Mornings in our area are noisy. Jeepneys roar. The nearby corner market bustles. And the village gossips gather to tackle the day’s top stories. Everybody is frenetically securing things for breakfast, sending small kids off to school, readying for work, trying to put some purpose or excitement to a new day in the same humdrum life.
I wanted to stay in bed a few minutes more that morning last week, after a whole night of re-reading Richard Bach’s Illusions. But the noise outside just wouldn’t let me. There seemed to be, as usual, some big news being discussed by neighbors. It was hard convincing myself it wasn’t like me to take interest in such idle activity.
Then, the bougainvillea in front of my rented place came to my mind; it certainly needed trimming. Now there was good alibi for joining the gathering outside. So I got up and, rubbing my eyes, searched for my garden shears.
The welcome I got upon opening my front door was as warm as the morning sunlight. One guy greeted me with the day’s issue of Banat (a sister publication of The FREEMAN), understandably suggesting that I expound on the headline news. Another one asked for my opinion on the perceived resurgence of drug-related activities in our community.
I meekly refused to bite the baits, reminding myself of my purpose of being there at the time, which was to trim the plant. Honest to say, though, my ears and mind were all on the spirited discussion around me, while pretending to be busy ridding the bougainvillea of overextending branches and unhealthy twigs.
Soon the whiff of freshly baked pan de sal from the bakery close by began to spread. Now with something more to focus the mind on, the monotony everybody was trying to break away from had been totally superseded. The relief was complete, for the moment at least.
The discussion continued, now with each participant casting in his views on the topic at hand through mouthfuls of bread. Every now and then an irate wife would come, faulting a husband who had been stuck in the talks. The whole family had waited for the pan de sal, so the kids could go to school and the grown-ups to work.
In many homes in our area, a few pieces of pan de sal paired with a cheap chocolate drink already make a full breakfast. It costs more to have rice; you would need viand to go with it, aside from the fact that rice alone is already expensive. The neighborhood bakery still sells pan de sal at one peso apiece, despite the heightening price of flour. With 10 pesos worth of bread, a family of five has ready breakfast, no additional cost of kerosene or charcoal to cook it.
The important thing is to have some food early in the day, to break the fast of several hours during the night. No matter how meager breakfast is, one is still lucky enough to have some. Others have to bear with an empty stomach until about midday, if at all they can find something to eat by then.
I was then jolted to feel something cold touching my arm from behind. It could have been a snake or a big rat hiding in the thick leaves of the bougainvillea. Fortunately it was neither one nor the other. It was, instead, an angel.
He smiled big, perhaps to compensate for the fright he might have had caused in me. I turned away, but observed him from the side of my eyes. Maybe I wanted him to go away. He stood there for a while longer, and then began to move on.
The boy was about four or five years old. His clothes, as well as his small body, were dirty, although he appeared to be quite healthy. He had no slippers, but it didn’t seem to bother him. The skin at the base of his feet were probably hardened enough that rendered any footwear unnecessary.
As he started pulling a partly filled sack behind him, I was seized with guilt about my actuation towards the boy. Inside the sack were his precious finds, things that had become useless for others. Then I understood what he wanted from me—any trash that I might need to throw away.
Several other kids were digging into a garbage receptacle across the street. The little boy turned towards the group. He had difficulty pulling the heavy sack, but it was the only way to move it; his tiny body could not bear the weight of the load on his shoulders.
Before the boy could go any farther, I called out to him. My heart was now drowning in remorse as I approached him. He was smiling big still, as if that smile had never left his face—as if I was never being unkind to him. Maybe the boy was so used to being turned down or ignored. Or maybe he was just pure-hearted, incapable of holding resentment.
I asked if he liked to have fresh pan de sal. My angel smiled bigger, a raw compliment of the size I had not seen in my entire life. I pulled his sack back aside and led him to the bakery. When I asked how many he could consume, the boy looked towards the other kids across the road. I got the message.
There were 50 pieces of pan de sal in the plastic sando bag that I handed to him. He quickly got one; I thought he must be really hungry. But, to my further amazement, that first piece of bread was not for himself. He let out a small kitten from his sack and fed it. Then he called in his other friends.
“Put others before oneself,” an old wisdom tells us. Nice to think of, but hard to follow. Sometimes it seems that experience does not really make us wise, any more than it makes us callous. We have a lot to learn from little children, whose innate humanity pours out spontaneously without being filtered through screens of selfish interests.
The bums in my neighborhood will do better emulating the scavenger kids around. Early mornings are a time for doing something productive, not for getting intoxicated with self-righteous opinions that don’t really count, after all. It’s better to dirty our hands digging garbage bins than pollute our minds with delusions.
I failed myself that morning with my initial indifference, for turning my back on the boy who was only asking for leftovers. I deeply regret my arrogance in acting as if a fellow human being didn’t even deserve my garbage. I pray that the little scavenger boy will forgive me. So, then, I can also forgive myself. (E-MAIL: modequillo@hotmail.com)