On Saturday Mornings and Sad Stories

   Yesterday's earthquake was long, the kind that you could use to show your Math teacher how minutes could be longer than a day, than a lifetime even. For the whole duration, I could not think of anything else but dying, and how painful this could be. 

   As my gaze fixed on the shaking glass of water on my desk, and the rest of my senses on the strange feeling of weightlessness, I had to tell myself that it was going to stop soon.  But it went on longer than the usual tremors I experience at work. Being on the 10th floor of a 30-story building did not help either. It's difficult to decide whether I should go down or up or just look for a sturdy table where I could crouch underneath. No food, no water, nothing that will help me survive should I get trapped.

   I thought, this is it. In a few minutes, I will be able to know what lies beyond existence.

   So, I was thinking about what is after death, and the irritating reality about how the country lags so far behind Japan in terms of buildings being able to withstand strong earthquakes. I am not even sure if architects and engineers in the country take into account the fact that the Philippines is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and therefore, geology, among other things should be an integral part of constructing buildings.

   From there, my thoughts flit to the memories of my dog, Zev, who recently died because of an accident. She was on her way home, crossing the national road, when a car bumped into her. What is sadder is she had already been dead for 6 hours when I found out she had passed away. It was the very first thing I learned after getting up from bed to get breakfast. The village guard told me that she was still able to run from the road to the guard house, trying so very hard to get home. He actually saw her fall dead just a few meters away from him.
I wonder if that is what I would become, a sad story one Saturday morning. 

Zevrana, a few days old. She died 9 months later, 5 times bigger than this pup.

   I noticed that my desk was still moving on its own. The glass, half-filled with water, still shook. This is really it. I thought, this cannot be. This is not how I imagined myself exiting from the world. I still have a lot of things to tell my parents. I have not told my father how I broke the tip of the wild boar's tooth he gave me. I had it with me, then, but I thought it would not help me in any way, as the tip is chipped off. I should have gone home last Christmas to ask my Grandpa to perform the ritual of letting it suck blood from a rooster (Whatever that means). I looked at my palm questioningly. I believed I would live for very long. This line right over here supposedly says so. 

   Then the movement stopped.

   I stared at the glass for a minute or so, and it was very still. It was over! I was ready to feel relieved, but I stopped myself just before I could start. Relief is useless. This, now, is merely a consequence of what happened, and what did not. 

   I turned to my laptop instead.

Inbox (35).

   Those few minutes just got me busier for the rest of my day. I hoped the mails were nothing complicated, so I could go home in four hours. 

Hello, Vera!

Based on the initial report that IT sent me,...