‘Half-empty’ by Romalyn Ante – Primers Shortlist 2017

‘The Philippines must be half-empty; you’re all here running the NHS’
– Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Drug:
Migrationazoline (available in full or half-empty bottles)

Indications:
____– prophylaxis of parents who nag like masonry drills,
______saying they did not send you to college
______to be a health-centre volunteer
____– ulcers on the lips for eating kamote and kangkong every night
____– chronic aching for a house and garden of your own
____– chest tightness and/or dyspnoea as you watch your child drool
______over Special Shaomai
____– episodic blindness secondary to power-cuts

Contraindications:
____– do not take this medicine if you have a weak heart
______or sensitivity to the tug of your child at your skirt.

Cautions:
____– your husband may look for another lover while you’re gone
____– your child may forget your name
____– you may not be able to fly back home in time for your mother’s
______burial

Side effects:
____– drowsiness/vertigo/nausea
____– behaviour changes (depends on how lazy your colleague is)
____– weight loss (as you ceaselessly convert pounds to peso
______and deprive yourself of a steak bake or a Cornish pasty)
____– low mood (on occasions like Nochebuena)
____– severe acne (aka unknown relatives who unexpectedly appear
______and demand money)
____– bloating (as you yearn for the sweetness of lanzones
______or see flakes of desiccated coconut in the black November sky)
____– intermittent euphoria (when you hand the bald girl
______her crocheted unicorn and her mother the Discharge Form)
____– acute insomnia (when a kid on a stretcher is rushed
______through the door – his face blood-soaked, and for a second
______you think he’s the child you left back home)