Downpour On My Soul

Strange. I lost six pounds and I didn’t know it. Well, I certainly don’t look or feel lighter, but I actually am. I thought I misread the supermarket’s weighing scale at first, but I checked my weight again on our old scale and the result’s the same. Maybe it’s caused by over-exertion, maybe I’ve been trying to balance my diet without really paying attention, I’m not really sure. But I ain’t complaining.

Weather’s lovely, at least now that it’s not raining too hard. All those talks of the country undergoing a lengthy drought, well, there’s none of that in the last two days. Okay, rain’s falling down again as I type this. Cool weather’s just perfect for scandalous intimacy.

But that’s just me. Taste and be tasted.

One With the Mud

The family used to live in a part of Metro Manila that was susceptible to heavy flooding when I was a kid. There was one time that one big flood forced us to move to another town (it would be years before it was officially a city), where we stayed for some time, until our home area was livable again. I remember alighting from a tall multi-wheeler truck, grudgingly, my Mom handing me to an uncle, who carried me down to dry ground. Our temporary home was a spacious enough place (mostly because I was a kid); we lived for many weeks in the upper floor of a hardware store that was run by relatives. I liked it there, I have happy and innocent memories about that temporary shelter, but I soon forgot about it when we went back to start anew in our old place.

It would be years before I’d encounter a flood again. I was studying at a flood-prone Manila university, but I didn’t really know about the fact until one rainy August noon after Anatomy class, during my freshman year. The jeep to Lawton, where South-bound airconditioned buses were waiting for passengers, crawled for over an hour, if I remember correctly. A classmate and I took the same jeep, and by the time we reached the station, floodwater had risen up to my shins, but there was no choice but to brave the cold, icky pond that rose in front of the Post Office.

We tried not to think about it, and it would be quite some time before the bus would find itself on the road, as vehicles, fast getting literally swamped, were barely moving. The bus stopped every few meters, which meant that some of the bored passengers, students sitting near us, would eventually introduce themselves to their seatmates. It was Noah's fricking Ark. People were getting on and off the bus, which got weird at one point.

There was a guy, probably aged mid- to late-thirties in casual clothes, impatient like every one else, who kept standing up to look out the windshield for vehicular movement. I got a little frantic when I, along with another guy, noticed that a gun was tucked at his waist, during the few seconds that the lower part of his shirt moved upwards when he stood up. Good thing he left soon, with his plastic bag of presumably rented laserdiscs, without starting a commotion. Was he a cop, a mugger, a gun-toting barangay tanod? We talked about it with our seatmates, but later forgot about that too. The bus moved again, a few meters every ten to fifteen minutes, it seemed.

Well, my classmate and I were able to fend off hunger by eating some hardboiled eggs we bought from a vendor, who probably wished he cooked more to accomodate that long line of hungry commuters. I don’t remember if we drank anything, though. It was dark soon, and people just dozed off because we really didn’t have anything else to do. My feet didn’t feel like they waded in cold filthy water many hours before. Just felt freezing, so I blanketed myself with my jacket. Some time later, I’d be really thankful that I pee standing up, and it felt like heaven to finally relieve myself nearby. It’s gross; I won’t even describe the specifics, at least not today.

I got home several hours later (past 3 a.m.!), umbrella soaked, clothes drenched and eager to bathe in rubbing alcohol. Many years later, my skin still crawls when I recall that ordeal.