Slip of the Pen

Sometimes, frenzy can erupt even when only the most feeble of inspirations guide you.


Comfort Reek

the stench
of the cinema restroom
is overpowering,
so I pull my shirt
over my nose
and inhale
the faint scent
of my perfumed
body.

8:56 PM
October 24, 2005

Bilateral Talks

he puts a premium
on communication,
a way to transcend
his and her limitations.

so one day,
his hand vised around hers,
stressed by uneven sidewalks,
scorched by the midday sun,
choked by the jeepneys’ exhaust —

she tries to protest, but
he swipes her cellphone and
throws it down to the concrete.

he turns to her, saying:
“of course, the phone is smashed to pieces.”

09:57 PM
November 28, 2005

Typo

i have been pressing on i for some time now
(thirty minutes, i think)
but i is still not responding.
i is proving to be an irritant, and i
am getting irritated.
i can’t type, i can’t see i onscreen,
i is nullified.
finally, i grab the keyboard with both hands,
hold it above my head, then
hurl it across the room.
one plastic piece shatters to a thousand,
i flies to the open chamberpot
and sinks to the pee-pool’s bottom.
i versus i, i for an i —
like the whole keyboard,
i isn’t indomitable
but i am.

09:59 PM
November 28, 2005

Stuck in traffic, I stare outside the car window and into the lightning show illuminating the night sky. Oddly enough, the lightning bolts possess a certain golden hue, something I’ve never seen before. It has always been neon white and neon indigo, never neon green nor neon red, and certainly not neon gold. Even as I count the seconds for the complementary thunder to arrive, I see another golden bolt streak down to earth.

So, it’s real after all. My eyes aren’t deceiving me.

Gold lightning.

Actually, I can’t care less if it’s a freak of science, nature gone mad, or simply a portent of a coming storm. The only thing I care about right now – the thing eating up my thought and patience – is the 300-pound gorilla sitting right next to me inside the FX Megataxi. He arrogantly enforces the authority given – no, mandated – by his extreme obesity to take up every inch of seating space and crush a 130-pound runt against the car door. The runt, of course, is me. When I give him a side-glance, he drools saliva even while wide awake. He plumbs the depth of his nose with a big, fat finger with reckless bravery that puts Indiana Jones to shame. He clears his throat with such ruckus that you’ll think the taxi seat was his throne.

No bad blood between me and obese people, but this human being is as inconsiderate as one can get – his legs as huge as baobab trunks, he spreads them open at a ridiculous angle (yes, 180 degrees!), costing the FX driver two more seats worth of passengers, a flat tire (sooner than later), and a seething, disgruntled customer. The latter, of course, is me.

With every bump on the road, every bump of my head on the car roof, and every bump of my seatmate’s mammoth knee against mine, I can feel it building up inside me – that wonderful sensation which obscures my sight with a miasma of bloody red and causes my clenched fist to inexplicably quiver and shake and just plain look menacing.

The human beside me is sick; he makes me sick. He makes me mad. He makes me bad. And so did my scowling seatmate earlier on the jeepney ride. And so did the bus passengers looking down scornfully on the waiting commuters on the street, jeering at pretty boys and whistling at pretty girls. And so did him, and so did her, and so did everybody around me.

The crimson haze gets redder, and the clenched fist starts to drip imaginary blood.

The taxi screeches to a halt. Red light. A street vendor, a guy barely out of his teens, hastily approaches the FX driver’s window and peddles his rags. I can’t hear what he’s mouthing; the driver doesn’t roll down the window, looking straight ahead at the cars in front, fingers doing the counting of worn paper bills. The vendor continues to mouth something.

Suddenly, the driver rolls down the window with furious jerks of his arm. “What did you say?” he shouts to the face of the vendor. “You were going to wipe my face with your rags?!”

The boy vendor shakes his head in response, a little smirk imprinted on his face.

“You son of b*tch!” The driver motions to open the door even as he spews out some more cusswords. “Gago ka!” The vendor scurries away and disappears amongst the maze of cars, leaving the driver red-faced and short of breath.

I pause in my thoughts; my mind goes blank. I take a deep breath, so deep I end up gasping for air. Staring at the back of the irate driver’s head, I try to think of something, to justify anything, to vilify everything. But there is nothing.

Car horns blare. Green light. The driver composes himself, and the taxi lurches forward.

My eyes wander to the swaying crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror. Its motion oscillates with the vehicle’s mood – one second, the crucifix threatens to subdue my senses with its gentle, hypnotizing motion; the next moment, the crucifix violently jerks from left to right, a frenzied dance for a frenzied night.

After a while, whether from strain or shame (or both), I shift my view from the crucifix to the dark, roiling skies outside the car window.

Watching the jagged, aurulent bolts strike down from the heavens, and hearing the Olympian rumblings which follow, it finally dawns upon me.

This world has too much thunder and lightning.

Had there been another X in the title, this would’ve been a vulgar post worthy of being flagged as ‘objectionable content’. However, the ‘XX’ merely stands for ‘20′, that is, twenty things about this corsair. (You know my affinity for the Roman ways.)

Gari over at Bangketa Republique tagged me to do this thang. The Corsarius rarely does these ‘memes’, but I wanted to try this out. I’ve deciced to write this in Tagalog, and as such I’d redirect you now to Karimlan. It’s my blog in the native tongue, rarely updated. Para naman magkalaman ngayon.

I’ll more or less follow Gari’s train of thought. I won’t be tagging anyone specifically — I don’t want to burden busy bloggers; instead, anyone who reads the whole post over at Karimlan is automatically tagged. Fair enough, I think.


[Will be posting something later.]

[Note: This is a piece of fiction. Sometimes, a writer needs to challenge the readers' sensibilities (challenge, not offend). Otherwise he's a spineless writer. If you don't like pieces which aren't 'goody-goody', please skip this post. My next one's going to be tamer. Thank you, people.]


Sacred Vestments

Beatrice isn’t one for Sunday dresses. She’d always show up for her uncle’s masses in a black spaghetti-strap blouse which showed off her pierced navel, and a skirt three-fourths of a ruler above the knee. It made her mom furious, and her dad slightly amused.

This Sunday, in an unlit confessional box, she rips open a package given earlier by a parish acolyte. Armed with a few slivers of light, she finds a card inside, and a black thong with an imprinted bunny symbol. The card reads: “Hugs and kisses to my favorite niece this special day. Enjoy!”


PC Overhaul

“Your baby crashed because of Linux.”

Roger couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He wanted to look the damn PC technician in the eye, but couldn’t. The fool was staring at the monitor, chewing an (imaginary) piece of gum, pretending to make sense out of the Linux boot screen when it was obvious this git was a Windows-only git.

“You don’t tell me things like that. Linux won’t cause this kind of problem,” Roger said, grating his teeth.

The technician nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. Chew. “You seem to know it —” chew “—so why go to me?” Chew, chew, chew.

Roger wanted to shout something cool and polite that was still shoutable, such as “I’m paying you to fix my machine, not teach me a lesson!”, but settled on punching the PC tower. The thing protested, sounding off a shrill beeeep, then promptly died.

The technician stopped chewing his (imaginary) gum. “What the hell are you doin’?!”

In response Roger seized the PC, walked to the cliff and hurled it down the staircase. The technician’s loud barnyard expletive wasn’t able to mask the crashing sound the PC made.

Roger turned and shouted in his face, “F*ck you!”

Finally, something cool and polite and shoutable.


Head Banger

They called him the proverbial black sheep of the family, a Satanist, a bastard, and sometimes even by his birth name, Damian. They never called him D-Maks, which was bad, because he’d forgive them if only they gave him that littlest and greatest of respects.

After all, being called by the name which lent him street cred is being called king.

“Damian!”

Turning his head to face his mom to the pace of a funeral song was already second nature to D-Maks. He gave her a blank, almost funerary stare to match.

“What time is it?! Why do you always come home when the sun’s starting to rise? You’ve been head banging again with your friends, haven’t you?”

“Well, you should be thankful I still came home, shouldn’t you?” Never mind that rappers didn’t do rock. He’d tried explaining that to her too many times.

“You rude bastard! And what’s that wound on your forehead? You got into a fight, you damn kid! You got into a fight again!”

D-Maks’ ears had enough, and he made his way upstairs to his room. A screeching ululation followed him with every step: Dontyouturn yourbackonmeohidontbelievethisyoubastardyousonofab*tchyou —

He closed the door. He sneered at the thought that she had actually cursed herself.

But then he saw the altar, and the sneer vanished. D-Maks hastily proceeded to prostrate himself in front of the table, bow his head, clasp his hands together. He took a deep breath, then banged his head on the altar.

The crucifix shook. The pain of the previous night’s confession resurrected on D-Maks’ forehead.

“Father, forgive me.” He banged his head again, the crucifix shook again. “Forgive me for my sins, save me from the fires of hell.” Bang, shake. “Forgive me for I do not know what I do.” Bang, blood, shake. “Forgive me…”