I remember a riddle my grandmother taught me. "Walang puno, walang ugat, hitik ng bulaklak." No tree, no roots: these millions of flowers.

Her tears were an aphrodisiac . . .

...a terrible famine swept the kingdom.

“It’ll be crazy—crazy good!”

Anicca, illusion, relativism, dualism, epistemology...

...minute scrapy-whispery sounds...

I need to be shaken up.

...the sky purpled into darkness...

Her former husband was a good man, and she had screwed up the marriage.

... yellow blossoms strewn along a lonely path, a banana leaf flat and still on a green pool...