Market scene

This is a boy crouching behind his mama. Like a kitten curled with clenched paws. He does not squeak nor whisper. Only with clogged nostrils, he attempts to sing an off-tuned chirp. A lullaby for himself. No mama to rock him. He shivers in the damp box--surrounded with chopped vegetables. Mama peals the cabbage leaf. Mama throws the cabbage leaf. Mama kicks the cabbage leaf. Beside him. Unknowingly. The boy does not know either. They two, oblivious of each other.

See this wide, dank mossy floor. The floor no one cared to sweep. Thousand legs have travailed this concrete, the filth where mama stands, where mama does not see. She chooses not to. She sees all those in front of her and what they do--what they ought not to do. How he picks her pocket. How she picks his pocket. She sees how they pay her with their stolen purses. And she receives passively, hoping to sell her vegetables before papa brings her another basket. And that will be tonight, when she comes home, when she comes home with her little boy now wasted beside her. He silently exhales the green bulb in his nostrils. And mama sees this.

"My litte boy," she kicks the leaves beside him, sighs deeply. Interrupted. Another customer comes, "how much does a kilo cost?" "Thirty pesos," she remarks quickly. Thirty. And the woman vanishes. Now to look for 29 or 28 or 27. Mama puts the fresh, green, unstained cabbage in front. "How much does a kilo cost?" another woman comes. "Fifteen for half a kilo," she replies. I can slice it for you if you like. She drops the half on a thin blue plastic and places it in a slightly dysfunctional weighing balance. One gram may reflect two or even four. Just drop it quickly and the balance's hand will ascend further. The woman pays seventeen. And mama smiles.

Mama wipes the green bulb in the boy's nose. "Are you hungry?" she brings her mouth closer so he can hear, so she can tell him more audibly, "Are you hungry?" The boy, in his lassitude, does not speak. He hears but he cannot speak. Only with clogged nostrils, he attempts to sing an off-tuned chirp--like a lullaby for himself. Because mama cannot sing! And mama cannot do more than ask, "Are you hungry? Are you hungry? Are you hungry? Are you hungry?" Does she not hear the growl of his intestines? Does she not notice the tremors of his wrists? "I am hungry, mama! I am hungry, mama!" he tells her this by deliberately swinging his jaw. But another sauntering woman comes, "how much does a kilo cost?" "Thirty," she says side-glancing at her little boy. His jaw even more dropped, swung open like a door mama left ajar.

She wants to buy milk for him. Wants to buy meat for him. But she can only spoon a meal of cabbage, shredded into pieces like rabbits' leftovers. She pinches salt and scatters the crystal. The roughly polished rice she moistens with water. "Come now," she pleads him to sit down. Blood left his gaunt and pallid cheeks. Lips rough and white as pumice stones. "Please eat," she begs; she spoons the cabbage. His mouth never opens. Like a cave drooling with water from the falls above, his saliva drips; rain looming down.

Then comes another woman asking, "how much does a kilo cost?" Mama turns to her and leaves her little boy with the moistened cabbage meal.