kinatay

ocean heaven (2010)

sea of brown

motor vulcan

surround

upalat

multiply by n

passing

donggnam

veiled

world's fair

an easy one

it was easy. anyone could have seen through it earlier. it was an easy one from the very start, down to the middle, and towards the main proposal of the messages. but it was easier - too easy for the scammer to have someone fall into the first bait of trust ~ to make someone believe that who that someone was communicating with was a trustworthy colleague ~ with the flexibility of revealing not a bit information from himself about the person he was assuming to be.

it started with a simple, "how is everything? this is my roaming number." "c, is this you?" "yes." from one easy roll into a cascade. simple exchanges into detailed giveaways of trust. "maybe you want to earn extra income. it will be easy." "extra income. maybe not for me. so how will it be?" "it's easy and simple. we can turn 50 to 100 to 150. make 500 to 1000 to 1500. we don't need to do that much. just send me the codes to cellphone reload cards you can buy."

they learned too late. if there was anything valuable here, they could only charge now to experience ~ hopefully not to fall for one again ~ one as easy as this.

mantigue-bound

three little birds

...singin' "don't worry 'bout a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be alright"

m/v japan asia

tagbilaran port

hello

it was a dead mid-morning when you unexpectedly sent a short straightforward message saying "hello". i did not take heed of the quick short beeping of the mobile phone at first. the bed still invited a midmorning sleep, whereas the outside midmorning heat had too much in its hands even for just a short break for a cool breeze. on second thought, it was rare for me to receive messages from this side of the world, so hazily, i got up grabbed the phone, went back to bed while sleepily my fingers attempted to navigate their way to the short message saying "hello". and without much processing, my eyes gave away to a second mid-morning nap.

"hello."

"hello to you too," i managed to send back almost two hours after receiving the message.

"where in this place are you now? i might find myself somewhere there by next week."

"just here where my project is. where exactly are you going next week?" as vaguely as i could to bring an answer, realizing how certain fears began to take form inside.

"i am going to udtan. will you be near?"

"oh. that's quite far in the north."

"when do you plan to go home? do you plan to go north?"

"hmmm. i honestly don't know when yet but i'm sure to see myself going north before going home."

"that is good. please do tell me when."

"ok." a short non--committal reply i thought. it scared me.