Walking back from buying meat and vegetables for lunch this morning at Data Street, I shut the umbrella close as a thick cloud covers the sun passing by breezily above us, above the tiny store under a fertile rambutan, where old women whose children have all but flown away, nest alongside each other recounting better days, while a middle-aged man on a bicycle arrives asking whether tomatoes have dropped in price, all of which transpires as the cloud finally reaches Makiling’s highest peak on the backdrop where it shall stay hovering a little while longer this morning.