🏆 LONGLIST - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022
Vincent Pareja longs for the day when his family won't worry about money and his siblings can go to school without skipping a meal. With his choices limited and with the wage, however small, promises to help h...
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I couldn't get the image of the weeping woman out of my head.
I sighed and rested my head against the backrest of my office chair which creaked under my weight. The computer's dim screen showed me my reflection. I almost didn't recognize the man in it—distraught face, eyebrows drawn together in contemplation, and lips pursed in a thin line and curved downward in a frown. That wasn't me. It was almost tempting to claim that.
What happened on that assignment outside the camp was something I still couldn't get a grip on. Why would we need a group when we're going to arrest a single rebel? Why would Sir Danny order me to falsify the reports? Why would they arrest a woman and claim she's a rebel? I mean, anyone could be a rebel but something just didn't align and I still haven't figured it out.
The front page of an issue from the Daily Express—the only newspaper company allowed to operate after most of the major outlets were taken over by the military—fluttered with the stray breeze flitting through the opened windows in the office. Sweat ran down the side of my head as usual and my breath was thick against the humidity. It's been years since I got down from Baguio but I wasn't still used to the heat in Manila.
I kissed my teeth and shot up, my hands swiping the newspaper from its place atop my desk. My eyes skimmed the headlines, the columns of text spouting praises to the President and his exploits, and the black and white pictures telling a summary nothing else could. None of them mentioned the apprehended rebel. None of them bore the likeness of the woman we arrested on that assignment.
I couldn't stop myself from asking: what happened to her?
Jessa's the lawyer so I wasn't really sure what's bound to happen. Do they get a chance to hire their own lawyers and go to trial? Maybe I should ask her about that. She did say she had represented some cases already. Should I call her? Would the camp mind the bill when I use the office landline?
My finger picked at the name plate stuck to the right chest of my uniform. Capt. Vincent Pareja, it said. I worked hard for this plate, for the office I enjoy, and for the privilege I could get because of my job. Somehow, instead of bringing pride and happiness in my gut, all it did was introduce dread and revulsion.
Even my rank wasn't awarded to me because I was good at my job. I was just a deskie tasked with occasional patrol rounds to catch people wandering the streets past curfew and send them home. As always, I was in charge of formulating reports from those patrols and from the mundane assignments those lower than me were assigned to. Sometimes, I get assigned to training the new meat in our camp but that's only when the Major was in the right mood.
Most often, I was in this office, sorting documents, reviewing inventory of anything and everything, and attending to the finances of the camp. And after four years—the maximum requirement of being a candidate for promotion—of doing the same thing over again, I was able to reach the next rung in the ladder. For a while, it was good to be in charge of a whole office and have Lieutenants do the filing and accounting for me but it also detached me from what's really happening with the records and reports.
