No Such Things

By Emmanuelle

Let’s talk about February 14. Postmen and drivers of mail delivery vans shout at the gates the names of lucky recipients of cards or flowers boxed in clear plastics and crimson ribbons. Red and pink roses sell as insolently as precious gems. So are the tables in pricey restaurants or smoke-filled, beer-smelly videoke bars. And so are the rooms where time is short though the waiting is long.

To the tired and the weary, the conscientious and the budget-conscious – simple is still the best. Most favored giveaways are the words of love. These come with a hug and a kiss on the lips or the cheek. Husband goes straight home from work for once, wifey serves a special home-cooked meal. They watch an old feel-good movie. His arm lazily rests around her shoulders. A mug of beer quietly sizzles on a side-table.

You think love scores big on this day? Nope. No such thing.

Think business. I mean BIG business. Shovels of mullah, from our wallets to their banks. Ads business – TV, radio or print, and the creative geniuses who think big and fast. Cordillera flower farms and their market outlets. Delivery and transportation businesses, food and calorie traders, textiles and clothes, malls, bookstores, supermarkets, liquors and beer, hotels and motels, bars and restaurants, video stores, jewelry shops, etc.

Today’s chain gang. And we fall victim to the chain, not only willingly, but wholeheartedly.

Then, let’s talk about loyalties among politicians. Do I hear laughter in the background? There is no such thing.

I mean, there is no such loyalty. Yes, I am hearing laughter, loud and long.

Someday, someone will award a golden trophy to the politician who, in print or in broadcast, foolishly or in full honesty, dares to admit that:  his loyalty with the party ends where loyalty to himself  begins. Or his vision is bigger than all – all, and all things beyond all must be his. Or during his campaign, he promises everything one after the other; though he intends to try to fulfill only one; he will forget the others.

How about the politician who builds his campaign not on a carefully planned platform but on smearing his opponents’ reputation or achievements? A monument to him who admits: a smear campaign is lots more fun; time spent by opponents on clearing or defending themselves is equivalent to their time lost in building up their own platform. All will be on equal footing then: no platforms worthy to stand on, except the makeshift stage on their feet before election day.

And what of the leader who was born to lead the people out of the pit of damnation they ultimately hurled themselves into just by years of needs and wanton wants, of unresolved  differences or resolute indifference?

There is no such person.

But what of this person, who serves but refuses to be served in return? He who spends almost all of his life in study on how to make this piece of earth a better world, on how to make this creature a better man? He who travels to the wasteland or to the wilderness, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to shelter the homeless, to embrace the orphaned?

What of this mother whose belly remains empty for days, flesh merging with bones, but from whose breasts still flow the nourishing fluid of milk then blood but still food to feed her young? What of the father who hurled himself before bullets to keep safe his wife, his son? What of the daughter who ran back to her burning house, her skin afire, to save her mother dying of a disease anyway? She prays for her mother: but not to die from fire, Lord, not from hell-burning fire. 

  You say: there were these persons. We know of them; we read, we heard of them. You ask: and you say there is no such person?

And I answer. There is no such thing, there is no such person. These are not things, nor these mere persons.

These are miracles.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)

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