The porch

I woke up at 4 am, brewed coffee, and went out to my new favorite place to read: the front porch. I turned on the lights and read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. After a few pages—the father and son were at the beach now, and the son forgot the gun, and the father said it was okay, and they found the gun just where the son had left it—I heard the rhythmic chanting from the nearby mosque. The call to prayer. When the singing ended, the bird calls followed, getting louder by the minute. The birds must have been praying as they waited for the slow, steady sunrise. Our neighbor took his car out; he would go jogging at the City Hall. Nanay was still asleep in her room but would soon join me for coffee. 

The patio chairs were installed a month ago. My mother put in throw pillows last week. The porch is now an ante-room of sorts, a liminal space to entertain guests who drop by for a few minutes and who wouldn’t stay for a meal. I spend my early mornings there. The cool of the early morning refreshes me. On rare afternoons when I’m home, I stay there. The shade of the trees make the experience tolerable. During evenings, I enjoy the  breeze wafting through. The mosquitoes pick on me, but I repel them with citronella lotion I put on my limbs. 

I teared up as I read the last few pages of The Road. I hated myself for it—I’ve never been a crybaby—but the crying was therapeutic. I was glad nobody saw me, not even Paul, dreaming under the living room sofa. The Road opened me up and left me undone. I remembered my father, how his body felt to the touch when life was draining out of him, while my mother quietly and tearfully sang hymns near his ear, and we, his sons, said our goodbyes, as his soul ascended to glory.

He slept close to his father that night and held him but when he woke in the morning his father was cold and stiff. He sat there a long time weeping and then he got up and walked out through the woods to the road. When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again.

Ah, Uncle Cormac—how your words come alive and your stories continue.