SIlver Chicken

The number of times that I stood up for my thoughts by submitting an essay is abnormally inferior to those of the number of times that I actually chickened out of chances to do so. I'm having this weird theory that I really do have chickens for real parents, which is actually much better compared to real parents(specifically MY parents) because they just lay eggs and be cute and star in various versions of Babe and Charlotte's Web. They don't shout at each other while their chicks gawk at them, absorbing the weirdness of it all in. Yeah well, I'm pretty much aware that having chickens to rule the household is too good AND stupid to be true.

God, how the hell did I just elucidate chickens?

ANYWAYS.

I was supposed to submit this superficial article I made after seeing my professor sing like there's no tomorrow. That article is in no way connected to the concert we were required to watch, and I just grabbed a pen and paper and started writing shit. The music, together with the choir's melancholic voice, seemingly entered my system so easily and inspired the mediocre out of me to jot down thoughts that I hid somewhere in my foot a long time ago. Those were thoughts that I know no one would ever care to listen to if I blurt them out, let alone be read if I write them. I'm obviously just being so friggin' emotive, sure, but I just have to let this out so I can lessen the burden my own life is putting on my shoulders.

So yeah, I was supposed to submit it to Youngblood (PDI). I was so determined to do so, that I even heeded advices from those few selected people I sent a copy of this essay. I'm not bragging or anything, but they all thought it was great, and that I really should let the whole newspaper-reading nation read this.

But at the last second, I deleted the draft I was supposed to send to YB and just shrugged all of it off. I mean, forget it. The Philippine's leading newspaper has no room for my second-ratedness and I am not deserving of the glory that having your article printed on paper that is distributed to the whole nation offers.

I am just simply not enough.

You know, maybe that's the reason why I keep chickening out of these gargantuan and stupendous chances God (who is obviously not witnessing what I have been doing) is continuing to give me. I've always thought that I am not enough for everything - kinda ironic for somebody so fucking big.

So, I'll just post the article here. In my trashbag.

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Silver Lining

I’m betting my month’s allowance on the fact that most of the kids my age don’t really have that unfortunate lapse similar to that of the Great Depression of late 1920 will surely occur if this will stay constant for along duration of time. They don’t know that despite the reality that oil prices are gradually climbing down at $80 a barrel, people wouldn’t really be able to uplift their respective financial exigencies because with a bunch of banks breaking their silences by filing bankruptcies, people are losing their money. They don’t know that in spite of news reports and interviews from the president saying that the country is in good shape to handle the current economic crisis and hence far from recession, people will still lose their jobs, as firms and businesses close down because of minuscule demands.

They don’t know that despite of the happy faces and laughter I share with all of them, my heart is wallowing inside. My dad could lose his own job any time now, and I’m apparently just waiting for my mom to break out in tears and tell the sad news for me. That scene would be such an award-winning stance for a prime time soap opera. It just sucks that it had to be based on the most tragic part of my life – next to my own death, of course.

My dad works in a bank somewhere in Europe as an IT Consultant. Ever since he started there five years ago, he was only able to go back here for three times. One was that Christmas of 2004, then the Christmas of 2006 when we went to Disneyland, and a random week in January of 2007. They are all so amazingly distinct that I can remember them so vividly in my mind. But generally, the cycle goes like this: we fetch him at the airport, he and mom would battle each other in a shouting contest, and my siblings and I would try our best to swallow down big lumps in our throats as my dad gets on the airport taxi to fly back to Europe – all of that in a span of four days.

The mere sight of my dad just leaving us without saying a fatherly goodbye is probably the most disheartening scene I could pay billions to not ever witness again. I can still myself and my siblings slumping in our sofa, looking at each other, and before we know it, tears are rolling down our swollen faces. Did our own father really appear in front of our eyes? Or did he just drop by in Manila to pick up his soaps? I never really knew the answer because ever since the last time he went here, he instantly lost all of his time and money to go back again. I wanted to shrug off the fact that he missed my high school graduation. But matters like this prove to be really hard to forget.

Psh. I know any OFW kid feels the same anyway.

I could think of a thousand reasons why my dad couldn’t lose his job right now; the family is still heavily dependent on the money he’s earning, I’m still in my freshman year in college, our savings aren’t enough to suffice the fallout - just to name a few. But there’s only one unrelenting reason why he should: he’s staring to think that he’s just our trade partner or something.

He’s still our father, and he needs to come back home..

Well, what do you know? There’s a feasible silver lining in this economic breakdown after all.