Few were the barangays that planted their roots on the riverbank. Even fewer were the towns that remained by the riverbank, like Barangay Burarul. 

Trees used to line the wet stone streets that Benjamin, Tomas, and Ada called home. Towering trunks sprouted from every corner, from the town hall to the bridges at the edges of town. Trees were as abundant as the residents of their town. Before their parents were even born, trees watched over their grandparents, their grandparents’ grandparents, and so on. 

The branches would meet at their longest tips, reaching out with wooden arms outstretched, and mossy fingers interlinked. 

Many eyes would creep upwards just to watch the trees dance. Benji sure did. Golden Narra blossoms and Balacat willows swayed to the song of the breeze. His lola would tell him as a child, “The trees are married, that’s why we can’t cut them.” 

Now, at 23, he wonders what his aged lola sees whenever she looks up at the trees.

Woven together despite the wind, summer, and rain, watching over the attendants of their decades-long reception.

“Call Kuya Tomas, maybe he can…sh*t, maybe he can go to their office and get this sorted,” groaned Ada, his sister, as she fanned Lola by the window. 

Lola’s home was meant to breathe — cement floors, light roofing, several windows. Back then, it might’ve been cozy despite the summer heat. Benji thinks this house is a human microwave. 

“Don’t curse. Your teacher, he might hear you,” Lola scolded, leaning away from the hot leather backrest on her wheelchair. Ada could only sigh. 

“He won’t,” she added, as she tried to make out whatever cut-off, robotic static came from her phone. Hopefully, she won’t disconnect again. 

Benji paced the kitchen, sweating buckets by the minute. “I’m trying, Ads. Kuya’s not picking up,” Benji waved his phone in the air, “I’m turning off the hotspot—”

“But I have class!” she yelled. 

“Ads, I need to work. If I keep it on, we won’t have any left if this — this happens again.” 

The young girl scoffed in reply. “It’s just an email again, I bet.” And in response, Benji rolls his eyes. “Prepare an excuse letter, Lola will sign it.” 

Lola herself can’t say she isn’t affected either. Her home along the church had become a clay pot in a fiery kiln. 

Sighing, she takes the pamaypay from Ada’s hands to fan herself. Wiry old legs push the wheelchair away from the window when the light pierces between the clouds. Afternoons in 1951 were not this chaotic, this heated. 

“Tomas is busy,” Lola murmured. 

“The grid is probably trying to fix this… problem, no?” Her statement had silenced whatever retort Ada had brewing on her tongue. The same goes for Benji, who returns to the abandoned laptop on the kitchen table, running on power-saving mode at 48%. 

His elbows hover above the scalding glass table cover. But placing just a few fingers over the keyboard was just as hot anyway. He still had a ledger to finish, even on two bars. 

Suddenly, Lola’s own phone rings through the sweltering heat. She raises her tiny Nokia phone to see “Tomas E.” as the caller. 

Relieved, she answers, “Hello, Tomas? Where are you now? Are you fixing the grid?” 

“We’re still in the red. Burarul might be off for another hour. I’m sorry.” Tomas replied shakily. Even through the phone — across the city, no less — he sounds just as exhausted as everyone at home. 

“Are you okay, Lola? Do you still have water in the ref?” asked Tomas. 

Lola replied, “Yes, but it’s not cold anymore. You, you come home safe, okay. It’s too hot there in the freeport zone, you know,” 

Across the line, Tomas audibly sighs, “I might come home later. Barangay Samson, phase 1 and 2, called us a while ago.” 

From the kitchen, Benji closed his laptop. In his shorts and faded t-shirt, he walks out of the house and into Lola’s garden. Bare and dry, save for the kalamansi tree by the gate, the young man stands beneath its tiny branches. 

It’s not as large as a Narra, or as tall as a Balacat, but it is better than what replaced those same trees. 

Benji stares up at the barren electric pole by the gate. You can’t miss it, not with how it seemingly pierces the sky. Tall, weathered, and void of the relief it should bring.

And down the street, just shy of the gate, he could spot linemen climbing up the posts across the road. Their trucks and equipment are parked by the sidewalk in a scattered organization. Benji wonders if this is their first or last call.

These were useless, expensive metal trees. Connected by wiring of copper and wrapped in rubber, providing only as much as the source of their power allows. They aren’t interlinked by nature. They’re simply built that way. 

If the old trees of Barangay Burarul were married, perhaps the powerlines that replaced them were in the midst of a divorce, Benji thought. A messy, long-winded separation, everyone was at the mercy of.

The residents, perhaps children of the older trees passed down to lifeless, dull electric poles, who cannot even, in compassion, fan and cradle them to sleep. 

Benji heaved a deep, longing sigh. Deep within his heart, he knew. 

There are no trees in Barangay Burarul. Not when they can’t provide like they used to.