ARQUIZA, ERIC JAMES B.

STEM 12-J
LITERATURE

CHOSEN FLASH FICTION STORY : OPTION 2

Collateral Damage
By: DLS Pineda

The slums are calling me back. Looban — it’s no different from a prison.
When I entered college, I bid goodbye to that place. The next four years were easy, even the
everyday commute from Binangonan to Pureza didn’t hurt. If any, my time on the jeep, on the
train, and on the pedicab to PUP, only strengthened my resolve to leave our ramshackle house in
Rizal. The farther I was from home, the clearer my thoughts became.

We had no real address. If you needed me, you’d only have to come around the corner, ask the
bystanders where the Velascos lived, and they’d point you to where we were. We moved five
times, all in the same area. Sometimes we moved because we could no longer afford the rent.
Sometimes we moved because it flooded for days inside the house. Twice, we moved because a
family member had relocated to his wife’s house and, to save money, we’d rent a smaller space.
Once, we transferred because one of my brothers had died, and my mother blamed it on the
drains near the house which, according to her, nursed the dengue mosquitoes which fed on my
brother.

It’s strange because many of those I met in Manila considered Binangonan rural and imagined
we were living in houses made of nipa and bamboo. “Binangonan sounds like some distant
country,” a girl I was dating joked, “like, is it even in Luzon?” I got used to it. Outside “North”
and “South”, there are many things Manileños are clueless about, although many of them act
like they know more than everyone else.

The rampant drug problem in our area is the biggest reason why I found myself relieved? — I
don’t know — when I finally became an engineer. Nobody I knew believed that anyone from our
area was fated to become one. Even I didn’t believe in myself sometimes. I’m a man of little faith
but I consider it no less than a miracle when I passed the board exams.

On the evening when I took my oath as a professional, my father — who wasn’t there at the
ceremonies — called me up and asked me to take the remaining hours in his 24-hour shift. It was
almost sunrise and he was still driving the taxi he had been driving for years. I acted like I didn’t
know that he was using a drug, not even an energy drink ‘cause those things melted the
pancreas. I just took the wheel from him and dropped him off at the Ortigas Extension, his mind
fried though he’d know his way home. He was my father anyway, a great man, and I owed him
everything.
 The boys I grew up with are now all involved in the “Drug War,” one way or another. Many of
them are users, some of them are peddlers. Some of them are cops and a few of them are
barangay officials who work for the government as liaisons, staffers, clerks, foot soldiers, etc.
Sometimes, we’d find ourselves playing basketball on the same covered court we’d been playing
in since we were kids. We joked about it a lot, though it’s probably more real to us than it is to
most. Whenever someone committed a foul, the cops among us would joke, “Isa ka na lang, pa-
tokhang na kita.” To which some would reply, “Ulul? Magkano bentahan sa na-raid niyo
kahapon?” This “War on Drugs” has been lost on us since day one.

It seems that these things had a system, too. One by one, pushers and users in our town were
shot. And once in a while, a cop would take his turn and bite the dust. When my friend, Jan, was
shot, we didn’t doubt the fact that he sold drugs. But when his younger brother was shot, we
knew it was mere bloodlust. Their youngest, Tonyo, 18, vowed revenge to shoot the cop who shot
Jan. But before he could, the cop was shot at the back of his head at a raid against unarmed
peddlers. A fellow officer had shot him down, and it was made to appear that a druggie did it —
the cops were all in on it.

Tonyo is now a peddler, a rank he “inherited” from Jan. He confessed to us that Jan’s old
bosses had left him with no choice. Either he takes the position Jan left vacant or he suffers the
same fate as his brothers. It wasn’t difficult to kill someone, not with all that money being tossed
around, and the business had to go on.

I’ve seen their plan unfold. It has taken the lives of the people I grew up with. I’ve made a map
in my head and I’ve traced where this will all boil down: it feels like what they are planning is a
systematic killing of our kind, like they’ve made murder a policy.
For so long, I’ve wanted a way out of the place I grew up in… and I made it out. But now it’s
calling me back. Pretty soon, there’ll be no one left to kill in my hometown. Pretty soon, they’ll
come for my father. Then they’ll come for me.

LEGEND:
 Yellow Highlight Color- the literary technique “Anaphora” that defines repetition of a
word or phrase.
 Purple Highlight Color- the literary technique “Colloquialism” that defines use of
casual and informal language in writing, which can also include slang.

Instructional Guide:
1. Identify and explain the Division of Literature used in the story. (Is the literary piece
considered as prose or is it poetry? How were you able to identify which division of literature
does it belong?)
2. Spot and explicate the Literary Themes and Techniques used in the story. (What are the
literary themes and techniques that were used in the story? Provide an example for each literary
theme and technique that you will be mentioning.)
3. Recognize and rationalize the Literary Elements and Devices used in the story. (What are
the literary elements and devices that were used in the story? Provide an example for each
literary theme and technique that you will be mentioning.)
4. Classify and elucidate the Literary Approach/es and or Criticism/s used in the story.
(Provide two literary approaches that could be used for the short story. Identify a specific scene
in the literary piece that you can criticize using that approach.)
5. Categorize and give details about Literary Genre used in the story. (Identify the literary
genre used in the literary piece. What elements are used to identify which literary genre does it
belong?)

INDIVIDUAL TASK: Using instructional guide, analyse one flash fiction story and write a
250-word essay. DO NOT PLAGIARIZE YOUR ESSAY.

 250-WORD ESSAY:

The flash fiction story entitled, “Collateral Damage” wherein it identifies as prose as a
form of literature that follows through natural flow of speech and grammatical structure
rather than rhythmic structure such as the case of traditional poetry. The overall structure are
on how grammars used in a readily conveyed.
The literary themes used in the story revolves the concept of war, death and poverty.
Furthermore, literary technique used is “Anaphora & Colloquialism” wherein the story found
as having repetition of words/statements and with the language used portrays informal
conversation of characters when playing at basketball court as stated in the middle of the
story.
Recognizing and rationalizing literary elements and devices used is where the character’s
lastname is Velascos portraying life of slums with friends namely Jan and Tonyo, setting is
mainly the Binangonan, Rizal in Manila, the theme and technique mentioned above and the
overall plot of story had clearly presented and explained.
Literary approaches fall under the use of technique and theme wherein literary technique
has repetition of words (anaphora) as stated above in paragraph 2,7,& 9 with its yellow
highlight color. The informal language used (colloquialism) presented above in paragraph
3&6 with purple highlight color as identified scene in the story.
Literary genre falls under prose form comprises war, death & poverty theme and it’s
more like mysteries idea features something difficult to explain and dealing a puzzling crime.
The characters within the elements classifies as the adults that basically belong to the genre
being used.