Reclamation

He had never wanted to visit this place. In a mockery of the crushed, calcified corpses of sea life, a shredded mountain laid beneath his feet instead. This was a place of undeath and unlife, so far from the bleached sands of his coastal hometown. As he walks, he observes the distant heavy machinery covered in chipped paint, the gravelly crunch of the scorched sand, and the lingering sewer stench of the lie under construction. The sinking sun bathes the scene in sickly yellow light.

Still, a man has to eat. And with his current situation, he has little choice on how to fill his belly.

The other vagrants spoke to him of the Manila Bay Dolomite Beach. Like most of the security at Roxas Boulevard, the coastguard is lax when there aren't any tourists. If you’re lucky, and there aren’t many people going to and from the embassy or the hotels, you can reach the coast where fish are practically jumping to get caught.

He settles on the side of the beach where the streetlight is broken, hopeful that he is hidden from the coastguard building. When he casts his net (a plastic water jug cut in half and poked with holes, fastened with twine), all he pulls up is a medicine bottle. He pockets it to throw it away somewhere more appropriate, but as he throws out the jug again and again, all he manages to pull up is trash. Sachets, a baby shoe, a plastic stool, and what remains of a Shopee parcel. He starts to question if the story the vagrants told him could be wrong, there seems to be nothing here bigger than a water bug. The only evidence of seafood he’s even seen on this beach was a dried up oyster shell tangled up in the net of a floating marine barrier resting on the dry shore.

Just as he was about to pull the net back once more, a body, pale and tall, breaks the surface. Foul water splashes on him as a man takes shape. Foreign, obviously, with a stalwart European face and a body like a Roman statue. He imagines his little sister would shriek and swoon at this specimen, though he thinks that the garbage water covering him is unbecoming.

“What are you doing?” the white man asks him. The French accent coating the words is thick, but he’s parsed through enough arthouse films to understand him.

“Research,” he lies, though it is what he wants to be doing. He’d rather die than admit he’d gotten so off track from his dream.

“God! I heard the funding was terrible for science in your country, but I had no idea it was this bad.” the Frenchman says.

He laughs, bitter but humorous.

“I’m trying to survey the fish that are living near the shore, but I haven’t had any luck yet.”

The Frenchman’s eyes light up, the reddening sky lending a mirthful warmth to his face.

“Fish? I love fish! Especially a good sardine. But, ah, the world is fucked! The fish have gone into hiding now, you could hardly afford a good sardine in France anymore.”

“You mean the ones that come in those colorful tins?” he says, imagining a moody film protagonist using one as an ashtray.

“Exactly, my friend! So if you find a good sardine please send me some over so I can bring them home.”

“There was a new species discovered in the bay quite recently, Sardinella pacifica, if it’s any good to eat I’ll tell you.”

The man pats his back, jostling him. He half turns to jog away, but looks back to bid him goodbye.

“Thanks kid, I’ll look for you tomorrow– happy fishing!”

As the Frenchman becomes a distant shape, he realizes the crowd of foreigners he must be a part of. They had taken over the whole entrance already, bikinis, trunks, and beach bodies a sharp contrast to the littered mockery of a beach.

A sharp piercing whistle cuts through his eardrums.

“Oy! Labas! Sarado na!” the booming voice of a coastguard erupts from the bay walk.

Barely thinking, he bolts towards the far end of the beach. He’s neither looking to approach the baywalk and risk getting manhandled out of the vicinity, nor does he want to pass through the foreigners and make a scene in front of his new friend. The split second of the coastguard getting on his scooter buys him just enough time to jump behind the rocks.

He contemplates, briefly, if he should go towards the Star City amusement park to escape, or if he’ll have better luck finding fish if he goes towards the yacht club.

A flutter interrupts his musings.

Surrounding him, waterbirds of many kinds hop about in waiting. Saunder’s gulls and Black headed gulls, heads dipped in ink and distinguished mostly by the hues of their beaks flick their heads about casually, one of them perching on his knee. A great egret cranes its neck, looking seaward as a smaller Chinese egret looks inland instead, its silk thread crest rising in mild alarm as its pale greenish legs pause in their stroll.

When the beam of the coastguard’s flashlight shines through the rocks, the birds leap into action. A mass of feathers, beaks and claws pour out, encompassing the coastguard with their tenacity and driving him back to his scooter.

The sun dips, hazy in the horizon, and the waters come to life. Fish of many shapes, sizes, and species, barely distinguishable in their frenzy, saturate the water with their writhing bodies. The birds, disentangling from the coastguard, take their position and join in on the coastal feast laid before them. The stench of waste water now cut with the smell of fresh fish.

He joins the birds in their hunt and casts the bottle once more, pulling against the squirming mass of fish. He pulls one out, big as his palm, and grins from ear to ear. He’s caught sardines.