Manila
was bad enough. By 8 am in the morning the fake city, “wet freshness”
that somehow seeped in overnight
evaporated like the tail end of a
sweet dream.
The hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops
sizzled and glistened, and the dry cindery dust blew into my eyes down
to my throat. It was a queer and sultry afternoon and I am here,
trapped betweenNo. 1 reading the maddening Chemistry manuscript (that I have to deal with, even my heart is trying to say stop!) andNo.
2 being confine in a claustrophobic room, packed with wolves and
hyenas. (Lol. Kidding editorial pips, that comes with a wide grin…)Despite
of the artificial coldness that numbs my senses, I feel that I’m bound
to face a “compulsory execution” just by
staring at the Chemistry
symbols and all the numbers in between. The idea of being “executed”
makes me sick, plus I have no choice but to bear the equally irritating
glances, like a goggle-eyed headline staring at me on every street
corner. Dealing with those stares day by day makes me feel suffocated.Hell,
I wasn''t steering anything, not even myself! I just bumped from the
office to work and home and from home to somewhere else and then home
again, then office-home; like a numb trolleybus.I guess I should
have been excited the way most of the other women were, but I couldn’t
get myself to react. I felt very still and empty, you know, the way the
eyes of a tornado moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding
hullabaloo.Write your abstract here.