Deviations II: Touch the Sky
[Remember the first Deviations? Again, not for kids. This piece is best read with Kanye West's Touch the Sky playing in the background.]
Touch the Sky
“For the day you die, you gonna touch the sky”
Johnny Martires was a good guy — all Johnnies are, of course. He was generous in patience, love, and other goofy-good what-not. But others weren’t as generous to him; for example, his girl. But he wasn’t crying, no, not all Johnnies cry. He was smiling from ear to ear, epilepsisyzing himself to Kanye West’s tune loudly playing in his room, conquering every sound wave from there out to a one mile radius.
Johnny’s girl had just torn him to tatters. She shattered him as brutally as gravity destroys a Superman toy dropped from a hundred stories high. But the song slapped his pieces back into place with P. Diddy’s Mighty Bond. The song always put him in ecstasy. No — the song itself was ecstasy. Kanye West was his prophet of salvation; Lupe Fiasco was the holy sidekick. Touch the sky, baby, touch the sky, yeah, sky high.
“Baby, I’m going on an airplane, and I don’t know if I’ll be back again”
Kanye West’s groovy gospel was truly heaven-sent. Johnny was flying to the province in a week’s time. He was leaving his girl behind, and he hoped, everything else. The song was his covenant with the Grim Reaper. Yes, Grim Reaper with the bling-bling hanging from his neck, shining angel wings sprouting from his back, bloody scythe traded in for a gold-plated one.
But Bad Luck was Kanye West’s foe, and so a tormentor of his disciples. The plane didn’t crash, and the return trip was equally uneventful. Johnny ended up safe and sound at his home, surrounded by Kanye’s mesmerizing pontifications. He listened for hours, for days. His head swayed with every beat. Then he realized — all hope wasn’t lost. He can still touch the sky. Yeah, sky high.
“I gotta testify, come up in the spot looking extra fly, for the day I die, I’mma touch the sky”
He went out, took a ride to the University, to the hallowed, towering Hall where he and his girl first met. He showed his old faded ID to a yawning guard. As he went up the stairs, he passed by both young and old students, people still clutching to dreams of touching the sky, to snuggle into cubicle prisons of the skyscrapers of Makati and Ortigas. He sneered — he’ll reach the sky first.
The sun shone brightly on the rooftop. He walked to the edge, eyes fixed on the clouds leisurely sailing above.
“For the day I die, I’mma touch the sky”
He spread his arms, then jumped off the edge.
He flew.
“I’m, I’m sky high. I’m, I’m sky high. I’m, I’m sky high…”
