B smiled. He wrote that line on an invisible index card in his mind. The cause of death was practicality.
She stared at him. The rain soaked through her thin uniform. She didn’t move closer. She didn’t move away.
A nurse came out. She didn’t smile. She looked at B like he was already a sentence in a story she had read a hundred times. para kay b
B was a writer of obituaries. He wrote about the dead because the living were too unpredictable. In his small apartment in Quezon City, he had a corkboard filled with index cards. Each card had a name, a date, and a single sentence: The cause of death was love.
“I think I’m dying,” he said.
"Bakit sa tingin ninyo ay ginamit ng may-akda ang inisyal na 'B' sa halip na buong pangalan?" (Why do you think the author used the initial 'B' instead of a full name?) Possible Answer: To create mystery, to allow readers to project their own "B" into the story, or to signify that the specific name matters less than the feeling of dedication.
She looked at him. Her eyes were the color of old coins. “Getting sick is cheaper than getting wet,” she said. “Hospitals have payment plans. The cold doesn’t.” B smiled
B thought about it. He thought about the yellow raincoat. The cracked-bell laugh. The shadow on the rib.
Metafiction / Romance / Contemporary Philippine Literature She stared at him
“No,” he said. Then, “Yes.”