Alex Maskara
Thoughts, Stories, Imagination of Filipino American Alex Maskara
For comments, inquiries, corrections and feedback, contact admin: alexzita5@gmail.com
Barrio Tales
~
Nobody Plays Our Song
I am very, very tired from work today. But Celso called, and I had no choice but to listen. Dear reader, forgive any faults in my English as I attempt to recount what Celso told me:
---
"Indang Biring, Indang Biring," I kept calling her name, again and again, but she just sat there weeping. Quietly. Not sobbing, not wailing—just a low, relentless kind of weeping. The kind that sits heavy on a chest and doesn’t stop.
She said, “You are my only family, Celso. I am an old woman now. Who will be with me when I die?”
“But you won’t die, Indang Biring,” I said. “Just look at you—your mind’s still sharp as a blade, you’ve barely got gray hair. You walk like a bull, like you used to when Mother and Father were still alive and you worked the fields, lifted hogs, drove the horses during harvest. Indang Biring, you’ll probably outlive us all.”
Still, she wept.
“But how can I stay here?” I pleaded. “Do you know what it’s like every time it rains? I gather empty cans, pails, pots—anything—to catch the leaks. We don’t have money to fix the roof. My teaching salary barely feeds us. My eldest will soon start college—where will I get the money for that? What am I supposed to do? These damn flies—why are they always here, buzzing, biting, never leaving?”
“Look outside, Indang Biring. Look at the garbage piling up. Look at the trees—drying out, dying, one by one. Look at the children born here every day—don’t you feel it? The crowding? The suffocation? The slow drowning?”
“These kids, they’re dropping out of school. Wandering the streets. Getting lost. Some are already sniffing glue—because hunger is easier to forget that way. And the girls, Indang Biring… I won’t even tell you what happens to them.”
“And still, you cry. Still, you hope. But no amount of crying will change anything. No amount of praying. No one cares about people like us anymore in this country.”
“This country only listens to the ones in power. The fat pigs in offices. Look at them—so full, so bloated, sitting on their thrones, barking at each other over petty things, while the rest of us… while I…”
“I stay up past midnight planning lessons. I wake at dawn to prepare the kids for school, cook what little food we have, sweep the backyard. The flies, always the flies. Then I go to school and teach—teach like I’m talking to trees. My pupils—they’re too hungry, too broken to listen. They daydream about meals, about being on TV, about escaping. Algebra means nothing when your stomach’s empty.”
“So what’s the point, Indang Biring? What can I do?”
“I hoped someone up there would notice. That maybe, one day, our leaders would talk about people like us. I hoped they’d come here and see how we live, how we teach, how we try. But they don’t. They don’t even look our way.”
“Turn on the radio. Watch the TV. It’s all about them. Always them. Never us. It’s as if this country was built only for them.”
“I’m tired of trying to make them care. I’m tired of screaming into silence.”
“And then…”
“Rene. One of my brightest pupils. His father died last week. Tuberculosis. No money for medicine. I went to the funeral. Rene sat there, still. Just staring at his father's body—no tears, just confusion. He looked lost. Then he looked at me.”
“And I swear, Indang Biring, I got scared. Deep down, bone-deep scared. Because someday, that boy might come to me. Not as a child, but as a man. And he might ask me: *What did you do, Teacher? When we were starving, when we were hurting—what did you do?*”
“And what would I say, Indang Biring? What could I possibly say?”
“That I was silent?”
“That I stood by while this town rotted?”
“That I didn’t fight the lies or the theft or the filth of it all?”
“That I watched young lives unravel and did nothing but whisper prayers into the wind?”
“No. I can’t do that. I can’t stay here and grow old under the weight of my own silence.”
“So I’m leaving. I have to. Maybe abroad, I’ll find a way to send money. Maybe abroad, I’ll finally learn to scream—to scream loud enough to be heard.”
“Don’t cry anymore, Indang Biring. Please don’t.”
“But maybe… maybe it was your fault too. You didn’t do anything either. Ah these pestering flies. When will they ever leave us?”
2025-04-04 06:25:43
barrio
Indang Biring
Nobody Plays Our Song
I am very, very tired from work today. But Celso called, and I had no choice but to listen. Dear reader, forgive any faults in my English as I attempt to recount what Celso told me:
---
"Indang Biring, Indang Biring," I kept calling her name, again and again, but she just sat there weeping. Quietly. Not sobbing, not wailing—just a low, relentless kind of weeping. The kind that sits heavy on a chest and doesn’t stop.
She said, “You are my only family, Celso. I am an old woman now. Who will be with me when I die?”
“But you won’t die, Indang Biring,” I said. “Just look at you—your mind’s still sharp as a blade, you’ve barely got gray hair. You walk like a bull, like you used to when Mother and Father were still alive and you worked the fields, lifted hogs, drove the horses during harvest. Indang Biring, you’ll probably outlive us all.”
Still, she wept.
“But how can I stay here?” I pleaded. “Do you know what it’s like every time it rains? I gather empty cans, pails, pots—anything—to catch the leaks. We don’t have money to fix the roof. My teaching salary barely feeds us. My eldest will soon start college—where will I get the money for that? What am I supposed to do? These damn flies—why are they always here, buzzing, biting, never leaving?”
“Look outside, Indang Biring. Look at the garbage piling up. Look at the trees—drying out, dying, one by one. Look at the children born here every day—don’t you feel it? The crowding? The suffocation? The slow drowning?”
“These kids, they’re dropping out of school. Wandering the streets. Getting lost. Some are already sniffing glue—because hunger is easier to forget that way. And the girls, Indang Biring… I won’t even tell you what happens to them.”
“And still, you cry. Still, you hope. But no amount of crying will change anything. No amount of praying. No one cares about people like us anymore in this country.”
“This country only listens to the ones in power. The fat pigs in offices. Look at them—so full, so bloated, sitting on their thrones, barking at each other over petty things, while the rest of us… while I…”
“I stay up past midnight planning lessons. I wake at dawn to prepare the kids for school, cook what little food we have, sweep the backyard. The flies, always the flies. Then I go to school and teach—teach like I’m talking to trees. My pupils—they’re too hungry, too broken to listen. They daydream about meals, about being on TV, about escaping. Algebra means nothing when your stomach’s empty.”
“So what’s the point, Indang Biring? What can I do?”
“I hoped someone up there would notice. That maybe, one day, our leaders would talk about people like us. I hoped they’d come here and see how we live, how we teach, how we try. But they don’t. They don’t even look our way.”
“Turn on the radio. Watch the TV. It’s all about them. Always them. Never us. It’s as if this country was built only for them.”
“I’m tired of trying to make them care. I’m tired of screaming into silence.”
“And then…”
“Rene. One of my brightest pupils. His father died last week. Tuberculosis. No money for medicine. I went to the funeral. Rene sat there, still. Just staring at his father's body—no tears, just confusion. He looked lost. Then he looked at me.”
“And I swear, Indang Biring, I got scared. Deep down, bone-deep scared. Because someday, that boy might come to me. Not as a child, but as a man. And he might ask me: *What did you do, Teacher? When we were starving, when we were hurting—what did you do?*”
“And what would I say, Indang Biring? What could I possibly say?”
“That I was silent?”
“That I stood by while this town rotted?”
“That I didn’t fight the lies or the theft or the filth of it all?”
“That I watched young lives unravel and did nothing but whisper prayers into the wind?”
“No. I can’t do that. I can’t stay here and grow old under the weight of my own silence.”
“So I’m leaving. I have to. Maybe abroad, I’ll find a way to send money. Maybe abroad, I’ll finally learn to scream—to scream loud enough to be heard.”
“Don’t cry anymore, Indang Biring. Please don’t.”
“But maybe… maybe it was your fault too. You didn’t do anything either. Ah these pestering flies. When will they ever leave us?”
2025-04-04 06:25:43
barrio