At 2 in the afternoon, the ground smelled like it had just taken a bath from the mercurial rain, just damp enough. Walking along the pavement I was too familiar with already, with different homes casting shadows I could easily distinguish, I still saw umbrellas hovering people’s faces, making them more mysterious than ever. This street was busy; everyone was chasing time, making me feel left out, yet that didn’t bother me.
Late nights and early midnights were the times I hear unending clinks of glasses containing brew, earsplitting music blasting through the speakers, drunken howls, and chatters of men that were all cacophonies to my ear. I hated noise. Sometimes words of hatred and frustration would blare suddenly, without any warning, at an unpredictable hour of the day.
But even with those, there were those younger years when I had been scurrying between those narrow, perpendicular streets in between houses, so carefree and void of silent enormities and iniquities. There were those days of heavy rain when our house was filled with others’ sturdy footsteps dashing through our doors; even with their half-submerged calves, they were ready to lift anything with great will. There were those unexpected lending of hands, sharing of graces, and words of good intention. Even with the monotony of the days, stories varied with the amount of people who had something to narrate.
This was my hometown. And for years, I had adapted to the adverse and unfavorable character of this place, too much to my relief that I felt alienated so easily at some other places.
This marred and somewhat substandard, little ground homed me, along with the people close to me. It introduced me to those resentful whispers, despondent tears, delightful smiles, lighthearted laughter, and all other things that were sad and merry.
— c // 170608
this is not a diary 