The two boys, their dark hair unkempt from and fingernails muddy, shaped their hands as a curved scoop and placed it on their cheeks so that the eyes were covered when they glued their faces on the bakery shop’s display glass. Behind the bakery’s glass shield lay a loaf of wheat bread, the corpulent flesh swelled in size; puffy tumid flesh. Bright yellow kerosene light heated the bread as the opaque steam puffed out. Inside the bakery, a frowning foreign boy, pulling his mother’s hand, pointed at the bread that he wanted. Whining like a screeching parrot, he picked up the bread, placed it on the wooden creel. The boys, who sleep on a cardboard or the newspaper on the sidewalk across the street, licked their tongues as saliva started to aggregate like thick muck. Then, the boy with blond hair, the same age as the boys outside, made an imperceptible chuckle, sly and cunning. Then, a baker, wearing unblemished white apron, hollered “Get out of here!”, scattering the boys away from the richly “sacred” hall. Joshua and Angelo trotted away from the bakery and ran until they were out of sight.
Joshua felt an obnoxious colorless emotion deeply stirring inside of him. He didn’t know what this unknown feeling was; it was a mixture of anger and loneliness. He stood at the end of the rugged asphalt and looked back at the bakery. The bakery which was once the evocation of heaven now turned fierce and hostile predator as if it tried to swig a punch. The breads inside the shop which once was a dream now looked like a bloody hot artillery shells. But Joshua also felt the feeling of desire and yearning. He still wanted to see the bread that lay in the baskets. Joshua wanted to eat it, embrace the love from fresh breads, talk with others without having to be scoffed and sneered and not worry about their next meal.
This gloomy, ominous odor that racked within Joshua gave a sudden burst. This sudden anger and hatred heated Joshua making him jostle against the metal lamp post. “Kuya, what’s wrong?” Angelo asked as he tried to pat him on the back.
“I am fine diba, right, lets just go get to work.” Joshua coiled his arms around Angelo’s chicken neck and slowly walked toward the dilapidated houses of the slums that disappear when Manila turns dark, tempering his frustration.

Joshua, the age of fifteen, lingered around the “dump” for all of his life. The face is speckled with black rhinestones and blossoming acne. He has a lodgepole shaped body; thin and tall. His fingers are sharp as a splinter and his nose is blunt as a squashed ham. His sideburns are shaved and only the short grassy hair fills his egg- shaped head.
Angelo, too, is very emaciated. With spraddle-legs, Angelo’s body is suffused with dark lavender contusions. His shin is sabotaged by red intersecting marks. He is still a head shorter than Joshua and he still has a vase-like baby skin which makes him look more innocent.
They both consider each other as friends and equals but really, Joshua seem to take the lead. Now, they are deterred by the pot-bellied baker to go back to their mundane work.

A roaring truck, carrying litters and wastes, crashed into the squatters. The trash sluiced the sodden earth, adulterating the proximity with mixtures of decaying rats and dry, leftover corns. The two treaded through the rubbish dump. Torn plastic bags mixed with crunched coke cans piled like a hill over the meadows. The gust of wind ruffled the trashes and carried the fetor smell to accost the boys. Heat from the sultry sun gave a heavy punch as it burnt the side of their cheeks. The tumescent on Angelo’s feet grew as big as a hot bun, scribbled cuts from sharp metal edges corrugated his shin making him lynch along the way. Joshua held Angelo’s hawser-like arms, and helped him get over rubbish hill.
“Kuya Joshua, can we rest, few minutes lang?” Angelo asked. Joshua turned his neck and saw the runnels of blood on Angelo’s leg.
“Ok, few minutes only, yes?”
Joshua picked up two broken saddles and gave one to Angelo. They ensconced, savoring their break after a strenuous walk from the rubbish dump. Angelo still panted heavily as the musky sweat corroborated his reeking forehead. Joshua perused Angelo’s leg.
“Angelo, it's going to hurt.”
Joshua pinched the broken glass that was planted on Angelo’s leg; he slowly pulled it out as magenta blood crept towards the glass relic.
“Ahhhhh that hurts like crap.” Angelo bawled.
“Just a little more, hold on.” Joshua grasped Angelo’s leg from twitching. His hands shook as he pulled the piece of glass. It shaped like an arrow tip, it dazzled against the sunlight. Angelo stopped screaming but continued to cry from the pain.
“Just wait Angelo”
Joshua tore the side of his sleeveless rugged undershirt to rap Angelo’s paper-like legs.
“That hurt, that hurt…”
Angelo couldn’t finish his sentence as chasm of air choked his throat.
“Take a break, besides, you won’t be able to take a break later.” Joshua replied with a short, monotonous curt, hissing out from his lower lips.

The last garbage truck wheeled out from the wired fence. People, children and adults, trudged and collected recyclable materials. Angelo and Joshua shaded their faces with gray towels, tinctured by coffee-brown dirt. They wore no gloves or shoes. Soles of their feet were punctured by sharp edges of pointed objects. From the strenuous lifting of scraps and pieces of sturdy metal, Joshua’s back started to ache. But he couldn’t wai. What would Angelo think? He needed to see Joshua acting strong, indifferent to the pain and stress from the arduous tasks; so that, Angelo, too, can feel motivation. What would Angelo do, if his only friend, who is also Angelo’s guardian, bereft of hope from such unrest?
“Angelo, how many did you get?” shouted Joshua
“Twelve cans” replied Angelo.
Angelo slid down from the trash hill. Suddenly, Angelo tripped forward and rolled like a small half-grown lodge pole that has been cut on top of the mountain. He hit the bush of plastic and sloshed the muddy water.
Angelo was lying, facing down as if he was dead. Joshua, shocked and worried, ran over to Angelo. Angelo was giggling, eyes arched like a rainbow, and lips shaped like boomerangs.
“You little bastard, you almost scared me.” Joshua gave a light-hearted slap.
Angelo stood up, steeped in muddy water. He cavorted behind Joshua’s back and treaded along the rubbish dump.

A lonely booth stood near the Pasig River, a river in Manila polluted by leaking gasoline in sewage pipes. It smelled of old acerbic fermentation of corpse. Angelo and Joshua cautiously gaited down the uneven steps, holding one hand on the concrete wall on the side. A man, with pencil brown mustache, sank on the sofa. Sofa’s upholstery fabric was embroidered with intricate twining, but it was stained with smudged coffee and turned yellow in age. His damp folded flesh was compressed from its weight, like a stacked pancake. He held a cigarette with smoke arousing on its edge and rested his crossed legs stretched on the booth’s planks.
“Hello Kuya Douglas.” Joshua murmured
“How many are they?” Douglas groaned petulantly.
Angelo laid the cans on the black tar paper, on top of the wooden plank. Douglas plaited the cans in order and tapped them with his brass knuckles. With prying, penetrating eyes, Douglas scrutinized the quality of the can, trying to determine the price.
“Hoy. Little boy” Douglas hissed
The two boys shuddered in fear
“Yes po?” Joshua was hesitant.
“All twenty two cans for ten pesos diba. Okay?”
Douglas held the milling of the ten peso coin and tossed it on to Joshua’s hands and sank back on to his sofa.

Joshua knew that with this rate, their money wouldn’t last much longer. Angelo was always hungry and his legs were always vulnerable from scratches. Last month, right after Joshua escaped from school, Angelo and Joshua tried to find a job near the squalid alleys, behind illegal drug stores or behind prostitutions pubs. But the man, mid 30s, who worked in these shops, scoffed at the boys’ request.
“Haha, you idiots, come back when you guys start having pubic hair.” Now, Angelo and Joshua linger around the rubbish dump along with other unemployed squatters, finding crumpled or dented cans.

“Here take a bite.”
Joshua handed a tinge of spicy chicken noodles to Angelo.
“Ahh, its spicy.” Angelo winced in agony.
They sat, crunched, in the middle of a ragged pavement. Joshua and Angelo leaned against the trunks of the old oak tree where its leaves were divested by the squalling burr of the wind. Its thin sharp branches straggled out into the air as it created shadow over the boys’ face. The red sun moved to touch the horizon as the clouds started to hold tiny bubbles of orange tangerines. Angelo already cleansed the hubcap, which was used as a food plate, by licking it with his tongues.
“Hoy baboy, what a pig, take it easy.” Joshua frowned.
“Kuya, I am finished, diba do we have any more?” Angelo gravely asked.
Joshua checked his pocket and found only had few centabos.
“That’s enough for today, if you eat more, you will become a Baboy!” Joshua lied.
“But I am still hungry Kuya,” Angelo sighed heavily, as his bony shoulders dropped wearily.

Joshua walked over the tattered ornaments and plastics scattered around the pile of dumps as Angelo floundered behind him. They finished their supper and went back to work. Suddenly, there was a thud on the ground. Joshua was surprised when he saw Angelo lying amongst the barren wracks.
“Angelo! Wake up! Wake up!” Joshua hollered.
“Kuya, brother, kuya, my leg hurts; it’s so painful” Angelo cried heavily.
         Joshua held out Angelo’s emaciated legs. The cloth that was drenched in magenta blood was dried into black shingles. He uncovered the legs by uncoiling the cloth that glued against Angelo’s skin.
         “Ahhhh, Kuya, stop!” Angelo cried in pain.
Angelo’s skin ripped off with the cloth. Runnels of blood started to purge out, tracing the veins within the muscles.
“Kuya it Hurts!!! It hurts Kuya! Ahhh!” Angelo bellowed on top of his throat.
Angelo was struggling and smothering in pain. Joshua took a deserted pile of used-tissues and wrapped Angelo’s leg.
“Rest here, I will collect more cans ba.” Joshua patted Angelo’s chest softly and collected torn newspapers to make a blanket. Angelo lied down on the concrete pavement as Joshua went down to the rubbish dump.

The darkness of the night encompassed the city. Workers and laborers marched back home and fewer cars hissed across the road. Only Joshua was searching for metal cans. He had forlorn eyes that sagged on the corners. And Joshua’s neck began to ache, so did his back. For the last hour, he only found two cans, which was only worth twenty centabo.  Finally, Joshua called it a day, and skittered toward Angelo.

Angelo laid under the flickering light of the lamppost. He breathed heavily with his mouth tiredly open. There was a red blood-splotch beside him as his left cheek had blood stains.
“Angelo. Hoy. Shht, are you okay?” Joshua held Angelo’s head by his arms and placed Angelo’s torso on top of his thigh
“Kuya, I am tired. Very tried.” Angelo squinted and winced in pain. With a little groan, Angelo talked.
“Kuya Joshua, what is a linguine?” Angelo asked feebly.
“It's like noodles. Why?” Joshua was surprised from such randomness.
“I want to taste one Kuya, would I be able to taste it up there?”
Joshua didn’t understand the nuance in his phrases. What was he trying to say? Where is ‘up there’. ?

Below Angelo’s sagging eyes, it turned grayish lavender and his lips turned white as snow. Angelo’s tremulous hands started to show Joshua, the pain within him. Hot, vivid blood began to boil in his Angelo’s mouth. He spat again, on the same place he purged before.
“Angelo, rest, rest.”
There was a hiss on every Angelo’s breath.
“Kuya, take me back to Mama. Take me there kuya.” Angelo requested.
“Oy! Don’t say that, hushtt, you tanga, stupid, how can you say that?” Joshua hollered.
Suddenly another colorless emotion arouse. This was different. It seemed like an acrimonious loneliness but also misery. This made Joshua shed tears.
“How can you Angelo, all this time we were together. And now you are trying to go away! Gago!” Joshua cried. His tears started to drip on Angelo’s forehead.
“I am so sorry Kuya, I am so sorry.” Angelo, too, had tears embolden within his eyes.

         It was midnight. The fluorescent light within skyscrapers started to flicker off and the darkness further usurped the city. Joshua sat there motionlessly, rocked back and forth by Angelo on his lap. He was humming an unknown gospel, hissing through his croaked teeth.

I hope my former days don't fade away
When I was a young child in Mom's arms
I want Beloved Mother's song to repeat
Song of love while I was in the cradle

In my sleep
that's very peaceful
The planets guard me
The stars watch over me

Joshua was singing a lullaby for his brother Angelo. It was silent and only this mellifluous song echoed throughout the city road. The tears kept on pouring over his chin. Angelo laid there, eyes shut, mouth shut, protected by Joshua’s arms. He rocked back and forth, lulling his brother into sleep. They knew even in this shade of darkness there is always a tapered light of a lamppost that will protect them.

Joshua carried Angelo on his back and streaked across the alley, telling Angelo stories and myths that he should have told him, a long time ago and wished his breathless brother could still hear him.