A child with umbilical cord suddenly appeared and talked to Juan.
Why are you here, Juan? Juan looked at the child and wondered why it was in this infernal place.
Perhaps you were wondering why I am here. I have not done anything wrong. My fault was being the fruit of illicit affairs. Look at my umbilical cord. It was untimely dislodged from my mother's womb. I wanted to grow up and live a boy's life like normal kids but my mother, a single parent, was forced by her parents to abort me.
Juan remained attentive and pitied the damned child.
So why are you here? asked Juan. The child looked at Juan.
At the clinic where they aborted me, I heard an old attendant telling the doctor to have me baptized, the least they could do before burying me secretly in the cemetery in the wee hours of the night, but the chubby doctor said it was too risky for it would invite suspicion and he would lose his license and even land in jail.
The old attendant tried to baptize me but the doctor stopped her, for I was dead anyway. Old folks believe that children who died become little angles or cherubs. But look at me. Do I look like an angel?
Juan remained motionless. He pitied the child and did not know that men were heartless as to kill unborn children.
Juan had heard about young girls in their community who aborted their babies because they were too young to be mothers, or could not feed new mouth or shelter it in their shanty whose seams were bursting with malnourished souls.
So, I'm much better than this boy who did not enjoy the freedom of run and tumble boyhood, swimming in flooded canal, climbing trees, stealing fruits. I pity him, thought Juan. But can baptism save him from this internal place? He wondered.
He remembered his life in the province before they moved out to the big city. Though his father worked in an American sewing machine company as a manager, he had no salary and subsisted on commission for every machine or needle sold. In spite of this, his father respected the Americans and did never utter a negative word against them.
Every time an American came to audit his father, not a single needle or screw would be missing. All repossessed machines were properly recorded and sold to the public at lower prices. One of Juan's father's agents would buy the machines repainted and sold them as brand new, but Juan's father did not imitate the practice, for as a manager he had sworn selfless loyalty to the company just like his father whom he succeeded after his death during the liberation time, dying of heart attack when the Americans bombed their town.
For his honesty and dedication, the father would receive commendations and some gifts from the company, like a cheap white cloth embroidered with "S" representing the company's logo.
But for five decades Juan's father kept the cloth like a purple heart medal of valor. And when Juan asked his father who gave it to him, he said Mr. Darling gave it to me, and I will treasure it forever.
Juan and his mother and siblings lived in penury until his father's service was terminated because of poor sales of sewing machines. This was the time when the people preferred ready to wear pants and dresses rather than customized apparels.
It was not the time when water was bottled and sold as purified or distilled water, for most people in the hinterland drew their drinking water from springs or wells, while those who lived in the crowded town proper like Juan's family depended on tapped water or even spilled water from busted pipe.
When Juan's father died, they moved out to a squatter area near a junk site. Juan became a scavenger of discarded materials.
