Tilad-Kaabtan: Esperanza

Around a month ago, I took photos for Leir's short story, Esperanza, which he submitted to the fourth Tilad online literary folio, Kaabtan, of the Ateneo Literary Association (ALA [an organization we're both in]). I actually promised him an illustration, but because of me easily forgetting things, I wasn't able to draw, so I tried to make it up to him by taking the following pictures:

"By 'oh, but—' I knew that the poor boy meant to follow, 'what about us?' I had seen too many of these situations that if I had a heart, it would have broken, no shattered, into a million tiny hearts, and those hearts would split into another million tiny hearts, and so on until they become so tiny they would pass up as sand. They would then create a sandstorm and take vengeance for me." - Esperanza, John Leir Castro

     I told Kuya Pen, the folio's layout artist, to just select one or two. Click this to find out what he picked, to read Leir's prose, and to view the entire folio itself.

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Leir's parents are awesome. I got the chance to meet them yesterday, a bad-hair day. They were polite enough not to mention the hair, hence, they're awesome. The dad's an interior designer, the mom's pretty, and they make a good couple. And Leir's awesome enough to qualify as their son. I was only able to stay with them for an hour or less. Nevertheless, I'm still entitled to say that they're cool, because they are. You could weep three hours per day, and you would still be not as cool as them.