Love that binds! By Jing Villamil THIS true story is sourced from her who does what most wise men do not and goes to where most brave men dare not. The summer sun was not yet up, but she and the cops raced to a place where screams were heard…

May we be excused? By Jing Villamil FROM the day a teacher-friend received this particular excuse letter, to these days of her retirement, it was so very difficult, it has since been almost impossible for her to gather all her marbles together again. She still is knitting her brows over…

Her Lab! By Jing Villamil HAVE you been loved more than you loved back? She did not kneel to Saint Jude and tuck Him a note, to send her one to love. Nor did she ask kins or friends to search the world for her, for one to love. In…

My great love! By Jing Villamil YOU are my great love. You are the source of my strength. You are the light of my life. Though, you cast most of what is dark in me; you make me fear for me, for you. You make me weak. My love for…

Gone to colours! (Conclusion) By Jing Villamil AMONG the children of the subdivision who learned the basics of acrylic or oil on canvas from the artist-in-residence were these high school kids who were primarily sent to fetch their younger siblings home to lunch, dinner, or a nap. Eventually, the teeners…

Gone to colours! By Jing Villamil SOMETIMES, life’s stories seem more magnificently unlifelike, more of an untruth, than the Tagalog, Mexican, Korean, Chinese telenovelas we watch out for at the end of the day. Is it, maybe, the reel scenes seem more acceptably vivid in perspective coming to us from…

Gone free! By Jing Villamil THERE are true stories begging to be told. This is one. He was just turning thirty, but eight of his young adult years had been spent in dialysis. Those who are familiar with the procedure would know what it forebodes: the whole of one’s being…

Gone too soon By Jing Villamil WE do not bury our children. They bury us. This is how things are supposed to go. Fetus, neonate, infant, toddler, pre-school, almost unending school-age, adults thereafter. Life lived to the full. For us older folks, when the sun had risen for the last…

A tale of two sons By Jing Villamil THERE are woes that need to be smoothed out fast and at once. Like in this true story, told by a girl who saw it first hand and wrote and froze it in time. She does what most wise men do not. She…

A walk in the past By Jing Villamil IN Coelho’s Alchemist, a boy talked to his heart, and it told him ditzy things like “most people see the world as a threatening place. And because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.” Zoom this perspective…