Deja vu I. Known you before! By Emmanuelle Before  this birth, a death. And beyond that death, a previous birth. So the cycle went. And goes. As we lived in series, our paths touched, crossed. Change never ceases. But the soul mirrored in your eyes, it is one the same….

Deja vu I. Known you before! By Emmanuelle From birth to the eighth year of their young lives, they weren’t aware the other even existed. They grew and lived in towns or provinces or even oceans apart; they had distinctly different kinds of world; they grew up with the most…

Don’t promise me a Rose Garden By Emmanuelle Just offer me a rose. Don’t promise me a crown and a kingdom. Just a headband and a bahay kubo or a rented apartment or a little house painstakingly built through Pag-ibig funds, with big, big windows and a wonderful view of…

The Heart Speaks By Emmanuelle Weird, but this story is oft-repeated, so many times occurring. A constant replay. There is such a one in your neighborhood. There is such a one in your family. The population in their Barangay was not so big; thus almost everybody knew each other. So…

A walk with Mark By Emmanuelle One stood awed with the father; one gaped in wonder at the mother. When heaven showered gifts of “business acumen” and “sculpted form”, the couple as babies must have been exposed out there in the open all day long and overnight, pores bared to…

Phantoms By Emmanuelle I am not frightened. I am very frightened. It is a clear case of deja vu – here yesterday, here again, here tomorrow. It is not a dreadful dream. No. It is a nightmare most horrible. The immortals have triumphed once again. The dark gods, visible or…

Endless beginning By Emmanuelle Once upon a time, when her days were young, this writer wrote something on de’ja’ vu:   Known you before! Before this birth, a death. And beyond that death, a previous birth. So the cycle went. And goes. As we lived in series, our paths touched,…

Alone, yet Not Lonely By Emmanuelle If not at dusk at dawn, she walks, or runs a lazy jog. Through still empty streets or rapidly emptying ones, mountain trails, sandy shores or pebbled paths. These hours belong to her; she belongs to these hours. She is young; she is old….

Lost in translation By Emmanuelle In Pangasinense, it translates to strictly mean abalang ed impangitalus. Literally, I guess it means aliwa so pakatalus. Loosely ag makatalus; tauntingly tangay-tangay. Exasperatedly, agaylay. Give this supply, haaay. Anyway, the title and the above introductory paragraph are beside the point. I wish to share…

Twining By Emmanuelle And we end our focus on true twin stories with this last pair: Candy and Cindy were born of a Filipino father and an American mother, both Protestant missionaries and visiting university professors. As the case was with parents such as theirs, the twins grew up traipsing…