Relativity

The number 4 in Chinese connotes death. Ming Tsai refuses to plate his dishes with elements numbering 4 in pieces, save for that one time he made spicy chicken with 4 different spices. Chicken of Death, he named the dish if my memory serves me well. A man may choose to forgive; rarely does he forget—betrayal is a bitter pill to swallow. A man I know has been in conflict with his brother for a number of years now. Things have been said behind backs, accusations thrown about like no-look passes. A plate was almost thrown toward one’s head. If it weren’t for an intrusive yaya, blood would’ve have spilled. And to think one brother is already in his fifties, the other in his sixties. Now the man I know has a brother with cancer. Stage 4, rumors say. Metastasized this means, or spread to other organs or throughout the body. The man’s wife hints of reconciliation, ending a cold war a few months old. The man says he’s been praying for his brother. Physical and emotional healing, he pleads from God on his kuya’s behalf. Hopefully this allows him to reassess his life and what he has become. The man’s son begins, Can I just say something? violently scratching the back of his scalp. I’m not talking to you! his father retorts. Then don’t be an asshole, the son mumbles; he bites his tongue. Folk Catholicism is appropriating misunderstood religious practices to a community’s culture. False Catholicism appropriating faith to one's personal convenience. Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein. Physicist, they call him, though Psychologist (or Theologian) wouldn’t have been so fallacious in concept. Genius regardless. A man has Stage 4 cancer; tumors are spreading all throughout his system. Some people make a living by putting together six slabs of wood, varnished, sometimes painted, only to be buried. Knock on wood. A man has Stage 4 cancer; his brother, a nemesis, reduces possible death to a possibility of confession. This brother has a son, six years removed from a battle of his own. That son can’t help but wonder what he himself was supposed to realize, what he feels he missed, who he had wronged, what God wanted him to confess, for apparently possible death is but redemption for a nemesis in this Catholicism that prevails. Chicken of Death, I’m guessing, is best served with steamed rice; relative is serving 4 pieces of it—pun or bad luck.