WHAT I REMEMBER: A FICTIOAUTOBIOGRAPHY

II

Me: Manong, ania answer na ti 6x7?

Brother 1: 42.

Brother 2: (Ania met, dayta lang, han mo pay amu, tabbed!

Brother 1: Bay-am man ni ading mo.

Brother 2: Isu nga tabbed ka ta tumaninnag ka gamin idi, hek!

Translation: Somebody was having a hard time answering her Math assignment and the brother had a theory why she's so dumb.

Same, same- The two big boys were rumbling, running, playing. She can only walk. They climb the muddy stairs going up then jump down. They laugh and shriek and do it again. She wants to do it too, but they stop her and make her sit on the wooden chair. She wants to do it too.

Another bigger boy calls the boys and shows them a big spider crawling from a match box. The boys scramble to it. The boy tells them to make it fight with another kid, the boys agree.

Let's, let's, and they run leaving the two year old alone.

She walks to the thing they have been climbing. She struggles up. Success. Another clamber.Success.And another. And another till she reaches the top. She looks down, not a very pleasing sight. No, she is not going to jump. She tries to crawl down, she can't. She remembers how the older boys jumped. So she jumped, but she does not know how and she tumbled down, down, down.

Thud! Thud! Thud! She screams.

A big man, naked way up rushes, picks her up and runs to the street.

She squirms, she screams, and calls out, Mama, Mama! And the man cooes her and shouts for help. A jeepney passes, stops and the man rushes to it, the child in his arms, shrieking in pain.