Summer Reading: “Faith, Love, Time, and Dr. Lazaro”

Last night, while The Man and self were having dinner in front of the TV, we heard on the news that a second Bay Area resident has died from the A(H1N1) virus, this one a middle-aged man who had no prior history of susceptibility.  And yet, here we are, still going about, still watching movies, still driving here and there, and the news makes no difference.

Only, it is difficult to sleep.

Dearest Mum is wherever she is, self doesn’t bother to call anymore.

On self’s lap is a big, heavy book, with the story “Faith, Love, Time and Dr. Lazaro.”  The author is Greg C. Brillantes.  He, like self, like self’s father, like her three brothers and husband, was an Atenista.

The story is about a doctor in some un-named provincial town (There is mention of a San Miguel Bridge —  where would that be?).  The doctor has to make a night call, so his teen-aged son offers to drive.  And while they are driving, the doctor thinks of “light-years, black space, infinite distances; in the unmeasured universe, man’s life flared briefly and was gone, traceless in the void.”

Self thinks these are extremely heavy thoughts.

And no wonder.  A few paragraphs on, an image comes to the doctor’s mind:  “slashed wrists, part of the future dead in a boarding house room,” the doctor’s other son.

Brillantes writes:  “Sorrow lay in ambush among the years.”

What. a. beautiful. sentence.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.