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For Ecto, New Year’s is more or less the same as Christmas. The same warm, gooey feeling. The same close-knit spirit. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned the manufacture and sale of firecrackers, the shooting of which has been a well-loved tradition for centuries and can be traced all the way back to the Spanish colonial era. The exact inventors and originators were the Chinese, who believed that noise would drive away bad luck and bad spirits. According to Mr. and Mrs. Lapuz, the Filipinos seem sadder now, having been robbed of the most thrilling and spectacular means of making noise. But according to health and safety records, hospital personnel can rest easier because the ERs wouldn’t be packed with casualties this time around. Just the New Year’s before last, it was like a war zone on the streets what of households competing for the biggest bang to welcome the new year. Many men got drunk out of their minds and then tried to light a firecracker with the non-PC name
There are few words in the English language that come close to describing the intense feeling of being in love. There are even fewer words to express the unbearable torment of heartbreak. And the heartbreak from someone’s first love? Forget it. But this was the precise emotion seventeen-year-old Rapunzel Kate Lapuz was experiencing inside a stall in the girls’ bathroom. Kate, who took pride in having English as her favorite subject and being called Ms. Grammarly by her English teacher in junior high, found herself at a loss for words to describe what she was feeling. Outside, it was a sunny Thursday afternoon in sleepy Concepcion Integrated Technology School - High School on one of the 7, 641 tropical islands of the Philippines. For Kate though, it felt like a giant hood had been slipped on top of the world, extinguishing all light and sucking away all breath. Had the whole world in fact ended, that would’ve solved a lot of things. At the top of Kate’s list were public humiliatio
Kate opened her eyes. It hurt to do such a simple thing. The curtains were still drawn in her room but she could see daylight filtering in. She had overslept, that much she could tell, the mystery was by how many hours. What really made it hard to get her bearings were her eyes themselves, which were swollen from crying and plastered with an unladylike amount of gunk. She remained on her back and groggily groped for her smartphone next to her pillow and held it up. The power button had been battered from use and she had pestered her parents endlessly for a trendier model, but Christmas and New Year’s had come and gone and still no love. Kate held the phone upright. Thanks to an app called the Magic On and Off, she didn’t need to crush her thumb just to wake her phone up. The app detected the orientation of her device and could tell when she wanted to use it. Kate had downloaded the app weeks ago and had been telling everybody in school about how indispensable it was. Sure she had to
“Whu-hu-hu-Who gave you my phone?” Kate repeated the question. “Whu-hu-hu… Are you an owl?” her ma mocked. “Speak properly and clean up this mess. Don’t think for a minute that you can play hooky today. Now that you’re here, for once can you please make your bed and pick up these things? Honestly, how can you live like this? And how is it possible that all your stuff is on the floor!” “Ma!” Kate cried out. “This is important! What did the boy look like?” Her ma was a bit stunned by the urgency in her voice. “Like I said, a good kid but not so neat. A bit of an average Juan. Definitely polite. Why? What does it matter? Is he your boyfriend. Huh? Huh?” “Maybe,” Kate answered, then corrected herself: “No. I’m back to being single.” “Is this the reason why you’re at home and not at school, Rapunzel Kate Lapuz?” Kate didn’t answer. {Here’s the nub,} Mrs. Lapuz thought to herself. “You haven’t introduced your boyfriend to me yet and you’re alre
When Kate was in junior high, grades 7 to 10 in the Philippines, students were divided into sections based on their academic performance. First, the sections borrowed the names of the planets in the solar system, then flowers, then chemical elements (or at least the most precious metals) and finally scientists. Luckily, Kate and her friends always managed to land the top sections. And so, she was in 7-Mercury, 8-Sampaguita, 9-Platinum and 10-Einstein. It was certainly debatable whether Mercury was better than Earth by being closer to the sun, or whether platinum was more precious than gold or palladium; to say nothing of there-is-no-disputing-tastes themes like flowers and Albert Einstein. But then again, the practice of dividing students based on anything would raise even more questions, so nobody asked how the school admin came up with the section names. Josh and his gang, who called themselves The Retaliators (original Filipino: Resbakers), mostly belonged to the same sections bac
Josh made many other confessions to Kate; about how he felt as an only child, just like Kate, and his mother being a caregiver in the UK like so many other Filipino professionals lured by greener pastures overseas and driven away by her mother country’s lack of opportunities. She would care for so many patients and children but not the one she missed the most: her own child. She dreamed of someday bringing Josh to the UK on a residence card but with the UK leaving the EU and protectionist politics creeping in, that dream was taking longer and becoming more remote. This explained why Josh never lacked money or material things. He was practically loaded and had the best imported sneakers and comic books shipped on his birthdays. He could afford to eat at restaurants every day, which he did because his father was usually too wasted to look after him. Apparently, the LDR with his wife had driven Mr. Guerrero to loneliness, the bottle and into the arms of a different woman each night. It
Kate had been to the new building’s rooftop only twice. The second and last time was during the incident with the nerd. Kate was talking to Dion Agustin about the prom posters when it happened. In the Philippines, prom was usually scheduled on Valentine’s Day itself. CITS’ theme that year was “Timeless”; a product of Dion’s imaginative genius. The decorations were futuristic and involved giant papier-mache robots, gadgets and Dr. Who’s police box in the middle of the gym. They also planned to put up laser lights and special effect smoke. Kate thought the whole concept was original and that Dion had such good taste. Dion Agustin was the exact opposite of Josh Guerrero. He was the School Council president and all-around CITS golden boy. He always donned his trademark plastic-frame glasses and perfect Edward Cullen hairdo and was impeccably dressed. Although all guys were required to wear the same short-sleeved white button-down shirt and navy blue trousers (P.E. polo shirt and joggin
“This doesn’t concern you, Kate,” Josh growled. “Turn around and head back where you came from. You didn’t see nothing.” “Yeah, run on back, Little Miss Sunshine! This ain’t your world,” George sneered. Kate had no idea where he got the moniker or if he came up with it just then. The nickname terrified Kate because it gave her a glimpse of their true opinion of her. It also felt like the group consensus; that she was someone who was whittling away Josh’s resolve. It was a sick kind of jealousy between romance and brotherhood, which were the two futures Josh was torn between. Still, George’s and Luke’s leers terrified her more. It was as though they could probe through her school uniform, all the way to her soul. Kate was so scared she almost did back up. A glance in the nerd’s direction and the pleading expression behind the thick glasses froze her to the spot. The gaze said: Don’t leave me. So Kate held her ground. She literally stomped her school shoes and held her head higher. S