A Slice in Time

It is a hectic morning moment. The breakfast table is a-jumble with scrambled egg, half-eaten toast, the remains of fried garlic rice, chorizo, and various scattered utensils. I am cramming last minute edibles into three lunchboxes: mine, Atch's & Woogie's.

In the bright sunlight streaming insistently (the time! the time!) through the blinds, Atch is hurrying to take the first turn at the apartment's single toilet, his towel perched haphazardly around his hips, an unlighted cigarette dangling from lips that are moving:

Woog, hurry up and finish your breakfast!

around his poison stick.

Meanwhile, said dawdler delicately swirls a french fry in his saucer of ketchup, sniffs it, and brings it up to his open mouth, making gustatory smacking noises. This is followed by a lengthy swig from his mug of chocolate milk. The deliberateness of his eating makes us want to scream with one accusing finger pointing at the clock, save for the thought that it might ruin the appetite of our gourmet-in-the-making. Surely there must be a method to his madness.

Ignored for the nonce, the baby, deposited on the rubber floor mats amidst hand-me-down toys, protests this momentary abandonment by crawling from the living room to the breakfast table. He pulls himself up by the rungs of the first available chair, and attempts to yank the stuffed cushion out from under his Manong Woog:

Ba-bap-bap-bapbap-baaaap!

he screeches in frustration, falling heavily on his diapered behind, before pulling himself up to begin all over again:

Cchthhh-cthh-cthhh-cthhh!

he enunciates, spittle flying from four gritted teeth.

Woog bursts into laughter and hands over a fry. Appeased, Eli settles back down on the floor and bites hard into deep fried potato.

Atch emerges with a diminished paunch, ready to begin another harried tirade. He catches sight of his family halo-ed in the motes reflected by the streaming sun. A post-modern-Impressionist-Norman Rockwell.

He smiles. I smile with him

The bustle of the day is momentarily forgotten, and we revel in this rare moment, stolen from rush-hour time, not soon forgotten.