I start coughing almost as soon as I step into the shed in Lola's backyard, where dust, mold and mildew form a protective layer over half a century's worth of schoolbooks, once owned at one time or another by her seven children. I need to find my mother's old college English text, thousands of pages' worth of poems, short stories, essays, and grammar and style rules packed into a three-inch thick mass of hardbound knowledge. But there's another smell in here, a smell only I can smell because it exists only in my mind: the smell of horses and hay, crossing boundaries of time and dimension, wafting around in my subconscious until it finds the shadow of a little girl straining to catch a glimpse of Morning Star giving birth to her first foal.

*

The backyard used to be a small farm. A farm right in the middle of Quezon City - a few streets away from the Heart Center, in fact. I remember buying corn and squash seeds in grade school so my grandfather could plant them among the other crops that were already growing there. Lola worked her own magic in the soil in the front garden where she grew orchids. My cousin, Ate Melissa, kept her rabbit in a cage in the front yard, but all the other animals were in the back. There were chickens and cats everywhere. Of course, Lolo had his horses.

My grandfather bred racehorses, ones with uninspired names like Monolite and Famas Hope. One horse was named Minnie Rose, after my mother and me. Morning Star was named after the star on her forehead. Her son was called Evening Star. When he was sold, the new owners changed his name to Batibot.

The horses weren't very pretty. They were of a coppery brown color that was too dark to be palomino but too light to be chestnut. They certainly weren't Arabian thoroughbreds. But when I was younger - about six or seven years old - I would stroke Morning Star, feeling her smooth muscles ripple under my little hand, and think that Lolo's horses were the most beautiful, most magnificent creatures in the world.

I never got to ride any of the horses. There wasn't enough room in the backyard to do so. There was plenty of room at the Stud Farm where Lolo brought the horses every morning, but then the horses were too busy training to give me a ride. I consoled myself by reading every horse book, every encyclopedia entry on horses I could get my hands on.

Horses and ponies are measured in units called hands... A gelding is a castrated male horse... Native American Indians learned to hang from the side of their pinto ponies and shoot at enemies from underneath the horse's neck... Horses compete in shows called gymkhanas...

It wasn't long until I convinced myself that I wanted to become an equestrienne. I would ride a mare named Raven. She would eat carrots and lumps of sugar out of my hand. I pictured myself in a black velvet riding habit that matched her glossy coat perfectly. I dreamed of the wind whipping against my face as I landed her after a perfect jump. My walls would be covered with blue ribbons and cups. The academy would describe our performance as sheer poetry.

My parents didn't want me to show horses for a living. They wanted me to become a reporter. "You can work for CNN," they told me.

I took one look at the TV. The CNN reporters were running around on the screen, dodging shrapnel. Beneath the picture, a caption: Special Gulf War coverage.

"And get killed? No, thank you."

*

Slowly, painfully, I weaned myself off my dreams of gymkhana glory. But other dreams took its place: ice skating, music. My parents never discouraged me from pursuing those interests. Quite the opposite - they were always supportive. They were proud of me when I took up figure skating. They were proud of me when I sang in the school choir. My father even went with me to an open call at Walt Disney Records. (I got a callback, but the job eventually went to the girl who struck up a conversation with me in the waiting room over my copy of Anne Frank's diary. Her name? Jolina Magdangal.) But while I considered each and every one of those things as a potential future, as something I might want to do for the rest of my life, my parents only saw them as hobbies.

Eventually, I gave in and focused all my energy on writing like they wanted. But even then, we didn't always operate on the same wavelength.

So I went to UPIS, and I went to UP after that. Maybe parents really do know best, because there's nothing I want to be now but to be a journalist. I have found my path. Or have I just programmed myself to think that way?

*

Morning Star, Evening Star and the others are gone. Even Lolo is gone. The stable is now just a combination tool shed, storehouse and antique library. I try to hold on to the smell of horses but I can't. It leaves my subconscious as suddenly as it came.

"I know it's here somewhere," Tito Mon grumbles, wiping his hands on an old rag. "When do you need it, anyway?" He means the book.

"It's all right, I'll keep looking for it," I say. "I don't need to find it right away."