Alog

Alog is nothing more than an over-congested slum of miracle rice stalks. Lumps of pink eggs—that seem never to hatch—left behind by kuhol climbing. The fittest arriving at the golden heads of a society of mud. If not death by locusts then death by moth larvae. There is nothing serene about the province. Chaos. At harvest season, there will be killings, cuttings of stalks, burnings, pillaging of pests, dried skin on sharpened karit, residues of hope. There will be wires wrapped around insubordinate hands. Piles of harvested crops on trucks unable to pass by hanging overhead wires.