old, old story in sent items: The Marikina Box Family

We live in a collection of balikbayan boxes which are 2’ x 2’ x 2’, at the bottom of a bridge in Marikina. That’s me, my ma and pa, and my younger brother. I have one box, my ma and pa have two, my brother has one, the kitchen and toilet each are composed of one and there’s two for the living room. Some of the boxes have flaps which we use as windows. The toilet doesn’t have a window but the kitchen has one, my brother’s box doesn’t have one but I have one. Sometimes, without asking for permission, I turn my balikbayan box over so it opens up towards the sky, and I sleep like that. When I was in first year college, before we started living in boxes, my friend Heide asked another friend, Christian, if we could hold our film viewing at his house. Matter-of-factly, he said we actually can, but only one person, standing up could fit inside the house. Usually, when their mom arrives after work, she’ll be inside their house. Then she’d go out and let Christian’s sister inside, then she’ll go out and let him inside, and they’d just keep on switching. Estimating it now, it must have been a 1 x 1 x 5 house. Of course, I didn’t believe him then, he does fly to the U.S. once a year after all. But now that we’re living inside our eight boxes, I could imagine some probability in it. Squirming from one room to another makes me think like we’re a badger family and sometimes we end up knocking heads. In good days, we laugh it off but usually we don’t even notice and go about crawling on. One day my brother died from the cold, and we were just thinking of burning him inside his box but thought better about it. That’s what the river was for, anyway. Later on, I was given the use of his box, and now I use it to keep some of my bags and at nighttime, also one of my legs. On the walls of his box, I found out my brother practiced his drawing. Some of them were pretty good: a flower, a boy, a flashlight, an old man. I sometimes think of running away. I plan on taking two boxes with me, at the least.

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