Tonight, I walked through flooded streets again

I've narrated this story many, many times, both to myself and others who cared to listen, but it still begs to be shared. Perhaps I haven't done its telling the kind of justice that finds the story told. One day, someday.

But here goes:

Once, I had a hand to hold while wading through the dark flood waters of Manila, hip-high from Welcome Rotonda to UST, in raging rain. And when I got home, I didn't just wash away the city's dirt with detergent, germicidal soap, and alcohol, and call it a night. I dried out his typewritten poems with a flat iron, and learned, even if I didn't know it right away then, what one writer meant about the color of the wheat fields.