Arrival into Another Exile

For the nth time, you go into exile and estrangement. Again. Again and again.

You back into the land of some milk and some honey by sneaking out of the lives of your sleeping children, at three in the morning, when all three of them are entertaining their young dreams of the good because decent life for themselves and for all those who have been deprived of the warmth of a parent's love because there are bills to be paid and fast and soon and the starvation wage in the home country even for those who have the doctorate to show is still starvation wage.

At the UP, for instance, where many of brightest and brainest are, many professors cannot even afford to buy a decent book such that, either they (a) declare war against the soldiers of anti-copyright law--there is law here if we refer to 3rd world countries that needed much of the soft tech in 1st world?--and buy the photocopied books from photocopying entrepreneurs, or (b) wait for their book author colleagues for their gift, the complimentary copy that is not courtesy of the publisher but courtesy of the author who buys his own copy of his book from his publisher.

So at three AM, before the cock crows, you sneak outa nd go into the dark to traverse that C-5 that links you to the airport where you are made to pay for the terminal fee and the travel tax, one other robbery that you have to go through as an exile.

More of this.

A. S. Agcaoili
Los Angeles, CA
May 16, 2006