The Weight of Freedom

There are important things in the world accessible only to the privileged. So Naila (na-ee-la) learned to climb the floors of an invisible, commonly denied social caste. The government was her ladder.

“A bureaucratic world only wants two things: impeccable papers and a convincing face to present them.” Naila’s old mentor, The Councilor, used to say. “Do this and government coffers will open up to you, like a flower.”

She took her mentor’s words to heart. A complex architecture of government bursaries and corporate grants paid for her high-profile university tuition and lifestyle expenses in Metro Manila. It wasn’t all legal. But she was so proficient at what she did that, after graduation, The Councilor hired Naila full time.

The Councilor was a good mentor and a kind boss. When Naila made a rookie mistake—the kind someone with twice the experience and half the temperament could’ve avoided—and Bureau officers came knocking, The Councilor sent her off to a rural town for vacation.

“Let me ask a few favors, twist some arms, and we’ll be up again in three months,” The Councilor said in parting.

But Covid happened and city borders closed. Naila became a stranded tourist in a northern mountain town, fourteen hours’ drive from Manila.

She met the old miner there, as a fellow quarantine violator. She wandered too far in search of snacks when a group of kagawads apprehended her.

Inside an open school gymnasium, the old miner and Naila swapped stories between floor mopping breaks. By late afternoon, they established a comfortable bond, weeding the community garden together. Then the old miner noticed one of their captors—a loud-mouthed kagawad—was ogling Naila. She noticed this too, and she was about to say something smart when the old miner stumbled on his mop and asked Naila, his “niece,” to massage his sprained ankle. The loud-mouthed kagawad is “connected,” the old miner whispered to Naila. Better not mess with him.

Outside the gym, Naila thanked the old miner. “I’m actually not from this Barangay,” she admitted. "I live in a homestay, two kilometers outside the village checkpoint."

“Your accent… you’re not from this region either, are you?” the old miner asked.

They spoke in Kankana-ey. Up in the mountains, only tourists used the national language. Naila was born and raised in another northern town so she spoke the dialect well. But years in Metro Manila changed her accent.

The miner offered to accompany Naila to the next checkpoint. But the kagawad's friends might be there. “If you want, you can stay in my home for now," the miner concluded.

The old miner lived alone in an abode composed of three structures, standing several meters apart, and forming a proscenium with a fire pit in the middle. It was the old miner’s childhood home, back when his parents and three other siblings lived, and his only surviving brother hasn't yet moved to the far South.

In the “main house," beside a boxy, 13-inch Changhong TV, a few steps from the gas stove and dining table, Naila observed a wall rack enshrining items that Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson warned mamas about: a pair of steel-toe leather boots, wide-brimmed Stetson hats, brown leather jackets, two pairs of jeans that—on closer inspection—were certifiably old-school Levi’s, and a black, snake-skin leather belt, attached to a custom-designed Lonestar buckle. Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

The main house was flanked by the bathroom on one side and the “dirty kitchen” on the other. The old miner opened his music player and a band called Alabama hee-hawed about having a fiddle player in a band if you wanted to play in Texas.

That night, Naila woke up from a dream.

Her phone displayed three minutes past two. The murmur of crickets and the cool, whistling breath of the mountains seeped in from a crack in the window. She slunk outside and found the old miner in front of the bonfire, beside his dirty kitchen, drinking what smelled like freshly brewed, northern-grown, dark-roast Arabica. The old miner mixed something on a small iron pot and heated it by the fire. The thick aroma of cocoa filled Naila's nostrils.

“The coffee here is too strong for tourists,” the old miner teased, handing her a hot cup of cocoa.

“I’m no tourist,” she smiled. “How about you?”

He pointed to the trail that led from his home to a deeper part of the mountain. “I work the mines at three, every morning. So it’s not too hot outside." Too much heat triggered his hypertension, he explained, so he headed home when the sun rose high.

Naila sipped her cocoa. It was warm, good. There’s something about the hours before a sunrise that feels contemplative. Honest.

“Do you ever dream of your first love?”

“I’m too old to be dreaming of first loves.”

“But do you?”

He was silent for a while. “Sometimes.”

“Me, too. I dreamt of him. Just a while ago.”

In Naila’s dream, she was back in sixth grade, covertly sharing a stick of Marlboro red with her friends at a mall terrace, on a dare. It was her first time smoking and she was terrified she'd get caught. She was about to take another furtive puff when she saw him, the boy she’d been crushing on since fifth grade. He was a year ahead, leaving for middle school when Naila reached the sixth, so she hadn’t seen him for months. He looked at her and he smiled. They didn't even know each other.

“The following day, after he smiled at me, I got sick,” Naila said. “It was my first time getting sick in five years, after the pox. I didn’t go to school for a week.”

“He’s your bad luck charm?”

She sighed. “He was my wake-up call.”

Naila said she lied to her mother so she could go out that day. She was supposed to help at the market, selling meat as usual, when her friends invited her to the mall after class. Their invitation was quick, unexpecting. Because she never joined.

Naila always went home early to help her mother. While her peers went on trips, picnics, or family restaurants during weekends, Naila did the chores at home. Then she'd help her mother do other people's chores in other people's homes. When the chores are done and the meat is sold, she would study. One of her mother’s affluent customers, an alumnus of the school and now a retired judge, agreed to pay for Naila’s private school tuition and expenses as long as Naila ranked among the top ten in her class.

Naila said her mother did her best. But they had too many problems: the gambling debts her father left behind, before running out on them; her mother’s fragile health and the expensive medication that came with it; the monthly rent, the bills.

At least once a week, Naila’s mother laid sick in bed. Naila would man their market stall alone, wishing none of her classmates would happen by. She soon learned they never visited the crowded, malodorous public market. They only went to malls or brand-name grocers and most of them had a helper to do the actual shopping.

It was an "inspiring story" Naila heard too often from people of her kind: parents toil hard until they’re broken; children graduate to fight tooth and nail for a job and pay their parents’ bills, medication, interest-laden debts.

Then one day she saw her sixth-grade crush smile at her and happiness broke her, like a waterfall flooding a teacup. Naila realized happiness felt alien to her. Her body was too used to hardship, it didn’t know how to handle anything else.

In a moment of fever-induced clarity, thirteen-year-old Naila saw herself dutifully preparing for the cycle of destitution that commanded her mother, her relatives, her neighbors, her life.

And she didn’t want it.

She wanted so much to be like her private-school friends who can afford to be superficial, immature, and uncaring about the weight of the world. She wanted to talk about boys, trade dating gossips, hang out at cafes and malls, and smoke and drink like a rebel. She wanted to forget the meat market and her mother, who cried silently every night, lamenting the husband who abandoned her. She wanted to stop being such a goddamned responsible, understanding, patient daughter.

“My mom died from a heart attack that year, and I was sent off to live with my aunt in Sampaloc, Manila, where I studied high school," Naila whispered. "I eventually moved to Quezon City for college."

“I was really sad when my mother passed away, so suddenly…”

She looked at the old miner. He was staring at the mountainous horizon, drinking his coffee. He turned to her.

“But honestly, I felt more relieved than sad. Deep inside, I’m glad I escaped.”

She smiled. “It has subsided over the years, but I still feel guilty. I still have these moments, every day at random, where I’m doing something or I wake up from a deep sleep, and then remember that I felt glad my mother—who loved me and did her best to raise me—died early, so I wouldn’t have to take care of her debt and her bills.”

The old miner refilled her cup and, holding her gently, moved her closer to the fire. She only realized she’s shivering when she felt the fire’s heat. Naila sipped her drink, sniffed, and gave a small chuckle. They stared at the stars.

“How about you? Tell me about your first love.”

The old miner laughed for the first time. It sounded like a gentle draft, blowing from a long, winding cave.

“You don’t forget your topics, do you?”

She smiled. “I have a good memory. I’m a top student, remember?”

The old miner shook his head. “I’m bad at telling stories. And it’s not a very exciting one. Just some boring story about a first love I didn’t get.”

“Pleeease?” She was starting to sound more like her age.

“Maybe later,” the miner smiled.

Naila asked if she could sleep outside, next to the fire, under the stars. The old miner took out a large blanket and tied each end to a sturdy post. It was now a hammock, just over a meter from the bonfire, overlooking the mountains. Naila wrapped herself in another blanket and settled comfortably. The easterly Amihan whistled by, gently swaying the hammock like a crib.

“Do you also like singing?”

“It sure is nice to be young and full of demands, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. Can you sing for me?”

“I’m no good at singing.”

He turned to the fire and thought for a while. “But I do read, now and then."

Naila’s eyes lit up. The old miner said he was fond of an old book of poems. Its lines were simple and didn’t rhyme. A traveling Belgian missionary gave it to his mother, a long time ago.

It was a tattered old book missing its cover. The spine was taped and almost falling apart. The pages were ragged with stains, cracks, and burns—marks that told their own stories. He opened it slowly, tenderly. He stopped at a particular poem.

He looked at the fire and the stars reflected on her eyes. He took a deep breath. How long has it been, since he read this poem to someone? It felt like ages ago, and it was, indeed, ages ago. Four decades. Twice the age of the girl in the hammock, since he had sat by the shore, feet among the waves, reading the poem he loved to someone he loved even more.

He started reading slowly. His voice was deep, buoyed in youthful lilts. The words floated steadily, like boats on placid waters fading into the night. Naila dreamed of endless fields and wispy stalks, swaying with the wind. The sun tapped gently at her cheeks. She was warm. Free.

***

A version of this story was first published by Anomaly Literary Journal. The author (me) owns all publication rights.