My phone screen blinked twice, then suddenly went dark.
I pressed the power button once.
It didn't turn on.
I tried again. Still no sign of life.
"Not now, please ..." I muttered.
A light drizzle began to dampen my face and my already-faded ojol jacket. I pulled over beneath a large tree by the roadside, then tried once more to turn on the cheap phone whose screen was cracked in several places.
I opened the back cover.
The battery had been swollen for a long time.
I knew it was well past time to replace it.
The problem was, replacing a phone wasn't easy for someone like me.
To buy a new phone, I'd have to calculate how many meals of rice with a simple side dish the kids would go without.
I let out a long breath.
Today, I'd only gotten two jobs.
That meant today's income wasn't even enough to buy food for tomorrow.
I stared at the wet road.
Motorcycles sped past. Vehicle lights reflected in the puddles. Several other ojol drivers were still busy accepting job requests on their phones.
And me? I could only sit there in silence.
Without a phone, I was no longer an ojol driver.
I couldn't accept even a single job.
My hand clenched around the motorcycle's handlebar.
"Oh God, please don't send one hardship after another ...."
I looked up.
The rainwater and the moisture pooling in the corners of my eyes felt exactly the same.
"If this really is a trial meant for me, give me the strength to endure it."
It wasn't that I'd never tried to build a better life, but fate had led me into one hardship after another.
I had a college degree and a GPA good enough to get a decent job.
Before I got married, I earned enough to confidently propose to my wife. She and I lived comfortably. I was able to buy a house and a car through financing. I could even help both my parents and hers.
But when we were blessed with our second child, disaster struck at the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic, and I was hit by a mass layoff.
At first, we still felt at ease because I received a decent amount of severance pay and had enough savings. We thought the pandemic would soon pass and that I could find a new job.
But life took me down a different road. As it turned out, the COVID-19 pandemic lasted a long time. Our severance pay and savings were completely wiped out. I even transferred the house and car to someone else, financing and all, just so we could survive.
That was when I learned that being the head of the household wasn't about having a job that looked impressive in other people's eyes.
Being the head of the household was about figuring out how to keep the kids fed even when your own wallet was nearly empty.
In the end, I used what little money we had left to buy a motorcycle. We rented a small place and started our lives over from zero. I even regretted not doing it sooner, when I was first laid off. As it turned out, ojol drivers and other service workers were still making a living to this day.
I started the motorcycle.
There was no point waiting there because my phone wasn't going to turn on.
I rode straight through the heavy rain and decided to go home.
When I arrived, I was shocked to see Naila crying. She was kneeling on the floor.
"What happened, honey?" I asked Naila.
"I got pranked, honey," she replied between sobs.
"Pranked? What happened?" I asked.
"The order for two hundred boxed rice meals wasn't picked up. What am I supposed to do, honey? What am I going to do with all this rice? I even bought the rice on credit from the shop to make their order, and then they didn't pick it up."
I gazed sadly at my wife as she complained. I couldn't bear to tell her that I hadn't brought home much money today because my phone couldn't be used for work either.