Angela (AN-je-la): messenger

There are two Angelas, and neither seems acquainted with the other. 

The first is a diplomat’s wife, always in a tweed suit, sensible heels and pearls, moving among teacups and bed linen. 

The other is a weather girl in a polyester-blend suit and four-inch heels. She has caught the eye of a junior official at the foreign ministry but does not know this yet; she is too busy making an impression. She delivers her forecasts at ungodly hours, so that by the time she slips out of her heels and sinks into her great chair—the biggest piece of furniture in her tiny walkup—the diplomat’s wife is slipping out of bed and into her fur-lined slippers. 

She makes herself a pot of tea and catches herself thinking, “Tomorrow I must tell her to buy a real suit, better shoes, and a bed.” She does not know for whom the advice is intended, but dutifully writes it down in her to-do list. But because the next day is a long one, she accomplishes only the teacup- and bed linen-related tasks.

The weather girl lingers in obscurity until the day the junior official walks into the station, declaring himself and his long-standing admiration for her. Weeks later, he interrupts her forecast and announces, on air, that he has been posted to Paris: would she be interested in coming with him? In Paris, he buys her first silk suit, sensible leather heels, and chooses their matrimonial bed. Why is it, then, that she feels she has failed to heed a critical piece of advice from someone who loves her, but who is so far away?

Alma (AHL-mə): a child to feed one’s soul

My mother and I, we no longer talk.

It was not always like this.

Agueda (AH-Ge-də): good

Not amiable, not kind--but good.

Adriana (ah-dree-AH-nə): the difference between abundance and grace

A three-bedroom house on a quiet street, its uncreaking floors, unslammable doors. An immaculate kitchen with a plexiglass skylight. A linen closet that requires nothing. A sunlit porch shaded by a single tree, a tree heavy with tightly clustered fruit—the tender kamias, each recalling a swollen finger. A woman who picks the fruit, but does not eat, who mashes the fruit for its juice but does not drink. A woman who rubs, rubs, rubs the sour sap on stained bedclothes, rusty grills, dull knives. The fallen and bruised on the fragrant lawn and a woman who chooses and chooses what is worth saving. The sad harvest dried on the porch then gathered in the kitchen. The shriveled remains rinsed, crushed, buried in sugar, boiled—all that one manages to coax into syrup, the idea of sweetness, the sunlit purity of an empty hive. The pale amber jelly bottled by the woman who requires nothing, sitting on a shelf in the immaculate kitchen of a three-bedroom house on a quiet street.

Arsenia (ahr-SEN-yə): the feminine derivative of ‘arsenio’, meaning ‘virile’, in Greek

It is true that her skin is prematurely gray, and that she is unable to break into sweat or produce a personal scent. But they love her because she is quiet and unambitious, and therefore naturally able to transform into what the other girls want her to be, simply by taking her place beside them, pretending to listen. She answers their little notes on scented stationery, and attends their birthday parties, which grow more elegant and elaborate as the years pass. In this way, she becomes one of them, despite her obvious differences. 

But none of this matters to her really. Only one thing enthralls her: her secret ability to disappear at will, when the conditions are right. There is nothing she loves more than to stand before the full-length mirror in her steel-colored bedroom, take off her clothes, and watch herself blend into the wall. 

Soon, the girls in school begin turning into women. She knows this by the knowing glances they exchange and the way the smell of cheap cologne intensifies, when a boy passes by. They each discover, one after the other, that they can make the things they touch bloom. The world beckons, beautiful and dangerous, and they lose interest in her. She remains herself—even though, somewhere inside her, she is certain, a world is ripening quickly. 

One day, scrolling through the Periodic Table of Elements, she notices the element As. She googles its properties and reads through a litany of noxious qualities. She sees herself on the computer screen, and, electrified, recognizes her true element and purpose. The world bursts into flames. Or is it only her young body that explodes, in that exuberant moment of deliverance, and turns into a pile of ash and air? You and I will never know. 

Rocket Kapre reviews 'From The Book of Names My Mother Did Not Give Me'

Paolo Chikiamco and Mia Tijam have been posting a story-by-story review of the pieces included in the Philippine Speculative Fiction VI anthology edited by Nikki Alfar and Kate Aton-Osias.

This week, they review my piece, "From The Book of Names My Mother Did Not Give Me".  Mia also comments briefly on A Girl's Guide to Love in The Big City, which I wrote for Nikki Alfar and Kenneth Yu, and is available at the site, www.philippinegenrestories.com

No, there aren't any spoilers here. Go read the review  yourself and find out what they think!

Pao and Mia, thank you for your review.  A totally unexpected, but totally appreciated read on a day like this!

For the Book of Names Project

To be named after a god: It marks you, makes visible the water with which you were baptized, the oil with which you are anointed. In the context of a world that has either reduced God to little gods (or which is ready to kill for a god, not necessarily yours--and if it kills in the name of your god, doesn't that make things worse?), it is not always beneficial--it can be dangerous, like a yellow star. It describes the largeness or smallness of your parents' world, their hopes and ambitions at the time of your birth.

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Feeling a little bit better. The body doesn't hurt anymore. But still sick.

Still, one is grateful for what's been given.