Mang Tino sat down on a nearby rock.
“When you left, a few pigs were still inside the pen. They broke the fence and escaped. I thought they’d die in the forest. But they didn’t.”
Roger looked around.
Behind the piggery was a small stream he had never noticed before. Banana trees and sweet potato plants had grown around the area. There were coconuts and various wild plants.
“They learned how to survive in the mountain,” Mang Tino said. “And they kept multiplying.”
Roger stared at the herd. Some of the pigs raised their heads, almost as if they recognized his presence even after so many years.
One large pig walked closer to the fence. Its skin was reddish, and it had a scar on its ear—the exact mark of one of the first piglets he had bought long ago.
“That one…” Roger whispered.
“That was the very first pig I raised.”
Something tightened in his chest.
Everything he thought he had lost… was still there.
Not just alive—but grown.
“So what will you do now?” Mang Tino asked.
Roger remained silent.
He looked at the mountain. The pig pen. The pigs walking calmly through the grass as if the five years that had passed meant nothing.
Slowly, Roger smiled—for the first time in many years.
“Maybe,” he said quietly,
“my dream isn’t over yet.”
And at that moment, he understood something he once believed he had lost.
Sometimes, even if you abandon a dream…
there are moments when it is still waiting for you to come back.
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