#Yatiz is a story focusing on the lives of young people in a small seaside municipality called Carmen in the southern part of the Philippines. The name is based on a cuss word here, "Yati/Yatis" that has no English equivalent but is closest to WTF.
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JANUARY 13, 2023・FRIDAY・16:16
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Maya is texting her mother while listening to Taylor Swift's 2022 NYU Commencement Speech.
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MAMA: HOW ARE YOU AND BABY, ATE?
MAYA: WE'RE OKAY. AUNTIE KAKAY IS TAKING GOOD CARE OF US
MAMA: OKAY, GOOD.
MAYA: WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME MA?
MAMA: STILL NOT SURE, BY. I'M STILL SAVING UP FOR A PLANE TICKET.
MAYA: OKAY MA.
MAMA: LOVE YOU BABY.
MAYA: LOVE YOU TOO MA.
MAMA: BY THE WAY, SAY HI TO JASMIN FOR ME.
Maya puts her phone on her bed. She exhales as Taylor's speech washes over her.
I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams.
She picks up her phone and scrolls through Instagram. She checks her archive and sees a selfie of her and Jasmin.
And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet.
She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror across the room.
Anyway...hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.
She looks at their selfie again. As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I'm a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.
She exhales and puts down her phone. I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We're doing this together.
She pauses the video on her iPad and gets up from the bed.
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***
Her frustration grows the more she tries out her clothes. Nothing seems to look good on her. The rejects on the floor are starting to pile up.
She digs through her closet and eventually finds a red dress.
She proceeds to put on make up, perhaps a little too heavily. Dark eye shadow and ruby red lipstick.
She takes one last look at the mirror and exhales. She takes a selfie and sends it to Noel.
She fixes a slight smudge on her lipstick. And walks out of her room, wobbly from the heels and not noticing the back of her skirt, tangled and showing her yellow floral panties.
"Te makita gud imong pante," her sister May-may says to her on her way out the door.
"TE, I CAN SEE YOUR PANTIES."
Her eyes widen, finally realizing the reason why her butt feels breezy. She immediately pulls her skirt down. "Kana?"
"OKAY NOW?"
"Okay na te."
"YES."
"Asa si Ante Kakay?"
"WHERE IS ANTE KAKAY?"
"Ambot. Naa man to siya'y gipalit sa tindahan."
"I THINK SHE WAS BUYING SOMETHING AT THE SARI-SARI STORE¹."
She walks towards the door. "Sige, ilock ning purtahan unya ayaw pasulod ug laing mga tao, okay?"
"OH. WELL LOCK THE DOORS AND DON'T LET ANY STRANGERS INSIDE, OKAY?"
Her sister nods.
She kisses her on her forehead and it leaves a lipstick mark. She thinks of rubbing it off but decides against it. She walks out of the house in a rush, the sound of the door closing behind her.
---
1: Sari-sari Store:A sari-sari store is a small neighborhood retail shop that caters to members of that community. The store usually carries basic goods such as canned food, instant noodles, coffee, soda, and other things that Filipinos get on a daily basis. They also sell candy, chips, and beer, but can have literally anything commodity the community needs.
