"Squatter"

He counted the men with powerful tools and concluded that they are almost as many as the thirty armed uniforms that came to assist them. The resonance of the beating and piercing instruments reminded him of the same sight five years ago – when ‘they’ demolished his make-shift home upon the court's order. The scars on his head are still throbbing.

His home is similar to the first house they beat with their metal claws; tearing the tin roof apart, kicking the wooden frames, flaking all the tin sheets which served as its cheap wall. In exactly five minutes, they’re done with it. A man with a plastic crown pointed towards his direction and for a moment he frost.

“Ket kasanu? Inya ngay garud ket saan yu nga kanya daytoy lote? Apay Ada TRO yu….?” they approached his home.

He didn’t really understood what TRO is, but, the sight of the gang with big metal tools clearly scared him. He understood that he has to go. “Sir, mabalin nga iparwar tayu pay dagitoy usar ko?”, he can only plead. The engineer batted his eye, he knew that the guy with a plastic crown hated his job. This job.

After pulling out his things, he reminisce the places where he found the bed sheets, the old plastic chair, the frying pan…even that old calendar with a pretty woman. He had felt joy on each event he picked those things because he can add them to his little kingdom. He was, after all,  born poor and had lived with his mother before she died. He didn't have a family since then. He came to the city years ago and managed to survive by doing any work that requires physical labor...it is the only thing that he can offer - his arms, his shoulder, his hips, his legs. These, he knew, won't last for a very long time.

The gang members with metal tools were laughing. It has something to do with one of them who joked about “squatters”. He is familiar with the term because he had heard it often, and have learned to shun it. However, he couldn't understand why one can laugh even on the sight of a grieving person. He only needed less than ten square meters for his life – a place to stay, a place to hide against the sun,  the chill, the rain. 

He heard that the owner already has a lot of houses. He only prayed for a box which he can run to. He wandered away and wept.

He asked God why some people have everything, and some have none; like his existence, his dirt-like existence.