Eating in Bowls

Eating in Bowls


At 4am today I woke up soaking in my own sweat. It’s the N-th time I was waking up to attend to myself. I’ve been burning with fever since yesterday. In the dark, I felt the weight of the misery of living alone.

I don’t know how I got sick all of the sudden but I’m suspecting that it’s because I didn’t bother to close some windows before I slept the other night. I didn’t even wear a shirt too. It was just too breezy and nice, it made me feel like the night air in my folks’ hometown.

And so yesterday, when I woke up I was sore in different places. Like I was raped in my sleep. It was painful moving my toes and my fingers, my knees and elbows. I also had a stiff neck and my lower back and left abdomen hurt. I even thought I might have acquired measles. There were red spots all over my chest and tummy. But they never spread out so I’m guessing they’re just nasty bed bug bites because I haven’t been coming home every night and of course cleaning up for three straight weeks.

It’s really a curious state I was in all of the sudden. At first, I just felt weak but there was no fever yet. By midday, fever was already enveloping me. I managed to go out though to buy food and meds but it was such a painful effort.

I even received a text message from my boss on my way back telling me to come to the office to revise a pitch with the sales department. I replied saying that I’ll try if I feel any better. But I didn’t. In fact I felt worse.

At one point, I even feared that I’d die of hypothermia. Because I showered quickly last night when I was already feeling very weak in my burning temperature. That’s when the chills started. Wrong wrong move... tsk!


I recall the last time two times I was shaking uncontrollably like that. One was during a night shoot in a hospital in Batangas in 2010 and the other was two nights before I met the ‘Ex’ some days before the new year of 2007.

I didn’t really feel scared when I got the chills in the hospital… duh... hospital... hello?

But what was similar with last night’s trembling with that of December 2006’s is the even more painful feeling of dying alone in the middle of the night. In both occasions I was delirious and fighting to stay conscious… fighting for my life. Both then and last night, I forced myself to swallow half a cup of brown sugar to keep my blood rushing.


At 4am, I was literally dragging myself out of bed. It an enormous effort to stand up. My head was aching too but I got to take another pill before turning back to bed.

So I had to eat. Prepared myself a bowl of oats with egg. While waiting for the water to boil, I managed to take a sponge bath and ate a banana while waiting for the oats to cook.

I ate my bowl of oats in the dark. I thought that at least I still got appetite otherwise it would also be a huge effort too. Food was beginning to taste bitter though.

When I finished and took my bowl to the sink, I saw the other bowl I used last night. Then I looked at the pile of plates in a corner on the counter, they’re gathering dust.

I realized that I’ve been eating in bowls since the time I moved in my apartment, felt no use of plates when I’m alone.

All I got to use is a bowl where everything goes in to be consumed right away. Earlier in the habit, I thought like I was eating ‘kaning-baboy’. But it was even more uncomfortable for me to separate the food in dishes when it’s just me eating them. I associate dishes with company so, I can’t be bothered, I realized.

I felt like in the verge of crying. Self-pity winning me over.


Went to bed again and woke up past six. I was even more wet… like I swam in my sleep. My hair was damp too. But what I realized was that I was already feeling a lot better. Still sore in places, still feverish though. But my impression was like being baptized (or exorcized)… like I’m waking up to a new life.

Stood up and started moving to maybe shake off the rest of the fever. Went to the sink to wash the dishes while waiting for water to boil again for my last serving of oats. I made a mental note to go to the drugstore later to buy meds, ion water and oats. Maybe yogurt too, fruits and bread. But I’m running out of money and I’m not expecting any before 10th of the coming month.

I sat down and thought… sick, broke and alone… a perfect premise for teledrama. I looked at my bowl of oats for a while and asked myself again if I’m still gonna be looking at my bowl of food the way I felt earlier today. I realized, yeah… maybe.

Or, I could go look for new pretty bowls in Dapitan Market after 'sahod' and see this occasional drama as just natural. I’m still in track. I’m okay being alone for now… for now.


(Sept. 29, 2012)