cruboy

"what quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity..."

10:45am. i woke up because my dog was barking, not the usual bark due to hostile intruders, but more like a 
bark for help... still in bed when i opened my eyes i could see water creeping inside my room from the door... immediately i realized: the puppies in the living room! sure enough in ankle deep water the puppies were floating everywhere, and so  are whatever stuff on the floor... when i found all six of them and put them over the table i went for the  power panel to turn off the electricity before i get electrified from all the extension wires running around the house.  the maid was out with my mother, my brothers and cousins were out for work, it was me and cousin ning who just got home that morning from albay who are in the house.  i woke her up somehow in my flurry of  making sure everything is unreached by the incoming water coming from everywhere. 

it was like an act of cleansing and purge; and the image of the great biblical deluge crossed my mind, this could be the end of it all. i looked all over the house and i had to prioritize items that will sustain the recovery first, clothes and beddings, and source of food. then i looked over my room, and made me think which i would save and spare and which of them i could let go.  tough choices, but i had to act.  priority had to go with most current and more expensive collections: books, toys and what nots. in two hours the water soon levelled but almost knee high in my bedroom which was the highest part of the house.  the water stayed awhile but by 4:00pm, there was only mud and ruin.

"...when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone..."

i did not realize how much stuff we had on the floor... whatever it was on the lower shelves are ruined. some cleansing, some purging... it was only mud and ruin... in the end it felt more like vengeance and spite... from nature... from god.  i lost two puppies eventually (they must have fallen off the table somehow) and some other stuff which we can live without... that was sad.  i felt worse when i found that my box of old letters got drowned... letters since grade school and up, wedding invites from college friends, memorabilia, silly love letters from high school and college, some journals from old high school barkadas that we pass around during class, tickets from all the plays and movie premiers i have seen, post cards from different places from friends and relatives... it may seem like a pile of junk, but it meant more to me...  sniff.

i am deeply saddened also to learn that others have suffered fate worse than i did, two of my officemates lost everything, others are still in waters... i could not even imagine how that must have felt.  should i be thankful?  it all seems callous... i refuse to be thankful, instead i pray that everyone who were affected by this disaster to have the strength and wit to survive, the perseverance and will to endure, the hope and faith to recover.

"...and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs." - gelliot

...damn the flood.