MORNING IN NAGREBCAN

MICHAEL E. ARGUILLA

It was sunrise at Nagrebcan. The fine, bluish mist, low over the tobacco fields,
was lifting and thinning moment by moment. A ragged strip of mist, pulled away by the
morning breeze, had caught on the clumps of bamboo along the banks of the stream that
flowed to one side of the barrio. Before long the sun would top the Katayaghan hills, but
as yet no people were around. In the grey shadow of the hills, the barrio was gradually
awaking. Roosters crowed and strutted on the ground while hens hesitated on their
perches among the branches of the camanchile trees. Stray goats nibbled the weeds on the
sides of the road, and the bull carabaos tugged restively against their stakes.
In the early morning the puppies lay curled up together between their mother’s
paws under the ladder of the house. Four puppies were all white like the mother. They
had pink noses and pink eyelids and pink mouths. The skin between their toes and on the
inside of their large, limp ears was pink. They had short sleek hair, for the mother licked
them often. The fifth puppy lay across the mother’s neck. On the puppy’s back was a big
black spot like a saddle. The tips of its ears were black and so was a patch of hair on its
chest.
The opening of the sawali door, its uneven bottom dragging

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