miyako73
04-28-2015, 11:23 PM
Isla Azul used to be a diamond mining site before the biggest earthquake hit and leveled the island. The tsunami that followed pushed the disintegrating island farther down the sea, and eventually, it showed no traces of the previous rural mining life.
The residents did not bother to save the island, thinking most of the diamond deposit had been mined already, although a few believed there were still other gems waiting to be unearthed. Those who could not leave partly due to attachment and nostalgia moved to the next island a few kilometers away from the one that vanished. The truth was that most of them stayed because of the new craze: the giant clams nursing big pearls. The tsunami that stirred the bottom of the sea brought those clams to the area.
“After a misfortune, a blessing,” said the people who lost Isla Azul and their mining jobs. More water meant more giant clams, but it was not easy to pull them out. They were too heavy and dangerous, and could sever hands when their shells opened then quickly closed and could blind eyes too when they squirted thick fluids with some seafloor debris. Besides, the depth of the sea was not ideal for free diving—without scuba gadgets and tanks of oxygen.
Mang Kulas, in his seventies, had labored as a diamond miner for decades on the island that vanished. He tried to remain in the area for the pearls, but his lungs were weakening from smoking filterless cigarettes and old age. The coal in the huge mining pit could also be the cause of his chronic coughing. “It’s time for me to move on,” he said before he left to go back to the city where he originally came from.
His family lived in the same city where they all worked. He had three children: Luisa the eldest, Gregorio, and Edgar the youngest. His wife, Aling Precing, died from some undiagnosed bone disease when the youngest was still in high school. She was an elementary school principal. Since then, Mang Kulas had busied himself with earning money to support and provide for his children.
Mang Kulas was forced to migrate to Isla Azul in the 1980’s because he could no longer afford to send his three children to college. The salary of a mailman was not enough if education would be added to food, clothing, and shelter. His old job was to sort out undeliverable letters.
Boredom, Luisa thought, was the reason why his father resigned from the Post Office and stayed away from them. Gregorio surmised it was paper cuts because his father's hands were full of linear keloid scars. Edgar had a different opinion—it could be his father’s adventurous nature that he inherited. They had nothing to worry, really. Their father had been sending them money on time. What they asked were given. He had not even remarried, so he could dote on his children without anyone complaining or feeling resentful.
In truth, it was all about money and Mang Kulas’ promise to Aling Precing that he would try hard to produce a doctor and a lawyer in the family. Indeed, he kept what he swore to do. Luisa became a pediatrician, and Gregorio, a corporate attorney all because of their father’s hard work on Isla Azul.
When Mang Kulas reached the city, the first thing he did was to see an eye doctor. Before he left the island that vanished, his left eye was hit by the sharp rock forcefully spat out by a giant clam when it squirted its fluid. He thought it was still worth saving, so he spent most of his money on surgery, but it was found out on the operating table that his entire left eye should be removed due to the complications of his eye injury. The operation ended up leaving a hollow cavity the doctor said could be filled with a visual prosthesis, which was not cheap, so the eyelid would not collapse. The rest of his money was saved for his food and stay at the cheap hotel where he was recuperating.
Luisa and Gregorio did not like their father's decision and blatantly articulated their disapproval upon hearing about the expensive eye procedure their father underwent that they thought was wasteful. They both felt that he should just accept his failing sight and live with it since he was already old anyway. Edgar did not really care. He was busy writing fiction.
Mang Kulas' older children expected that with their father’s savings he could live by himself without bothering them. They wanted their father to live independently until his death. They both expressed it clearly—their displeasure.
Luisa was married to a cardiologist famous in the city for heart transplant and his flashy sports cars. They had two kids: a girl and a boy. Gregorio had been planning to propose to his girlfriend of five years, an heiress and socialite from a family of big politicians too. He liked showering her with expensive gifts.
A happy-go-lucky guy, Edgar had decided long ago that he wanted to stay single. “I want to remain married to my writing,” his usual pronouncement with a laugh. Perhaps he hated serious responsibilities or was just being realistic considering his finances. He worked as a cook during the day and at night he was back to his studio and kept himself focused at his writing table. His income was just enough for his rent, food, and booze. Like his father, he preferred rum with honey and lemon.
With limited money, Mang Kulas could not afford to find a place and live on his own. Looking for a job came to mind, but his feet and knees bothered him when the weather was either too hot or too cold. The pain from arthritis restrained him from walking. “How could I find a job with this physical health?” he asked his older children, Luisa and Gregorio.
While they were outside the fast-food restaurant Luisa’s children frequented, she told her father, “Your coughing is not good for the kids. I know it's from mining, but my husband might think you have tuberculosis. I don't want you to cause trouble in our marriage.” Mang Kulas, his left eye still covered with a taped patch, could only nod like he understood, before his daughter and grandkids left in the SUV she just bought.
“I cannot afford to support you. My fiance is very expensive to maintain. I’m marrying her family name too,” Gregorio said a few days later, as he gave his father a folded bill for his next meal, feeling his straight language would make Mang Kulas understand his refusal.
When Edgar, the youngest, felt his father must have already recuperated, he called the hotel to talk to Mang Kulas. “Pa, my place is small, but you’re welcome. You can use the couch. I’ll sleep on the floor. I can cook whatever you want, and I always have bottles of rum around. I can afford those stuff. Though I stay up until past midnight, I’m mostly silent and not walking around. I have a Japanese screen we can use to block the glare from my writing table. On weekends, I can take you anywhere you want. We can ride on a bus together. We can play pool or hit indoor baseball. We can go to the park nearby and feed the pigeons. We can do a lot of stuff together. I’ll get you a senior ID for discounts and a medical insurance so you’ll have a permanent physician to check you up once in a while. That’s all I can do. It's up to you.”
Sniffling on the phone, Mang Kulas replied, “Thank you.”
"First, let me find you a pirate eye patch," Edgar said, to break the seriousness of what he previously told his father.
The next day, he move into the studio apartment of his youngest son. Edgar prepared meat and seafood dishes and their favorite drink to welcome his father. They immediately clicked after years of Mang Kulas’ absence.
A few years later, life had changed. Mang Kulas’ remaining right eye gave up and could only see shadows. The left was always covered with a silk eye patch. His legs wobbled when he walked. He stayed mostly inside his son’s studio, so he would not worry Edgar too much. Cleaning and picking up the clutter his feet felt or his toes hit preoccupied him, and he gladly did them for his youngest son.
Edgar was promoted, and spent more time at work; he now took charge of preparing soups and salads. He still wrote when he had time but mainly jotting down his father’s memories about Isla Azul. Edgar no longer spent all night thinking what to write. He would have a drinking session with his dad and write what they talked about afterwards.
Luisa’s marriage was on the rocks. His husband had found himself a second mistress. The family of one of her patients was suing her for malpractice. Her boy had developed epilepsy and her eldest daughter just had an abortion at fourteen.
The economy down and companies closing, Gregorio’s practice was not enough to sustain his wife’s shopping and expensive taste. He was still trying to have a child, even though his wife rejected the idea because she was still too young to lose his flawless figure to pregnancy plus she could not think of herself as a housewife only without time attending to her social functions.
Another couple of years had passed before Mang Kulas’ arthritis, which developed into a bone disease like her wife's, confined him to the hospital bed prepared for his last days.
One afternoon in late December when Mang Kulas' breathing began to slow down, he requested his nurse to call Edgar whose appeal for time off from work so he could take care of his father was just approved. He went straight to the hospital to see his father, believing the day had come. On the bus, he called to inform his sister and brother. They promised to come.
Inside the hospital room, Mang Kulas asked Edgar to sit beside his bed. “Listen. Among you three, you're the one who hasn't asked a lot from me. I want you to publish your stories. Do it yourself. Open a printing press. Establish a publishing company. Buy yourself a big house. Get yourself the best car. And find yourself a nice wife like your mother.”
Ashamed, blushing from the tingling rush of guilt while looking into his father's eye, Edgar said, “But, Pa, you know I have no money for those things. I’m happy the way I am. Those aren't for me. I can't afford them. I’m sorry if I've been disappointing you all these years. God knows how I've tried to give you all I could. I hope those are only your hallucinations. It hurts hearing them.”
“Oh, don’t worry too much.” Mang Kulas smiled as his right hand moved towards his left eye. He removed the patch and then pushed his eyelid down with his forefinger while his thumb popped the eyeball out of the cavity. Heavy and as big as a Ping-Pong ball, it slid into his hand. “ This is made of the biggest pearl I got from the clam that ruined my sight. The center is half hollow and where the most expensive bluish diamond I mined was set. The brown at the center that conceals the diamond is the rare painite I found, and it is very expensive too. Soak this ball in hot water so the glue will soften and the gems will separate. This is my gift from Isla Azul.” He gave the ball, which was worth millions of dollars, to Edgar who remained speechless and began crying.
Luisa and Gregorio arrived, but their father’s eyes were already shut.
The residents did not bother to save the island, thinking most of the diamond deposit had been mined already, although a few believed there were still other gems waiting to be unearthed. Those who could not leave partly due to attachment and nostalgia moved to the next island a few kilometers away from the one that vanished. The truth was that most of them stayed because of the new craze: the giant clams nursing big pearls. The tsunami that stirred the bottom of the sea brought those clams to the area.
“After a misfortune, a blessing,” said the people who lost Isla Azul and their mining jobs. More water meant more giant clams, but it was not easy to pull them out. They were too heavy and dangerous, and could sever hands when their shells opened then quickly closed and could blind eyes too when they squirted thick fluids with some seafloor debris. Besides, the depth of the sea was not ideal for free diving—without scuba gadgets and tanks of oxygen.
Mang Kulas, in his seventies, had labored as a diamond miner for decades on the island that vanished. He tried to remain in the area for the pearls, but his lungs were weakening from smoking filterless cigarettes and old age. The coal in the huge mining pit could also be the cause of his chronic coughing. “It’s time for me to move on,” he said before he left to go back to the city where he originally came from.
His family lived in the same city where they all worked. He had three children: Luisa the eldest, Gregorio, and Edgar the youngest. His wife, Aling Precing, died from some undiagnosed bone disease when the youngest was still in high school. She was an elementary school principal. Since then, Mang Kulas had busied himself with earning money to support and provide for his children.
Mang Kulas was forced to migrate to Isla Azul in the 1980’s because he could no longer afford to send his three children to college. The salary of a mailman was not enough if education would be added to food, clothing, and shelter. His old job was to sort out undeliverable letters.
Boredom, Luisa thought, was the reason why his father resigned from the Post Office and stayed away from them. Gregorio surmised it was paper cuts because his father's hands were full of linear keloid scars. Edgar had a different opinion—it could be his father’s adventurous nature that he inherited. They had nothing to worry, really. Their father had been sending them money on time. What they asked were given. He had not even remarried, so he could dote on his children without anyone complaining or feeling resentful.
In truth, it was all about money and Mang Kulas’ promise to Aling Precing that he would try hard to produce a doctor and a lawyer in the family. Indeed, he kept what he swore to do. Luisa became a pediatrician, and Gregorio, a corporate attorney all because of their father’s hard work on Isla Azul.
When Mang Kulas reached the city, the first thing he did was to see an eye doctor. Before he left the island that vanished, his left eye was hit by the sharp rock forcefully spat out by a giant clam when it squirted its fluid. He thought it was still worth saving, so he spent most of his money on surgery, but it was found out on the operating table that his entire left eye should be removed due to the complications of his eye injury. The operation ended up leaving a hollow cavity the doctor said could be filled with a visual prosthesis, which was not cheap, so the eyelid would not collapse. The rest of his money was saved for his food and stay at the cheap hotel where he was recuperating.
Luisa and Gregorio did not like their father's decision and blatantly articulated their disapproval upon hearing about the expensive eye procedure their father underwent that they thought was wasteful. They both felt that he should just accept his failing sight and live with it since he was already old anyway. Edgar did not really care. He was busy writing fiction.
Mang Kulas' older children expected that with their father’s savings he could live by himself without bothering them. They wanted their father to live independently until his death. They both expressed it clearly—their displeasure.
Luisa was married to a cardiologist famous in the city for heart transplant and his flashy sports cars. They had two kids: a girl and a boy. Gregorio had been planning to propose to his girlfriend of five years, an heiress and socialite from a family of big politicians too. He liked showering her with expensive gifts.
A happy-go-lucky guy, Edgar had decided long ago that he wanted to stay single. “I want to remain married to my writing,” his usual pronouncement with a laugh. Perhaps he hated serious responsibilities or was just being realistic considering his finances. He worked as a cook during the day and at night he was back to his studio and kept himself focused at his writing table. His income was just enough for his rent, food, and booze. Like his father, he preferred rum with honey and lemon.
With limited money, Mang Kulas could not afford to find a place and live on his own. Looking for a job came to mind, but his feet and knees bothered him when the weather was either too hot or too cold. The pain from arthritis restrained him from walking. “How could I find a job with this physical health?” he asked his older children, Luisa and Gregorio.
While they were outside the fast-food restaurant Luisa’s children frequented, she told her father, “Your coughing is not good for the kids. I know it's from mining, but my husband might think you have tuberculosis. I don't want you to cause trouble in our marriage.” Mang Kulas, his left eye still covered with a taped patch, could only nod like he understood, before his daughter and grandkids left in the SUV she just bought.
“I cannot afford to support you. My fiance is very expensive to maintain. I’m marrying her family name too,” Gregorio said a few days later, as he gave his father a folded bill for his next meal, feeling his straight language would make Mang Kulas understand his refusal.
When Edgar, the youngest, felt his father must have already recuperated, he called the hotel to talk to Mang Kulas. “Pa, my place is small, but you’re welcome. You can use the couch. I’ll sleep on the floor. I can cook whatever you want, and I always have bottles of rum around. I can afford those stuff. Though I stay up until past midnight, I’m mostly silent and not walking around. I have a Japanese screen we can use to block the glare from my writing table. On weekends, I can take you anywhere you want. We can ride on a bus together. We can play pool or hit indoor baseball. We can go to the park nearby and feed the pigeons. We can do a lot of stuff together. I’ll get you a senior ID for discounts and a medical insurance so you’ll have a permanent physician to check you up once in a while. That’s all I can do. It's up to you.”
Sniffling on the phone, Mang Kulas replied, “Thank you.”
"First, let me find you a pirate eye patch," Edgar said, to break the seriousness of what he previously told his father.
The next day, he move into the studio apartment of his youngest son. Edgar prepared meat and seafood dishes and their favorite drink to welcome his father. They immediately clicked after years of Mang Kulas’ absence.
A few years later, life had changed. Mang Kulas’ remaining right eye gave up and could only see shadows. The left was always covered with a silk eye patch. His legs wobbled when he walked. He stayed mostly inside his son’s studio, so he would not worry Edgar too much. Cleaning and picking up the clutter his feet felt or his toes hit preoccupied him, and he gladly did them for his youngest son.
Edgar was promoted, and spent more time at work; he now took charge of preparing soups and salads. He still wrote when he had time but mainly jotting down his father’s memories about Isla Azul. Edgar no longer spent all night thinking what to write. He would have a drinking session with his dad and write what they talked about afterwards.
Luisa’s marriage was on the rocks. His husband had found himself a second mistress. The family of one of her patients was suing her for malpractice. Her boy had developed epilepsy and her eldest daughter just had an abortion at fourteen.
The economy down and companies closing, Gregorio’s practice was not enough to sustain his wife’s shopping and expensive taste. He was still trying to have a child, even though his wife rejected the idea because she was still too young to lose his flawless figure to pregnancy plus she could not think of herself as a housewife only without time attending to her social functions.
Another couple of years had passed before Mang Kulas’ arthritis, which developed into a bone disease like her wife's, confined him to the hospital bed prepared for his last days.
One afternoon in late December when Mang Kulas' breathing began to slow down, he requested his nurse to call Edgar whose appeal for time off from work so he could take care of his father was just approved. He went straight to the hospital to see his father, believing the day had come. On the bus, he called to inform his sister and brother. They promised to come.
Inside the hospital room, Mang Kulas asked Edgar to sit beside his bed. “Listen. Among you three, you're the one who hasn't asked a lot from me. I want you to publish your stories. Do it yourself. Open a printing press. Establish a publishing company. Buy yourself a big house. Get yourself the best car. And find yourself a nice wife like your mother.”
Ashamed, blushing from the tingling rush of guilt while looking into his father's eye, Edgar said, “But, Pa, you know I have no money for those things. I’m happy the way I am. Those aren't for me. I can't afford them. I’m sorry if I've been disappointing you all these years. God knows how I've tried to give you all I could. I hope those are only your hallucinations. It hurts hearing them.”
“Oh, don’t worry too much.” Mang Kulas smiled as his right hand moved towards his left eye. He removed the patch and then pushed his eyelid down with his forefinger while his thumb popped the eyeball out of the cavity. Heavy and as big as a Ping-Pong ball, it slid into his hand. “ This is made of the biggest pearl I got from the clam that ruined my sight. The center is half hollow and where the most expensive bluish diamond I mined was set. The brown at the center that conceals the diamond is the rare painite I found, and it is very expensive too. Soak this ball in hot water so the glue will soften and the gems will separate. This is my gift from Isla Azul.” He gave the ball, which was worth millions of dollars, to Edgar who remained speechless and began crying.
Luisa and Gregorio arrived, but their father’s eyes were already shut.