The Eye Of The Fish

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Luis H. Francia. The Eye Of The Fish

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Eye of the Fish

a personal archipelago

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Images of loss pervade the afternoon, slouching towards night. Now Escolta lingers on in faded dress, an aging star bereft of her crowds, grown dusty and forlorn. Botica Boie’s has vanished, along with most of the first-class cinemas. A few people are about who seem to like coming here to savor the desolate half-life of another era, sitting in the dark in the district’s remaining movie house, watching flickering images with other like-minded viewers.

Images of loss: the Ideal is gone, in its place a department store filled with cheap items; outside, the elevated mass-transit train courses down Avenida Rizal, blocking out the light and adding to the sense of congestion. Plaza Miranda and Quiapo Church still remain revered points for pilgrims wending their way to eternity, and for politicians embarked on a more worldly voyage. The talipapa around the church bustles, noisy as ever. And Carriedo Street, linking the Avenida to Quiapo Church, remains a maelstrom. Shoppers in a feeding frenzy maneuver the narrow spaces between the street stalls. And I hear that familiar refrain, “Pasalubong para kay Boy!” (“Gifts for Boy!”) Once upon a time I was that boy. Now the hawkers assume I have a boy, maybe a brood of children whose appetite for gifts I must satiate.

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