In this story by Gregorio Gregorio C. Brillantes, a nine-year-old Philippine boy’s childhood innocence is shattered over the course of a school term. His public servant father has been relocated to a large provincial town. The boy likes this town more than the smaller ones they had lived in, and is very happy in his new school. Two events destroy his comfortable outlook on the world: the death of a classmate followed by a school field-trip to view his body, and his forced initiation under threat of violence into a gang of older students. Themes include innocence, death, violence, intimidation, fear. More…

In this story by Gregorio C. Brillantes, a thirteen-year-old Philippine boy comes to terms with his place in the universe. After watching a science-fiction movie featuring post-apocalyptic survivors traversing the vastness of space searching for an Earth-like planet, the boy questions the significance of his existence. The answer comes to him after dinner that night, as he sits on the porch with his close-knit family. The size of the universe (The Distance to Andromeda) is irrelevant. He is important to his family, and his current place is with them. Themes include doubt, family, love, faith, security, father-son relationships. More…

The major themes of this story by Gregorio C. Brillantes are expressed in the title. A country doctor, disillusioned by the suffering of patients and his oldest son’s suicide, has lost faith in religion and become detached from his deeply religious wife and younger son. As the son accompanies him on a late night house call to attend a dying baby, he realizes how out of touch the two have become. Upon their return, he has a momentary epiphany: for things like love, there was only so much time. Other themes include indifference, isolation, duty, father-son relationships, poverty. More…