Smoke break
The last memory I had of last Holy Week was being drunk alone in the surprisingly empty streets of Blumentritt. Keeping me company was the unsettling void of a city that would never let you settle.
I had a faint recollection of hearing the pabasa along the alley, with fewer people than there used to be when I was young. The binignit and valenciana my mother made only reached me through photos. Traffic was not kind enough to let me go home. Being alone did give me a chance to look back at a time when being a 24-year-old adult was still a horizon away. I remember being 12, it was 2014. Hugot music filled radios and playlists. It was my first year of high school, anxious and excited. Vague memories always come back to me.
Holy Week felt longer. The streets were never empty. There were always voices, neighbors reciting prayers, radios playing the same hymns on repeat, Lenten specials, the distant murmur of devotion that made everything feel still. I wondered, like every other kid who gets bored, whether they carried the same quiet burdens or if faith came more easily to them. My father would step outside the house, the glow of his cigarette cutting through the dark, a couple of shots of gin by his side, as I would pretend not to notice, holding on to the version of him I thought I understood.
It was strange for a religious kid who was taught never to try vices. Why would you willingly take something you know is bad for you? They don’t even taste good. He would never answer the question.
“Maiintindihan mo rin. (You will eventually understand.)”
I didn’t.
Twelve years have passed. Love songs have never lost their traction. “Tadhana” by UDD still remains on my playlist. College and high school were a whirlwind of everything, you never thought that the fountain of youth would deplete, and then suddenly, on a random Tuesday, you find yourself drinking at a convenience store with P50 left in your wallet and a handful of potential you’re unsure was still useful.
I never understood how heavy life could be. Every walk feels harsh; the commutes are never kind. The adage of forcing yourself to “just pray” seemed not to work when the calluses on your palms became too rough.
Life didn’t come easy. All the rainbow-colored, magical plans never worked out the way they were supposed to.
There were nights when the city felt too loud to ignore, even in its silence. You sit there with a bottle in hand, convincing yourself it’s just for tonight, just to take the edge off. You tell yourself you’re different, that you know better, but the weight has a way of making decisions for you. It creeps in slowly, settling into your bones, until the things you once questioned start to feel familiar, almost necessary.
Coke costs P25 now. MRT lines are longer than ever. Higher bills, higher tuition, lower wages, decaying morals, the unending, corrupting greed of a system that swallows you whole. It eats you. It drags you to your knees as you try to climb the stairs because the escalator is broken for the millionth time.
Eventually, seemingly forced, you learn how to hold a cigarette just like your father did, the right angle so the ashes won’t go in your clothes; you memorize the correct technique of popping a cold beer. The smoke trickles down your throat with every hit. It doesn’t taste bitter; it soothes when the weight of life rests on your shoulders.
It was 12 years too late when I realized that my father wore heavy shoes. That he prayed more silently so we would never hear the tremble in his voice. That it was a wager of long-term pain in exchange for easing the present. It wasn’t an escape; it was a really bad numbing relief to continue life.
“Naintindihan ko rin. (I finally understand.)”
Morning always comes too soon after nights like those. The streets slowly fill again, tricycles rattling past, vendors calling out as if nothing ever paused. You walk home carrying the quiet with you, the kind that doesn’t leave even when the noise returns. There’s a strange comfort in routine. The same cracked sidewalks, the same familiar turns, the same weight settling back where it always has been. And for a moment, just before everything fully wakes, you realize that survival isn’t loud or grand. Sometimes, it’s just choosing to get up, to keep moving, and to carry what you can without letting it consume you.
It’s hypocritical, but I still try to advise my father to stop his vices. My mother and I take turns reprimanding him, even though I still do it occasionally myself. And as always, my old man is as stubborn as ever. Even with better circumstances than before, old habits die hard.
Maybe the only difference now is that I no longer ask him why.
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John Lloyd Pedres, 24, is a law student currently working as a paralegal in Pasig. He studied civil engineering in Iloilo City.
