The Sixth Pan De Sal
-=rey=-
Today started like any other regular Tuesday morning for Ian. He woke up at five in the morning, washed his face, brushed his teeth, got into his sweatsuit and started jogging to the nearby bakery with all his problems in mind. Upon getting to the bakery he noticed it was still unusually dark. Even though five in the morning is barely daylight, still five in the morning was a lot darker. He ignored the darkness and kept jogging. Jeepneys and tricycles headed for the market were all he saw on the streets. Quite a few actually.
After a ten minute jog he reached the bakery. He was absent-minded as the baker asked him what he wanted to buy that morning. He did not notice and he did not reply. The baker smiled and asked him a second time, `Sir, would you be having your regular?` Ian snapped out of his daydream state and replied, `Oh, my bad. Yes Mang Joey, the regular.` Ian`s `regular` was five pieces of pan de sal, of which two were a bit toasted and the other three were white and soft and two pieces of kabayan. All of these were to be placed in a plastic, not paper, bag. The baker prepared everything for him and handed him the plastic bag with his bread. As Ian paid the baker the baker asked, `What is with the long face and the absent-minded person in front of me?` Ian tried to crack a smile and replied, `Problems. Just wish I got rid of them. I`m tired of all these trials in my life, I`m tired of having to wait for the right time for anything!` The baker noticed his trembling voice as he spoke. The baker then replied, `Hold on a second, I have something for you.` He disappeared to the back of the bakery where the oven was and came back with one more pan de sal in his hand. `Here, have this, I believe this might help.` The puzzled Ian just looked on as the baker put it in his bag of bread.
Ian left the bakery and jogged farther away from home towards the direction of the park. He usually eats the bread he bought on his way to the park and while at the park watching other people go about their daily workouts. At the park, he worked out and when he was done, he retired to his favorite bench and began eating his still warm bread, saving his pan de sals for last. He was about to throw away the plastic bag when he remembered he had an extra pan de sal from the baker. He took the sixth pan de sal out and stared at it for a while, remembering the reason it was given to him. `What does Mang Joey think this pan de sal is? A lucky charm?` Ian muttered to himself.
As Ian was about to break the bread in two it jumped up and away from his hand and started to walk towards him! He did not know if he would bash the bread with whatever he could grab, scream in surprise or just faint at the experience of it.
`Calm down you sissy.` The bread spoke. `I am losing it!` Ian said in a very alarmed tone. `Sit down and listen up! If you are losing it then just sit down and listen to this talking pan de sal. If you are not then just enjoy this once in a million lifetimes experience. And let me tell you a story, my story.` Suggested the bread. `Uh, ok I guess.` He replied in a nervous tone. And so the bread continued, `You know I was not always like this, a peice of bread, a pan de sal. I used to be wheat planted in the farm of that old baker, Mang Joey. One day he decided to harvest me, and I was not pleased! He took me away from my home in the farmlands! But all he said was, `Do not worry, I have something good planned for you.` So I just obeyed. The next thing I knew I was being milled! Yowch! I was grinded, pounded, over and over inside his mill by the barn. And you know what? It freaking hurt! I did not want any of that! Was that Mang Joey had in mind when he said he had a `good plan`?! Mang Joey just smiled and whispered to me, `Patience. Do not worry I got you.` And so I did. Soon enough I was all white and I was flour. I sneezed everytime I smelled myself, I was all over the place too! Then all of a sudden that baker started wetting me and mixing all these other stuff with me! I was soooooo pissed! Why did he have to mix those things into me? Why did he have to make me dizzy with all that mixing and blending? All he did was smile and say `Stay with me, do not stop, keep mixing, persevere. You are almost there.` And so I did. When all that was done I felt so relieved. Well that was until he started to knead me. At first it was pleasing just like a massage, but then he started beating me around and he started using this one heck of a rolling pin on me! I`ve gone through a lot already and now he starts to beat me? What the heck is wrong with this guy?! Then he smiled, again, and said, `Endure, you can take this, I know you, I am the one who made you into dough.` So I did, but it was hard. Finally he left me for a while and let me settle. Everything ached in me! And just when I was starting to feel better guess what, he shoved me into the oven! After all I did, after following his every word and doing all he told me to do he wanted me to burn! I banged the oven doors begging him to get me out. And AGAIN he just smiled and said, `Have faith in me, I woould not let my masterpiece go to waste. Remember I have something good planned for you.` And so I sat in the hot oven. After what seemed like forever and a day he took me out. I was ok! I was not burned! And daaaaaayyyyym did I smell great and taste great! I asked my baker, `What am I?` He smiled and answered, `Exactly what I planned you to be, something good, very good. You are bread and now instead of just staying in the fields all day you are a masterpiece, my masterpiece.` I just stared at him in awe at what he made me into.`
`Wow, what a story.` Commented Ian. `Did he ever explain to you what all your suffering and pain was for?` he asked further. `Oh yes he did.` Replied the sixth pan de sal. `He explained everything, he told me that he had to take me from my roots and from my home so I can grow into something even more somewhere else. He told me he had to mill me so I can be flour, the main ingredient for his masterpice, he wanted me to be the star of it all. He mixed and blended me because he wanted me to share what I had with the other ingredients and to show me that I could not become the beautiful bread that I am now if not for the help of the other ingredients. He had to pound and knead me painful as it was for me to gain texture, for air to enter the mix and so that I would rise and be puffy as bread. Finally he had to bake me in the oven so that the finished product may be made, to give me the ultimate metamorphosis, to make me burn and sweat away what I do not need and to make me truly bond with everything in me. Like he said. He had something good planned for me.` Ian could only stare at the sixth pan de sal as realization after realization flooded his thoughts.
Again the bread broke the silence, `So whatcha waiting for? Eat me!` Lost in thoughts Ian ate the bread and started walking home. As he passed by the bakery on his way back he noticed something strange, the bakery was closed, a note on the outside read: `As of July 13, 1988, Monday, Mang Joey`s Bakery has moved to 112 Gen. Miguel Malvar Street.` This location was closed since yesterday. Ian could not believe his eyes. He checked the date on his watch today was July 14th. Something else caught his eye, it was not anywhere near five in the morning yet it was only three.
