A Flower So White

Day 13 of Lockdown

This morning I woke up with the familiar scent of flowers outside the window. They bloom at the onset of the humid season. Tiny buds accumulating like white specs in a sea of green. The quiet evening that passed seems to be of no difference with the revealing morning. It felt like nobody wants to make noise. Even the steps of few people on the street going around for their early task were muted. The newspaper boy doesn't come anymore, the street sweepers perhaps will make a shorter round. I was hoping the fish vendor will have mussels today, so I can cook it with ginger. Today I needed to hurry up to catch a shorter breadline for pandesal. Lockdown is almost in its second week now.

Coffee was bitter. I opened my lines to social media to know the latest. And as the cyber world presented itself to me, I was hoping something to cheer about. Nope. the virus rages on, the crown of thorns still stuck in in the head of humanity. Or is it not the sword of Damocles? I read somewhere that this should be just the prelude of our apocalypse.

A walk to the bakery, finally seeing something new in the community. Some youngsters with two adults put up a barricade of sorts last night. A dilapidated checkpoint or something. A lockdown within a lockdown? I asked whose idea was it. They owned the initiative and with pride, they spoke to me. I did not answer anymore, not a word. Two steps away from that barricade, I could not control whispering to myself -- "Mga uto-uto!"

"Singkwenta pesos", I indicated to the bakery seller. The breadline was shorter today. Social distancing and mask do prevent one from experiencing the horrific morning fumes of bad breath emanating from the bakery's varied customers. Perhaps a hygienic advantage. At the back of the line, somebody kept on shouting, asking many times: "May peanut butter pa ba?" The guy is a panic buyer. I wanted to silence him -- "Tangina marami pa... magtae ka na!" But I can't do that.

Going back, with the warm paper bag of bread in my hand I passed by "Checkpoint Charlie" again. Still, my mind rumbles looking at these young kids, "deranged". They might end up building "Gulags" or forced labor camps. A deep sigh and a look of disdain, I hurried back home.

From the gate I can see the Sampaguita flowers, the shrubs have been with us for almost 40 years, a lot of bittersweet memories come back with its scent-– Oh those rolled-up paper mimicking diplomas and that flower garlands of intense odor, you remember graduations. It was also that same intense scent that I recall my father lying dead inside a coffin, in the house. The smell of wakes, the smell of death.

"No not like this". At the breakfast table, it came to me; it should be all about life. Forty years of remembrance this flower brings, let it be of nicer things that will remind you of your place, of your home, and who you are.

This evening, I spent my time listening to the music of Maurice Ravel. I now and then looked outside the window, to that flower so white.

~Pasig City