Bato ni Barang

I've been practicing riding a motorcycle. I figured it'd be useful to learn, as we never know when we might need to use the skill -- maybe an emergency scenario one day... who knows. I borrowed the Kawasaki and tested the waters, almost literally.


I wasn't really headed towards any place in particular. I just got on the bike and turned ever which way I fancied. Zooming past rice fields, clay roads, dusty paths; it was so soothing, that soon I was zoning out. The greens, reds, and all other colors and objects around blurred. To pedestrians, I probably was a blur as well.

As a pedestrian myself most of the time, I imagined that they may have been curious and maybe even envious of the activity, because I was moving; I was the one heading somewhere -- a place they could only wonder about. But of course, I was not; I myself did not know where I was going. I only knew that I wanted to get somewhere and see some place new, and use this newfound efficiency to get there.

I was a road warrior, plowing through breeze and humming through veins; and soon creeping towards capillaries. My hair and shirt flapped, beating against the wind like feathers and threads of moccasin. Conquering distance and charting through new territories; indeed, this was addicting. Braking only to hug the curves, and then revving the engine some more, I whipped my animal and soon felt like it was an attachment to my body -- one that could be felt and controlled with a sense of power, physics, and its capabilities.

My horse did not tire and neither did my imagination -- continually hungry to see the sight that would come after the next turn, the next hill, the next obstacle. I just kept going and going... and going. Nothing could stop me... or so I thought. The breathing pattern of my horse stumbled, panting now. Its legs quivered and buckled to soft loose soil; sand it was. The ocean met us and stopped us dead in our tracks. We could go no farther.

The beach was not unlike others I've seen. But at least a unique rock lay out in the blue. This rock named Bato ni Barang, though seemingly not a sea sponge, is said to be growing by the year -- or so I've been told by several residents. As I stood there with my horse, my imagination still racing away though our gallops had stopped, I likened the rock to a trophy -- one claimed for my horse and I, perhaps for reaching the ends of the Earth.