Past midnight.
With a throat parched for a sweet drink, I cross the empty boulevard where the warm lights of C-Mart awaits. Pushing the glass door open, I glide to where refreshments line inside the man-sized fridge to pick my bottled drink. On this melancholic morning, I choose Fit N' Right Grape Flavor. A few weeks ago it was Minute Maid Pulpy Orange. Last month it was C2 Green Tea.
My taste varies from time to time, but like habits meant to be unbroken, I recall what to say before the cashier hands over my change.
Walking towards the droopy lad in front of the cash register, images of trash floating along the river passing under the Sevilla Bridge foul my head. Kalentong, the street after the crossing bear the brunt of face-deep floods when the swollen river bursts its banks. To see how brackish the waterway is as I go to work triggers a repulsion, what more to learn that half the trash forcibly cradled downstream comes from the stores I often haunt.
"Huwag mo na i-plastic kuya..." The droopy lad returns the bag under the desk.
Leaving the store without a word, it has always been like this ever since the world began to act strange. With floods inundating entire countries and fires scorching vast forests; With storms lashing out against battered islands and quakes shaking the earth more violently, relinquishing the free bag might be too little an effort for one person.
But imagine if millions of people embrace the same habit.
Perhaps, it's not too late to save a planet.