Mother …It was a modern three-story building, and from the ledge of the roof facing the street, an occasional glance thrown the way of trucks and cars roaring down below inevitably made his stomach contract. He found this fear of heights strange. Ka Masyong’s sampaloc tree in the village was much higher than this building in Ermita where he had found work as a painter, and when gathering sampaloc shoots, he would climb the branches, clamber up the edge, and did not feel dizzy as he leapt from branch to branch.
This was perhaps what he felt when he was with Uring, he observed to himself. In that infinitesimal moment when their eyes met, he seemed to melt only to find himself hurled into some distant sky. Was that perhaps because he really loved Uring, he reasoned out. Had he found in Uring
