Chapter 2

1999, current year-

I woke to the sound of the birds chirping and wondered what got them so excited this early.

The dawn was breaking fast and remnants of fogs from the previous night lingered on the leaves of trees and grasses clinging hopelessly before the rays of the summer sun evaporated them.

I rose from the bed and tucked the sheets. I did a couple of push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups in my room. When I started sweating I put on my running shoes and headed downstairs.

Nana was in the kitchen smoking tobacco that's chopped and rolled in a green banana leaf resembling a pipe. She always wakes up at exactly 4:00 am in the morning. I thought maybe the birds bothered her too.

"Are you hungry?" She asked puffing rings of clear white smoke into the air.

"Nah..."

I bent down and retrieved the weights I hid under the sink. Tio Eddie, Nana's eldest used to own them. It could have passed as a hand-me-down item if not for a fact that he's long dead before any hand-me-down ceremony was ever made. Nana told me he liked to do weights too because it made him feel light-headed.

My Tias said I took after his physical features; body-build, pronounced jaw-line, curly hair dark as the evening sky, and a height taller than an average Filipino guy of my age. I can never tell though because when dada and her sons died, she buried them along with their photos.

I was pulling weights for an hour but I was still not close to feeling light-headed. I pulled-up some more until my muscles started feeling tingly and my chest was covered with sweat. I rest between sets to catch my breath.

Eastward, across the clear blue-sky, orange beams of light hinted an impending hot summer day.

The birds were done tormenting the woods with their noisy chorus and were heading east in a flock. I thought of flinging a stone at their trail so they would know that I was not impressed with their morning concert. But the thing about these birds was that they always come back to the same trees every night.

I ran across the fields and the breeze of the morning air felt cold as it touched my skin. I stopped at the edge of the cliff with both hands on my knees and I was panting. I looked at the city below. One by one cloud of smokes came out of the chimneys and automobiles started filling the streets. I fished out a cigarette from my pocket and took a long drag. I felt the smoke traveled down to my lungs and out again to the cold morning air.

"There light-headed..."

It was half-past the hour of six in the morning when I reached the house. Nana relinquished the kitchen and started doing the home chores upstairs.

A.M radio was on and the commentator was having an issue with the state of the country's democracy. He was half-way down working on his political tirades and barrage of curses against the president when I switched the radio to F.M.

It was too early for political drama.

The DJ on the F.M radio station was saying obvious things like "It's 6:30 in the morning, wake up you people!" He was speaking in-between the crescendo and the decrescendo of pumped-up pop music.

"It's 8th of June 1999, rise and shine!" He commanded and then he was at it again stating the obvious. "To the students out there brace yourselves, it's the first day of school from the summer break! Wake up! Rise and

shine."

I grieved from where I stood. The art of radio broadcasting really needed a revolution in this country.

Nana's head popped up from the stairs. She might have sensed my grief for the death of radio broadcasting. When it came to sensing grief of any sort, Nana's the right person for the job. The deaths in our family over the years had her earn a Ph.D. on that matter.

"Are you hungry?"

I thought for a moment if all the Nanas in the world always think their 17-year-old grandsons are always hungry.

"Kinda..."

"Well, I've already prepared breakfast. Help yourself." She replied and headed back to her dealings.

It has been 10 years since my father's death. I can barely remember his face in my memory. Nana did not really want to talk about the details involving her sons' death. All I was told and she told me that they were cursed and I'm fucked because the curse only took the males in the family.

It was a sexist curse. Maybe its conjurer was a female.

I really did not give a lot of thought about it. Someday we'll all be dead and nobody's getting out here alive. It was just a matter of time. It made no difference at all.

After I showered I changed in my room to my uniform and prepared to go to school. My freshly-ironed khaki pants and white polo hang in front of the mirror. Preparing my school uniform was one of Nana's early morning dealings and they were properly dealt with.

I slipped on my uniform and noticed the scar on my side. I got it when I was about twelve. I crashed my bicycle against the bamboo fence and its pointy edge skewered it. It bled a lot but I did not cry. I already told myself that I'm done crying when dad died. Well, at least not when someone's around.

I ran my index finger through the scar's dulled surface. The funny thing about scars is they won't let you remember how it hurt. There are scars that eventually fade through time and scars that would not. Scars remind us that life exists between hurting and healing and as long as you live you'll heal.

I did not die out of that bicycle crash though because death does not want to be cheated.