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Zine #2 featuring Genius and Garbage, a new story by Jessica Zafra, designed by Yodel Pe. Limited edition, so get it now. We still have copies of Zine #1: The Adventuress. The plan is to produce six zines in 2020. Collect the whole set! Each zine costs P250. We accept payment by BDO deposit and PayPal, and donate 10 percent of the proceeds to food assistance programs. To order copies, email your full name, mobile number, and delivery address to saffron.safin@gmail.com. We deliver by Grab, Lalamove, Ninja Van outside Metro Manila, and DHL abroad.

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Since my trip to the supermarket in Rockwell on the second week of lockdown, I have not been more than 500 meters away from my house. My supplies are delivered, and very kind friends include my shopping lists on their grocery trips. Yesterday Yodel sent me the finished design of my zine (issue #2), and I liked it so much, I decided that it was time to venture into the outside world to have the pages printed.

I prepared for my expedition like Van Helsing entering the lair of Dracula. Mask and cotton gloves, neck gaiter in case the mask fell off, spare latex gloves, small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, small waterproof backpack with IDs, a tote bag with a large document envelope for the printed sheets, and an umbrella because it looked like rain. And yet this was still lighter than the bags I used to carry pre-pandemic, which were loaded with books, notebooks and whatnot because I spent hours in coffee shops.

If someone manufactured UV disinfectant light sabers, they would make a fortune.

At 1030 I requested a Grab car and it arrived in three minutes. Per the new rules, the masked driver got out and opened the passenger door. There was a sheet of plastic between the driver and the back seat. The car is disinfected regularly, the driver assured me. Pre-pandemic I seldom engaged drivers in conversation because I was answering messages or reading a book. Now I have time and do not have to multi-task. Also I miss conversation, so after I asked if we could keep the windows open (less risk of viral transmission), I chatted up the driver.

He said there were fewer passengers, as cashless payments present obstacles for people who distrust online transactions (I have tried to convince some of them, it is exhausting). And, obviously, only people with reason to go out go out. I wonder what part of Metro Manila traffic was accounted for by people who left the house for no particular reason, who were just bored. (I was one of them, but I walked to the mall.)

The driver said his family was okay, his wife and three children were at home. His eldest child is 21 and works from home, so they had funds in lockdown. He sounded quite cheerful. “Nag-bonding ang pamilya. Kahit tag-hirap, magkasama naman kami.” (Family bonding time, so we didn’t mind being on a tight budget.) In lockdown our priorities shifted dramatically. We experienced taking our time and not putting work ahead of everything. Do we really want to go back to rushing, overscheduling, and FOMO?

Anyway he was back on the road to save up for the monthly installments on his car. The bank had assured him that he would not be charged interest for the payments he’d missed during lockdown. However, when his statement arrived, there was an extra charge of P14,000. “So I told the bank officer, You said no interest. He said, That’s not interest. Then he called it something else. Basically, interest,” he laughed.

Traffic was light, and we were in Legazpi Village in five minutes. At the print shop the rule was no masks, no entry, and absolutely no gloves. I took off my gloves, applied hand sanitizer, and passed my thumb drive across the plastic barrier to the clerk. She said the copies would be ready in an hour.

There were few people about, but there was a familiar buzz in the air—the central business district had begun to reopen. I walked to National Bookstore to buy thread for binding zines. To my relief my limbs had not atrophied from staying indoors. (Those walking workouts are great, even my lungs are more efficient.) Along the way I stopped at an ATM for cash. With gloves on—despite the new findings, I’m still wary of surfaces, and lots of fingers touch those keys and screens. Those fingers have been picking noses.

Greenbelt Mall was open and there was a line of people on chairs set a meter apart at Wendy’s. There were three or four shoppers besides myself at National. I found the thread, then went to a Korean grocery for a big jar of kimchi (probiotics and vitamin A—suddenly I am conscious of nutrition). Biggest crowd of the day, there were ten people in the store. Good walking weather, clouds, a breeze. I was perspiring profusely, but could not tell if it was from the mugginess or the adrenaline (Vampire, I mean virus alarm!).

My pages were done, and after settling my bill I requested a Grab car. It appeared in three minutes. Mask, hand sanitizer, plastic partition. The driver said that during enhanced lockdown he did Grab Food deliveries. One time, someone ordered P500 worth of milk tea, but when he brought it to the address there was no one there by that name, and no one was answering the phone. He ended up paying for the milk tea. A colleague of his bought P3,000 worth of groceries for a Grab user, and delivered it to an empty building. Besides the contactless transactions, cashless payments really are safer for the drivers.

Why would anyone play a trick like that, when they stand to gain nothing but the pleasure of robbing a random driver of their time and money? Because some people are garbage.

I got home, disinfected myself, and spent the rest of the day sewing zines. They really should’ve taught bookbinding as an alternative to crochet at my old school, I am never going to make a doily.