Inside the mall

 

Agfa Building

I'm just fascinated by this old building standing unobtrusively, almost obscurely, along City Hall Drive and caught my camera on Independence Day. While waiting for the VIPs to arrive, my camera felt very impatient and explored the vicinity of the square some distance away. We were allotted a standing space without any chair to sit on so it really tested my endurance, especially as my hipbone was hurting that morning. So, the camera roamed around and happened to look up at the trees--there were about eight full grown trees left standing at the City Hall grounds, had they cut all the others? and beyond the trees, this particular building, so fascinating because it looked so old. What story could it be telling me? The drive on its ground floor was often crowded with people milling around, doing some business with City Hall, vendors hawking, or selling fruits like sliced papaya, singkamas, raw mangoes; or banana cues and later, siomai, binignit, used to line up the sidewalks outside the camera shops next to this building, photocopiers, laminating shops, photo studios and Davao's oldest bookstore, the Velasco Bookstore, lining down the entire stretch of the drive that ends at the Jaltan outlet where it meets Magallanes Street in the corner. 

Is Agfa Building the real name of the building? And why is it named Agfa in the first place? Yes, I know it had something to do with Agfa film but I want to know exactly what and how. 

Story that refuses to write

I am about to finish the story that I failed to write. It's so difficult.

I'm so lazy to sharpen my pencils

 Try again next time, Mr. Fagin.

Why I refuse to speak to my sister

Because the last time that we talked, she was in her bathroom, washing clothes because washing clothes  was more important to her than talking to me. Just talk because I'm washing clothes, she said in a dismissive tone, as if what I was about to tell her was something that would only need half her attention, like when you tell her, hey, I'm going to the market, do you need something for me to buy? No, that was not the kind I was trying to talk about. In my mind, I revised and reviewed several ways to tell her how I knew she was ostracising me, her kind of a power play, something that I saw other people do to me countless of times but never expected it from a family member.  Also, I wanted to ask her if she was talking about me in front of my boy? Why is my boy behaving like that? But I did not know how to bring this up so I talked about other things and realised we were replaying scenes we did in childhood; her being allowed to do everything she liked with impunity while I was not allowed to complain because I was older by one year and five months. Every time she did something to me, Ma, who was now in her sickbed, said I should not complain because I was the older one, I should just let my sisters be because they were younger. 

So, while she was yelling at me, "you always have what you wanted!" and me, dumbfounded, saying, "whaaat?" and could not even say a word. When I said, why are you not including me in your discussions and your plans? Both of you talking to each other, excluding me as if I were not a part of it. She replied, "Whaaat? Do I have to ask your permission to give the medicine to our Mother?" As if that was what I meant. So as she continued talking angrily in her bathroom, I quietly stood up, opened the door, walked away calmly and felt sharp pains shooting from my left arms and left shoulder as I reached the potholed streets a few paces from her gate. It was my body's way of telling me it was such a really terrible experience talking there with my sister.  I should not do it again.