The Age of Innocence

The class yesterday was making vignettes in two perspectives-one as an adult remembering a childhood memory, and the other, writing that same memory in the moment, as a child. There are no rules, Twee said, except to cluster, shift, write, and make the snake bite its tail (another writeup, or just take her class ok?)

As an Adult

I remember the summer days when my cousins and I would spend time at our grandparents-an island away, an overnight travel by sea- to Aklan. There is one particular memory that remains vivid to this day. It was mid-morning, and my cousin Dondon and I were leading the pack-he with his younger brother Tonette, and I with my younger sister Eden. We were frolicking under the sun, and by this I mean running around the rice fields, climbing trees and discovering what else this huge "playground" held for us. It was during that day that we discovered the shack where all the hens were kept. I remember Dondon hushing us up, as we went inside, inched our way in and crouched to see a hen lay an egg. Our eyes grew big in wonder as we saw one translucent round object come out of the hen and turned white- an egg! We could not keep the delight in silence and squealed in the discovery which made hen after hen quack, disturbed by our presence. I remember that summer day when we ran as fast as we could, back to Lola's house, who was calling out our names, hearing the disturbance we caused.

As A Child
" What are we going to do today?, " I asked my cousin Dondon.

It was summer, and my cousins and I were surrounded by trees taller than our Lola's house, and there were fruits waiting to be picked- star apples, santol and indian mangoes.

Yesterday, Dondon went up to a tree, and we didn't know what it was, but from it he had stinging red marks across his stomach. It was kasoy, we learned.

"Let's run across the rice field and see what's out there," he suggested. So off we went, in our slippers, shorts and sando. Half running, half walking, we went to see who would fall off the pilapil when we saw something-a little shack in the middle of the field.

"What is it? What's inside?", Tonette,Dondon's younger brother asked aloud for each one of us.
We took a peep, and saw rows of hens filling up the tiny bahay kubo up to its columns. We wondered why they were in there, and why they were sitting still.

No words were said, but we were in agreement to go inside, out of curiousity. One by one, we slipped in and knew we had to be quiet. And then it dawned on us that we were about to see a hen actually lay an egg. So we sat down on our knees, near each other, near enough by the door, and close enough to one hen about to lay an egg.

I saw magic as the hen stared ahead in concentration, and then there it is- a round, translucent object coming out of its tail.

" An egg! An egg!", someone said and I watch as it turned white, but our noise disturbed the other hens and they flipped and flapped, quacked, and I saw feathers in the air as I turn my back and tell my sister to run out of the shack. We were giggling and laughing, and we were still half running, half walking as we make our way back to Lola's house, smelling of sweat, but with pure joy in our hearts.

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Postscript: From now on, Twee tells us to write in the childhood perspective.