When Love Becomes an Instinct

Chapter Five

            “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Laoag International Airport. Local time is 6:07 PM and the temperature is 28 degrees Celsius.

            For your safety and comfort…”

           

            At last! She was home!

            It was a miracle really; not that she was home and not that the plane landed safely- she never doubted the Almighty’s power to grant her a safe trip. She thought it a miracle rather that she did not feel even a bit dizzy or disoriented or jet lagged.

            Yes. That was a miracle for her. She never thought she would get over that feeling. She hated that feeling. She just could not help but feel like she was in a roller coaster ride which- mind you- she never rode in her entire life.

            And she would not dare. She swore she would not dare.

            And then she smiled, thinking of that very first time she boarded a plane. Alone. For the very first time in her life. She was going to Michigan to continue mastering her studies. That was where she felt absolutely free. She reveled at the different scent of the air, the different people all of whom she realized were more than welcoming even though their overly liberated state always made her slightly queasy and out of place. All in all, it was still an undeniably new experience. To be alone in a world she did not know how went about. Although of course, there was where she knew Dianne. And that was where they had built a very good foundation for their friendship.

            And then after her studies, she went to Italy where she tried to work on the management of Touche Cruises through the phone. Yes. Through the phone. Not because she was powerful enough to turn her father’s employees around her finger, but because she wanted to stay in Italy for as long as she could. She wanted to get lost in the beauty of Emilia-Romagna and the one-hour drive to Tuscany, to inhale the scent of the olive trees, to pick ripe grapes from its vines, to be a frustrated painter as she gazed around her for inspiration. She wanted to walk bare-footed on the fields of olive near the cottage-style apartment she leased from a good Italian couple living a few blocks away from what she now considered her home. She wanted all of these.

            But she figured she could not. Not entirely. Maybe just a little. For even in Italy, her “father’s big boats” haunted her. The boats, she thought, were all over the world.

            But she was glad to be back. She was glad to be home at last! Philippines was her home no matter how she wanted so much to vomit outside the doors of the government officials’ homes or to spit on their faces, she still was glad to be back.

            Damn! Screw the government!

            She did not want to think of the government once she set foot to her homeland, but really, who could not help but just mourn the way the government was being held captive on the hands of these supposed to be leaders of the country.

            Furthermore, she could not help but just curse the people who asked the Prophet Samuel for a king. He was right. Who would want someone to rule over them like they were slaves and he a tyrant? It was insane really.

            “We remind you to please wait until you are inside the terminal to use any electronic devices or to smoke in the designated areas.”

            Oh but at least- she thought, wanting to laugh at where her thoughts led her to- if Samuel did not approve of the people’s request of wanting a king, she would not know of King Saul who was the father of Jonathan.