Desafinado
We’re on a red convertible. Just like in the movies. Waving your hands skyward. Moving with the bumps of the hills, the contours of the landscapes. Everything was fine, fine, fine. We eat the rice cakes you cooked, fresh from the picnic basket. The shrubberies. The weather was sunny and perfectly fine. The watch I gave you, you’re wearing it with pride. The conversations–the sanguine feel of it and the clouds at the background. I think it hurts. Peeling off the skin of my lips, I mean. I think of the past, the watch I gave you, the time must have been four in the afternoon, the winds just playing with the shrubberies. The grasses. Everything’s on display for us. The rice cakes tasted good, the roasted coffee fresh. Nipa huts at the distance. It hurts, peeling this. I wish I could have waved my hands too, but I was driving. At the field we’re looking at the kite and it suddenly crashed. We heard a gunshot. In war movies we’re forced to watch the birds fly with fear.
Everyone’s firing everywhere. All the sounds a gun can make. Like drums slammed so hard it exploded. I wish the strong winds could stop the bullets. It was harsh–the blood on my lips, the broken mirror of this bathroom, bodies everywhere. All the letters forgotten on the bunk beds, still and crying, the blots scattering through the whiteness of the paper until it reaches the border, and it drops. The tears are gray with all the letters and the sentences and the paragraphs of dreams, of longing, of retreat, and it drops on the pillow with the dried tears of malaria and battle fatigue. It was scary. I don’t think it’s best to reply anymore. Any sober man couldn’t, in this situation. We think of tactics and we send the memories off some distant plane in our mind. We’re good with it. We’re trained to do it. Pictures are plastered the other way around so your face kisses the wall. Everything should be drab. Everything is steel and wood and camouflage and dull. Don’t let emotions consume you, they say, before we enter the battlefield. It’s true, though I think it’s more sober to do the opposite. Lick the blood on my lips. Pull the trigger. Think of the blue skies and the reprimands of my mother. The bluest days. The drafts I’ve been keeping on my bunk bed. Why couldn’t your key fit in the doorknob? you asked.
We’re still on the red convertible and you said your umbrella looks dainty because it was laced and that it was yellow. You look good eating watermelons, the juice of it leaving your lips wet and plump. It’s hard to eat watermelons, you say, ‘coz it always drips. Now I’m crying. Here in the barracks crying is a taboo for the generals, but we privates always cry in the bathroom. It’s against the code, Benitez would say. He’s a stone-cold general, his eyes stiff from all the blood he had seen. My tears sometimes wet my lips and I couldn’t peel it off because it becomes moist. I couldn’t fit in the key because of the wave that’s closing in, marching a mile a day. I suddenly knew the answers. I wish the strong winds could calm the birds. I fear for them. Have you passed through this night where you wake up and wash your face in the bathroom, and after all the water dripped from your face you’d be wondering why your cheeks are still wet? Because I’m crying, and it’s a taboo. I wash my face and mask my tears with tap water. Where does this great evil come from? You couldn’t put yourself to cook; you said your rice cakes might taste like vengeance. Blood on my lips again. I couldn’t fit in the key because I think it hurts. They are closing in.
This entry was written by , posted on February 26, 2010 at 10:40 pm, filed under Fiction. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
No way, Jose
I can’t help but think of what it feels to put the edge of my plugged charger on my tongue. Is this weird? Always thinking of the goddamn thing? Reminds me of the movie Crank. Anyway, it’s been a recurring image lately.
One thing: I rarely get headaches. I usually get them from eating fatty foods (the bagnet I bought from Ilocos, lechon kawali and lechon) or with coffee–which explains why I don’t drink coffee that much. With problems I don’t exactly put them into mind, though tonight I’m having a really bad headache.
Why? (This might seem unparalleled, grammar-wise.)
- I drank iced coffee–must be the brain-freeze, and the fact that it’s too sweet. Why do iced coffees have to be really FUCKING sweet? (Or at least in our local coffee shops. We don’t have Starbucks or any other major cafes anyway.)
- I smoked a lot of cigarettes today.
- I’m fresh from a writing workshop.
- My roommate confided three fucking problems.
- Stressed (though I had twelve hours of sleep last Tuesday).
- Overanalyzed things.
- Still emphasizing the fact that I couldn’t make a critical paper. (If I could, it would be the densest ever.)
- I must have missed drinking beer.
- Thinking about the next few days to come.
- Koreans!!! (I’ll talk about these Koreans next time.)
I’m trying to calm my headache with music from Daft Punk; I feel it would intensify when exposed to Damien Rice or even Vampire Weekend–I don’t know why.
This Saturday my band would be having a gig in a friend’s birthday. First gig, guys! Our band name: Gramsci and His Cultural Hegemony. We’re about to sing nine songs though we’ve only rehearsed five of them. I only do the vocals, fuck me, because my guitar skills are inadequate, thankyouverymuch.
I’m turning 19 next Monday.
Then I’ll be having rehearsals every night since I’m tentatively included in the cast of our play. Playdate: March 17. This isn’t good. Though I’ll be playing a minor role, this is still a royal pain in the ass. (I’ll deliver six lines! You guys should be impressed.)
Come March 9 I’ll be interviewed for the renewal of my VISA. (I’ll be skipping three classes. My bad.)
Papers, requirements, exams, sleepless nights: this shall be the cycle of my life for the remaining four weeks of this semester. Onward, I shall march with bravery and a beer in hand. Onward!
This entry was written by , posted on February 25, 2010 at 3:56 am, filed under IRLs, Life at UPLB, Stress ball narratives. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Not worth laughing
I woke up at 6:58 AM when the call time for our Laguna field trip (yes, same fucking province) is 5:30AM.
I feel hopeless. For one, it’s a requirement for me to pass the subject (well maybe my professor would ask me to report again) but I’m hoping for a refund, you see. It’s worth Php1,200.
My roommate knew last night that I wouldn’t be able to wake up. How I hate this guy. I was choosing a new alarm clock tone (in my cellphone) since I surmised my ears might be used to it. Well, it still didn’t work. I wouldn’t know if my hands snoozed it. How can my situation be predictable!
Right now, I received a text message from my professor to go to Jolibee Pagsanjan for chrissake. Where the hell is Pagsanjan!
The last field trip I had was last November, to UP Diliman, and a lot of my classmates called my cellphone to wake me up, which is really thoughtful. In this subject I don’t know why nobody called. Bullshit. Waking up earlier than 10AM is just the hardest thing to do in a body which is used to 10AM and 1PM schedules every fucking day. I oversleep for twelve hours goddamnit!
As if these rants might just reverse time. I punched my pillow out of stupidity. Ha. Ha.
Since my birthday’s two weeks from now, why don’t you guys send me an alarm clock? It’d be a big help, really. I’ve been like this since fourth grade!
This entry was written by , posted on February 21, 2010 at 7:25 am, filed under IRLs, Stupid. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.