On Stringed Flowers and Early Christmas Phases
She sat on the last steps of the broken stairway. Her hair was frizzled all over her face with wisps like waves on a breezy shore of a nameless beach somewhere across the Pacific. She was barefooted and bruised all over where others were fresh and red with blood. Her clothes were grey from dirt and grime, torn and ripped on the sides where you could see her dark brown skin. On her left hand dangled stringed flowers common around the neck of hundreds of statues of Mary our Mother and her Son wrapped around her marble of a hand. But there's just a girl here, motherless and fatherless. She tiptoed her way through the crowd, offering her soiled fragile hand with cigarette burns up to the strangers passing by. She would smile, this girl of six or eight. And though broken and yellow were here teeth, it shone with hope for a someone who would stop for a while and fumble for coins in his or her pocket and buy her flowers. Flowers that smell of old ladies in sayas. Flowers that wither gracefully with time. I don't know how or why people mastered the art of being apathetic and overly indifferent. I don't know how people could not feel the least bit of heartache when they come across this little girl. My heart did shatter. And imagining that if I had a daughter like her, here outside where it was dark and cold, I would probably die of a heart attack. People even seem to repel themselves a few feet away as if she had a disease of some sort that was contagious and incurable. But poverty isn't infectious. She wasn't. She's just someone who has no slippers to keep her feet warm against the rock-strewn road. Just a someone who wears an oversized t-shirt meant for a man and not for a child (I would pretty much like to buy her a beautiful lace dress and a tiara that would go perfectly with her hair). She's someone with transparent eyes. With a story nobody wants to hear but apparently, they know very well. Oh yes, they do.
"Yes. I'm hungry for weeks and weeks now. My brothers and sisters are too. And a peso from you would mean much, if not, everything at all. Please spare me a time or two. I do not need to tell you why or how much it matters to me. You know I don't have four corners of solid brick and a roof above my head to keep me warm in the bitter night. I don't have a car to take me to my home and I don't even have a place to come home too. But I really don't mind. Just spare me a time or two and a peso from you, then I'd be off in the blue."
You see them in Taft, in Makati, near your subdivision, on the road, in Starbucks where you sit comfortably on the couches sipping on hot coffee. There, ten feet away wandering around, peddling for coins, for food, for a shelter just this day. And there they go again tomorrow, maybe days or years after this, we'll never know. What we do know is that there are thousands, maybe millions of people like this—like her. Thousands who live scraping every inch of redemption left in trashcans and dreams of a forgiving tomorrow. And here we are, pretending they don't exist. No, we aren't born sightless. But we choose to be the blind mice in society--maybe even worse. No, God didn't forsake them to be fed to the vultures. God didn't put an X mark over their names to deprive them of the blessings other people take for granted. God isn't playing favourites with us. It's just circumstance. It's just what life really is after you turn seventeen and you get to take in and taste a slice of the real world.
I saw them at the MRT station. Babies, children, teenagers, adults, old people curled up in the corner of the overpass. Did you see their bed? I did. I saw the overused piece of cardboard where they lay. Lifeless and invisible, as if they were part of the wallpaper. I caught sight of others who were too weak to even sit up. But they, with their remaining ounce of strength, extended their hands submissively to the rest of the world. I saw them rubbing their bare skin to keep themselves warm. I was cold as it is, with my jacket wrapped around me and my hands hidden in my pocket. How did they feel? They were what, wearing shorts? And what did the people scurrying hastily around me conceive when they witnessed this? Is that why they keep their heads low or their eyes distant? Oh, they don’t want their eyes to lock in with them? Why? They're no different from you and me. They're as human as we are. With the same blood rushing in our veins. Is it because you feel terrible, with that awful sinking feeling in your stomach? Oh, that's just your conscience my dear, telling you that yes, there are people existing here who are far from lucky unlike you.
I remember the LPEP that we frosh people had in May. I remember the snacks and candies in big plastic bags that they gave to us as welcoming presents. I remember thinking these were things I did not need. That these were calories and pounds on my weight. I remember considering on throwing it away. But I didn't; though I really don't know why. I remember watching the light posts as I made my way to KFC to catch a ride home after the orientation. I remember children staring at the baggage I carried. I remember saying to myself that it's eight p.m., kids don't belong in the streets at this time of night. I remember the boy who came close to me, eyes not leaving the treats I had. I remember giving him everything; save for a few candies I kept to myself. He smiled. You know, those five-inch smiles that kids have when Santa leaves a three-foot gift under the Christmas tree. I didn't think that they ought to know if it was May and seven months too early for December. It must've felt like Christmas all the same.
I think the world does take pity. But somehow it was and is never enough. Just as people never are satisfied with what they have when it is as good as it could get. Compassion doesn't solve starvation. Sympathy doesn't build up a place where everyone could live happily ever after. There will always be people stricken with poverty. When there is high end living for the fortunate few there will always be grumbling stomachs, calloused feet, cardboard box homes, broken dreams, and little children selling sampaguitas. But we could offer them the world, maybe something more. We could bring back the light in their eyes if only we took the time in doing something other than talking about cliches we've heard before about destitution. We speak and aspire for a world where people could be treated with uniformity. We speak as if it could never be attained lest something would wipe out the universe of its prejudice. We speak but do not play a role for the higher good. Words could only do as much as elucidate and evoke a heart to feel not for oneself, but for others as well. The next step would be to carry out these innate ideas. Though you might not receive anything but 'thank you's and the like, there would certainly be that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with playing Santa given any time of the month and any time of the day to people who need the fat bearded guy the most.
