Pork Soda

Twenty-Nine

"This is a character speaking in a different language"

"This is a character singing or a memory playing"

"This is normal mode"

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"Sana sinabi mo para ang mga ayaw mo'y aking iibahin. 'Di ba, sinabi mo basta't tayong dalawa'y sasaya ang mundong mapait."

August nights are always cold, always raining. Some days, the streets would be flooded from how much rain poured down from the sky. You wouldn't want to be caught stuck outside without an umbrella. That's what happened to many of these people who sat drinking in the bar or in a booth. Some were drying off the rain from their soaked backs and some were waiting for the rain to lift, and some were just there to drink their sorrows away or party until they pass out. The orange-yellow lights matched with the dim lighting provided a warm and dry and homey feeling to this building of ghouls. However, among these sinners was an angel whose siren voice captivated the hearts of men.

She stood there on stage with the spotlight gazing down on her figurr, and not on the two men on the piano and guitar that accompanied her. Dressed in white, her skirt flowed down her thin and flawless legs, the lacy sleeves of her dress hugging her delicate arms. Her hair was a dark golden brown, falling down her back in waves and accentuating her plump heart-shaped face. Her eyes were a beauty with soft straight brows above and cat eyelashes surrounding her yellow scleras and white pupils. If you are a regular to this place, you'd know her. If not, you would soon from the regulars.

"Sana sinabi mo dahil 'di ko maisip, ano ba'ng nagawa kong mali? Sana sinabi mo para 'di na umibig ang puso kong muli."

Her name was Luci Aquino. If you were a regular, you would better know her as the "Pearl's siren". She had started working in a local bar as a singer along with the two men at the instruments a couple of months ago. The people quickly took a liking to her, finding her shy and humble personality to be quite charming. The ladies envied her beauty and her voice, the men wished to have her as their girlfriend or their wife. Needless to say, she was the star of the show. The only flaw that she had was that she had two sons.

For such a pretty girl with an amazing voice, she had one big problem: she was mother to two sons yet is unmarried. In fact, her two sons are the two men that played the piano and the guitar with her. Oh, what a horror it was for her to find that out! How ashamed she was to bring such dishonor to her family. One morning, she had woken up from a coma and found out that she had two adult sons. She had asked who the father was, only gaining the reply that she had been raped. What a tragedy and how scandalous! Ever since that day, she has been looking for a husband - if it could be the biological father of her sons, even better!

Her family didn't know about her "husband-hunting" - they had told her that, in today's time, it was accepted to be unmarried, but it just didn't sit well with her. She looked high and low, mingling with others at the bar she worked in and going online dating just to find a suitable partner, but all the men that she tried courting were just no good for her. They were jerks! Heavy drinkers, perverse, and very aggressive they were! She doubt that if she made any of them her husband, they wouldn't even care about her sons and would eventually hop on to the next beautiful girl they laid eyes on despite having her as their wife already.

"Sana sinabi mo...," she sang the last line, holding the last word for a while before ending the song.

She received a huge applause, as always, and even some standing ovations. She bowed curtly before stepping down from the stage. It wasn't almost time for her to clock out, but her coworker, another performer, who had the shift after her came early and asked if she could take her shift since she had to leave early. Luci had agreed and decided to go home early. Her sons had protested, not wanting their mother to go home alone as they had to leave later to help behind the bar - they were lacking bartenders that day. She, however, told them that she'd be fine. She knew the way back home after all.