THE RICE BASKET

The rice baskets were invisible on that particular day, sheathed in cheap Christmas wraps to be traded as gifts.

Large baskets for a tub of pinispisan na kambing and a drum of inihaw na bangus, medium sized for a pot of sinigang na hipon, and small ones for a case of  light beer and a flask of Irish whiskey, refreshments shared with friends as antidotes for a scuttled  meeting in Bangkok that exposed the fickleness of the RoP and rudderless boats lost in cash strapped currents that should be enough reason for tansformative partnerships to step in as the EU trends and cuts for Asia loom.  

Strava worked once but went kaput thrice despite a precautionary safeguarding broadcast of a late night JET narrative to a community of practice about a case and and a scoping, synonyms of weekly and fortnigtly meetings that were convened to ritualize a change prospectus, accept edits to an influencing strategy, and address the remaining vestiges of Kuningan.

There was an extension before the interview on how Malayantoc's crisp currency teleported a case of red wine to Lupao.

Christ's blood drawn thrice not from green bottles but tubed as glycated hemoglobin, fuel for an azure beam of light that burned glaucomic eyes with the aroma of toasted leftover lechon and kaldereta in Bakal 2, gaudy as the Munoz holiday lights but fatal like fried siomai, cheese sticks, flavored french fries, dull nachos, reheated barbecues, and pretentious shawarma.

Thousand bills were disbursed from city hall on Sunday but one is not enough for a rice basket of a month's medication that a lotto win can have by the truckload, ample like a butcher's mammary glands, flavorful like a chauffeur's nilagang baka, haunting like a headmaster's carnal soft lips...