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Behind the glass pane, a girl around my age sits smoking, staring at the cars passing by. Or somehow staring beyond the street. On her table, a glass of iced tea, an ash tray and a ream of cigarettes. She doesn’t have a bag nearby.

I qualify my time by the number of pages I read in the book I brought with me. I qualify her time by the sticks of cigarettes she smokes. Her iced tea has taken thirty pages from my book before it’s gotten half-empty.

Her gaze is empty. No excitement, worry, hesitations, urgency. Just as how my posture is, although I know my excitements, worries, hesitations and urgencies. I cannot find her a story.

Three famous schools in the city have concluded another school-year.

On my way to work, my phone sounded an alarm. When I thought it was a mundane message from my boss, it was a greeting from a good friend whom I last seen in December 2003. It made me smile in relief and grace. In response to the gesture, I sent a message to another good friend from my pr…

The more I go to places, the more I know names of streets and cities--when I get to picture the block behind the block I am in--the more the world becomes small. All seems simple and conquerable. Although the more you know, the more you have to know.

After almost ten years of not going there, I went to Divisoria again this morning with my mother and father. It looks and smells the same as Baclaran except for the horses and Chinese, and it's farther from home; it must also be a better place to shop as my parents prefer going there.

When I got there, I remembered. When we got to the narrow street that has a stall which sells nuts, I remembered going there when I was a kid with my cousins who lived in San Andres and Pandacan. It was there that my mother bought kasoy and Pili nuts. On the other block, a store which sells chocolates.

Divisoria was dirty, crowded and inconvenient; but we got out of it with lots of chocolates and I got two beautiful bags for Php500. My mother hag…