The coconut trees, the most salient protrusions from the
greenest horizon these eyes have ever seen, have a list – not one is spared.
The leaves of the trees, a shape both ubiquitously recognizable and adored due
to its appeal in vacation magazines and Corona advertisements, are pinned
reluctantly in one direction as if each and every coconut tree tall enough
tower the copses and receive direct sunlight has been the butt of some cruel
joke. Gone are the beautiful,
spontaneous arches exploding from the tops of the calm, orderly trunks, forcefully
replaced by sad arboreta, traumatized and convinced into dramatic, uneasy
figures overlooking Estancia.
This was my first distinct impression of Panay when I
arrived over a month ago. The stubborn trees, those that remained standing, embodied
paralyzed witnesses to a heinous crime, seemingly screaming to everybody and
nobody in particular: She went that way. The
culprit went that way.
