'Sometimes, life is a just but a bagful of peanuts'. kal b.ongtiu
'Hello? Grandpa passed away a couple of days ago and I frantically had to scramble every available contact I could muster just to trace you, she depressingly said over the phone. 'I know this sounds awkward for the both of us but you adored him as much as he loves you so I thought that it would be fitting for you to know firsthand of his passing. He also told me about your call while he was still in the hospital promising to visit him before he died and we know he was hopelessly waiting for you to do so. Please, I'm begging you, let us see him through his last journey in this life together just this once. He will be intered this coming Black Saturday and I really need you to be there. Please, I beg of you'.
*
'You should go, my dear', his wife said imploring as she was about to daub her face with a fingerful of those oleaginous night cream cluttered infront of her dresser mirror. 'He probably might be your real grandfather after all inspite of everything that came to pass between the truth of your existence and the rest of this vicious and unforgiving world. Anyway, you're free for the rest of the week and I know you'd kill for a fishing trip. Your son is offering a free ticket so pack up you things right away and I'll take you to the airport tomorrow.' Just one more thing though. Don't ever forget to bring those crunchy organic peanuts that we used to snip infront of the local mall everytime we took a vacation there before.' Don't bother to come back if you can't.
'Jesus!, you're not expecting again, are you?', he brusquely replied affright.
*
The only thing he remembered by the time the plane touched down on the stifling tarmac were the two caplets of painkillers he took for his throbbing headache and the half pack of cigarettes that the Custom's guys refused to hand over after the security check at the airport where he came from. He was still bleary and raving for an immediate nicotine fix after the fifty minute flight yet nowhere near was a street vendor in sight. 'This is going to be a very bad day for a start', he grumbled miserably as he lumbered down the rubber-inlaid steps of the wheeled and canopied staircase towards the airport's searing tarmac.
'Okay, I'll pay you fifty pesos when we reach the bus terminal but only and only if you could bum me a stick', he shouted haggling to the tricycle driver who was profusely sweating under his sleeveless shirt from the suffocating island heat of a midday sun. Momentarily disconcerted after traversing the flooded streets of the metropolis where he came from and being thrust suddenly into the roasting heat of the islands airport terminal, he anxiously lit the cigarette that was deftly flicked over merrily by the scheming trike driver. He knew that the fare was unreasonably expensive but he needed the puff and in less than three minutes his crisp fifty was gone along with the 'Yankee's' cap that the wily driver fancied in exchange for a pack of Phillip's.
The bus terminal was bare except for a twenty-seater passenger jeepney basking solely in the middle of an enclosing array of half-shuttered, plywood-planked store fronts indefensibly cowering under the blistering sun and partly shielded by military green tarpaulin sheets that bore the burden of the suffocating heat. There was nobody around, not even a single stray dog slobbering in the scorching sun, so he boarded the passenger jeep and patiently waited.
Twenty-five minutes had already gone by, the Oklahoma City Thunders outlasted the Sixers in three OT's, PSE was up five points from yesterdays monumental slump and at least seven cigarette stubs littered the skid- marked ground underneath the passenger jeep. It still wasn't moving.
'Aren't we supposed to be off by now?, he asked the jeepney driver who clearly had his fill judging from the hapless toothpick mercilessly snagged between his nicotine tainted front teeth. 'Not until we're full ,Sir', the guy stammered back slightly embarrassed as he whirled his head towards him uncomfortably hunkered down and perspiring heavily from the sweltering heat of the confining cab. An hour had already passed but there were still nobody boarding the passenger jeep other than the corpulent termagant by his side who was munching on something from a plastic bag and who occassionally bothered to feed the straggly little girl clinging all over her varicoused lap with bits of chip leftovers from her fat fingertips. The old couple up front were dozing languorously as if letting time run its idle course, the woman leaning confidently against the man's broad chest while his caloused hand protectively hang over her slender shoulders as if announcing to the whole indifferent world that she is still his, for the moment. He somehow knew that the old perky lady thought otherwise.
