A Tokens' Worth

 I found myself inside an arcade in one uneventful afternoon. There were flickering display of neon lights in yellow, pink, green and blue hues as a cacophony of buzzes, merry voices, and instrumentals play in the background of the scene. It was a world of entertainment that does not seem to retire as the sun sets. Everything comes to life as the machines are fed with stacks of tokens bought from the counter. Such a jovial scene brought about by a tokens’ worth.

With my 50 bucks at hand, I retired to indulge myself in the gleeful ambiance and bought two short a dozen tokens. I received the ten pieces of silver coins with my joined palms and placed them securely in the pocket of my age-worn denims.

I spent my first token, fumbled into my pocket and inserted a coin into the machine slot to play Tekken 6; those kind of arcade games that make use of those buttons to move your character aiming to inflict damage upon your enemy with blows and kicks until the status bar turns red then drops to zero. After two rounds, I lost to Paul, the character dressed in black, armed with lethal punches. Frustratingly, I dropped another token to continue my game and get a second change to crush him. To my dismay, I failed for the second time.

The next token I spent to play basketball, the one where you have to shoot balls in the moving hoop, hoping to get a higher score until the 60-second time limit is over. The fourth token I dropped was used to play a motocross racing arcade game, stepping on the left paddle to accelerate and stepping on the other to slow down during the course’s curved highways. After the sixty seconds, the race ended without me finishing the course.

Using the tokens left, I decided to sing privately in a KTV cubicle. I actually had an option to sing openly in a stage and be heard by an “audience” but stage fright kills me so I just went for the solo cubicles. Being a frustrated singer that I am, I resorted to singing a couple songs for the price of four tokens. There I was, singing my lungs out in the privacy of the four cornered cubicle singing to the lyrics as they change color from white to yellow.

With only a token at hand, I used the last token to fulfill my mindless desire for picking up a stuff toy using a crane. Although it may be highly unlikely that success shall come my way, I still gambled on my last token…my last chance. 

I failed after three attempts.

With no more money to buy more tokens, I walked for an exit.

P.S.

An arcade is made to amuse, a place to marvel about, to explore and try different things. It is filled with frustrations and happy memories. Like life, it is with countless frustrations where losing is more likely. Although you can never win against a ticking 60-second countdown in a basketball shoot out game or in a motocross racing arcade, you can make do and cherish every second given to drive your life into the right path and shoot as many aspirations you have.

Like in karaoke singing, never expect to be heard and appreciated by many if one would sing privately within the walls of a private KTV cubicle.

Like in a toy crane game where winning is very unlikely, planted efforts won’t always return and equal the tokens you have given.  

Life is such a big gamble.

Are you brave enough to use your tokens?

Unrequited Laborer

She still had two years from being a woman yet she lay on the white delivery room table in one random morning. Her cries of pain from the contractions in her tummy was all that could be heard in the suites. Her hair drenched in her own sweat, dampening the hospital gown she wore. The contractions from her womb are getting stronger and stronger, more forceful and lengthier as minutes pass by. One can see from her innocent eyes, the pain she is currently facing but not yet ready to face. 

I am a new nurse in the public hospital where I  currently work. Since I was just starting, I was tasked most of the time to prepare the records and fill up the admission forms prior to the delivery. As a routine I asked the patient's name, age, address and her other demographics. Although I think asking those questions at that point in time seemed to be inappropriate as women in labor as they tend to face humongous stress.

I was assigned that day to Chelsea Martirez, a 16 year old primigravida who was the latest admission. I immediately saw her in the labor room, her legs spread apart while practicing to bear down. Every now and then, the medical intern would come and insert her two fingers into her private part and measure the cervix’ dilatation and station of the baby. She would gasp in pain every time the intern would do that. “8cm na tayo”, the intern announced. 

As the contractions came in greater frequency and intensity, she started yelling “Di ko kaya to… Di ko na kaya…” then squirmed in pain to the rhythm of the spasms. It was like a cycle of stress followed by relaxation, stress then relaxation again. “Di ko na kaya to…”, the young woman blurted out again. One of the nearby resident doctors wasn’t very happy about this and then snapped in the coldest tone, “Ginusto mo yan, ikaw may gawa niyan sa sarili mo, ba’t di mo kayang pangatawanan…” I cringed at what I heard but still kept my silence, pretending those words never did fall onto my ears. 

She continued crying but this time tried not to make any sound. She bit her lips so that no words can escape. The crying turned into sobs like the ones coming from a child who got cut by running without slippers into a field of grass. The only difference is, there was no one who would tend the throbbing wounds incurred. No one to promise her that everything would be okay. No one to reassure her of the worthiness of the pains she is currently experiencing. Then she started to cry. It was a quiet cry, a painful one where tears drop and the lips rattle yet no noise came to be heard. 

“Hoy Chelsea, bawal dito ang maingay at iiyak-iyak, di nakakatuwa yun, pinahihirapan mo lang kami…”, another medical staff cried out as she saw her crying while she was preparing the anesthesia. Once again, a couple of tears ran on her cheeks. It was like resisting her own urges, denying herself the feeling to perceive pain. She lay there, almost in an absence of emotion, like a carcass waiting to be fed upon by vultures.

“Ilang taong ka na, ineng?”, asked a senior nurse. “Dise sais po”, she said. “Ikaw ah, kala mo laro laro lang siguro… kala mo naglalaro lang kayo ng bahay bahayan no?”, she replied with a grin. Another staff nosed and quipped, “Naku! Baka next year nandito ka nanaman ulit ah? Gagawa na talaga ako ng listahan ng mga 18 year old and below na nagbuntis tapos titignan ko kung babalik next year.”

I tried to divert the patient’s attention from the unhelpful words by asking, “Sinong nagdala sayo dito?”

“Ah.. yung asawa ko po…”, she replied

“Sixteen ka pa lang ah, panu ka magkakaasawa?”

“Alam ko po kasi pag may nakabuntis sayo, mag-asawa na kayo nun, parang si tatay at nanay”

I was set aback by the answer of the child, depressed by the erroneous perception of a “husband” of which age I believe to be near the girl’s. I tried to concentrate again with the questioning, but still quite hesitant to use the term “asawa”. 

“Ahh ganun ba? Nasaan yung boyfriend mo? Ilang taon na ba yan?”

“Nasa labas po, nagihhintay...”

"Nasaan ba nanay mo?"

"Ah... di po niya alam na buntis ako eh... Nagtanan lang po kami ng asawa ko"

Her womb contracted again making it difficult to answer more questions. 

“Osige ah, puntahan ko muna siya, kunin ko ung diaper at bonnet ng anak mo. Anu pangalan niya?”

“Julius po…”

I left her, still struggling how to deliver the baby, still in pain, still in tears running across her cheeks and expressionless face. With the records clipped in my arm, I wore my smock gown and went to the visitor’s area where the relatives of the patients in the DR would have to wait. 

The room was occupied predominantly with anxiety filled men of different age groups in a similar sense of anticipation to their newborn child, most of them accompanied by the mother of their wives while some waiting alone patiently. 

I arrived at the lounge and directly I called out the name of Chelsea’s boyfriend.

“Julius Castro?”, I said in the clearest voice I could muster. Shortly afterwards, a man, obviously in his early forties, good enough to be the patient’s father, wearily approached me and handed a plastic with a diaper and a bonnet, a paycheck, and his picture with a note at the back which says, “Dear _____ Ako tatay mo .”

 
Then, he left.


Photo from http://acelebrationofwomen.org