Postcards From The In-Between

by Vincent Ternida

Dragonflies

“When we were kids, we used to race dragonflies without their wings. We’d tear the wings from their backs and then race them. Out of the many dragonflies we mutilated, only a handful decided to entertain us. They crawled a few meters before writhing and dying moments later. Do you think we should be tried in the courts of dragonflies for our crimes? We might not be doing anything illegal in the eyes of man, but by natural law, we’re maiming for entertainment—not survival. What do you think would happen if the cops raided your apartment right now and caught us with this?”

He takes a hit from his shabu.

“For you and me, we’d be shot in the back, wrapped in tarpaulin, and thrown in the same ditch as the others. Like wingless dragonflies left to die.”

“Since we’ve transcended nature and started our own natural selection, we are still bound by nature’s laws. But as humans, we are also bound by the laws of man,” I said.

“You’re a romantic,” he replied.

Kuchi Sabishii

“Do you still go around eating mindlessly?”

That was how she remembered me.

“What does it mean exactly?”

“Kuchisabishii?”

She paused to think. “It’s like... you’re lonely, or you’re bored... and you want to fill your mouth to feed that loneliness or boredom. Since you can’t fill it with what you really need, you fill it with what’s available.”

I was about to grab a seasoned egg when I stopped and pondered the thought.

“I don’t think we have a word for that in our language.”

“That’s good. You must be a happy people.”

“I don’t know about that.”

I expected her to laugh, but instead she left a couple of twenties on the table. I politely smiled back as she left. I stared at the condensation of her drink and resisted the urge to finish it. Our server took the money. After sitting there for a while, I ordered more tapas.

Livestock

There were three friends at a farm. Puti was a beautiful dog with white fur, beloved by children, and without a master. Manok was a rooster, loud and boastful. Babsy was the farmer’s favorite pig—his meat to be savored on a special day.

Puti and Manok wagered over who would live the longest. Babsy’s life was already forfeit, destined to be lechon for an unknown feast. Hurt, the pig wished he would die last.

An obedient rooster was acquired the next day. Manok was put to the knife. On the farmer’s name day, in a moment of stupor, his friends feasted on the stray.

Babsy lived far longer than he ever hoped, siring many offspring, all lost to other feasts. When it was Babsy’s turn to be butchered, the farmer asked the pig his final wish, so he could petition Bathala.

“I wish to die first among my friends,” Babsy said, “to feel comfort in ignorance, rather than a lifetime of anxious uncertainty.”

The knife was swift. He provided a great feast to the nearby barangays.

Ventriloquism

My threshold for holding my white voice is about six hours with the same person. I discovered the breaking point while pillow-talking with a recurring lover.

I revealed who I was—a lowly brown immigrant faking it as best I could. She didn’t mind. I soon found out she had a brown fetish. The more I tried to sound white for her, the more she wanted me as a viand in her multicultural smorgasbord. Ethiopian one day. Turkish another. Today, Filipino was on the menu.

When I stopped speaking, my accent would reset. Once I opened my mouth, the timer would begin again.

Willie

Willie toiled as a laborer in the post-Klondike gold rush, hundreds of miles from his tropical home.

He didn’t start the scuffle—or maybe he did. The witnesses were inebriated. He just wanted a sip of ale, to spend his hard-earned coppers cooling his calloused palms. Then a shallow sleep, awaiting another thankless day of toil and grime.

He didn’t mean to punch. He didn’t mean the crime. But that June night, lost in the mists of Gastown: his knuckles were bloodied, his pride left intact, and his act had a single consequence.

They must’ve said something about his mother. Something about his wife. Something about his miserable Philippine Island life.

What would they know of the archipelago anyway? A name slapped on them by a Spanish tyrant. A culture stolen by expatriate clergy speaking for a stolen god. A people recently decimated by an unjust genocide from Kanata’s neighbor to the south.

Willie cared about none of this.

All he wanted was a single sip of cold serbesa after a long day.

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