MEDIUM RARE 

This is a true story. Only the name of the narrator, “Amy,” is a fiction.

Amy, looking 18 but thinking 25, is in second year college majoring in theology, civil law, and philosophy. Her assignment: visit a “typical” family of six, find out how they live on one breadwinner’s minimum daily wage of ₱650.  

 Six hundred pesos a day for food, rent, fuel, transportation? To be shared among six persons? It was looking like the story of a miracle instead of the term paper she would be submitting to her teacher in the US.

Amy sat down and asked the first question. But before the head of the family could start talking, his wife butted in and told Amy, “Maybe you should sit in this other chair. The one you’re sitting on, that’s where our son was shot and killed, EJK.”

It took a few seconds before Amy realized what she was hearing.

Recalling her experience, Amy told me, “It’s different, hearing those letters spoken by a real person talking to you. You’re not hearing it as news on the radio or TV.” 

If you had been in Amy’s shoes, would you have changed the topic of your term paper, then and there, from living on ₱650 a day to EJK?

I never read Amy’s paper because she left shortly after that interview to return to the USA.

There are other three-letter words that don’t spell good news, such as TRO (temporary restraining order) and SOS (Save our souls!). I once knew a girl who was in the habit of drawing on her notebook a tree whose trunk bore the letters ILU in honor of her beloved.  The tree bore no fruit, however, because he soon showed his true colors, defending himself as the victim of a shotgun wedding. At any rate, the story ended with my friend landing in hospital and her beloved making a point of not visiting her.

I keep using my friend as an example of “undying love” — though what I wished for her, EJK, was not in fashion yet. (Note: her father was a Major in the Army.) Even so, I can imagine her telling me, “But I wouldn’t have the heart to shoot him!”