Currently In Manila

small towner goes to the big city

Listening to: Sick of Being Told by Grace VanderWaal

Day 6 now in Manila. The city is as bleak as a Tim Burton movie. Dark skies and dark rain and somber people all around. The rain makes everyone's head bow down and look contemplative. 

I came here because father wanted me to. There was a prospect of a job. He’s too old to travel on his own now. So since I’m the useless child, he asked for me to come. 

The flight coming here wasn’t easy either. It was one of the roughest flights I've experienced. We had to stay airborne for half an hour due to the landing traffic at the airport. But we made an okay touchdown and busied ourselves with getting a taxi and going to our apartment. 

Father usually engages in talks with the taxi drivers, talking about his two favorite subjects: politics and the government. I had to endure both my father and the taxi driver singing their praises to the current president, the son of a dictator. 

“I have no problems with the president being a dictator. What else must a leader do but dictate?” the taxi driver said.

“Ferdinand Marcos was the best leader this country has ever had,” my father said. I was damp, I was cold, and now I was saddened and depressed that I had to listen to forty-five minutes of these poor brainwashed people celebrating the corrupt. 

It feels strange to be sleeping in the apartment I've considered my home for a decade. The curtains and walls seemed to look as dirty as my time living here. Yet no memory or warmth echoed back to me as I tiptoed to my past room on the second floor. 

A month ago, my father talked to some people. These people had the idea of building a project in Small Town, and they needed people to oversee it. Father asked that I be interviewed. They agreed since they wanted an overseer to be Muslim. But this point person is always away on some errand and kept pushing the schedule. When last father contacted him, he said he was doing work in Bulacan and would be happy to meet us if father could provide him P4000.00 for his travels to Manila. This led me to believe that my father was being scammed. There's still no sign or news of him to this day. 

Not wanting for this trip to become a total waste, I contacted my friends so we could catch up. And we had a great deal to catch up because all of them I had not physically seen or touched since the pandemic began in 2020.

I met a couple of my writing friends for Samgyupsal. I met a couple more, my college friends. One of them was married and expecting a child. The other, like me, is looking for a job. I couldn't meet everyone I wanted to meet because of a lack of money. 

It was actually the one great reason why I didn't want to be here. I had just successfully raised my beloved store from near bankruptcy. To spend the money I saved from the store on anything else would mean losing the store's and my safety net, which would have resulted in another exhausting do-over should the store fall again. I confronted my mother about it. She gave me a few thousand to get by. 

A few days ago, I decided to go down and eat the food I usually ate when last I lived here. In Kumori Bakery, I got my favorite chicken sausage wrapped in a bun. In Pezzo Pizza, I ordered a slice of Supremo. And I also bought my favorite milky buko juice from that shop, whose name I can never really remember. I went to National Bookstore to browse and buy a pen. And in just that one walk lasting only half an hour, I had already spent close to P600.00. I could have easily stretched 600 to three days in Small Town. Burned to a crisp here in 30 minutes. To save my money and quiet down the depression, I wandered around Manila for some photowalking, weather permitting. 

Walking around, taking photos, I can tell you now that I no longer feel the jolt of the capital that excited me in the past. Most of my usual haunts have either been out of business or are currently renovated. I also feel a sort of displacement. I never felt I belonged in Small Town, and yet I now don't feel anything towards Manila. I think I'm refusing to feel anything, securing myself with numbness, because my stay here is only temporary. And to feel joy would only make the pain of separation worse when I finally leave. The feeling is like that of deciding whether or not to forgive a cheating lover. 

Some Photos I Took

Big Bad Wolf 2024

look at all these rich fucks lol

school kid in fresh clothes begging for coins on the highway

lunch time for the mango vendor

journal

pedicabs

Father is still clinging on to the hope of meeting this person. And I mostly stay in my room and watch the ceiling. 

Thank you for reading