Ever since my parents bought me a cellphone with a built-in VGA camera, I’ve been taking photos of food I eat in restaurants, in the houses of friends, as well as food I rarely ever get to eat at home. I had to bear with the colors of the food looking dull in the photo in a small resolution of 320 x 240. Indeed, the subjects often didn’t appear with crisp detail, but the noise in the image sure did!

I’d take five minutes or longer taking a picture of a bowl filled with scoops of ice cream, and my parents would tell me to stop taking pictures because the ice cream has already melted. I thought this was food photography. I only discovered that most subjects were in fact “fake food”. I forgot about the fact that ice cream would completely melt, and perhaps evaporate when exposed to bright and warm lighting for more than ten minutes! It also saddened me to learn that I can’t eat the subject after taking a picture of it.

This is my closest experience to “food photography”, as I helped a bit with arranging the subject on the plate. I did take a few shots of the subject at the best position I could think of at the time, and I tried to cherish it, because it would be the last time I could even see such an arrangement of seafood pasta. When the time came for the subject to be dumped and scrapped like waste, I volunteered to throw the whole thing, without thinking. I felt bad and really guilty about throwing the pasta and all the “toppings” in one of those colored bins, but later, I felt that at least we were still able to take shots of it. Either way, we can’t eat it anyway.

I was supposed to sleep for an hour after I drank pain relievers.

I lay on the bed for a few moments, then I sensed something within my sight fall from the ceiling, although I wasn’t able to get a clear picture of what it was. So I just continued to lie down, listening to my favorite Michael Jackson songs.

Later, as I was starting to feel uneasy about whatever fell into the bed, I lifted one of the pillows I leaned my head on, and saw a few bits of wood, dirt, and a long and thin black worm-like entity.

At this time, I screamed and quickly covered it with a pillow.

I was afraid of worms, and I asked my mom to accompany me.

But I had to face my fear.

I lifted the pillow, and saw that the worm was wiggling so quickly, in a fashion reminiscent of the flagella that some bacteria and protists use to propel themselves for movement. I poured whatever salt was left in our salt shaker, but the worm escaped my trap so quickly.

I asked my mom for help, and we decided to change the pillowcases. I found the worm again, now curled up, and poured more salt over it.

It then crawled away; I couldn’t find it after.

Just to make sure, I poured salt over the sides of the bed.

I’m hoping to sleep peacefully, and not in a flagellic motion.