2 01: This Homeless

"If only people

could appreciate

life thru little

things, happiness

would never be

hard to find."

• • • • •

I hated school. I hated staying at only one place. I hated having a so-called home. And those self-proclaimed intelligent homosapiens had no right to judge me, because firstly, they were not me, and secondly, I hated such things for pervasive reasons.

I was moving across the areas of Manila from time to time. Well, Manila's the national city of Philippines, a tropical country where natural resources were abundant, but were severely abused, and where askals and pusakals were ignored and starved to death. Those fur babies were even lucky enough if they would not receive any mistreatment or physical torture from those tambay sa kanto.

Oh yes. Try to visit our country and you will see. Hundreds (or even thousands) of askals and pusakals were abandoned, left behind, left to die. As factual as this may sound, lots of those poor babies were victims of hit-and-run cases committed by cars, trikes, or even motorbikes; and those fur victims were only left in the street, soaked in own blood, dying.

Have you ever witnessed such a hideous crime? 'Cause I had and that memory haunts my mind every night.

Going further, some askals and pusakals received fatal tortures, like getting hit in the head with stones thrown by pinhead homosapiens, affording a free shower of boiling water, or fucking slaughtered to meat as pulutan.

Yes! It's completely gross and unfair. Could you imagine eating a slaughtered helpless dog or cat meat marinated in oyster or soy sauce? Oh for Kingdom Animalia's sake, I bet your answer's NO.

Lastly, some dogs and cats, even in their newly-born stage, were packaged in cardboard boxes and thrown in the middle of streets or dumped on the landfills. See? Poor victims indeed. How could they survive the cruel world at such an early age? Huhu.

Then, there's this horrible fact that there's only one person in thousands who could willingly take initiative to help the in-need.

Now I am asking myself, where's humanity in there?

Most of those inhumane homosapiens both belong to the educated and uneducated population of our country. The more severe specie were those who belong to the first group.

How can I say so?

Well, here's my theory.

There's something in language, math and science subjects that enhances the intellectual capacity of a schooler, but severely damages his emotional quotient. Being absorbed in the system -- going everyday to school, graduating high school, going to college, earning a degree, working as a professional, having a family, sending the children to school, and them, repeating the whole process again -- the entire wheel of system -- was the root cause of the present world. People were just doing everything to survive, pay the bills, and live a comfortable life over and over, but doing nothing to make a change- to make their existence count.

The moment you choose to fit the system and let yourself drown to it, you adapt and respond to its flaw and imperfections. You see yourself competing and desiring for nothing but high grades, popularity, money, and more -- more than what you need. You busy yourself getting everything you want in life, unconsciously neglecting the fact there are more demand of needs than extravagance. The countless times you buy jewelry, signature clothes and iPhones are the number of creatures in need of food and shelter to survive.

All I'm saying is... the more you focus on intelligence and wealth, the more you lose compassion. The more you dwell with desire, the more you lose your chance to contentment. I wish the world could understand that intelligence is inversely proportion to compassion and so as pleasure to happiness.

No one can never have both.

And I'd never know what exactly the others would think if ever they'd hear my thoughts, but I don't care. They would think I am somehow crazy or an out-of-this-world extraterrestrial being cocoon in a human shell, but still, I don't care. I never will.

The only thing that matters is how my existence affects others life --- and proud to say I'm happy with that.

"Clarisse," Aling Ninda muttered as she handed me another batch of empty plates to be washed and cleaned up, "Marami ka pang huhugasan. Bilis-bilisan mo."

Aling Ninda's local diner seemed to be a hit around the area and nearby cities. Massive number of customers came in waves every night and they enjoyed Irog Ko Diner's finest palabok and dinuguan. And because of huge demand, they had to hire additional kitchen staffs. They'd found me and my salary rate competent and cheap enough. That's why I woke up one morning employed and was earning P150 (approximately US$3) a night.

It didn't even reach the minimum wage rate, yes, I knew, and it didn't sound fair, but who was I to say no to free showers and food at work?

Yes, you'd read it right. The mere benefits I got for working as a dishwasher at Aling Ninda's place were free showers and breakfast everyday. It was a good thing I received those perks, considering the kind of world we have nowadays. And in fact, sure it was fine for me to be homeless, but I never wanted to be jobless.

I continued washing the dishes for the rest of the evening, and just like the other nights, my hands sore like hell. The pain felt like the skin of my hands were peeled off, and then my skinless hands were soaked to a tab of alcohol.

"Oh iuwi mo na itong mga natirang pagkain Clarisse." Aling Ninda handed me carton boxes of leftovers. These were scraps from unfinished palabok, caldereta, dinuguan, and burned rice. I took it willingly and simply thanked her for the food; then bid a goodbye.

It was like that every night. She used to give me the customer leftovers before my shift ends, and before I work in the evening, I got to enjoy a free shower in the Diner's bathroom.

For a homeless like me, I kinda learned to live with that kind of set-up. I counted having the leftovers and getting free showers as blessings. It was not hard to love such kind of life, because honestly, even though I had limited resources, I appreciate every piece of them.

I walked to an empty street, heading towards my dear sanctuary for a month now. I kept going as I enjoyed the peaceful silence of surrounding and the crunching sound beneath my shoes as I stepped onto the pavements.

Few minutes later, old dirty white metal gates with a sign board saying Holy Angel Cemetery welcomed me. The gates screeched helplessly as I opened it for a tiny space to climb in. I carefully squeezed myself towards the inside, and silently praised my skinny figure for the help.

As I roamed around, searching for my set-up station, rows of tombstones stood erect in silence to the left and right, in front and behind, like a sea of the dead. Some were crumbled with the weathering of centuries; some were smooth, marbled with new black writing and laid with floral tributes. Most though, were overgrown and unkempt, for now even their mourners had joined them under the clay soil.

It was in few more seconds before I saw a small cube hut made out of newspapers and old sacks, isolated and hidden in the middle of a graveyard. I cheerfully ran towards it, craving for at least three to four hours of good sleep.

As I got inside of my humble cube hut, I helplessly smiled at the sight of a mother cat, along with her three magnificent new-born babies.

"Kumusta naman ang panganganak?" I smiled sheepishly as she simply meow at me. "Ang sakit at hirap siguro no? Pero h'wag ka nang mag-alala. Marami akong dalang pagkain para sa inyo."

She stood up and walked towards the opened boxes of food. As soon as she caught the mouthwatering smell, she hurriedly chewed and ate the leftovers.

Rawr. I, then, heard a hungry moan just a few space away from us. Sniffing through the opening of sacks, I saw a big dude in soft furr of black and white, his eyes were begging for a share.

"Hey Jumbo," I greeted him and took the carton of burned rice, poured some caldereta meat and sauce onto it, and mixed the food with my bare hands, "Good morning, malamang gutom ka na rin. Para sa'yo 'to."

He hungrily devoured the caldereta rice, and when done, he happily licked at my face, "Easy boy, very good ka. Binantayan mo nang maigi si mother cat. Grrr."

He wiggled his tail at me and positioned himself to sleep. The mother cat, on the left corner of cube hut, was back again to her little felines, licking the tiny bodies and showering them with love.

Like me, mother cat and Jumbo were homeless. They had found me when I was alone and I had found them when they needed me the most.

I laid back to the rough surface of the sacks, the clay soil beneath it, and smiled at the feeling of contentment. This might not be the dream life of almost all people, but this is where I've found peace and contentment.

This was weird as much as it might sound, but in the middle of a cemetery, living in a small cube hut hidden isolated from the rest of the world, with this huge dog, mother cat, and three kittens, and with only leftovers to eat, I feel belonged.

I feel human.

People would wonder why I seem contented with this kind of lifestyle, but all I could say is that...

This is exactly the reason why I hate staying at only one place. Being trapped and secluded in a place limits one's perspective of things. The confinement restricts a person to explore the world beyond his eyes and to discover life beyond his reach. And so for the same reason, I am not fond of having a so-called home.

I just love being me, the homeless at thirteen and still a homeless at sixteen.

Being a homeless helps me recognize and appreciate life in different shades. Being a homeless makes me discover and understand things normal people will ordinarily ignore. Being a homeless makes me treasure each coin I earn, each loaf of bread I buy, and each job I take to survive.

Being a homeless makes me, me.

I silly smiled and from beneath the ragged sheets of sack on my right side, I took out a set of pen and spiral notebook I bought from my yesterday's salary.

Not minding my hilarious and ugly penmanship, I wrote:

Third year, sixth month, and fifteenth day of being homeless, I started a journal of all my realizations in this world.

In the sea of dead, three lives have bloomed. You may feel alone, hopeless, broken, and unfixable at this moment, but keep breathing. Even in the darkest of times, light will come. Peace will come after the storm.

And I hope nobody will read this, 'cause I am seriously lame with figure of speech. Poor analogies.

-Homeless