another shameless plug

My fiction debut in the Philippines Free Press last month was something to be very jubilant about. After all, it is my first—at my age (just look at the list of this year’s Palanca winners and you will know)!

To see in print a work that you have toiled on for months is enough gratification, now let’s move on to other things, end of bliss. But one afternoon, I receive a text message from Jess. The short exchange of communication goes like this:

“Hi Jordan. Saw your story in Graphic.”
“Really?! What story?”
“Can’t remember the title… Dry Cleaning ba yon?”
“Anuvah! Cleanwipe Washing Services! Yey!”

And there it is. Two weeks later, after “Poetry in the Time of Influenza,” my other workshop piece has found its way to the pages of Philippines Graphic, one of the weekly magazines that still hold true to the publication of Filipino literature. I am happy! Here's a link of the online version of the magazine.

This cemented in my oftentimes low-spirited being, in slow and little ways, the idea that I can. There’s too much drama detailing how a teacher once asserted on my terrible future in front of the class or how someone I so respected in the familial circle of this discipline (unconsciously?) tried to put me down in public space, so I will simply applaud the art illustration of the fallen man in the story.

Because after countless times of dealing with people of different degrees of schizophrenia, I learn that there is no use brooding in anger and resentment, that the effortless (and best) form of retribution is a wink and a smile. Go sa kebs!

Now, all I have to do is to keep the ball rolling. Or bouncing. Or whatever.