a white sheet of paper and a baby fly

two days ago, we were again visited by another typhoon. as forewarned by the weather bureau this typhoon had strong winds and lots of rain.  it of course brought lots of inconveniences. flooding. damage to properties in areas where it hit most. well, people have learned from previous experiences and we were able to find ways to soften the impact of this weather disturbance.

at our place power was cut off for about two days. we have to use candles for lighting. i could not brew some coffee since what i have is an electric coffeemaker. i just boiled some water and mimicked the action of the coffeemaker by pouring the hot water gently and slowly over the ground coffee wrapped in filter paper. nothing beats sweet smelling coffee when it comes to whiling the time away after the heavy onslaught of wind and rain.

power was off. so, no computer use, no internet, no surfing.

i sat by myself at the dining table. i pulled a sheet of bond paper and laid it on the table. despite the yellow glow of the lighted candles the fresh sheet of paper still looked very immaculate and inviting to write on. i gathered my thoughts. surely this typhoon that had just passed should prompt me to write something. long minutes had passed and still i am not able to compose anything. my brewed coffee had turned cold. i tried twirling the pen between the first and middle fingers of my right hand. i stared fixedly at the white sheet of paper. it's there waiting for my pen to touch and glide over its surface and then form words. i tried listening to the familiar drip, drip, drip of rainwater dropping from the ceiling leaks to the catch pails below.  my lighted candle had already cried melted wax towards the holder and the wax had formed an interesting puddle. still nothing. no thoughts to write about.

suddenly, a baby fly came out from nowhere and sat on my paper. perhaps the warmth and the light of the candle had attracted it. i looked at the tiny creature. its blackness was in very sharp contrast against the whiteness of my sheet. i felt this was not right. i flicked it with my finger and it flew off. by and by, it came again and sat in the middle of  the paper. somehow its blackness disturbed me, seeing it against the immaculate sheet.  i had this feeling it sort of "dirtied" the sheet. i twirled my pen near it and it flew off again. after a short minute, it came again and sat on the paper. without much further thought, i hit it with the palm of my right hand. there it laid, flat and dead, right near the middle of my paper. a black blot of squeezed insect.  now my white paper is no longer immaculate. realizing this, i hurried to rub it off while it had not dried yet.  well, this actually made matters worse. rubbing it off made the fresh blot to spread over to a bigger area. no more immaculate sheet to write on. i set my pen aside and crumpled the paper.

after a short while, using my mobile phone text editor, i composed a post for this leafdropper blog. i titled it -- a white sheet of paper and a baby fly.

most times we see ourselves as that sheet of bond paper. clean, immaculate, near perfect. we are so proud about this status and we take great pains to keep this reputation.  yet, being human, there comes a time when we commit a small mistake, an error, a trifle, that resulted to a " black blot" in that "white" image that we see.  we panic, and fearing that this trifle, this "baby fly",  will tarnish our clean image, we hurriedly take action to "rub out" or correct the mistake. yet, haste makes waste, as they say, and we end up covering the small mistake by an even bigger mistake.

we end up like the crumpled paper.and rue the time when we swatted the baby fly . . .