A scream ripped through the air then a loud shushing followed after, but it was too late. I was already roused – irritated at that – from my Sunday slumber. The noise emanated from a group of young children off to the mosque for the seventh day of Ramadan. Annoyingly, it was not your usual [...]
I felt like I was fasting, waking up early to observe Ramadhan. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t really get any sleep worrying over the thought of being at the back of the long queue outside the embassy. I was out of the house before the first sliver of light from the sun slipped through the [...]
Being on the road isn’t as romantic as what Jack Kerouac painted in his book. There’s nothing remotely romantic about being on the road in Manila and Jakarta unless you’re head over heels with the driver you’re with. Surviving these cities’ bumper-to-bumper traffic entails patience and positive energy to get through it. I’ve added a [...]
It was a brief visit to Singapore but this time there were no tears streaming down her face – she could care less what the passenger seated next to her thought of her – even before the plane touched the tarmac. This time she was wearing a smile. She was filled with excitement and anticipation, [...]
VIP – this acronym had me feeling like one indeed as batches of nurses sashayed in and out of my room. Changes in shifts, apparently, required them to do a proper handover, which meant entering my room and introducing themselves. That is, if there was one who could speak – would dare to speak – [...]
I hardly get any visitors except for the occasional invisible mailman who drops letters in the mail box addressed to the former resident of the bungalow. There’s the karang guni (rag and bone) lady that comes when I have a bag of empty plastic bottles to hand her. She sells them for a meager sum [...]
Getting out of the house to head to the countryside is a way to break the monotony of a routine, but traffic is a killer during the weekends in Bekasi. The next best thing to do is to get a good seat with a view at Starbucks and watch the world go by. The sole [...]
The concept was pretty beguiling especially as a way to end a hectic week. Somewhere deep within Galaxy area was an outdoor food place called Galaxy Food Center, which starts feeding hungry residents and whatnot at 7pm. What tickled my fancy was the thought that it was outdoors and having dinner. Christmas-like lights, but a [...]
Like clockwork, the first one arrives at the crack of dawn beating the first alarm setting on her Samsung EDGE. The sing-song call blasts through the air in the hynagogic neighbourhood soon to welcome Helios’ grand entrance and well-wishes of a new day. The simple melody wafts through the cool December morning, slipping through the [...]
Everyone in the group had a favourite word. It would roll off their tongues with ease, becoming their vocal IDs. One loved to say “Seriously” and its meaning depended on the arch of the eyebrow, the pursing of the lips or the spread of the lips. Another one loved to say “Hello” and the length [...]
rgarcellano
unheard