Ordinary World: Stories from Worlds Wide and Small

The Bus Ride Home (Excerpts)

Lina left the church's office with a spring in her step. It was nearly ten in the evening, the smog had now descended on the city blanketing it in the world's common sin of pollution – which for her was apt, as sin is very much like the haze, also man-made, covering one's soul preventing one from seeing the light that emanates from the heavens above. The city's denizens scrambled throughout the streets of the metropolis like ants headed home – either into the arms of sleep or into the numerous dens of transgressions. Darkness itself, Satan's favorite tool, now enveloped the small pinpricks of light that valiantly resisted the falling of night.

But Lina did not take heed of these trivial matters. All that mattered to her heart was the fact that she had had a good day. She had just turned over nearly five thousand pesos to the church secretary-treasurer who then gave her a thousand pesos as her commission for raising such a prodigious amount for God. Lina knew that such commissions only increased once you have reached a certain number of years riding busses and raising money for God's work from world-weary lower middle-class travelers. Lina was good at doing that. Ever since she started jumping into busses and preaching the word of the Lord and asking her mostly silent listeners at the same time to open their hearts and donate to those who needed help, Lina's collections never went below three thousand pesos. She especially loved holidays because people were more generous. One time, she managed to raise a staggering ten thousand pesos. Even she couldn't believe she was able to do that and had had to count her collection three times and even then she still could not believe it. Her fundraising prowess was why her pastor, the Reverend Dennis Demigillo, had instructed his secretary-treasurer to increase Lina's commissions - from the usual 5%, she was bumped up to 10%. But when she started raking in more and more money, Reverend Demigillo finally gave her 20% and capped it at that. After all, the reverend explained to her, the 80% would still have to be divided among the church, the poor, and God. Lina remembered that because it was one of the few times that Reverend Demigillo actually touched her elbow while looking at her with those soulful eyes - eyes which she had often caught looking up and down her body - something which she actually enjoyed. The attention grounded her – it meant that she was still dealing with someone who has not lost touch with the world, and for her that was important because only someone who still had one foot on reality could actually do the work of God. Reverend Demigillo's touch had a fire to it, and Lina knew that despite his marriage, the reverend was just a man, and he had his needs. He, too, was prone to temptation - and she somehow knew that later on, when he was making love to his wife, he would be partly thinking of her. Most women would be disturbed by such thoughts. But Lina wasn't. She knew she had the goods - her previous boyfriend whose name she had banished to the dark corners of her mind had told her that much. He had ravished her and for those three years she wallowed in the pleasures of sin. She let him do whatever he had wanted to do to her body, just as she herself had done to him whatever she wanted. Just thinking of that former life gave her the shudders and a tingling in her nether regions which she banished immediately for fear that it would overcome her and force her to play the fiddle when she got home later – a practice which she had limited to twice a week now and she had had two fiddling sessions already this week.

Lina had not found any reason to need a man. Men were complications and the last thing she wanted in her life right now was a complication. For the moment, though, Lina was content watching the fires smolder in men's eyes when she passed by. Their looks reminded her that she was still desirable. She didn't even understand all these women who got offended when they got catcalled. For her, it was the ultimate compliment a woman could get from a male stranger. Still, the city was very much a different beast than the small town in the south where she had come from. There were times when she missed the familiarity and the safety of her small town. But after her conversion, after her rebirth, after she had been dunked by the reverend into the refreshing waters of another baptism, she knew that very much like Saul who had been blinded on the road to Damascus, she too must dedicate this portion of her life to making Jesus known to as many sinners as possible. People needed saving, even if they didn't know it. And Lina was determined to make it known to them how much impure they were in His eyes. For to do the Lord's work is an honorable thing, and doing the Lord's work allowed Him to look kindly on you once you face Him during Judgment Day. True, people had their beastly natures, but there was still something inside of them - a bird which needed to be released from its cage. All they needed to know what that the cage had always been opened, and all they had to do was to fly out.

As she walked past a sari-sari store, a few men drinking their usual gin bilog hooted at her and invited her to take a shot. She didn't know who they were, but she had seen them looking at her, their eyes filled with lust, whenever she passed by. This was despite the very conservative dress she wore every day. Thinking that she could at least put the fear of God in them, she went to them and began talking about God and passing out a few pamphlets among the stunned drinkers. She could see them visibly turn red as she spoke about the kingdom and the judgment that would soon come to everyone during the end of days and she urged them to go to church - if not her church, then their own churches where they would soon be bathed in God's forgiving waters. Although in her mind, Lina already believed that they were going to hell. Only people who followed her religion would be welcomed by God into Heaven. Everyone else was wrong when it came to religion. When she left them, they had visibly sobered up and were talking in hushed tones.