adventures in neverland

(inspired by imaginary events.) the last time the pope was here, almost twenty years ago, my heart was broken. it was so badly broken that i thought it would no longer heal. that i would no longer be myself again. it was january nineteen ninety-five and i was a struggling financial reporter, still new in the industry. still could not differentiate, for example, the different terms for money supply (m-one, m-two, m-three), still unable to explain bad loans, sour loans, unpaid loans, among other confusing terms that senior reporters at my other beat, the banking and finance, chewed quite easily and with delight like fruit flavoured bubble gums. ( i said other beat because apart from the central bank and finance department, i was also covering the president of the philippines then. looking back, i could not imagine how i was able to do that. juggling between two important beats and two vastly different subject matters -- politics and business.) anyway, this is not a story about my...

paul woke up with an unbearable headache and found the whole country in grief. it was two in the afternoon and the room was bursting with the summer sun that penetrated through the glass sliding doors that led to the terrrace. he forgot to shut the blinds last night before he went to sleep. he felt sticky and hot. he was bathed in sweat. for a while, it hurt to open his still drowsy eyes. with his eyes shut, he groped for the strings on the side of the door and closed the blinds. with his eyes now opened and the room enveloped in the darkness, he found the tv's remote control underneath the pillow and opened the cold, black, fifty-inch gadget mounted on the wall. the room was now sparkling with the lights and vibrant colours emanating from the television. then he headed to the bathroom to wash his face and look for medicines for his headache and hang over. before he could even wash his face and swallow panadols to ease the paralyzing...