Our sala has once been the soul in our house, not the cold, rectangular receiving area it is today. It has my siblings’ graduation pictures by the wall (I posted the pictures in my friendster account *guffaw*) that would also look cold if not for my nephew’s counter smile on their unsmiling faces. Much of our sala’s walls are painted white with maroon lining a few inches above our cemented floor. It would even look colder if not for the flowered curtains my mother sewed few years ago. This area in our house had passed several renovations, compared to our bedroom and kitchen, to accommodate my family’s size and to provide an office area for my father’s clients.
The thought of converting a few meters of our living room into an office wholly affected the family atmosphere into formal and restrictive temperament— and more after that murderous night last August of 2003.
I was in my senior high school and an honor student, for that. Projects seemed endless and with the Press Con approaching, I had to finish a paper due the next day. But it showed that my paper works had to wait because five gun shots shattered the companionable silence in our house. The television went static. My brother, by the television, hunkered on his seat and futilely covered his ears with his hands. My two-year-old niece enclosed in my arms. My other brother, beside my father but sitting by the floor because he was massaging my father’s knees, managed to keep papa from falling on his armless chair. My father anchored to the right with blood gurgling down from his mouth and nose.
“’Paaaaaa!!!”
It was that accident that kept most of us from home for almost a month stay at the hospital. Our rented house temporarily abandoned as my father, my brother—the one beside my father— and my niece was driven to the hospital for immediate medical attention. (those things as operation and blood transfusion for the three of them)
Our sala smelled of blood for several weeks that even scrubbing the floor had not lessened the rusty smell.
Most of the time I spent home was not just by myself. Having a number of siblings did not allow me to have an area in our house all by myself. The kitchen area, which is by the right side of the living room, is where I frequented most of the time. (Pinasagdan sa kusina? Not really.) I cook for my family, and in so doing, have to be by the kitchen by 5 a.m to prepare breakfast and change the water in the thermos. I guess, the kitchen is my domain. I don’t have to talk of tragedy to say that the place is important to me as it is to anyone else in our household.
Then again, like our living room, our kitchen has been renovated but not as frequent as our sala has been. It has green plastic screen over the sink area after the fire of ‘91 consumed half of the wooden grille. A plywood-patched (if there’s such a thing) concealed the broken brick wall in our kitchen. (And there were countless times in my childhood where I remembered imagining what if the wall would completely collapse and bare our kitchen to the people outside. What could have happened if that happens?*tsktskstk*)
To the other side of the living room, more exact to say is, the adjacent side of the living room— the one on the left are— is the two adjacent and only bedrooms in our house. It has not changed over the years, though. The biggest of the rooms is where the females of the family sleep in except my mother who occupied the smaller adjacent room, separated by another door.
Much of what should be a must-see in our house is situated in our living room. And just as I said, it has been the soul in our house. However, it has not been that way after that night years ago. The aluminum screen that used to be the other half of the wall facing the road outside was changed into concrete. A gate was even constructed signifying that our house is “off limits” to stranger. (Limited version, kumbaga!) Nobody could get in our house as people has used to come in and out our door. Even our friends, mine and those of my siblings, are “selectively chosen” to visit.
Yet, I don’t think, that the cold atmosphere of our house has get into the minds of its occupants. My parents, though strict most of the time, are still hospitable as they can be. My sibling, having outgrown a few of their immaturities, are becoming more like my parents– finer sensibility to take note of. As for me? Well, I still have many years ahead to understand things. Many things. (this include why a frustrated massacre happened in my family.)
