Now---, I write this letter on my word processor in my room, this room I shall leave open for you to clean every now and then; for you to clean, and arrange the things of as you're wont to do, except when it comes to this very word processor which I hope you don't touch at all---for this machine contains manuscripts I intend to redo and finish. You both understand, you know me; you know me well. I am the writer, mm?

Sandra, you once asked me about my wife's problem, and I can tell you now that the letters she mailed me contained confessions of an improving devotion towards my position, and yet also of a desire to maintain a free pleasure of her own choosing, on her own, on her own about the city, the city I helped build, the city that carries my sincere friendship towards everyone who has respect for anything that I own in my head, and in my yard.

By your proven sincere service, Elna, and by your loyal, long experience with us, Sandra, I ask you to watch and keep the house in the same manner my wife did.

Change the curtains monthly, be sure the colors are in harmony, but with that tensive harmony, you understand now. Cook what you want to eat, my lawyer will send you checks, but you don't have to cook for him nor do anything else for him. He has a wife, my lawyer. Mang Elmo will encash the checks for you sometimes, and, by the way, tell Mang Elmo he can move into the house to keep you company, and that his son can stay in the shed with Angeli, the orphan girlfriend, as long as this son doesn't abuse the opportunity. My lawyer is often out of town or on his farm, so don't call him, he'll call you every now and again, anyway the whole neighborhood will guard the house and offer to help you with things.

Aling Trina at the greenhouse can lend you stuff from the cooperative, but pay the credit everytime the checks come. Aling Trina would know where to charge my purchases at the subdivision's consumers cooperative, not only because she's the secretary of the cooperative but also because she was the one who organized us on this with the help of Atty. Madrid, my attorney.

Now, enough of these mandates and specific instructions. I know you can manage by your own resourcefulness. I know you are girls and can be quite shy at times, but I also know you are not stupid.

I haul in this story to tell you how the company came around to trying this city first. Our city. I will give you another backgrounder. I used to be just a simple writer and professor of comparative literature in this our small city I used to be personally proud of calling a city. (I'm not "proud" of calling it a city anymore. Just another town to me now.) Then I was approached by this weird-looking young man, weird because he wouldn't be polite and obedient-looking as a student should be. He simply barged into my room and said, although pleadingly, "You, sir, don't need us because you look contented with just writing and teaching. It's we who need you and we need you fast. We want you to be our advertising manager. So please get up from that chair and meet our company president. He is outside waiting, with your department head. Please?" Can you beat that? I let him repeat what he said, and he did---the whole paragraph was memorized.

Elna, Sandra, why do I tell you all this? Because---if you allow yourselves to continue reading then I shall continue to tell you this--- . . . it's because I have just decided (tonight!) to send you both to college next year. And this, care of our company's scholarship program for studies in the field of community development. Why didn't I think of this before? Of course I only just arrived.

Sandra, Elna, when my son went away, leaving us, he had a fine arts painting degree to run away from our farm with, he could afford to be free. That is, of course, as far as security was concerned. My daughter got pregnant at eighteen but she went on to finish music, and then later mathematics. I mean you can't just be mothers. You have to have schooling and help the nation progress by your own progress. Oh maybe we can progress without the help of little women, but if you are to stay at home forever we are going to have terrible problems. Problems in the workplace. Problems at home, and then later on around the nation because all men go home to homes. Would they go home to problematic homes?

Oh God, I keep sighing so tonight. What did Sonia the wife want? What did May Ann the daughter want? Responsibilities, apart from the usual? Freedom? Further material possessions? Power? Spiritual fulfillment? I try now to answer these questions by asking about myself: what do I want? But, girls, I shall answer that question not by being honest to myself solely, but by being honest about all our selves. Thus to give you both a moral. Which is, Want all as our wants change in the flow of time, but finally want nothing really, Elna, Sandra.

Do you see what I mean, Elna and Sandra? I do not mean for you to submit, of course, I mean that you go above all the things that may trouble your lives from now on: Sandra and Elna, I mean just you remain firm above the flow of changing pressures and then joys, that you may learn of the proper action to take at every new phase in your days and hours. That is my sermon. In short, young ladies, in stillness is action, that is what I think. You know of course I mean religion. But, religion is also fighting, isn't it? It presupposes enemies. By stillness, then, may I mean correctness/rightness? May I mean virtuousness? And so, therefore, there cannot be correctness without struggle. Now I am teaching you philosophy. But my point here is, that your young struggles should remain correct, as it were, and above, even, the objective of the struggle. This is the road to superiority, girls.

Now, am I now some macho giving you condescending lectures, Elna, Sandra? Not really. I am leaving you my secret, that's all. Take it or leave it; but some of my money you are going to take so it's best you take my lessons too. Am I bribing your honors, then? Or would you be bribing yourselves by listening to me when/as I talk about my money along the way, about my secrets toward facile knowledge, my techniques at fame. Hahaha. I'll write about those other things in another letter. Which I may send by courier. For now, with this letter, you shall have to function as your own devils. For you cannot help but finish it, lest you miss what it might divulge about some further secret concerning my wealth. Just let me remind you this. This is a free country. Therefore, any rich inheritor has the right to seek his/her own ruin.

As I was saying, I am leaving you my secret. And it is tomorrow I am leaving, and I shall not be back until I see the wife I've always loved, or I shall be lost with her, to float above the memories of my friends' earthly worries. I shall be leaving too perhaps my strength, my authority, my talents, some of what I own in my head, all that I have in my yard---to you all, who, I pray, may learn to love them. And so may I now leave here to seek her with whom my will had always been weak. She was my love. My true love.

But my story letter shouldn't stop here; as I have not yet told you enough to make you more worthy of my legacy. . . .

Oops. My story letter doesn't end here, either. For I have also to tell you and tell you more, Elna and Sandra, about how I am leaving you my wealth for the moment only. I shall also have to warn you that you must not abuse your new positions of privilege, for he that flies too high falls accordingly. And even if I finally decide to leave to you two and Mang Elmo the larger percentage of my wealth and property, I would still warn you to see and perceive that your wealth shall be yours only while these are with you. Where these might go next is not up to you at all. I won't mention God because you will think I am indeed giving you a sermon. I'll just say this is all stated in paraphysics. Yes, E & S. Paraphysics. That field treating of the space between physics and metaphysics, ask my lawyer to explain all this to you. These really involve axioms like: You gain today, then you lose what you've gained tomorrow. And vice versa. But in perceiving the transitoriness of wealth, E & S, one is guaranteed the most sublime appreciation for the things one possesses. Don't ever laugh on that.

No, we are not yet finished. And by the way, do not be too eager, Elna, Sandra, for after all I might be gone for only two days and come home with my wife within that short time. Then you can claim nothing. You might ask my lawyer this, however---if I'm teaching you frugality here, then why do I bother to leave to you my possessions, why not proceed to burn these? Good question. I say the best frugality is experienced without poverty. For even in poverty, one may practice greed. I say wealth is good, especially (or only) while you are aware wealth is really nothing. Ask my lawyer to explain.

Oh now we're talking lawyers! Then let me tell you something about the law. I think political laws ought also to apply this paraphysical law of the transitoriness of luxury living. For example, how can you enjoy your yacht any longer if you just got cancer? How can you enjoy life, for that matter---thinking of the disillusionment? But, Elna, Sandra, there is a higher joy in all this, above all this, . . . as in the pleasure of still reverence.

But, like I was saying, political laws must include our paraphysical law. Because Elna, Sandra, the law is nothing. Government laws are good only according to whether the government that implements them or chooses not to implement them (as not necessary) is good. Take systems like capitalism and socialism, S & E, which become good or bad simply according to the leadership steering these. But, now, you might ask, who decides about the good? Ask my lawyer who has a farm and a business of his own but yet has my trust. He'll tell you.

But I say, us. You. Me. We can try to decide what's right. But of course we can go wrong. That is immaterial. What counts is our sincerity, E, S; and the reservations that there envelop our faith, S, E.

I wish to avoid sentimentality, or the emotional, and so am trying here to analyze things. I could theorize, and in the process underestimate her; think her as having forgotten the necessity of waiting called for by everything that seeks freedom. I believe, though, she went away not to spite me. Have I truly denied her the world in not letting her come with me in my journeys around the dangers and pleasures of Mindanao? When we met in that other city, Tacloban City, when I was 24, she wouldn't come with me to this city because she said this was not going to be the city for her. That is to say, she wanted a place more progressive, something like Cebu City now, maybe, or at least one like Danao City. Then now that I have helped rebuild our city's image, how can she go away? Not now? Well, she's gone.

Anyway, doesn't everything our company produces stand for technological advance? Yes, I originally came to this city because of a teaching offer at the university. Didn't she get a psychology chair herself, here? Also at the beginning of things? It was here I bought a piece of farmland after selling the farmland I inherited from my father at our province. We should have continued to pursue our dreams here. Not anywhere else. Though I don't think what Sonia dreamed about cities included the dream of glass walls, for now our company has been producing what even surpasses glass in strength and in transparency, though we still call it "glass." And then my dreams, . . . they have always been simple. I could have just become a farmer on our four-hectare farm. But, of course, after every dream fulfilled, we always get on to other possibly better dreams. "Better dreams." Or, at least, other dreams. To be fulfilled like the ones already done. And that is not to be considered a problem, this further pursuit of dreams. For that is simply how life goes on. I cannot preach contentment. So, yes, let's go on then.

The problem is in the question of finishing things. And in issues to do with eternity and eternalization, in the form of life insurances, wills, and children, even a preserved environment, which are to me more earthly illusions than virtuous thoughts. We get worried about the theory of entropy, too, for example. Anyway, when taken in the proper light, they are most admirable as ideas of concern.

So, we plan on. All for the sake of order and goodwill, not ambition or permanence. Okay.

Therefore, you, Elna, may go ahead and do well in life. Go ahead, plan. Your parents' only child, now you can get them to be proud of you after finishing college, and that's a good intention, and I am sure you have the character. Before you arrived here you have of course been warned by your townmate Sandra that during your very first hours here would be stacks of dishes and casseroles to wash, being fiesta time. By your insistence on arriving here before the fiesta, I thought you showed a dedication which I hope will be advanced further by some higher wisdom to be found in your future knowledge and practice of real estate brokerage, social work, or urban development work, with our company.

You, Sandra, though the younger one, have always been the investigator, the curious one. I know it was not from a desire to merely know, as in gossiping, but to empathize. Yes. That is the road to concern for others, Sandra, which I hope will be strengthened in you by a desire to teach wisdom, after the knowledge.

Anyway, I'm leaving all problems of understanding to my lawyer. Here, I'll just continue to paraphrase what I've been saying here in this letter:

Elna and Sandra, as you have told me of your desire to continue schooling once you come up with enough savings for college tuition, etc., and you've both told me that maybe two years of being my maids could turn in work savings that might be sufficient for the costs; and as you have both demonstrated in the kitchen your enthusiasm for learning good English and good Tagalog, asking me questions everytime I'm home and doing some Mindanao cooking for the wife and you; then, I not only see it fit that you be secured in finance but likewise that you be secured in connections---and, therefore, my sudden thought of referring you to Mrs. Patrimonio.

But allow me again to give you here situations surrounding ambition, success, material fulfillment, power, achievement, and the problems that accompany these situations perpetually, so to advice you to take a lesson from my view of these, that you may also pick up my life from where I shall soon leave it. For I am leaving it all to you. Oh, am I? I'm not sure yet. My lawyer will get all my instructions from where I may soon be. So, be good. . . . Anyway, what I was about to say was, Sandra, Elna, take my steps. My steps are yours to continue now, though your directions be different. Dispose of my steps as you desire. You are free. You're free, fucking things! Sorry.

But, wait a minute---can we be free, really? Is freedom really possible? But, then again, that is not a question that worries me in any way. For I simply desire freedom everytime I feel without it, and I say freedom must be there for our taking everytime we want it. And that all it takes to get it is timing. Therefore, then, my dears, worship time. Just do that. Yeah. It's simple, simple as wearing a pair of Nikes. Time, the law of paraphysics. Just do it.

Take my wife: she thought her loneliness and longing for me and her simultaneous delight at being free from me was a dilemma. That was a falsity, tinged with self-consciousness, insecurity. For we all wish to be imprisoned by something we can belong to and get possessed by, embraced by its security, though we may desire within the imprisonment to possess in return. And here is where I made a mistake in my own role in the equation, when all my decisions became final with me. And yet didn't I claim to be for free enterprise, going against the socialism of my fellow teachers? Oh, what is it in us that gets us so . . . contradictory? Is it our continuing ignorance even at the height of our respective genius?

Anyway, Elna and Sandra, I believe it is material possessiveness that is to blame for all this righteousness. Elna, Sandra, correct me if I'm wrong with my observations. But isn't it that with material possessions come questions of taste, personality, individuality, et al.? Am I right? Even among you, the poor? And these demand on us a large passion to dictate things to belong to us, our selves central in these portraits of possessors. We say, hey! my walls should be brown-white, my rug should be Chinese, my shirts should be all long-sleeved, and so on. And when what's around us don't fit our wants, we say, shoo all this, it's an embarrassment, all this false purchases!

Elna, Sandra, my wealth may be yours now, however. I hope you possess them with detachment. For only God owns anything, finally. Let that be my final sermon.

Hey. On second thought (how I keep changing my mind!), I am not going to finish the manuscripts in my word processor's hard disk---stories, poems, a play. These produce the illusion of completeness, which is always that, an illusion. A story gets finished and we feel contented with what we've just finished. But then, anyway, we get up and begin another activity. What? We may go to sleep, or listen to a record, or play bowling, or fish, or work on a new design, or cook.

What may get us to respect the universal design of illusions apart from a religious insistence, Sandra and Elna, is a neighborhood's reality. Girls, get out of the house and see everyone busy outside, continuing on in their daily pursuit of growth and progress, but everyone being helpful towards everyone else. Isn't it so? At least most of the time? Or is this wishful thinking? Anyway, such a neighborhood, in the individuals' forgetting their selves, though actually not forgetting, thinking themselves unselfish in this democracy, in this free enterprise system, which somehow may deny us this very illusion of selves, forgetting thus selfish anxiety, losing thus envy one may have harbored within him, feeling thus security---this neighborhood may produce these selves becoming better selves in that disco of semi-lost selves. Do you see what I mean, girls? So, would you still want freedom? (For what makes a hero? Isn't he the one who's had regrets along the way, who's had embarrassments, who's felt guilt before? Though regrets, embarrassments, and guilt have also made villains out of people.).

Girls, just take Aling Trina as your model. Most enterprising. Most humanitarian. There is where my wife made her mistake, Elna, Sandra. My wife thought of fulfilling herself by attending to this self. Unless I'm mistaken about this assessment. I hope I'm mistaken.

Anyway, for now take care of the house. Till I get back. If I ever get back. Keep it in the same manner my wife attended to it. Change the curtains monthly, be sure the colors are in harmony. But with a tensive harmony, you understand. . . .

Sandra, Elna, this city I'll now leave. My dream city of simplicity. It became my dream city of progress. Both are necessary to each other, I guess, for the best appreciation of both. Simplicity, progress, the eternal partners. Within that partnership, hopefully, lies true tranquility.

Oh Elna, Sandra. If you can't understand a lot of the things here yet, just wait. You soon might, in translation or not. Talk to my lawyer about it? Up to you. It's all your business now. Me, I am to seek my wife forever. She whose reason for going away is beyond me yet. Has she offered to become somebody else's housemaid? Totally beyond me. Just as my going away and doing all these things may be beyond you now.