Melinda Babaran (translated by Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz)
I stared long at my empty luggage. I couldn’t start packing. I couldn’t understand how I felt. Mixed emotions fought inside me, hiding in blank stares. Happy but sad, worried, and frightened.
Do you have time? Can you keep me company for a while? Let me tell you a story. I’m going back to the Philippines. My contract as a factory worker in a large integrated circuits company here in Taiwan is ending. It’s sad. I have to leave the country that has been my home for more than a decade. I have to leave the country where I was truly free.
I should have been happy to come home. To see the familiar faces of family and friends. Even though ugly memories return especially now that the date of my homecoming looms. Should have been happy. But my
