Surrounded

I’m surrounded. On all sides. Thirty-eight lifeless bodies, thirty-eight lives lost.

I try to run away from it. To close my eyes, to turn away, to pretend that none of this is real and that none of this is happening. I try to pretend that I’m in my own world, that I can’t be affected by anything outside it.

I try to shut myself in with my own worries. That there’s a paper due tomorrow, that there’s a long exam the next day. That my Wi-Fi plan runs out in a week, that there might be a storm in the next month. I try to tell myself that, if I finish my own work, everything will be okay. But I can’t escape them.

I try to pretend that they’re just sleeping, that they’re taking a well-deserved break from all the stress of the past year. I try to tell myself that, tomorrow, they’ll wake up well-rested and ready to go again. But they won’t.

Art by Jhannah Capistrano

I’m surrounded. On all sides. Thirty-eight lifeless bodies, thirty-eight lives lost.

I try to imagine that there aren’t so many of them. One is bad enough, but maybe it wouldn’t be as alarming.

I try to pretend that they’re limited to one area; that they’re not from all over the country, from Pangasinan to Zamboanga. Or even that this was a freak occurrence. Anything to tell me that this isn’t a sign of a wider problem.

But I can’t escape it. I can’t escape their names, their stories, their struggles, the testimonies of those they left behind. I couldn’t escape them in May, and I can’t escape them in March. Their names hang like mementos over my head, as if I needed another reminder that, no, everything is not okay.

And I can’t escape the system that killed them. I can’t escape my paper tomorrow, or my long exam the next day. I can’t escape that my Wi-Fi plan runs out in a week, or that there might be a storm next month. I can’t escape a system that puts performance above well-being, that tortures rather than teaches.

I can’t escape the fact that there probably won’t just be thirty-eight when all this is over.

I’m surrounded, on all sides. Thirty-eight lifeless bodies, thirty-eight lives lost. Thirty-four, among the millions of victims, of one broken system.