My mother and my cousin who were so finical were in the sitting room talking when from nowhere a neighbour shouted that the floodwater was rising fast. At first, the water was about three or five inches high. Everyone was on edge. My mother and my cousin stood aghast at the sight of rising floodwater, but I told them not to. My mother shouted at me that was why I got spurred to get up and help them organise all the things inside the house that might be affected by the floodwater for fear that it would get into the house. My mother requested me to look at the water level again through the glass slats of my room pane. My eyes dilated as I saw a strange point of water. Then suddenly my feet got wet because in a blink of an eye, the floodwater was already in my room. I rushed to the living room and secured our domestic appliances from getting soaking wet. I decided to put them on my bed and on the consoles, but the floodwater rose fast, so I placed one console on the bed where I put another console—then some very important things like our telly and cookers that if may be watered might not function to any further extent. My mother secured by paperbacks and some other things like sacks of Manila Bulletin and Star and Panorama and Home Life I had collected for years on the top of a rough and ready locker.
It was time to go out of the house because we believed that the floodwater was not recognisable but had the risk of rising more than the usual. So, we just brought with us all the wampum we had. We three—my mother, a cousin, and I—left the house. But the current of water was very strong. We could not even open the gate for it was difficult to push the gate door towards the street as the floodwater rushed through every space it could. I tried opening the gate flap and after my strongest thrust, it gave up. Then we crossed the street to the opposite house with a second floor. The other neighbours of ours with their toddlers were already there, looking down from the terrace.
Many neighbours were still attempting to get out of the place but they were drifted away. They looked so feeble that I realised a lot of things—religious and moral. The other neighbour with his children, though we had been telling him to transfer to the house where we were, was not heeding the invitation. They just ignored the floodwater though it was already touching their feet as they almost climbed the highest part of their house. Their bodies were almost sticking on their bamboo wall. Had their house been not contained by a concrete fence, it could have gone with the flow, too, like the containers of our mineral water and bottles of shampoos.
We had nothing to eat but biscuits which brands I usually despised. I did not really get a lot of my share because I knew that I was OK specially that I was used to not eating on time, and I faithfully knew that the floodwater would subside later or much later—possibly in the morning. And I was right. But my mother and cousin were almost anxious that they might not be able to eat because the floodwater level was rising higher and higher and their condition might last for a long time. I was a bit worried but I believed too that such flood would not arrive at more than that two-storey house. An hour later, we were offered some food by our neighbour—a platter of rice and pork adobo. The food was all right for the three of us. My mother, a vegan, and I decided not to eat. I had this thought that if I was worried I usually did not eat a lot or had the need to eat. My cousin ate all the food and we started to kip after a short talk since the room was cold as the rain was falling like a soft symphony swaying us to slumber. And so we were all freezing as I had covered my whole body with a thin blanket just enough to protect my body from being bitten by mosquitoes hovering at my ears or really sucking my blood. The scratchy effect of sucking made me uncomfortable that the only way to shun it and to free my self from worry was to cover the pillows about me. There were a lot of things I realised as I could feel for them on the bed.
I even realised how so kind our neighbours were that they offered one of their rooms to the three of us and they as a family just did not sleep but rather observed the floodwater until it subsided. The next day, a Sunday, we three were perfectly OK, but all the people in that house where we took refuge were all heavy-eyed and worn-out. Their eyes were very dull and they looked haggard and miserable according to the grapevine.
We fixed the bedding first the way it was arranged when we were billeted by the host there and finally went home since our house was just across from our harbour. I opened the gate which was again difficult to open. It took the three of us to pull the door and suddenly it opened bringing us to an unbalanced stride.
When we opened the door of the living room a lump of mud appeared in front of us. The floodwater subsided and went away from our house, but it left us unmanageable mud which was very difficult to get rid of. If I had had power, I could have annihilated it for all my physical effort to clean our floor was just a bit of what it had to be done. That was why just cleaning or washing the floor took days to return the house to its original state. Another difficult thing was the mud sticking on the flooring and the very thick over-blanket of my cousin. Carrying it myself had almost bent my bone at the back and leaving a very haunting twinge. Well, it was not easy to sponge down because any washing machine couldn't even do the washing—but the two strong hands of a laundrywoman.
What was amusing was all our food was drifted if not contaminated by the brownish water. My cousin's chocolate drinks had been buried in the mud when she combed it with her hands. She was quite sad because she did not have any choice but to drink coffee, for at home my mother and I are all coffee drinkers, so we bought some sachets of coffee, creamer, and sugar. All the bread mixed in the mud. The provender, too. Everything had gone to nil. Nothing had been retrieved that in the afternoon at around 5, my cousin and I went to a nearby SM to buy our dinner and a box of brownies for our so kind neighbours. We had another purpose, of course. That is, to charge our phones which power was almost to its considerable intensity. My cousin's phone was almost out of order for it had been low battery since Saturday night when I was attempting to contact a government agency in-charge of the rescue of all calamity or disaster like that yawning flood. But in SM City, all power points if not taken had mobile phones being charged in almost every corner. And there were others trying to wait for their turns. One good thing, a staff of a watch shop accepted our request to charge there. At first he was averse to it because he was afraid that we might be doing it again next time and his boss might get angry with him. But since I explained to him that normally we didn't charge our mobile phones at the mall if there was no such disaster that happened, he accepted our request and at least our mobile phones were energised again that would possibly last for two or three days. And that time I thought the electricity would be OK. Or if not the next day I could find ways to energise them again.
When we were about to go home, I realised that my money wasn't enough to pay for the fare of tricycle or most specially the cab which we might be hiring lest there would be no possible transport we could get. So, I checked the nearest ATM, but almost all machines were out of order—or out of money. Better, my cousin offered money to be paid the next day. Well, my worry disappeared suddenly. Well, since our house is just a ride away from SM City, a trike suddenly parked in front of us, so my cousin and I got on the trike and headed to our house as we directed the driver the way. On the way to our house, a Q & A came about as I interviewed the driver of what he did during the flood and to know if they, too, were affected by the flood. For one thing, if he had been, then driving for us during that night would have been impossible I thought. But he was—and his family. They were just so poor that despite the damaged to their house and that the flood misplaced his whole family, he managed to work as a trike driver. I took pity on him and suddenly underwent his stories vicariously that I gave him higher fare than the usual which one usually gets in our place. Considering, too, the thick mud that if we had informed him of it before we got on the trike, he would have backed off. Well, the street to our house was drivable yet the mud was awfully fat and abundant.
We bought some meat—fresh ones and canned. Then at home when we arrived we found out that we could not cook for the whole place did not have power yet. So, what I did was to cook with newspaper. My cousin rolled the paper into a burnable form and I lit the paper to start cooking. Of course, I had stacks of newspaper supply, for I had been collecting papers since 1996. When the meat was almost tender, the electricity got restored, but perhaps the soot was all over my nose and face that if it had been a normal situation I could have been ridiculed by my cousin or my mother. But the place was shrouded with black that such an appearance was just uncared for by me and my cousin. What was on our mind was the foodstuff because we were almost so weedy because what we had eaten the whole day was just sweet bread or biscuit—or if not—noodles which we had stocked earlier. Well, if not because we were starving, the noodles could not have got out of the box where we put the noodles and spices at home. I mean noodles are eaten at home when we have nothing to eat specially when all of us are all-in and going to a close by supermarket requires a lot of time.
When the voltage was back, we first remembered the telly. I wanted to watch my favourite BBC, but unluckily there were only two accessible channels on the tube—ABS-CBN and GMA. When the cable-wire was attached GMA was unblurred, but when an aerial was installed back, ABS-CBN became more lucid. For one, my cousin was an evincible Kapamilya while I was a BBC habitué.
Later a boss of mine messaged me, informing me of the class the next day. Well, I ironed my damped shirt and pants because I couldn't really be absent from my class at the institute.
The next day, who would think that I too was a soft touch of the flood when I looked fresh and clean compared with the people straying about Jaro Plaza—with sludge if not on their feet, it was their faces or hands that had liquid earth? I wore my rubber shoes, which I kept inside a bag which I hung on the upper portion of my room. So, in the middle of the street of mare and rubbish my shoes shone their whiteness and spotlessness, looking as if they had never been in the house when the floodwater doused the whole place.
***
Nowadays, the flood last 21 June 2008 continuously inspires my fear of tough luck. It was my first kiss of death in what it's all about.
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