by Mary Gigi Constantino

(Tagalog version: Ang Huling Paglikas)

Dawn was colder than usual and the scent of rain was in the air. Marga burrowed into her corner of the jeepney and pulled the hoodie to cover her face. She leaned back and closed her eyes, trying not to listen to the chatter of the passengers in front of her. She wanted to get some sleep before getting to work but the gossipmongers were too loud.  They were arguing about the whale shark from last night’s KMJS show. It was fake, one of them insisted.  Marga didn’t know whom to believe, nor did she care.

She shivered as the wind rushed from the windows. The jeepney was going fast. They usually did when there were few pedestrians or vehicles on the road. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and some streetlights were broken. Sleep slowly took over. The sound of the engine drowned the voices of the others, until they sounded like mosquitoes in her ear.  The driver felt sleepy himself, so he decided to  give himself a jolt and play the radio at full volume.

“PARO PARO G PARO PARO G—”

Punyeta.

Jonah Leigh E. Ramos teaches Research and English at St. Stephen’s High School. She is expecting to graduate in 2024 with a master’s degree in Literature from De La Salle University. Currently, her works focus on the everyday struggles and hopes of living in the city, with her research interests specifically finding home in urban space and contemporary literature. Recently, Leigh has been awarded the fellowship for Literature and Urban Studies in the 12th KRITIKA La Salle National Workshop on Arts and Cultural Criticism. 

by Jonah Leigh E. Ramos

In the beginning was just God. Nothing was with God. And God was nothing enough to create a being apart from herself. So she created you.

It was one afternoon when it dawned on her that love was an eventual pain of loss she might never know. She had just come home from a long walk with classmates who loved too many times and failed at it too many times they’ve saved up lovers to cherry-pick for conversation. It was around the fourth pick, about the one who apparently dumped one of the loudmouths over an-incorrectly-squeezed-toothpaste-he-said, that your God realized she had never known what it meant to be boring and still be seen. To not have to do anything to be someone’s most wanted. To give everything and yet be loathed. Sneak a phone call at midnight or hold someone’s hand. Trace somebody’s face upon waking and shove tongues and pull at each other’s body and still never shove and pull quite hard enough.

Jillianne Santos is a dental medicine student from the University of the Philippines Manila. She started writing personal essays and short stories during the pandemic and is currently a freelance writer. She had her first short story entitled “Tulad ng Bulaklak sa mga Bitak ng Aspalto” published in 8Letters Circles Magazine Issue No.4, Vol. 1. Aside from writing, she also has an interest in Filipino writers. Some of her inspirations are the novel “;Ano” by Zero A.D., and the short story “Servando Magdamag” by Ricky Lee. 

by Jillianne A. Santos

Artwork by: Jillianne A. Santos

MAINTAIN EYE CONTACT DURING CONVERSATIONS. People communicated with their words and body language. But the eyes spoke more than the two of these combined.

King used to struggle with maintaining eye contact. He found it uncomfortable to look into people’s eyes. Or maybe, people looked into his eyes a lot more. They found it fascinating to look at his green right eye and maroon left eye. 

Every time someone asked King about his eyes, he insisted that “it’s just heterochromia.” In reality though, even among the many people with heterochromia, he was the only one with this pair of eyes. King could see lies. Literally.

In King’s vision, people emitted a certain aura around them as they spoke. The young boy soon figured out that the colors of the aura he saw pertained to how truthful people’s words were. Auras with greenish hues indicated the truth while reddish auras meant they were lying.

He called it his lie-detecting vision. At some point, King wished for an awesome superpower like reading people’s minds or laser vision. But having eyes that detected lies was just as cool, so he was already happy with what he had.