The morning in Puntos began with the sound of roosters and rust.
From the narrow balcony of his two-story house, Manuel Reyes could see the thin film of brown dust that coated the rooftops after every night of sea breeze. The salt from the Pacific mixed with the iron roofs, leaving the entire town smelling faintly like old blood and wet coins.
He stood there in his undershirt, cigarette burning low between his fingers, watching the tricycles rattle past the corner store. The town was already alive — vendors shouting, children running with half-eaten pandesal, and a jeepney painted with the face of Jesus sputtering smoke down the road.
Inside, Maria was coughing again. The sound came sharp, short, not yet violent but close enough to worry.
Mano didn't turn back immediately. He took another drag from his cigarette and exhaled slowly, as if measuring the volume of his frustration.
"Mano," Maria's voice came, soft but insistent. "You'll be late again."
He crushed the cigarette in an old coffee mug and looked at the watch on his wrist — an old Seiko, cracked at the edge.
Late. Again.
The university in San Ildefonso, an hour's bus ride from Puntos, was half-dead even on good days.
Once, it had been proud — a technical hub that trained engineers and chemists for the factories that had since moved to Manila. Now, the lab smelled of chalk and hopelessness.
Mano stepped into his classroom with the slow authority of a man who refused to admit how far he'd fallen. The students barely looked up from their phones. He hated that.
In the corner, the lab's fume hood wheezed like an old man on a ventilator.
He slammed his books down.
"Phones off," he said, not loudly, but with that razor-edged tone that sliced through apathy.
Silence followed, reluctantly.
He began his lecture, drawing equations across the whiteboard — his handwriting sharp and deliberate.
"Chemistry," he said, "is not magic. It's control. It's discipline. It's the art of transforming the ordinary without losing precision."
He paused, looking at their bored faces.
"No one here wants to be ordinary," he continued, "but none of you have the patience to be exceptional."
That got their attention for a few seconds.
During lunch, Mano sat alone in the faculty canteen. The other teachers — younger, louder — laughed over gossip.
He ate his rice and tinola slowly, watching the rain begin outside. The soup was too thin. Everything was too thin these days.
A young colleague, Prof. Cabrera, approached him with a sheepish grin. "Sir Reyes, they said the administration's cutting lab budgets again next semester. Chemistry's going to merge with General Science."
Mano didn't respond at first. He stared at his bowl, then said evenly, "They've been cutting for ten years. Eventually, they'll just erase us."
Cabrera shrugged. "That's education now, sir. The students want tech, not science."
Mano smiled thinly. "Then they'll grow up knowing how to press buttons, not why they work."
When Cabrera left, Mano looked through the window again. Rain streaked the glass. He saw his reflection — tired, lined, older than forty-eight — and felt a pulse of anger beneath the calm.
He had spent his life mastering something most people couldn't even pronounce properly. He could predict reactions down to decimal precision. He could control chaos.
And yet here he was, reduced to explaining basic molarity to teenagers who'd rather be influencers.
He reached home near dusk.
The sky over Puntos had turned a bruised shade of violet, the sea dark and restless beyond the rice paddies. Maria was lying on the couch, TV humming softly.
"Annika's still at her friend's," she said. "They're working on some project."
He nodded absently, setting his bag down.
On the small dining table, a stack of envelopes waited — unpaid bills, one of them stamped red.
"Water," Maria said, not accusingly, just tiredly. "They'll cut it if we don't pay by Friday."
"I know."
He went to the kitchen sink, turned the tap. The water sputtered weakly, coughing air before settling into a thin stream.
The pipes made a sound like complaint.
He washed his hands slowly, as though cleansing himself of the day's humiliation. The smell of iron from the water clung to his fingers.
When he came back, Maria was looking at him with quiet worry.
"You could ask the department for help," she said softly. "Or the dean. He respects you."
He gave a sharp, humorless laugh.
"Respects me? Maria, they're waiting for me to retire so they can split my classes in half and pay someone younger."
She sighed, shifting on the couch. "Mano, it's not your fault—"
"It's always my fault," he cut in, voice harder than he meant. "Everything that goes wrong — power bill, school fees, medicine — it always ends up on my table. On me."
The silence afterward was heavy, wet as the monsoon air. Maria looked away, eyes glistening.
He hated himself for saying it.
But a part of him, buried deep, meant it.
Later that night, Annika returned, raincoat dripping, face bright. "Papa!" she called, holding up her sketchbook. "We designed a pavilion out of recycled bottles! You can use chemistry to make the plastic stronger — maybe you can help us?"
For a moment, Mano felt something break open inside him. She looked like him when she smiled — that same sharpness in the eyes, the same certainty.
But he only nodded, muttering, "Maybe tomorrow. I have papers to grade."
He went into his small study and closed the door.
Outside, thunder murmured over the sea.
On his desk lay a small, dust-covered beaker — the only souvenir he'd kept from his university research days.
He lifted it, holding it against the dim lamplight. Even after years, the glass was flawless. The way it caught the light — clean, simple, perfect — reminded him of who he used to be.
He thought of Maria's cough. The unpaid bills. The shrinking respect.
He thought of all the people in town who had money without mastery, comfort without craft.
He whispered to himself, almost reverently:
"They don't deserve it more than I do."
That night, as the rain deepened, Manuel Reyes stood by the open window and stared out at Puntos — the distant pier lights flickering through fog, the smell of gasoline from fishing boats.
The air was thick with possibilities and regret.
He didn't know it yet, but this was the night something shifted.
Pride — that small, invisible spark inside him — finally found oxygen.
And soon, it would burn.