The Adventures of James Maglinaw and the Tree with the Door

Stephen Ramirez

Stephen liked to draw. He liked it so much that he majored at it at Silliman. No one really had any idea that he did though. You see, Stephen did not at all dress or acted like your stereotypical artist-kin. Of course you shouldn't be judging people by the way they act or how they dress, but subconsciously, people have their own pigeon-hole ideas of what an artist should and usually looks like – and Stephen would have never struck you as an artist.

He was this lean athletically built boy with hair that fell just above his cheeks that he'd tuck behind his ears. He was the mestizo kind of handsome, being a Ramirez and all.

Yes, Stephen Ramirez, of the Ramirez clan of Dumaguete City. An old family whose fortune began in the sugar plantations, like much of the alta sociedads of the island of Negros. Now, though, you can't really say they hold the same social footing.

Their family status had gone down-hill all due to some great grand uncle who squandered the kayamanan through gambling – fighting cocks, to be precise, or so they say. Stephen's branch of the family though did just fine. He was lucky to have been born into that branch who put a high premium on education. His grandfather was a lawyer, and so are is his two uncles. His dad never made it to the bar examinations though. His dad and mother died when both were in their senior year in law school; his mother was seven months pregnant with him, he of course, survived. Since then he has lived with his grandfather and two uncles.

Sure he had a sad early life being orphaned and all, but now, you wouldn't really be able to tell. He was this popular guy – very handsome, relatively rich, always smiling and plays varsity soccer, basketball and lawn tennis; definitely not what a typical brooding, paint laden, Fine Arts student would look like. He was very much your typical popular kid on the outside.

Yet, he was a Fine Arts student majoring in Painting. One who took his studies very seriously and much like any other day, before he becomes Mr. Popularity, Stephen was a painter. And paint he did, in that small room –an old abandoned piano room, room 3 – which none of the other students go to because it was too dreary, Stephen laid out his pallet and a couple of tubes of oil paint and set up his canvass on the easel.

He had been itching to paint the entire week since the city was put under the extended enhanced quarantine due to the virus. He had no idea what he wanted to paint, but he just had this itch- sort of a nagging feeling.

He prepped his canvass with gesso.