MEDIUM RARE
By JULLIE Y. DAZA
Jullie Y. Daza
Rain, rain, don’t go away,
Come and stay another day . . .
Was I dreaming? The rain, buckets of it, fell on our roof, trees, streets, deliriously glorious rain that started falling at 12:25 a.m. Thursday May 2. I wanted to dance but all I could do was run as far as the front door to see if I was hallucinating. I smelled the rain, the earth, felt the weight of moisture in the night air, hoped rain was falling in cascades into the dams where it would be of maximum use.
The sibilance, the pitter-patter faded away to a drip-drip at 12:46. At 1:01 the sibilance turned silent. Leaves began shedding their teardrops but the soil absorbed their sadness without sound. Just as soundlessly I went back to bed, sad but not angry.
Sad again when the noontime newscasts ignored the coming of the long-awaited blessing from the skies; it was as if our household was the only one that had experienced the joy, shortlived as it was. My daughter, who lives 20 km away, said there was no rain over there. Maybe I saw, smelled, felt the rain from wanting it too much.
Over the weekend, loyal fans of “Avengers” filled the mall from morn ‘til midnight. Long queues, every seat taken in every theater of the multiplex – no wonder one wing of the comfort rooms for all genders was barricaded, walled up as if for eternity, an endgame telling one and all there was very little water in reserve to comfort the afflicted. Could anyone guess how much water was going down the drain, gallon after gallon being flushed after each three-hour screening in all eight theaters?
As this is happening, Maynilad has joined the service-interruption trend, but at least subscribers have been forewarned with a timetable. With both concessionaires waterless for much or most of the day, it doesn’t look as if anyone can avenge our dried out, sorry state. Throughout this summer of discontent and despair, the only public servants working with any predictable efficiency are our faithful scientists -- meteorologists, hydrologists, geologists, seismologists. Fair-weather friends they are not.