Breathing Patterns

True! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am.

I never knew that it was the last time -- the last time I am to pull a bill of money and hand it over the vendors at lunch, the last time I am to watch a controversial noontime show in my handy television, in my mobile phone, and the last time I am to snap the magnets of the coin purse given by my father long time ago.

It has not been such a long time since I started to jump in and out of jeepneys and inhale eerie substances coming from the cars's monoxide and people's breath. Since I walked beneath the heat of the sun, feel the droplets of sweat pouring down to my neck, and spend every minute before I sleep applying facial scrubs to take pimples away which undeniably came from those pollutants. These thing I never experienced in the past. And now, I am starting to be with the realities of life.

Seated on the side where light shone upon the jeepney, I struggled to keep the heat away, and at the same time covering my nose with the hanky to avoid the the smoke. I really hated how it smelled and how it irritates my senses and I wonder why my co-passengers bravely looked at the outside inhaling what they thought was breeze to dry off their surging sweat. That day came a couple of days after the solar eclipse and intensely warm temperature followed then.

The jeepney ran so quickly that I seemed not to find any chance to call a "Para" or a "Sa Tabi Lang Po" to the aggravated driver getting over from a quarrel over the barker at the terminal. It was so embarassing for me to utter "Para" for I have that 'letter R pronouncing deficiency'.

Ma, sa tabi lang. And the breaks suddenly hit stopping at the corner of the street.

I descended the jeepney and started to walk my way to our house. I was on Tiwi Street, a long walkway stretching up to the other side of the village. The street where our house belongs is called Makban and I have to turn left and take the road. But on the junction connecting Tiwi and Makban, there were three man dressed ruggedly in sandos and shorts, cynically standing at the middle of the junction, confused. They were standing far apart to each other as if a choreographic position.

"...Sa walang tao..." The man wearing a cap said to his companion.

A jolt swept past my mind and in a very abrupt manner, I came to ask myself this exact thought, "What did you just say?" I walked past them ignoring what they were intending to do and trodded. Yet my senses were at work. All I heard after the puzzling words were quick slipper footsteps overlapping mine. I turned my head back and saw them walking along the same street I was in. A lump rose within me as if dictating me to do something. I did.

I paced in a quicker manner than usual, with my blue backpack dangling behind my back. The footsteps were coming closer and faster. The sun I expected to give me a shadow of the three men behind me was concealed by the clouds. Sleights of wind were blowing, motioning my tiny hairs, and waving my blue shirt.

One block away from our house gate, the guy with this cap asked me and I was able to see that he's got an incomplete set of teeth, "Anong oras na boy?" I took a deep breathe and looked at my Titus watch, and whispered, "Ahm... 3:00..."

Somebody just grabbed me by my bag, cornered me to our neighbours planter's box just a meter from our gate, and another man with an untidy curly hair rubbishly asked, "May cellphone ka? Akin na cellphone mo, wallet mo." There were three of them and I did not know what I supposed to do, my voice was trembling, soon to cry, as they took my TV phone away and as he pulled my wallet from my pocket.

All happened with a blink of an eye, and me as unconscious and unnerved of whatever was happening just like a toddler's pacifier taken aback by a bully. My heart began to beat faster as they ran quickly away from me, their sluggish work done successfully. I could never utter a word, or even shout having told not to by one of them or else their gonna hunt me back. I was afraid.

I took a few steps to our gate, with my bag hanging sadly in my right hand maybe just as shocked as I was, and placed it on my bed. All I could tell myself was 'why?' I tear couldn't fall even if I liked to. I never have ever expected nor imagined that it would happen to me, right there in front of our neighbor's house. News just share it to me and I watch it with eagerness trying to contemplate on the possible reason some people are doing such things, capturing innocent ones. And that very day, I was the victim.

It was the last time.

Since then, paranoia has dominated my mind whenever I ride a jeepney. I look at all sides, examining each face and actions, moving away from any suspicious person with utmost nervosity. There were even times when I can't resist the feeling of intense distrust and I simply get a jeepney stop on a road and get out from it. Those were assurances though it may sound and look so awkward. I may not be the person who would be such a hero to fight against them only not to give away my personal belongings. But for me, that is not the case. Possiblities provide accurate conclusions yet in some times, mistaken thoughts. Life here has always been at stake. Who's who? and Which is Which? Nobody knows. It better to be sure, than to be a stupid person who thinks that everything would be alright. We live now in a world far much different from the past. People will do everything to live provided that poverty inclines in a gradual ascension. If home usually was called a safe haven, now, it may just be one cold hiding place.

Every stranger is a suspect.