In Our Time of War

6 | running and finding

The stench of Ma'am Mich's cigarette wafted to my nose, but for the first time I did not mind. I sniffed, rubbing my nostrils. My lips stayed sealed, and if Ma'am Mich noticed it, she did not press. The tent's canopy fluttered against the humid air blasting across the clearing. The caw of birds flitting from branch to branch accompanied the silence in our pitched shelter, reminding me where we were and what I was doing.

My pen scratched against the rough fibers of my notebook's pages. The notes I gathered from Raizen were nonexistent, earning me a small head shake from Ma'am Mich. After Kian and I parted yesterday, I sent Raizen a quick text saying I could not make it. He did not ask why, and I did not feel the need to explain. If he was anywhere near the Talaba camp, he would have heard of the drama I was involved in. Knowing him, word probably reached him before I even left camp.

Now, I made up for my missing work at today's headlines by penning the dinnertime news. I have until 4 PM today to finalize them. Which meant I needed to get my head in the game and stop thinking of the Talaba camp, Kian, my father, my mother, Raizen, my poems, and a dozen other things clamoring for attention.

I tapped the pen's tip against my lips before jutting another phrase at the corner of the notebook's current page where the details of the story sat. Five dead at a recent rescue operation following the Battle of Parañaque. That was standard, able to blend into the countless similar tales we have spun over the past two years. I moved to the next page. Ten civilians and thirty military casualties in a shoot-out in Longos, Bacoor. Hit closest to home. I was there.

Ma'am Mich puffing her cigarette filtered past my periphery. I turned, distracted as ever, as she smacked her lips slathered with cherry red lip tint and clicked her tongue. She was one of the last ones to give in to the temptation of smoking, but when she started three months ago, she became the best among the best smokers in our unit. Even Manong Larry was beat, and he was the one who used to goad my senior into the vice. Now, I watched her claw through a new packet, scratching the flimsy plastic veil sealing the box to shreds. Her boot crushed the sputtering stump while her hands dug around her handbag for a lighter. A fresh stick stuck out between her lips.

She raised the lighter to the stick, thumbs getting ready to flick the switch to summon the fire. Her eyes flitted towards mine. A layer of rigidity wrapped around her limbs. "Sorry," I said, averting my eyes. The headlines. I should be making those. My pen tapped against the notebook's spine but no new words were written. "Didn't mean to stare."

"It's fine," Ma'am Mich replied. I did not take my eyes away from the messy letters scrawled by my hand when I went out to gather information before lunch. "Am I distracting you?"

I shook my head. "The headlines need polishing, anyway," I replied with a shrug. "Might as well ask for your input."

My senior's eyebrow was cocked when I raised my head to acknowledge the formal start of our conversation. "I understand if you can't turn them in tonight, Maian," she said. "Seriously, you need to rest. Yesterday was tough, I get it."