed. I was going back and forth from the boarding area to a small café where I could charge my phone.

In the few minutes I spent waiting in the boarding area, a stranger with a smartphone in his left hand and a brown paper bag tucked under his right arm sat a seat away from me. He was polite and kept to himself but he laid the bag (which turned out to be full of chili barbeque French fries) on the seat in-between us.

I recall an introduction but I can’t remember his name. It might have started with either an A or a J. For now, I’ll call him The Guy With The Fries. TGWTF for short. He offered me some of his fries.

Now the polite thing to do in this situation would be to decline and say I was full, but I was actually hungry and airport food is expensive as hell so I thanked him and took one fry.

I went back to my phone which was struggling for survival. I was just about to toss it at an unsuspecting flight attendant when TGWTF interrupted my train of thought. He told me to not be shy and to take as many fries as I want. Date rape warnings flashed in my head. But then he was eating them absentmindedly as well so my fears dissipated immediately. Don’t do this at home, kids.

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He made small talk as I munched on the free fries and counted my blessings. TGWTF told me he originally booked a morning flight but something compelled him to postpone it. So, like me, he was stuck here because of “unprecedented air traffic”. He was confident, as one would expect from a businessman. He tried to add me on Facebook but he couldn’t find my account. I joked that this may be our first and last time seeing each other.

He laughed and told me the “last time” was fast approaching since he was running late for his flight. He stood up to fix his things. I reminded him of the fries.

He told me I should have them.

My eyes widened with surprise. I remember reading a line about how being so accustomed to indifference can make a person becomes confused when presented with kindness. That was the exact feeling.

I declined and urged him to bring the fries with him on the plane.

He argued that they were mine now, smiled, then walked away. I sat there dumbfounded. I was genuinely surprised by the generosity a stranger could show a stranger.

I promised myself then to search the definition of the word, ‘stranger’. I never did.

I probably should.

Alright, the dictionary defines it as “one who is strange” or “a person with whom one is unacquainted”. Definition saved and memorized. Definition deleted and forgotten. From my experience, no stranger will be a stranger for long, anyway.

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SHORT STORIES

ART BY S ET H P U L L O NA

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The Flightless Dragon LY L E JO HN B AL AN A

I L LU S T R AT ED BY S ET H P U L L O NA

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O

nce, there was a dragon that could not fly. He strove to stretch, he strove to try. His wings were tiny, small in size, yet he could not so much as rise.

When he was born they were three in the nest. He had a brother, red and black all over, teeth springing from the constant stream of slobber dripping from his mouth. He had a sister, scales so light that they shrunk in places to give way to the unsightly, dry flesh that lurks beneath the luster of the dragon exterior, her body eternally coiled around a pillar of rock to the side of their nest. They never saw their mother. Their mother came at dawn, while they were fast asleep and the sun was still but a thought weakly pushing at the horizon. A strong scent of food would draw them out of their slumber, and tiny clawed limbs would hurtle towards the thick pile of meat splattered across the uneven rocks of the nest. They would tear the formless mass apart, teeth sawing as much as it was chewing, an eye turned towards the sky in the small hope that they would see the grand form of their provider, hovering over their unready state. Yet there was nothing but the nest and their food at dawn.

The tiny dragons started to fill out along their serpentine bodies.

They shed countless coats, scattering the faded colors of their former scaly livery over the dull black rocks. Their jaws expanded from the abrupt stubs that they were used to into long, snapping affairs, top and bottom lined with at least three rows of tough yellow teeth each. Their tails rolled out to flop behind them, gradually learning to gracefully slither from side to side. Clumsy crawling turned into uncertain dashes that always stopped just a few inches short of plunging off the nest. Running turned into mock fighting, claws gently brushing against unguarded backs, teeth clipping the throat like hesitant rain.

Unmeasured strength gave too much to a swipe, to a lunge. Wounds became scars, scars became memories, the false, restrained shows of bravado became charged with combative intent. Especially savage attacks drew more than blood. Gobs of meat, hanging off curved claws,

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spat from unwilling yet bloodied jaws, became the new measure for acceptable damage.

The dragons knew not the passage of time. The meat came each day before the sun, and its scent was their rising, as it has always been. The portions stayed the same, but their stomachs never stopped growing.

The fights that used to be reserved after daily meals spilled over to the actual feeding itself. Bodies clashed in the center of the nest, spilling fragile meat everywhere, rubbing it over the rocks who have long lost the shed scales of the dragons’ infancy. Their blood mixed with the blood of their meals. Teeth were lost, then claws, then more severe injuries came. The sister lost a finger to a well-timed counter bite. The brother sported thirteen scars to his name, all over his broad, mangled back. The youngest drake limped on his left foreleg.

They kept at this, day by day, and it was as though they would end each others’ lives on that nest.

One day, the dragon woke up. His incarnadine eyes, each split apart from the other by a bony snout the length and texture of a significantly warped snake, scanned the nest cautiously. His nostrils flared, seeking the scent of meat, the unpalatable essence of its siblings, but it sensed neither. He slithered from its sleeping place, overlapped by gobs of dried blood and bleached-out scales, cautiously keeping his head low, investigating with all of his senses. He eyes found his siblings’ spots empty. His nose, rubbing against the rough gravel of the nest, gobbled up old memories left by sweat, blood, and saliva laced by meals of a distant past, but nothing recent. His ear-holes, carefully shielded behind a flap of scales, heard nothing but the wind rushing after the sun’s rise. There was, for the first time, simply nothing.

Then, from a distance, His hearing caught a familiar shriek.

His serpentine neck turned up to see his brother and his sister, far up in the sky, sticking their glorious luster among the clouds.

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Their wings spread out from their body, overshadowing much of their fearsome mass, twitching as their owners dipped, dived, rose, and reversed, resembling fleshy sails more than they should proper wings.

Their tails unfurled from behind them, flapping with their antics. They seemed at peace. They seemed, at this point, at one with the universe around them, sucking up the elements of the environment around them. Their scales were the sun and their tails were the wind and their teeth were the dead, white trees of their mountain home. Their wings were the clouds, their churning limbs the life that flowed underneath the sky in a constant, never-ending charade, and their bellies were the rivers carving up the ground shackled beneath their waters. They were everything in their triumph. They were everything in their flight.

The dragon threw out its best roar, his heart pumping along with the beats of his siblings’ wings. He wished to fly, too, as they did. He wished to wield the final legacy of dragonhood, the mastery of everything that he could see as they cowered beneath his fully-visible form, hanging over them. He shook his own wings awake, and flapped as hard as he could.

And flapped.

And flapped.

And flapped.

He did not rise off the ground, as his other siblings did. He roared again, to encourage his own body, calling out to the elements to gift him his proper place, flapping harder than the last time. The rocks of the dragon nest trembled from the effort, driven away by the small gale forming from the attempt. But still he did not rise.

He roared again for the final time. He felt his wings stiffen, faltering on him, curling into useless flaps that collapsed onto his body. His feet trembled, barely holding up his weight, pushing aside

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the gravel armoring the nest to dig directly into the soil that layered its bottom. He craned up his neck to see his siblings fade from view, slipping through the clouds for the last time, borne on the winds by their functional wings.

He gnashed his teeth for a night and a day. His teeth ground into painful stumps, the broken pieces tumbling out of his frothing mouth, only to regrow the damage within hours. Thus was the dragon’s way.

He lashed out at his own flesh, impaling his body on the sharp ends of rocks, cooking his limbs on the fresh heat of the fires streaming from his mouth, yet the only constant thing was the agony. He always recovered, weaker than before, but as good as whole, for that was the dragon’s way.

No meat came to him when he awoke from his slumber, or when he fell unconscious from his hourly self-mutilations, for that was the dragon’s way. The mother leaves the nest when they are ready, and most of them were ready.

After three days of this, the dragon tired. No help was forthcoming. he barely had strength to inch forward, but crawl he did, his belly disrupting the chaos of the gravel, slowly, but surely, leaving the nest that had been his home for so long. He paused, if for a moment, to regard his personal spot, which had gradually been losing the various gobs and scales that had made it uniquely his ever since he had failed to sleep on it consistently, before moving on.

He crawled on, the hours waxing into days, the days into weeks.

Curious birds, flying towards the slowly plodding thing, provided for sustenance, as they were too surprised to flit out of his mouth’s speedy thrusts. As he ate the avians, energy found its way back into his body, and within a month, he could lift his belly off the ground.

He walked, then, all throughout the year. Summer found him lunging after the foxes and the deer of the forest, staining his teeth red

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from the sheer amount of prey he had caught. The deer ran, prancing over the soft foliage, away from the snapping twigs that willed them to go faster, but a hind leg, a horn would inevitably meet the dragon’s teeth, and the rest of the animal would be swiftly dragged into his mouth, minced into a gory mess for his throat to receive. The foxes hid in their dens, trembling all the while, but the dragon’s feet would claw through the ground, raising great geysers of freed clumps of soil. He would dine of them where they fell, and red fur lay messily beyond the ragged holes frequenting the forest.

No foxes and deer were to be had that summer.

Fall found him meeting his first human. He had grown content with his constant pursuit of food, but the meals were starting to thin, and he needed to maintain his diet. Turning his nose up at the ravaged forest, he left it a disorganized mess of fallen timber and disturbed grass. The rabbits and shrews ran rampant among the ruins.

He sniffed out a path that seemed to be dominated by a new kind of smell. It smelled partly of bear and partly of deer, with a small hint of fox weakly woven into the others, but the dominant scent seemed buried into them all. He followed the new path, waddling along, fire occasionally leaking out of his nostrils to raze the nearby grass with ashy death.

He stopped in the veil of the shadows just as night fell, as he sensed the strange smell growing more powerful before his stake in the path. He saw, ahead of him, a new kind of animal, walking slowly, carrying a dead fox on one of its shoulders. It was slightly shorter than a bear, very compact at the sides, bearing a bear’s hide across the top half of its body and a deer’s skin over most of its bottom part, starting at the waist and ending at the knees. Over its other shoulder, a curved piece of wood hung, peeled and stained with some sort of substance that turned it yellowish, with a thick length of string connected to both ends of the wood.

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The dragon growled softly at the animal. It did not look like a rabbit nor a shrew, which it hated to eat. Wolves were hard to transform into edible meat, and bears had given him a day’s worth of struggle that he had sworn himself off their acquisition. If this animal would put up a fight, then he would have no choice but to seek easier fare.

The animal turned. Its head was high up its body. Dark hair covered most of its face from view, pouring from the top of its head in tight, thick strands. It had no snout, but a strange, quivering bump poised over two pinkish slabs seemed to serve the same function. The animal’s eyes widened, and the dragon saw that it was the color of the sky, wound round and round over a circle of darkness that seemed to pierce each blue sphere.

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The animal took a step back. The dragon extended his long tongue, running it over his teeth, letting the small wounds invigorate his killer instinct. The animal seemed scared. It would be easy prey, and he would see if he liked the taste.

But the animal did something else: it dropped the fox. It used one of its two legs, about as long as the rest of its upper body, to push the carcass towards him. The fox betrayed no signs of violence except for a single hole in its white neck. Its mouth seemed like it could be smiling.

The dragon cautiously took a nibble. The animal did nothing. Its retreating leg stayed where it was, but it was perfectly still, watching him as he ate the fox. It could have been a small tree for all the world cared.

The dragon kept one red eye on it as he finished off the offered meal. The animal had done nothing, and the dragon wondered if it were dead. Then it showed some of its abnormally small teeth, flat and hidden behind the pink slabs, grinning at the dragon. There was cunning here, too. There was life.

Winter found the dragon and his new animal friend trekking through a new forest. The animal had added more bear hide to its lower half, and its feet were covered in a strange contraption that let it stand on top of the mushy snow. The dragon’s feet punched through the snow as he plodded after the animal. They took turns hunting the few animals that they could find, the dragon using its size and claws, the animal using its stringed stick to launch smaller, sharp sticks that seemed to inflict death after a few hits. At the end of the day, the dragon would rob a tree of its poise, sending it crashing down to earth, and then light enough of it on fire. He did not need the warmth, but the animal friend seemed to enjoy it ever since he had done this deed for fun, and so he repeated the task each night.

Each night, the animal friend would make strange, yet ordered,

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noises from his pinkish slabs. The dragon understood none of it, but it sounded comforting, like the small grunts the deer would make as he ate them, or the dying wails a bear made when life failed to sustain it through the horrible wounds its massive body had incurred. Soon enough, as the days wasted away and as the hold of winter grew weaker, he started to understand. Small bursts of coherence would bore into his brain, fragments of it in his sleep, bits of it during the nightly babblings. The animal friend would sometimes shout in joy during the hunts, and this he would almost understand.

One day, as the snow started to melt, they stalked a lone deer. It was large, but its size belied its weakness, for its age made it sluggish against assault. A shred of wolf fur still hung off one of its massive antlers. This deer would have been dangerous in the warmer times of the year, but the cold had weakened it enough.

His animal friend drew its stringed wood, taking a step forward.

“Ewl take daes un,” it uttered. It stuck out one of its fingers from the rest of its hands, specifically the one nearest its thumb, drawing the rest back into a ball. The finger was directed at the deer, whose antlers swung slowly from side to side, alive with icicles and the mist from the old animal’s breath.

“Okay,” the dragon growled back, almost unknowingly.

The animal friend paused. “At de u jas say?” it asked. Its eyes were as wide as the time it has first found him.

“I said, it’s okay. I’ll wait,” he responded. He dropped his belly to the ground, crushing the hapless snow beneath it, to show that he would not steal the kill.

“Uhhh, alrit de,” the animal friend replied. It seemed bewildered by the exchange. It fired one shot from its arrow, hitting the old deer straight in the eye. The deer let out a loud shriek, freeing the icicles on

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its antlers, swinging his head in a mad rage. The animal friend observed it for a few seconds, then sent another sharp stick at the other eye.

Blinded, the deer crashed, head first, into a tree, then fell down, dead.

“Ai din a no you could tak,” the animal friend said as they walked towards their prey.

“Is this called talking?” the dragon inquired. He let out a stream of fire from the side of his mouth, causing a spray of water to fall on them both from the nearby melted snow. “I didn’t really do this with my siblings.”

“Wi din a no dragons could tak.” The animal friend started dragging the carcass along, without skipping a beat, as they walked forward.

“Dragons jes ror.”

“So, you call us dragons. Are there more of you?” the dragon asked.

“Of cos. In fac, A hedid to the village, ever sins we met.” The animal friend turned to him. “Wud ye com with me?”

“I possibly could.” They continued along the path. The deer would make for a wonderful meal later as they pore over this new discovery.

Spring came, and by the end of it, the dragon could fully understand his animal friend. He could now speak better, losing the growl and the lisp as they experimented with his intonation. They chatted away as the greenery revealed itself from the fallen forest. Deer ran around them in blissful herds, but they seldom reduced them into panicked formations, the dead left behind as prizes for the duo’s stomachs. They were more concerned with telling each other of their lives, and of hearing how the other became as they did.

“Does it overly bother you?” the dragon asked. “That I could not fly?”

“Well, no.” The animal friend scratched at its hair, brushing it aside 57

with every twitch of its hand. “It bothers me more that your siblings just left you. Didn’t even wait for you.”

“That is the dragon way. We needed to be strong.” The dragon looked ahead. Its red eyes were misty, touched by an inner rain. “I was weak.”

“You’ve survived this far. Look at the bright side, friend.” The animal friend reached into the hide that covered its upper half. When its hand surfaced, it held a piece of fox in its grip. “Care for a piece?”

“Please,” the dragon replied. He caught the meat with a speedy snap, much like the birds that had hovered over him so long ago. “Anyways. I would simply have liked to fly. Just once. I would like to see what they had seen, and lived how they could. But that is impossible.”

The animal friend’s pinkish slabs formed into a familiar curve- a smile. “That’s what you think, my dragon friend. You’ll see.”

They walked all throughout the spring, through the sweet spring rain and the plentiful kills that slowed their progress more than once.

Summer came, and they finally arrived at the village.

There was lots of screaming when the villagers saw the dragon.

The animal friend waved its arms around, sending them back as they bravely rushed the offending creature with what looked like imitations of bear arms, except stiffer and thinner. The dragon was fascinated by their variety. These animals were like his friend, but they did not wear any of the bear or of the deer- it was an altogether different substance, imprisoning the likes of the sun and the sky in them. Some had short strands on top of their head, some had long strands. They did not live in caves, but in wooden piles that they called “houses”. There was a stack of stones guarding a hole in the center of their village, where a strange long string reached into the hole when someone lowered it down, emerging to bear a wooden device they called a “bucket”, which 58

was filled with water. It was all amazing, and he processed all these in a single sweep.

The villagers retreated from the pair after a pledge that the dragon would not eat the livestock, would not kill any villagers, and would keep to himself. As he walked with his friend towards its own wooden pile, he gave out a cheery thanks to the villagers, in his learned voice, and he saw most of them turned white. This would be a very fun time indeed.

The dragon could not fit inside the house, but there was something attached outside it, which his friend called a shed, where he could stretch out and glare at everybody that passed. He spent all afternoon in the shed, doing exactly that. He sometimes swallowed a rock when he thought no one was watching, then spit it out at the farthest villager that he could locate. The slobber-touched projectile instantly pointed at him as the culprit, but he would have pretended to sleep by then, and no one was brave enough to accost him of the act.

Night fell on the village, and most of them fell asleep.

The dragon tried to do so, too.

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A hand tapped him awake, a familiar one. He opened his eyes to see his friend, dressed in the ways of the other village animals, wearing a thing like a fox’s neck over its upper half, but keeping the deerskin bottoms below.

“Come. Come. I’ll show you something.”

The dragon rose and followed the friend. They sneaked past the borders of the village. The village guards, stationed at the gate, raised their crude bear-arms in alarm, but the animal friend waved them off.

There would be none of that tonight.

They walked along the darkness of the woods. The dragon remembered when it was exceedingly weak, walking underneath the exact same oppressive shade, barely conscious but determined. He was stronger now, but yet he could never rise out of them. Never, in his lifetime. He was sure this fact would haunt him forever, but things were as they were, and he would simply have to live with it.

They stopped at a clearing, deep in the dark woods, clear of the trees and open to the sky.

There was light here, cast from white sticks placed all around a wooden contraption, the resulting illumination muted yet sufficient.

The contraption itself was swarming with ropes and other things that he did not recognize yet. It was larger than him, enough so that he could slither inside and possibly stay in. But that was not what interested him.

The contraption, despite its size, was a full foot off the ground. It was flying.

“This is… well,” the animal friend started. “It’s one of the messenger barges. They’ve invented this, a long, long time ago, to make sending commands from the other villages to this village easier. In the summer, I’d have to fly this back to get new messages. Yes, I can use this. And I 60

can take anyone with me, but I haven’t, so far.”

The dragon’s eyes became even mistier as he heard the words. He understood them, alright. He did not care if the animal friend could see him cry. No tears poured down his face, yes, but his eyes became very wet, which was the closest thing a dragon could express that particular expression.

The friend did not notice, or perhaps pretended to not notice.

“Would you like to come with me, tomorrow?” It stretched out its hand, as if offering him a piece of fox meat.

The dragon stretched his neck towards its animal friend. Oh, to see the sky and the trees as his siblings did!

“Yes, please,” he replied.

In the shadows of the olden wood, beneath a sky starting to give way to the sun, they both understood. And they would both fly in the morning.

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No Gold Can Stay AB E L I N K

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n their first meeting she told Mel to call her Dr. Joy, or just Joy. But Mel only called her ‘doctor’ as she did with others. For almost a month of sessions, Mel might have joked at some point that the only joy the doctor gave her was her name, and even that she refused to accept.

“Mel, do you want to talk about it now?”

She ignored the question and kept staring at the window with a view of the electrical lines. She didn’t know when she could talk about it again. She did once, for the first time and probably the last, to the police in a windowless room. She trusted them with everything. But she felt betrayed when they turned her words against her and when they claimed that she was alone the whole time. Alone? How could she be alone? That was what the investigations found out, the police said. If there’s one thing to learn after everything, it was that they had their own version of the truth, far from what she thought was tangible and real.

“Have I told you about that time in the cemetery?” Mel asked the doctor who shook her head. “Well, that time when Linda told me she’s going to run away.”

“Go on.”

Mel smiled as she remembered all of it – climbing over the graves, lying on their backs in the grass, looking at the bleeding sky beyond the branches of mango trees, and the fruity smell of her sister’s shampoo.

“I asked her if she thinks we’d be buried there,” Mel continued, “and she said, ‘Hell, no.’”

Everything was golden that afternoon; that was the lasting impression. The leaves on the trees, their tiny white blouses, the hem of their skirts brushing through grass – all gold. It’s as if the sun knew it was its last setting, so might as well burst with all the light it possessed.

Mel wished they could only live in that afternoon. But she knew better.

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Linda was seventeen at the time, the age when real life would soon begin, or so the magazines stashed under their bed told them. Mel was twelve – snotty boys turned into unrequited loves and hips started expanding.

The two made a perfect pair of opposites. Linda, the wild, beautiful older sister, while Mel, the book smart, awkward, scrawny little one.

“You’ll soon outgrow that,” Linda assured her, certain of the future. “Why don’t you start putting on makeup and dressing up more?” Linda said, as she sat in front of the mirror, painting her lips red, beauty products scattered at her feet. Mel giggled.

Mel spent way too much time memorizing formulas and historical dates to be bothered with anything. Her life was all about school. Her only goal, it seemed, was to get the highest grades and ace the exams.

Looking at it now, she wasn’t even sure what it was for. Though perhaps at the time, she enjoyed her parents’ attention whenever she became top of the class.

Once, Mel told the doctor how Linda was the black sheep, much to their mother’s annoyance. She used to go home past midnight, flunk her subjects and repeat a year in school, cut her hair short and dye it fiery red or some other crazy color. “Strangely, though,” Mel said, “our parents never seemed to be bothered by it. They never . . . said anything. It’s like she was –” Mel paused to think. “– invisible.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“I don’t know . . . There’s never a competition between us, if that’s what you think,” Mel answered. “We’re each other’s best friend.”

There’s not a day that the sisters didn’t walk home together from school. One would always wait for the other. And along the way, they made detours to several spots around town – the convenience store near their house where they ate popsicles, the shell of a building that used

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to be an animal feed store, and of course, there was the cemetery in the outskirts.

That afternoon, they went to the cemetery as usual, just the two of them. They walked past the graves to a grass field and chose a vacant spot where they could lie on their backs.

“Well, there’s more space for dead people,” Linda said.

“Do you think we’ll be buried here?” Mel replied.

Linda popped a cigarette to her mouth, lit it up, and took a drag. As she breathed out the smoke, she replied, “Hell, no.”

And Mel believed her. She believed anything Linda said. She might be smarter at school but her older sister knew much more about everything else. And just like any good fortuneteller, whatever she said that would happen would happen.

For a time only the leaves and the smoke from Linda’s cigarette danced in the wind. All else was motionless. Mel squinted at the sun and wiped away the sweat on her brows. She then looked at her sister beside her. The light had blocked Linda’s face, and for a second, Mel’s heart skipped a beat in panic. She couldn’t see her eyes, her nose, her lips. She reached out for Linda’s hand and held it with dear life.

Linda held back. When Mel looked at her sister long enough, her eyes adjusted to the light and Linda’s face started to form again. She then saw that the rise and fall of her sister’s chest coincide with hers.

Right then she knew that Linda’s breath was also her own, her pain was her own, and her needs and dreams were also hers to yearn for.

Linda put out the cigarette on the grass and rolled to her side to face Mel. “I’m going to run away on my birthday,” Linda whispered even

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though she knew no one else was around.

“What?”

“I’m running away.”

“Are you joking?”

Linda shook her head.

Mel squinted back at the sun. The harsh light hurt her eyes so much it brought her to tears.

“What about Mike?” Mel asked.

“What about him?”

“Aren’t you going to marry him?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Don’t you love him?”

Linda laughed so hard her eyes teared up as well.

“What about –” Mel stopped herself. Instead, “Why?” Laughter subsided. “You know how much I hate this town.”

“And mama and papa?”

“I hate them, too,” Linda said as she brushed off ashes from her shirt.

“They’re both pathetic. One pretends it’s a perfect world while the other is a pig.”

Mel knew to ask no more than that. She waited for some kind of explanation but even Linda turned quiet. Little by little, the sun hid beyond the clouds, and the golden light that earlier wrapped them was

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PHOTO BY N I C H O L F R ANC I S ANDU YAN

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dying. But before the dark settled in, Linda tightened her grip on Mel’s hand and whispered, “You know that we’ll never separate.”

“But you’re going to run away . . . without me.”

“I’m with you, you’re with me, no matter what, okay?”

“Can I go with you?”

“No. It’s something I have to do on my own.”

Dr. Joy asked if Mel knew about her sister’s drug abuse.

“Funny, the other doctors asked if I use the drugs myself. I mean, I’m way too young for that, right?” Mel replied.

The doctor just shrugged her shoulders.

“But I knew about Linda.”

It was always before bedtime that Linda would line up rows of white powder on a lime notebook and snort each row. As with many things that Linda did, Mel only stood back to watch. After snorting, Linda would turn off the lights and both of them would lie awake for a while.

Sometimes Linda would talk about all sorts of nonsense, like how she could swallow up the stars and just throw up little pieces for everyone to chew on. This made Mel cover her mouth with a pillow to muffle up the laughter.

On the days leading to her eighteenth birthday, Linda stopped doing it. Though, there were still packets of the white powder found in her bag.

“I guess she had to save up money, you know, for her escape,” Mel told the doctor.

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“So you think she sold those?”

“Maybe,” Mel replied, “she’d sell everything she could for money, really. And I think her boyfriend helped her.”

Then Mel added like an afterthought, “I also did.”

“Helped her? How?” “I’d sell some of her things to my classmates. Clothes, makeup. And most of them were new, with the tags still on and everything. I think she stole them, really. And then I’d sell them much cheaper.”

By the end of the month, the sisters saved up enough for Linda to last a week on the road. Though, Mel didn’t exactly know how much.

She was never told where the money was hidden. Linda would always make her leave the room before transferring it from her pockets to a container. Whenever she’s alone in the room, Mel would poke at every possible hiding spot – in the closet flooded with unfolded clothes, in drawers littered with used up bottles of hairspray, or even in plain sight, in the surfaces where old trinkets and stuffed toys were gathering dust.

But Linda changed its location all the time.

“Why would you hide it from me?” Mel told her sister, “I helped earn the money.”

“Shut up, okay? I’m hiding it from our parents, not from you.”

“But I won’t tell on you. Where?”

“Just trust me, okay?”

One night, a couple of months later, Linda at last told her where she hid it.

Mel was already sound asleep when Linda shook her awake. It took a few more nudges before Mel opened her eyes. She rubbed them and 68

was about to ask Linda what’s wrong when she noticed a tall, dark figure walking towards their bed. Her eyes were yet to adjust to the darkness so she only saw a shadow.

“Get out of the room,” Linda whispered.

At first Mel thought that Linda was speaking to the shadow. But it was her that she was ordering to get out.

“Get out, Mel.” Mel ran to the door left ajar, avoiding the shadow on the way. When she was out of the room, the door closed and she heard the soft click of the lock. She knocked a few times and pressed her ear to the door but heard almost nothing. She only heard the wind, as if a hollow room waited beyond the door.

Mel saw that the door to her parents’ room was opened. She went inside and with the yellowish glow coming from the window saw that her mother was sleeping, alone in bed, hand dangling at the edge, as if lifeless except for her snores.

“Mama?”

She tiptoed towards the bed in the darkness. “Mama?” she called out again, this time a bit louder, a bit desperate. Then she nudged her mother’s shoulder but she wouldn’t wake up. She lifted one hand resting on her chest and let it fall limp on the sheets. She was still asleep.

Mel was shaking as she went outside and walked to the living room sofa. It was still around midnight, and the dark invited imaginings of evil that her age had yet to grasp. Perhaps she passed out because she suddenly woke up in the sofa, the sky outside now tinted with the blue of dawn. She went back to the room, the door no longer locked, and saw her sister naked in bed. She was beautiful but it was also a frightening sight.

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“Who do you think was that shadow?” the doctor asked.

Mel fell silent and stared at the window again. Not a moment longer, Mel cried, and the doctor said, “It’s alright.”

Forcing a smile, Mel said, “Well, that night, Linda showed me where the box was. Under the bed! Of all places!”

As calm as the dawn was, Linda said to Mel, “Just move the magazines around and you’ll find the box. It’s black.”

“Linda?”

“What?”

“You’re naked.”

Linda looked at herself and then pulled the sheets to cover her body.

“Under the bed,” Linda said when Mel stared at her for too long.

Mel crouched down and searched for the box. She saw Linda’s clothes strewn all over but she shoved it away and continued searching.

When she found the box, she took it out and placed it beside Linda.

“Now, let’s count,” Linda said.

The amount of money more than doubled from the previous months.

A few days more and it would be her birthday.

“What were your parents like, Mel?” Dr. Joy asked.

Mel replied, sort of like in a trance, “You know I had a dream once.”

Dr. Joy, sensing that her patient might be dodging the question, went along and asked, “What sort of dream?”

“Linda was standing at the top of a building. A really tall building.

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And she had a blank look on her face,” Mel said. “I wasn’t saying anything, I was just looking at her. And then she said, not to me but, like, only to herself – ‘It has come to this – sex became an itch to scratch, perfection, a delusion, and happiness, death.’”

“Do you understand what that means?”

“I don’t know. After saying that, she just jumped. And I just watched her as if I wasn’t surprised.”

Both of them fell silent. Mel saw her sister’s face in her mind, as blank as a cloudless sky. After a while, she said, in an unusual chirpiness, “Anyway, my parents were good to me. Mama would reward me with things every time I win something, and papa would hug me and carry me around the house in his arms. Mama would cook chicken and if papa’s got the time, he would take us to places. We were happy.” Her eyes sparkled over the memory.

“How about Linda? Where does she fit into all this?” Dr. Joy asked.

Words escaped her lips before she could even consider the thought, “She didn’t fit in at all.” Mel bit her tongue in regret.

But then she added, “To put it simply, if I only saw what was good in our parents, she only saw what was bad.”

It was beyond Mel’s comprehension how Linda could hate them so much. Linda told her how their mother had always lived in a lie, ignoring what was wrong for the sake of a picture-perfect family. And that their father, instead of being the protector, became the captor. Then she would add, “No wonder they’re still together.”

Mel asked her sister what she meant by all that, to which the only reply was, “Sooner or later you may or may not know. Either way,

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you’ll live.” Mel kept asking her but Linda seemed resolved not to tell.

Thinking that one day her sister would explain it all, Mel waited.

“How about your grandmother? What do you know about her?” Dr. Joy also asked.

“Where is she now?”

“You’ll see her soon. But right now, I need you to tell me about her.”

“I don’t know her at all. We’ve only met once or twice.”

“And when was that?”

“Before Linda’s birthday,” Mel replied, “I slept in the bus on the way there.”

It was early in the morning, not even entirely dawn, when the sisters boarded the bus to go to where their grandma lived. It was Linda’s idea to go.

“How about school?” Mel asked her sister.

“There’s more to life than school.”

“Where are we going? Will we be back?”

“Mel, did you know you have a grandma?” came Linda’s reply.

Mel shook her head and at once, readied herself, overcame with curiosity. She knew she must have had grandparents but it somehow skipped her mind that they were actually alive.

“How’d you know?” Mel asked.

“Someone called. It was a long time ago, really. When I asked who she was, she just sobbed on the phone. Then she asked how her daughter had been blah, blah, blah. I put two and two together, you know. Then I 72

asked for her address. And now we’re going there.”

In between slumber, eyes droopy with sleep, Mel looked out at the bus window, the scenery changing from valleys pelted with sugarcane, to pine trees fencing the highway, to mountain tops getting closer and closer, close enough for them to reach. The air also got cold and Linda gave Mel her red sweater. “We’re almost there,” she said as she pulled the sweater to Mel’s waist.

When they reached the town market, the sisters got off the bus. It was still a weekday but people scampered around, vendors screamed of fresh vegetables, luring in customers to their rickety stalls, and the smell of fish and raw meat from the mongers and butchers permeated the air.

“Don’t let go of my hand,” Linda told Mel, as it was easy for her to get lost in the chaos.

Linda asked around where she could find the address scribbled in a piece of paper she was holding. Answers varied, most of them doubtful.

They approached the tricycle terminal and asked one of the drivers about the address.

“I could take you there,” the driver said.

He might have been a good man but Linda was suspicious of him.

Everyone looked suspicious to her now. She declined and walked around some more, asking more people where she could find grandma’s house.

Another tricycle driver offered to take them to the address. Mel was tired and hungry, Linda deterred, and so they got on.

The ride was close to an hour. Mel once again fell asleep on the way, lulled by the fresh air coming in from all directions, but Linda stayed alert. They arrived at a village with a few nipa huts scattered about. The driver stopped the tricycle to ask a woman lounging outside a sari-sari store about where a Martina lived. The woman asked why and Linda answered that she’s her grandmother. Upon hearing that, the woman

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perked up and instantly pointed towards a house at her far left. The driver took them to the house and Linda woke Mel up.

Linda knocked a few times, her knock creating a rift in the silence of the sleepy village. The onlooker at the store observed without reservation. The tricycle driver, who parked near the store, also watched.

The door opened and a wrinkly face emerged. She looked just like their mother, only older.

“Are you –?” the woman asked.

Perhaps Linda also looked like her mother, though years younger.

She nodded.

“You’ve grown!”

“I did,” Linda said with a smile. She didn’t remember who this woman was, she could be just a stranger, but Linda embraced her and, for a while, felt inexplicably safe in her arms.

“We talked about the past more than we did of the present or the future,” Mel said. “Grandma was waiting for her daughter – our mother – to come around and realize she’s making a mistake by staying with papa.”

“Why would it be a mistake to stay with him?”

“It just is.”

“Tell me.”

Enough time had passed for Mel to accept things as they were. But time was also cruel as it led her into conclusions that would sound absurd many years ago. She answered, “She’s afraid.”

“Who is?”

“Mama.”

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“Of what?”

“Blood.”

“What is it exactly, Mel?” Only silence.

Dr. Joy stopped taking notes and took off her glasses. She looked at Mel and said, “I know you’re reluctant to talk, Mel. But let go, okay? No one’s going to hurt you again.”

Mel gave her a tiny crack of smile and a shy nod. The session was over for the day.

Midnight, Linda turned eighteen. After a long day of bus rides and nostalgia, Mel was dog tired. She slept on Linda’s lap with her arms wrapped around her waist. Tomorrow, she’d be gone, off to somewhere far, and Mel wanted to hold on to her for as long as she could, to hold on to her pain, to her sadness. Linda’s caresses lingered in her dreams.

Her voice echoed, singing to the music of rain pit-pattering on the roof.

“What happened that day?” Dr. Joy asked.

“I just fell asleep and woke up,” Mel replied, “I went out and . . . mama’s on the floor, papa’s face down on his plate at the table.”

That was true based on the police reports included in her patient’s thin dossier. But something was also amiss in her statement. And Dr. Joy provoked Mel’s memory to remember the crucial missing piece, “But you weren’t asleep the whole time, were you?”

“I was.”

“And there’s not a single trace of Linda anywhere.”

“I wasn’t alone!” shouted Mel, “She existed!”

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“Mel, listen,” Dr. Joy said. And Mel thought, there’s that mockery in the doctor’s voice that the others also used when talking to her.

“Listen –” the doctor said, also hushing up Mel who was now red in the face and sobbing, “I know Linda existed. But you have always been an only child.”

Mel could taste it again – betrayal – in the mouth.

“Do you think Linda did whatever happened to your parents?” the doctor continued. “Was it Linda who bought a pack of rat poison every week at the hardware store?”

Mel covered her face, and in surrender, mumbled, “I don’t know.”

“Try to remember, Mel.” In the heat of emotion, a mental picture of the town hardware store flashed. Then Mel said, “I might’ve done it. I might’ve went to the hardware store. I might’ve helped her.”

Dr. Joy took Mel’s hands in hers and told her as she always did, “It’s okay.” This time, though, Mel’s hands were unresponsive, cold, as if belonging to a dead person, but also wet with tears.

Mel said, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything.”

When Mel woke up that day, Linda was but a crease on the sheets.

Her mess were everywhere in the room, but they somehow ceased to be hers overnight. Mel went out, headed to the kitchen, and saw what she saw. Her mother’s mouth hanged open, might have been taken in by surprise, white foam pooled around it and tiny drops of saliva dripped.

It was difficult to see her father’s expression, what with his face covered with rice that by now had lost its steam. She did not want to admit it but she was too disgusted to come near. Instead, she called out for Linda.

She then waited on the sofa, for rescue, for Linda, for whatever, and just

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PH O TO BY N I C H O L FR ANC I S ANDU YAN

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stared at the off-white ceiling of their house.

A tiny voice inside her head said, “Go. Fly. You are free now.” But her body seemed to have taken root to the house, same as the corpses that were rooted to the floor or to a dining chair. It must’ve been days before there was a faint knock and a frail voice outside. Quick on her feet, Mel opened the door to see her grandmother, dressed in a pressed blouse and skirt, looking fine like it was a Sunday.

“How old am I?” Mel asked Dr. Joy some days later. “I can’t seem to remember. Am I already thirteen?”

She asked because that morning, as she was lining up with the others to take their meds, she saw her reflection on the glass window of the nurse’s station, and noticed how old she looked. She also noticed how much she resembled her sister, Linda, except for the fact that the person she saw on the glass had long, dark hair as well as sharper cheekbones and much thinner frame.

“How old do you think you are now?” Dr. Joy asked.

“Old,” Mel answered with a little laugh.

At bedtime, Mel went to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror. The nurse on duty stood on guard just outside the door. Mel used to not care too much about her looks so she rarely stayed long in front of the mirror. But now she looked at herself in every angle, spotting resemblances between her face and Linda’s that was recorded only in memory. It was uncanny how she looked so much like her. The nurse knocked on the door to check if she’s still fine.

“I’ll be out in a moment,” Mel said.

She opened the faucet and leaned in closer to the mirror. Her eyes only an inch away from her reflection. The running water muted her whisper, “We’ll never separate, okay? No matter what, I’m with you.”

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Si Christian sa Araw ng Kalayaan GL E N JED E . D E SCU T I D O

A

ndito pa rin kayo nakatutok sa numero unong radio station ng bansa, 99.8 Boom Radioooow!

Ilang oras na lang mga parekoy at ipagdiriwang na naman ng buong bansa ang kalayaang ipinaglaban ng ating mga bayani! Pero bago yaaaan, ay rumelaks muna tayo ngayong gabi! At dahil diyan heto si….

Hininaan ko ang radyo at itinuloy ang pagmamaneho. Medyo matumal na ang mga pasahero kaya mahirap nang mag-Uber sa ganitong oras. Malalim na ang gabi. Pagod na rin ang mga kamay ko sa pag-iikot ng manibela. Nangangatog na rin ang mga paa ko.

Kung gaano kadilim ang mga opisina sa isang gusali ay ganoon naman kakulay at kalakas ang ilaw sa isang inuman sa tapat ng kanto.

Maririnig mo ang mga ingay na galing sa mikropono ng isang lasing.

“Uy mga ulol “Ipeber” na yan! Kanta ko yan!”

“Iiiiiiip-eber you’re in my arms agen, dis time al hold you much better…”

May mga maaliwalas na kalsada, meron ding ubod ng sikip dahil sa mga nagmamadaling mga trak, may masasayang bar at mayroon ding malulungkot na convenience store. Ganito palagi ang ganap pagpatak ng alas onse tuwing biyernes.

Sa huling pagpihit ko ng aking manibela upang lumiko, nakita ko siya. Pagod. Nag-hihintay. Walang magawa sa buhay. Kinakagat ang mga kuko sa daliri upang mapigilang umiyak.

Matagal niya nang hilig kagatin yang mga kuko niya. Tuwing naiinis o naiiyak kung hindi yang mga kuko niya ang pagdidiskitahan niya, ako.

Naalala ko noong bumagsak siya dati sa isang quiz namin, ibinili ko siya ng paborito niyang chicharon ngunit mukhang mas malutong yata ang kuko niya noong araw na ‘yon. Bawat kagat sa chicharon, sarap.

Ako ang bumili, ako rin ang umubos.

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Itinigil ko ang sasakyan sa harap niya, binuksan ko ang katapat na pinto sabay sabi, “Sumakay ka na, mukhang paubos na yang mga daliri mo.”

Kung nagdalawang isip ba ako sa ginawa ko, wala na akong pakialam basta sigurado akong huli na ’to. 96 ang Trigonometry ko dati, pero tatlong taon akong tanga dahil lang sa pag-ibig na ‘yan. Nakakailan na ding sequel ang Fast and the Furious pero “One Last Ride” pa rin. Di naman siguro ganoon kasakit kung isa pa diba?

“Sakay na nga sabi.” Pagpupumilit ko.

Una niyang ipinasok ang mga gamit niya bago tuluyang makaupo sa front seat.

“Oh, kumusta?”

“Salamat ha.”

Sabay naming sinabi. Natameme ako.

Parang may nag-iba. Sa pagsara niya ng pinto dalawa ang nangyari.

1.) Wala nang may nagsalita. 2.) Wala na ring may gumalaw. Masigabong five minutes din ang katahimikan na ‘yon. Pucha, awkward na nga, nauutot pa ko.

“Uy, sandali lang ha. May i-che-check lang ako sa labas.” Palusot ko.

Nagpakalayo-layo ako ng konti. Ang dami kong di mapigilan: yung antok ko, yung utot ko, yung pagod ko. Mabigat. Nakailang inhaleexhale, nagpalabas din ako ng hangin sa katawan. Nakapitong jumping jacks din, kasi aminin ko man o hindi sa lahat ng hindi ko kayang pigilan yung feelings ko pa rin ang pinakamatindi.

Pasimple akong bumalik sa sasakyan na parang walang nangyari.

Isinuot ko ang seatbelt ko, pinihit ang susi, huminga ng malalim at pinaandar ang radyo. Awitin ni Willie Revillame ang tumutugtog, kaya 80

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pinatay ko ulit ito.

“Bitter mo ah,” patawa niyang sabi.

“Di ah, pangit lang talaga yung tugtog. Bakit? Fan ka ba ni kuya wils? Nabigyan ka na ba niya ng jacket?” pabiro kong sinagot.

Natawa kaming dalawa. Umapak na ako sa gas para kahit wala mang umusad sa pagitan naming dalawa ay may patutunguhan naman ang sasakyang ‘to. Tahimik na ang daanan.

“Umutot ka kanina no?” tanong niya.

Nagulat ako. Naramdaman ko ang pagpatak ng pawis ko kahit na nakafull yung aircon, napansin ko ring medyo namula ako pagtingin ko sa salamin.

“HOY! SO UMUTOT KA NGA?!” sigaw niya na may halong tawang sobrang lakas din.

“Di kaya.”

“Sus, sa akin ka pa talaga nahiya eh nakikisakay lang naman ako sa kotse mo. Hoy Christian, ang tagal na nating magkaibigan, akala mo di ko alam yang mga pinag-gagagawa mo? ” “Oo na po, umutot na. Kamusta naman po yung mga kuko sa daliri niyo? Kumpleto pa ba?” patawa kong tanong.

“Naman. Unli kaya ‘to,” may pagtitiwala niyang sagot.

Dalawang taon na din simula nang huli kaming nagkita. Graduation nun, nasa rooftop kami ng isang abandonadong building; paborito naming lugar yon, marami kasing mga tala. Inamin ko sa kanya na gusto ko siya, na kahit na pangalawa lang ako palagi sa lahat ng sinasalihan ko, sa kanya, feeling ko, panalo ako. Tinalikuran niya ako.

Walang usapan, walang closure, walang kami.

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“Saan ka ba papunta?” tanong ko.

“Kahit saan,” sagot niya habang nakatulala sa daan.

“Anong kahit saan? Magbabayad ka ba? Uber kaya to,” biro ko.

“Uber ka rin. Hindi naman nakaandar yang app mo,” patawa niyang sagot.

Nagpatuloy akong magmaneho. Nagulat ako nang mapatingin ako sa relo at nalamang ala una y media na ng madaling araw.

“Ikaw, saan ka ba papunta?” nagtatakang tanong niya.

“Sa’yo.”

“Halulululu, ulol.”

Sabay kaming nagtawanan. Sabay rin kaming tumigil. Awkward pa rin pala.

Malayo-layo at matagal-tagal na rin bago ko naisipang basagin ang katahimikan. Nararamdaman ko na ang bagong umaga. Alas tres na at mahaba pa rin naman ang kalsada.

“Kinakagat mo yung kuko mo kanina sa daan, bakit?” tanong ko.

Binuksan ko yung compartment, may baon kasi akong mikmik doon. Paborito naming dalawa yun dati. Binigyan ko siya. Pagkatapos ng dalawang hitit at isang ubo, sumunod ang mga luha niya.

“Dito na lang ako.”

“Sa gitna ng kawalan? Dito?” pagtatakang tanong ko.

“Chris, aalis na ko. Di na ko magtatagal” “Ano? Sandali nga lang.”

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“Maswerte akong makita ka ngayon sa hinaba-haba ng panahon, medyo nanghihinayang nga ako kasi hindi man lang kita hinanap sa loob ng dalawang taon. Matagal na. Gets mo na ‘to, di ko na kailangang sabihin pa,” paliwanag niya.

Nanlamig ang buong katawan ko. Hindi ko alam kung saan na nga ba siya papunta at kung bakit siya mawawala pero hindi tunog maganda ‘to.

“Sorry kung tinalikuran kita dati,” dugtong pa niya.

“Kahit kelan hindi mo naman naging kasalanan ang piliin ang iba.

Nagmamahal ka lang naman eh. Nagmamahal lang din naman ako.

Hindi kita ibaba dito.”

Nagpatuloy ako sa pagmamaneho. Pinaandar ko ang radyo at ipinokus ang mga nagluluhang mata sa daan.

“Chosero! Galing mo nang umarte ah!” paghanga niyang sinabi.

“Naman, laking Star Margarine yata ‘to,” pabiro kong sagot.

“Naku, di ka pa rin talaga nagbabago. Asar. Ganda nitong bagong raket mo ah, pa Uber-uber ka na lang.”

“Hindi naman tayo magkaibigan kung ‘di ako asar diba? ‘Tsaka iba ka rin kasi magpractice para sa audition mo eh, di pa talaga sapat yung kuko dapat pati location kuhang-kuha.”

“Siyempre, method acting yon,” sagot niya.

“Naku, baka mapagkamalan ka diyan at ma tokhang ka,” pabiro kong sabi.

Magaling na raw akong umarte ang hindi niya alam may hugot na kasama ‘yon. Naaalala ko pa noong unang audition niya para sa school play; ang OA umarte pero ang ganda niya pa rin. Hindi nga siya 84

nakuha pero nakuha niya naman ang puso ko. Alas sais na ng umaga nang mapagpasyahan niyang ibaba ko na siya sa studio kung saan siya mag-o-audition.

“Oh siya, dito,” sabi niya.

“Hanggang dito na lang.”

Ang matagal ko nang kinikimkim, hindi ko na naman nasabi.

Closure lang naman sana di ko pa magawa. Dalawang taong halaga ng lakas ng loob na naman ang nasayang ko; bagong araw na, dating gawi pa rin. Torpedo. Sa pagbaba niya sa sasakyan ko natanaw ko ang mga lumilipad na kalapating pinalaya. Damang-dama ang pagkalaya sa bawat hampas ng kanilang pakpak sa hangin.

Nakatutok pa rin kayo sa numero unong radio station ng bansa, 99.8 Boom Radioooow!

Maligayang araw ng kalayaan, listeners!

Pagod na rin siguro si Tadhana makipaglaro sa akin, ayaw na rin ni Universe. Papalayain ko na rin siguro sarili ko. Next Year.

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That Banned Incident on Tuesday Morn LY L E JO HN B AL AN A

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an you repeat that again, Mrs. Ingbert? Your life depends on it.

He… just flew, sir.

Flew? What do you mean, flew?

Flew. As in fly.

Did he flap his arms like wings, Mrs. Ingbert?

He didn’t. It was like someone was carrying him.

That’s ridiculous. So, he was slumped over?

No, sir. It was like he was standing, only that an invisible hand was carrying him away from the tower room window where you locked him in.

You mean to tell me that I’ve spent nearly sixty thousand gold bars to build the most secure tower in the world just to be thwarted by a flying man?

It appears so, sir.

Guard, hit her.

Augh! Arrrgh.

That’s what you get for lying, Mrs. Ingbert.

It’s true, sir, it’s true!

You’ll get more than a bruise for your lying troubles. I hate, hate, hate liars, and I deal with them as the state wills it.

The state has no will but your own, sir.

There we are. A rebel, revealed.

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I only say what’s on your propaganda posters, sir.

But not to my face. Never to my face, Mrs. Ingbert. You really are testing the limits decorum puts on my mercy.

I… what should I say?

How you convinced almost everyone here to see what you’ve seen.

That a man, my most hated rival, just flew straight out of his cell like a bird. Without flapping, even.

I can do no such thing, sir.

Then it’ll be the axe for your neck, Mrs. Ingbert. Unless you tell me the truth.

That is the whole truth, sir.

You expect me to believe it?

There is no other way, sir, it seems.

You all are in this together, I’m sure. You and the rest of them. You’re playing a darn trick on me, based on some obscure holiday, or maybe some religious edict. Alright, Robert, show me where you’re hiding him.

He doesn’t know anything, sir. No one knows anything else except what they’ve told you.

Is that so, Mrs. Ingbert? Pray tell me why.

Because… because…

Be honest with me.

You told me not to be.

I said no such thing! Now tell me your opinion most mattering to

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me, or else I will drive this dagger up your neck.

You’re a tyrant, sir. A tyrant through and through.

I believe that was the point of my rule.

You’re a very bad tyrant, sir. You don’t let us learn much, yet you still mistrust us.

Now that is an insult to me, Mrs. Ingbert. Or perhaps an insult to my subjects, but I only care about the former. How am I a bad tyrant?

You haven’t unseated me. The people love me!

They don’t love you all, sir. Your supporters drown out the rest. You keep feeding them lies. Some say you deserve the seat because of your superior intelligence. Others say it was because of your swift, forthright methods that culled the corruption of the nobles.

That simply means I deserve the throne, don’t you think, Mrs. Ingbert?

You promised us freedom, sir. Change.

Indeed I did. The throne changed hands. Your perception of it changed hands. That’s all the change that matters. I’ll sit here for as long as I can, and no one can stop me. Not even if he theoretically flew away, which he didn’t, you filthy lying rebel. How did you smuggle him out?

I did not, sir. He flew out of his own devices.

Devices?

His own will, sir, under his own power.

Suppose, let us put it. You’re not lying. Everyone else is not lying.

The man flew out. My greatest political opponent, just straight out of the window. How could he have done it? Did he bribe gravity? Was his head

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too big for its own good?

I have no idea, sir. Perhaps it’s on one of the books he’s read.

Yes, perhaps it was the books. Which, you’ve indirectly admitted in this very moment, you’ve been smuggling him.

I… You’re a stupid creature. Stupid creatures like you help me stay in power. Helpless, unthinking. You’re like vermin that pad out my feet.

You’re even more stupid if you think you’ll stay up there forever.

I prefer to stay up here as long as I live, Mrs. Ingbert. Which you won’t.

What would you mean by that, sir?

Your stupidity cannot comprehend implications, no? I’m going to throw you out of this very tower room.

No, sir. Please, no, sir. I’m afraid of heights.

Too bad. Robert, help me. Robert, don’t— stop refusing— darn you!

You— I killed him, yes. He’s stupid, just like you. And he’s dead, much like you will be. Goodbye, filthy rebel. …. ….

What the— I… Did she just fly away from me? Did she just fly?

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COMICS

ART BY S O P H I A B I L B AO

BY DAL E G U G U DAN

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BY K EANU J O S EP H R AFI L

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SCRIBES & SCRIBBLERS

I L LUSTR ATION C R EDI TS SOPHIA BIL BAO – 5, 6, 7, 13, 20 CEDR I C L ANC E MI L I TAR – 1, 4, 9, 14, 17, 19 AIKO NEMENZO – 18, 21, 22, 26, 27 KAR EN PANGANIBAN – 2, 3, 12, 2 4 SETH PUL L ONA – 23, 25, 28 K EANU J OSEPH R AF IL – 8, 10, 11, 15, 16

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1. Chad Martin Natividad Harpy Eagle (Punctatus Greyskulbus) – The Punctatus Greyskulbus used to be just an ordinary-looking eagle, short and stout, long before it underwent heavy militarized training which stretched its muscles and bones. Now, it poses to be one of the largest eagles in the avian world with claws as big as that of a grizzly bear. To signify the completion of this rigid training and to espouse authority, a crown-like feather formation sits atop its head. Despite this fearful outward stance, it mainly uses its power to help flightless birds transport to places they want to go to.

2. Bes Philippine Frogmouth (Marlborochostumus Septimus) – This nocturnal bird is often seen outside bars and clubs, feeding on cigarette butts and vomit of drunk partygoers. Little is known about Marlborochostumus Septimus aside from its peculiar eating habit. But due to this, they reek of Friday nights and bad decisions.

3. Deo Flores Ancient Sewer Fly (Dipteraflorensis Herbu) – During the giant mutiny made by the rats (Talesus Ovzasuer) against the Sewer Government, almost all signs of life below the ground was obliterated. Even the Dipteraflorensis Herbu, the formidable and humongous ancestor of the House Fly, was not spared. Little is known regarding their habits, but a prominent and memorable detail was their distinct smell. Like that of the most expensive perfume you can get your hands on. A paradox amidst its stinky habitat.

4. Christiana Claudia Gancayco Thestral (Clauduelis Gancaluco) – This magical beast is often found loitering in museums and libraries. Once a majestic stallion, it was the muse of many artists, inspiring several works of art, and even presumably assumed to have started the Renaissance itself. Until one day, it came upon a pile of papers filled with printed symbols. Having been thought by a man named Hamlet to read, it deciphered the phrase “Extra, extra” on the first page. After perusing the entire material, its whole appearance suddenly malformed and its fine complexion, corrupted. The Clauduelis Gancaluco was never seen for a long time since. It appears before humans who can perform a soprano.

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5. AbeLink Metallic-winged Sunbird (Abes Linutalli) – The Abes Linutallis are known in the avian world as the most compelling storytellers. They lure in birds of different kinds and make them sit for hours beside them to listen to their long, drawn-out narratives— but only to eat them for prey in the end.

6. Ian Kristoffer Ga Ibong Adarna (Batonarda Slaysus) – A vibrant bird that can put people to sleep then turn them to stone. It also has the ability to cure specific ailments. Its saliva became a vital chemical that led to the discovery of anesthesia. They say both Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin secretly had Ibong Adarnas for pets.

7. Karen Panganiban Kingfisher (Karea Pamamamoo) – They are skilled avian with a talent for catching tiny fish. Centuries ago, they used to be royal fisherman in a kingdom in Asia, possibly Korea, that eventually reincarnated into birds.

8. Cedric Lance Militar Mockingjay (Lanths Minor) – The Minors are very picky eaters, choosing only the finest of insects. Maybe because of this, they don’t live very long.

When they die, a masterpiece is born.

9. Hezron Pios Cattle Egret (Bubulcus Popios) – The Bubulcus Popios have a disgust for nouns. The enjoy ruining posters and pestering humans with large coldblooded nouns printed on their shirts. However, they fixate on the idea of adjectives. They love approaching those humans with natural creases on their skin, especially by their eyes, sitting in parks and sprinkling breadcrumbs at their feet. As opposed to other humans, these one’s have better feathers, plus, a lot of succulent adjectives flow from their lips, often in reminiscence, they think to themselves.

10. Seth Pullona Scarab (Gliphydrakin) – Despite them being a popular plaything for adventurous kids, the Gliphydrakin are not safe to be with as when they cling to your skin, they could effectively overwrite your personality to 105

suit theirs: often dark and twisted. This might explain why some kids are prone to naughty deeds.

11. Aiko Yorac Nemenzo Dragon (Officio Aikinesis) – A large-winged beast of the north. It loves to sing and perform harmless tricks in the sky, and is generally peaceful.

Large as it is, its voice resembles a squeaking mouse.

12. Ma. Angelica Ape Birds of Paradise (Parashooktica Desus) – The Parashooktica Desus is known for its colorful feathers and curly tail, which, among its female counterparts, are definitely an asset to attract the males. The bird also has a unique mating dance which involves jiggling their behind in what is now popularly called the “twerking” motion.

13. Aldrin Casinas Pelican (Karea Pamamamoo) – These birds have photographic memory. No matter how vast the sea may be, they remember which specific spots yield the most fish, where water is most shallow, where fishes swim closest to the surface. Due to this, they are disgusted and are aggressive at people who bear irregular patterns on their clothes. Has a world-record for the most ear-splitting cry in the avian world.

14. Iris Rivera Flamingo (Prisma Riverdali) – An animal often remembered for their unusually perfect gait. It can choose to be bisexual. A monogamous samesex couple was recorded to have adopted a chick after it was rejected by its straight parents in Edinburgh Zoo. Only animal that practices slavery, having once subjugated a tourist.

15. Sarah Lorabelle Esguerra Olive-capper flowerpecker (Belhore Guernica) – This bird loves to eat sweets, and often seen visiting berry bushes for an afternoon snack. They sleep deeply and, while awake, are energetic and flittery. They also have pleasant voices and are even rumored to smell nice, complementing their finely-stacked feathers. Also, it is capable, and has been accused, to have pecked several humans to death, sometimes altogether.

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16. Jowan Dave Guides Flying Squirrel (Twicean Guidesus) – These fluffy grey-brown Twicean Guidesus are masterful escape artists and renowned physicists in the animal kingdom. What allows them to glide considerable distances, aside from the special membrane between their front and back legs, is their knack for complex calculations of projectile motions.

17. Daphne Tanya Molenaar Dragonfly (Daphythya Molenaris) – Like a dragon, it can breathe fire, has scales, and can perform impressive feats in the air. Like a fly, it has multiple eyes, flutters insensibly, and pesters random people. As both, it is perpetually stuck in a state of midlife crisis. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it has a lifespan of five minutes, so it can’t possibly be that bad.

18. Lex Diwa Aloro Saw-whet Owl (Lexia Alostra) – This tiny owl with equally large head and piercing eyes is a vicious creature of the night. Its distinct physical attributes says more than you think: the large head affirms its cunningness and stealth for prey and those huge eyes supposedly works like a 360-degree camera. It is unforgiving when out for a hunt, yet is very silent when it does so. Lexia Alostra inhabits a nest made of its prey’s’ skin.

19. Starlene Portillo Pudgy Bird (Staritta Portalli) – Their cute and cuddly facade is deceitful.

The Staritta Portalli, often seen in pairs, is very territorial about their spouses. They are dangerous when separated. Scientists also found it hard to explain why they gravitate toward taxis when they copulate.

20. Nichol Francis Anduyan Chimaera (Pakdew Huan) – A mix of a dragon, lion, goat and snake. The Chimaera talks among its several heads, often in violent dispute. This is so because the many heads have discordant notions of the world, and they couldn’t agree on one thing. They also have varied personalities that just do not mesh well together. For example, the brashness and arrogance of the lion is always in conflict with the quiet and gentleness of the goat.

Even the cunning snake, or the tail, rarely lives and almost always loses in battle. Even in their dream-state they cannot escape argument.

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21. Kirk Sta. Ana Bisaya na Manok (Kirkulus Anacephalus ) – The Anacephalus is a local bird popular among the Visayan community. It is typically found under the possession of natives. Sometimes they loiter around the natives backyard, other times, they’re floating in a warm bowl of that native’s soup.

22. Joshua Guanco Archer’s Buzzard (Butteyo Archerragoza) – In the olden times, they were great hunting companions. Agile and deadly, they could take down a leopard by targeting the critical spots of its body. They also love to transfer pieces of their prey and drop them in little hoops of tangled leaves. A modern sport was inspired by them (as well as a form of torture).

23. Jed Descutido Bakunawa (Jedarius Deskhalil) – Archeologists have made significant findings regarding the nature of Jedarius Deskhalil that debunk the many myths it is known for. The Bakunawa does not actually swallow the moon during eclipse. Instead, it only licks its milky surface as one would a lollipop, thus explaining why the natural satellite only momentarily disappears.

24. Lyle Balana Headless Chicken (Lyrus Balanada) – The Lyrus Balanda used to have a head. One day, as a farmer’s son travelled to the city to apply for a school, he brought the chicken with him. The fowl escaped its basket and somehow made its way to that school’s ancient abandoned library. The chicken, being especially spoken to daily by the boy was able to decipher some of the text in the books growing up. Soon, weeks became months became years. When the library was reopened years later, construction workers were surprised to see frighteningly accurate replicas of several world wonders erected out of books. Footprints of a chicken pervaded the dusty surface, but it was never found. It’s most recent sighting was onboard ISS in outer space.

25. RJ Ledesma (Wild) Mother Geese (Maternus Ornithuarjay) – This type of bird only falls in love with birds of its own gender. Because it could not procreate, it adopts younglings who separated from their mothers and raise them by 108

itself. These include but are not limited to pups, piglets, kittens, calves, cubs, goslings and billies. It has also raised human infants, being literate in several tongues of creatures, and raised them quite effectively. They pay tribute to their one and only mother through the works of art they produce. Popular examples include A mother’s prayer, L’innocence, and Born This Way. 26. Roma Jane Hechanova Bleeding Heart Dove (Romaria Hechdata) – Romaria Hechdatas are easily distinguishable by the mark on their chests that appears to be an open wound. They are spiteful of lovers and chirp aggressively when a couple passes by. In the past, one of their kind pierced its heart through a thorn in order for its blood to seep in through a tree and catalyze the irregular bloom of a red rose. A girl promised a boy a dance if he got her a red rose. In the end, the girl denied the boy regardless, leaving the bird’s death in vain.

27. Keanu Joseph Rafil Falcon (Keanis Bokjooki) – The Keanis have poor eyesight and often gets trapped in bushes and other people’s abodes. They are fair chirpers and have a knack for travelling. Despite their intimidating look, they can be gentle, though can also be rowdy sometimes. Has trouble looking for a long-term partner, so it engages in casual, one-afternoon sex from time to time.

28. Sophia Bilbao Phoenix (Stanvern Besgonde) – A Stanvern Besgonde is born every time a couple divorces. They are speculated to be the flame or the love the couple once had, and has then lost its home as an offshoot of that demolished relationship. They no sooner die, lacking meaning in their lives. They are eventually reborn whenever a young pair who are couples recognize love for the first time then die again when the couple breaks up. Maybe due to this, they have really short lifespans.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

RJ Ledesma, for being a reliable and supportive co-pilot throughout the flight, in birdsong and in storm. Never could have manned it all the way without you.

Jowan Dave Guides, for your ingenuity that led to the birth of this folio’s amazing cover and trademark thematic tattoo. And for expertly engineering the top-notch blueprints that led to this flying literary castle.

Jhon Aldrin Casinas, for professionally taking photos of a warm-blooded, flapping hand in its not-so-natural habitat, as well several other photos in this folio.

Nichol Francis Anduyan, for being alert, ready to point and shoot right after a disturbed nap, just to capture a rare moment right outside the window, or anything else for that purpose, utilized in this folio.

All illustrators in the Spectrum, together with Keanu Rafil, for being cooperative, accessible, and willing, in lending your virtuoso talents to meticulously sketch every flying creature exhibited in this folio’s mini bird book (Scribes and Scribblers). You’re all very gifted and amazing.

To our parents and loved ones, for believing your darlings when they said they were going to personally design, and actually create, an airport in school.

And to all our contributors, for sharing the dogfights, carrier pigeon letters, and flight records you’ve all personally experienced and flown.

Thank you for teaching our young aviators that if you’re gonna soar, do it boldly, personally, and with class, cause no one’s gonna pilot your singlecockpit aircraft for you.

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THES PECTRUM FOUNDED 1956

facebook.com/thespectrumusls · thespectrum.usls@gmail.com Member Alliance of Lasallian Campus Journalists and Advisers and College Editors Guild of the Philippines RJ Nichole L. Ledesma EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Daphne Tanya L. Molenaar ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Robert H. Jerge III MANAGING EDITOR

Andrea Nicole C. Farol

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR NEWSPAPER EDITOR Christiana Claudia G. Gancayco MAGAZINE EDITOR Lex Diwa P. Aloro ASST. MAGAZINE EDITOR Katherine E. Co ONLINE EDITOR David Willem L. Molenaar ASST. ONLINE EDITOR Joshua Martin P. Guanco LITERARY EDITOR Chad Martin Z. Natividad PHOTOS AND VIDEOS EDITOR Jhon Aldrin M. Casinas ASST. PHOTOS AND VIDEOS EDITOR Margaret E. Yusay LAYOUT AND GRAPHICS E DITOR Jowan Dave G. Guides

NEWSPAPER WRITERS

Maria Angelica M. Ape Starlene Joy B. Portillo Ian Kristoffer V. Ga Iris Denise N. Rivera MAGAZINE WRITERS

Lyle John L. Balana Hezron G. Pios ONLINE WRITERS

Charlene Marie D. Lim Maria Angeline M. Mayor Ida Sarena M. Gabaya Danielle Emmie L. Villaera FILIPINO WRITER

Ma. Lore P. Prado SPORTS WRITERS

Gian Von J. Caberte Stephine Paul M. Dungca WEB ADMINISTRATOR

Keanu Kent B. Gargar

PHOTOJOURNALISTS

Ma. Henna A. Pilla Nichol Francis T. Anduyan Ariana L. Chua VIDEOGRAPHERS

Neil Angelo F. Pelongco Kyle Jyrax d. Sevilla LAYOUT AND GRAPHICS ARTISTS

Glen Jed J. Descutido Shara Mae L. Pelayo ILLUSTRATORS

Katrina Y. Nemenzo Karen D. Panganiban Seth V. Pullona Sophia Inez A. Bilbao Cedric Lance M. Militar EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Keanu Joseph P. Rafil PUBLICATION MODERATOR

Jean Lee C. Patindol

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