A State of Calamity

It's just like one of those rains: blustery and cold, loud and crass, forgettable. It was met with celebration. Water levels have reached critical and we Filipinos love our baths, after all. People have been panicking about the Angat Dam, rice supplies, the next exam, and unicorns. And then it rains. Hard. Celebration morphs to tragedy as several municipalities were declared under a State of Calamity.

Including mine.

I just found out a few minutes ago actually. Apparently, several areas surrounding our subdivision have been flooded. It's on the news—footages of people looking miserable in a bastketball court, sitting on the cold cement as the mayor makes a pathetic show of bravura in front of the lenses. Right now, I don't feel pity for them, although I know exactly how they are feeling (much too exactly to like it really). I just feel this big relief that me and my dogs are not one of them. It's fucking horrible to be one of them.

I was one of them last year, although I am definitely less fortunate because I spent half of Milenyo swallowing mounting panic as water rose to almost five feet inside our bungalow. My other dog, Hector, was stupid enough to not know how to swim and so clung for dear life in a window ledge, wherefrom I rescued him by pulling his ass through the grill. Realizing that the water won't stop rising anytime soon, me, my brother and my mom swam outside to a wall to sit on it for a couple of hours.

It's not very nice sitting on a wall, especially when it's raining lightly and all you have about you is a soggy jacket. I worried about my clothes. I worried about that CPU mom dropped in the muddy water. I worried about my stationery set, which I spent half my life collecting, and which also shared the fate of the CPU. Amongst all this tragic anxieties, I decided to save my dogs. I swam back to the house to get Hector, who scratched my face; and I swam to the garage to get Bogart, who was more sensible than Hector because she intelligently perched on a floating couch. Yes, we kept a couch in the garage. After the rescue attempt, I started worrying about my hair because the water was as filthy as such found in a toilet bowl.

After the deluge, we spent two weeks cleaning the house. The waters left mud which was two to three inches thick and was very, very difficult to remove. I'll spare you my life story and just tell you that it wasn't a goddamned field trip. Not a goddamned field trip at all.

I hope it doesn't happen again. But fat chance. When I get my own place, I'll live in a condo at the 27th floor if that's what it takes.