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Nowadays, her father makes sure he comes home late each nigh, so he won't have to answer the questions, especially about the baby in the photograph. So he need not improvise further on his three-year-old tall tale.

Big Lady's angry, Big Lady's hungry, Big Lady's turning the house upside down

This latest gift was unlike her mother, somethiing was missing. Rica turned it inside out, searching

Big Lady wants to break all to get to the heart of the matter, where it's the saltiest. In the vein of a plate, within the aluminum bottom of a pot, in the copper fold of a spoon, deep in the curve f a cup's handle

Mouth curved downward, she's sad like her meals. No, she wears a smile, she's happy because she's always full.

Earlier this year, she sent one of herself and the new baby of her employer.

Her cheek stings. She collapses on the floor before his feet.

"I didn't mean to, Dios ko po, I never meant to"

Perhaps, she understands that, for all its practice, humanity can never conceal the daily act of futility at the dinner table ... to fill inevitably contaminates our cutlery, plates, cups, glasses, our whole table.

Big Lady knows, has always known. This feast will last her a lifetime, if she does not burst tonight.

Nothing. No big bang ... So Big Lady can't get to them. So she can be saved from bursting.

And she will not stop eating, another pot, another plate, another mouthful of sadness, and she will grow bigger and bigger, and she will burst

Sadness Collector

Background

Rica

Father

Mother

Big Lady

Paris

by: Merlinda Bobis

Writings

Most Discussed Topics

Feminism

Nationalism

Social Issues

Awards

- Sadness Collector

- Fish-Hair Woman

-The Solemn Lantern Maker

-White Turtle

- A Novel-in-Waiting

- Pag-uli, Pag-uwi, Homecoming

-Summer Was A Fast Train Without Terminals

- Ian Reed Foundation Prize for Radio Drama (1995)

- Awgie for Best Radio Play (1998)

- Pamana Philippine Presidential Award (1998)

- International Prix Italia (1998)

- Steele Rudd Award for the Best Collection of Australian Short Stories (2000)

- Philippine National Book Award (2000)

- NSW Ministry for the Arts Writers' Fellowship for Novel in Progress (2000)

- Judges' Choice Award, Bumbershoot Bookfair, Seat Arts Festival (2001)

- Gintong Aklat Award (Golden Book Award, Philippines) (2006)

- Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas (2006

Biography

-Grew upn Albay, Philippines

-She is also a dancer and visual artist

-Bachelor of Arts (Summa cum Laude) from Aquinas University of Legazpi

- Master of Arts in Literature (Meritissimus) from the University of Santo Tomas

- Completed a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong

-She lives in Wollongong

Expectant ears, hungry for the phone's overseas beep.

Her father says she never shows herself to anyone ... But there's a lot of sadness in many houses, it just keeps on growing each day, so she can't stop eating, and she can't stop growing too.

The lid clatters off the pot. Beneath her room, the kitchen is stirring again. Rica sits up on the bed - the big one has returned?

He must have written her long letters, asking about how to pull the mass of curls aways from the face and tie them neatly the way he gathered, into some embrace of order, his own nightly longings.

A remarkable child. She was only a little thing then, but she noticed all, didn't she, never missed anything, committed even details to memory. A very smart kid, but too serious, a sad kid.

She's six and grown up now, so, even if his refusal has multiplied beyond her ten fingers, she always makes sure that her nightly tears remained small and few.

She hates waiting. Big Lady hates that, too, because then she'll have to clean up till the early hours of the morning.

Why Paris? Why three years - and even more? ... Then she can come home for a visit and go back there to work some more

She has three boxes of them, one for each year, though the third box is not even half-full

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