Monsoon Spolarium

The webs of mist on the glass window and the flowing curtain of rain outside reminded Pepsi of what she really wanted.  After long hours of waiting and feeding on the almost wilted petals of the last rose from the garden, Fairy Godmother finally heard Pepsi’s wish. It would have been an easy task for Fairy Godmother to give her ward all the fancy stuff that the other girls wished for but apparently Pepsi wanted something that’s more precious than all the Manolos, Chanels, Guccis, and Pradas that she had given away. It’s something so grand that she might have to just grant just one wish for Pepsi. Given all the perils that they might face after enacting the wish, Fairy Godmother attempted to negotiate. 

“So let me understand this,  dah-ling. You want me to turn back time just so you can get back your first kiss?”

“Yes. “

“You know, dah-ling, my Wand has worked a lot of wonders for other girls. I can give you piles of signature blouses, a cabinet full of designer shoes and bags, a well brimming with Christian Dior masterpieces or even an island full of demigod men. You may choose from all those or, better yet, dah-ling, you can have all of those instead.”

The torrents subsided into a drizzle outside. The frogs stopped croaking and sunlight cleaved the ominous clouds. Pepsi tried to dig out her inner thoughts amidst the mild noise. There was her lust for glimmer battling with her simple desire. All she needed was to take one side and choose whether to be weaker than herself or be stronger than the rest who had the chance to experience the power of the Wand. 

“So have you decided, dah-ling? I have to hurry because I still have to visit Chona Velasquez in Bulacan.”

“I will stick to what I really want. I need my first kiss back.”

Fairy Godmother sighed. 

“Well, dah-ling, instead of having three wishes you will only have that one wish. I don’t want to compromise the Wand’s durability. You may have your wish but I warn you, you may suffer some consequences. You have an odd mind that suits your name, dah-ling. So, farewell, sleep tight, and savor your dream. When you wake up, you will realize that you have had what you wished for.”

After the third flick of her wand, Pepsi fell into a slumber. There were no rainbows, multicolored lights, or even a cape of fog that surrounded Fairy Godmother as she disappeared. However, in her dreams, Pepsi was already traversing universes just to bend the rules of time and space. 

When she opened her eyes, she found her eight year-old self bathing under the young typhoon rain. On her left ear was an almost withered gumamela. Just like the other girls of her age, she was almost naked in her drenched after school sando and white shorts. She was frolicking under the santol tree, lying on the hammock while watching the drops of water fall from the sky, to the net of leaves, and then to her eyes.  She was astonished by the sight of her own innocence and she was enraged at the same time because of this familiar moment.  This was the time when she first felt weakness and fear.  This was that moment under that tree, during that August rain when her first kiss and her youth were taken away from her.

She did not wait for him to come out of the house anymore. While her younger self was busy poking snails and earthworms with a twig, she sneaked into the house.  The past seemed not so distant after all for Pepsi still remembered where her mother used to keep the knives. She heard him snoring and she thought that was the best time to attack him while he was deeply entangled in his gossamer of dreams. Pepsi went inside her stepfather’s room and, with one forceful stab, she saved her first kiss from being stolen.  

When she stepped out of the house, she rushed to find her younger self. She was still poking snails and worms. Pepsi embraced her younger self and allowed the rain to wash away the stains of the past that she has managed to efface. For the first time in her life, she finally stayed under the rain without crying. 
 
*Maring, may you be outbitched by my metaphors. 

*copyright by tofi *

Letters for E.

life is not always a play of lights

Entry by Rouge77

6/24/2012

Every room for rent has a story to tell and apparently, my room’s past was not something worth telling. Light, for some reason, has been shunned by it walls and its windows. Cracks on the ceiling and floors seemed to bleed like wounds that will never heal. The bed creaks (or cries) as if there’s something squirming on top of it.  Or maybe I am just imagining things since I know for a fact that someone had committed suicide inside this room.

My room seemed like an ordinary room for a typical college guy. There’s a desk adjacent to the only window full of empty iced tea bottles, pens, disarrayed sheets of coffee-stained or Coke-stained paper, and chipped mugs that I have always thought of throwing away. My bed is beside the wall; its sheets were always dusty and the pillows smelled of head sweat and menthol shampoo.  I have never washed my sheets since last month. There’s a wooden chair which for some reason is not always near my desk. I usually place it in front of the antique wooden cabinet that I do not really use since my clothes are either left hanging on my bed head or crumpled inside my laundry bin.  About the cabinet, well, I don’t use it because that’s where I have stored the things left by the room’s previous owners.

Just a few months after I have moved in, I have learned about my room’s history. During one of my random lunches at Mcdo, one of my block mates told me that a guy committed suicide inside my room about a year ago. She learned that story from her third-year dorm buddy. Later that day, I confirmed the information from my landlady. I know that I should be pissed because of my landlady’s nonchalance but I realized that moving out is not the best option to get even. It’s the middle of the semester and finding a decent place to rent near the campus is even more excruciating than getting a passing grade for Math110. Besides, I haven’t experienced any hair-tingling moments for the past months so I decided to just keep the room until the sem ends. Now, it’s my second year of staying in the room and I have been known to my block mates as the “guy-who-can’t-be-scared” which is kind of cool. I now have the bragging rights to tell everyone that I can sleep and study inside a haunted room. There were even times when I had to weave stories about haunting encounters inside my room. I usually tell my girl block mates about shadows that lurk inside my room while I am half-asleep or deep voices I hear under my bed or a silhouette of a disheveled guy that I see when I am facing the mirror. I like seeing my girl block mates twitch their faces in imagined fear or cover their faces with their binders as they say “Oh gosh!” or “Grabe!” and so I made a lot more horrifying stories just to maintain my reputation.  It makes me feel somewhat stronger and manlier because they think I am not scared of ghosts. It also makes me closer to F. We enjoy sharing ghost stories during block meetings.

 My room is really ghost-free and most probably if ever there are things that are freaky about it, they are the antique cabinet that’s full of old stuff and the old journal owned by a certain C.This C., based on the first few pages I have read, has a knack for rhymes. Most of the entries I have read were written in a very poetic way. Well, the entries are actually poems with dates so I guess that makes these poems some sort of journal entries. As a Comm student, sometimes, I feel tempted to copy some of C.’s poems and submit them to my Creative Writing prof but I will eventually end up realizing how nice my CW prof is. She does not deserve to receive plagiarized work from me or from anyone (unlike my Research Analysis prof). Anyhow, here’s a poem written by C. Cool, this is dated June 24^th too. And this really struck me to the very core:

6/24

by C.

the agreement was simple:

we'll meet, have sex, and then leave.

i never intended to save your number but for some odd reason,

i felt the urge to do so.

i never wanted to see you again after our first encounter

under the red half-light of the room we rented

but i kept on craving to see more of you

under the full light of day.

i'm okay with simple conversations over coffee

or plates of chicken and pasta

or while u are smoking

or while we are riding a bus that will bring us to our parting paths.

i never promised

to give you something beyond sexual pleasure

but my heart leaps

whenever i hear you laugh

because of my nonsensical reasoning

or rusty humor.

let me assess now:

there's constant attraction

there's occasional passion

and all that's missing is a consensual commitment

for me to jump into the conclusion

that i am starting to love you.

-eyeball

Entry by Rouge77

6/30/2012

There’s really nothing special about this day and I find it a bit odd that I am updating my blog. Well, a lot of good things actually happened like: I passed my Math quiz (which is kind of a once in a blue moon thing), I had lunch with F. and I got a 1.5 for my essay about the sartorial arts of Northern Luzon. Despite all the great things today, I still feel a certain pang of grief inside me for no apparent reason. I’d say it’s too early for quarter life crisis but whatever this is, I hope that a cup of caramel sundae will relieve it. I don’t have a sweet tooth but lately, I find respite in all things sweet and creamy. F. is always there to cheer me up so I guess all things will be fine.

Before I end this entry, let me share this poem I’ve read from C.’s journal. Another great wordsmithing magnum opus. Wherever C. is, I hope he will not mind if I post this here:

7/14

by C.

dear E ,

before i throw this last coin,

let me sketch our memories

on every moss-covered brick in this well:

the day that you had to sneak me into your room

because i was drunk and drenched in rain water;

the time that I spilled ice cream on my knee

and you bowed to lick the sweet melt

then you looked up at me, smiling;

the moment that you had to run your fingers

on the bridge of my nose until i sleep.

the recollections are few buit they’re as precious as this penny.

so,

i guess,

even if they’re all vague pieces of my imagination,

i will keep them all in my astral shell of false hopes.

P.S.

I am starting to think that C. is a guy and that he has written this poem for another guy. Weird. Well, it takes one to know one.

Entry by Rouge77

7/10/2012

I didn’t see F. today. Or probably he has been avoiding me after I told him everything. Being too honest about my feelings is my curse. I should have trusted my instincts. I should have not rushed things just like what I have planned. He’s not ready and I have convinced myself that he will be…with my help: a stroke of a pretending-to-be-genius. Now how can I help him if he does not need help from anyone but himself?

  

For the nth time, it’s my freaking fault. This is the offspring of my impatience and my stupidity. However, I think this is the closest thing to my freedom as a person, as a man. Before, every day when I wake up and I realize that he does not know how I really feel for him I felt like I am starving myself to death even if I can see and smell the food on the table. That’s a horrible metaphor, I guess but nothing can be more horrible with the fact that there’s a possibility of not seeing F. anymore or, if I will, he will treat me like I am some sort of an invisible entity. This is where my rash decisions brought me so I must deal with this. Must I cry?  I don’t think that’s a good idea. Besides, I can’t cry over spilled milk if there’s no milk that was spilled to begin with. That’s another bad wordplay. Good thing I have C. to keep me company. I can’t cry so I will just let his poem remind me how I really feel:     

dear E.,

you never wanted me to plan movie dates,

random conversations over coffee,

petty arguments about politics,

stories under sunsets,

and

wishes blown away by sea breeze

but i have them all written on my mind’s journal.

i asked you before:

what will you do if you see me cry?

but you never replied.

i guess you were not interested in

seeing the deeper side of me

who pines for lost love,

laughs at himself,

and frowns on rainy days.

for you,

i should only be emotionless

even as you hug me

while you breathe on my ears

or sniff my shoulders.

last thing i heard from you

was an abrupt good bye.

but,

you see,

i’d rather cling to a false hope

you’ve given.

i promise to endure my own delusions

and its self-imposed deceptions

if that’s the only way

that I can have you near me

until my fate ends.

Entry by Rouge77

10/13/2012

The sem is about to end and I am not going anywhere. It’s not because I have nowhere to go but because I have no other choice but to stay. Everything has blown out of proportion ever since F. avoided me. I flunked my Math exams, I wasted my allowance on too much booze, I learned how to smoke out of curiosity, I joined a PnP session just because I got hooked up with some mestizo Ilonggo guy who piqued me with his cute grammar glitches, I had to quit my swimming class because apparently my guy class mates found out what I really am. And they’re damn right, the last thing that they would wish to have is to be with someone like me while they’re in their swimming trunks. I got beaten up by some guys. Probably F.’s brods but I don’t really care. The bruises are tolerable but the image of F. kicking me whilst I lay on the ground helpless is pricelessly painful. Now, I just feel so out of place. It’s like I am uncomfortable within my own shell. I will just stay inside my room and if ever a new occupant comes along, I will be as discreet as possible. C. never haunted me so I shall never do the same thing to whoever uses my bed, sits on my chair, or writes on my desk. I hope, whoever he is, he is as disorganized as I am so that I will feel as if nothing has changed. I wonder if I need to leave a note or a letter. Probably that’s not needed. That’s too conventional so just like C., I’ll let everything remain in oblivion. For, probably, the last time (unless I can bring my laptop to where I am going and if there’s WiFi), here’s a verse from C.’s journal that I dedicate to F.:

10/31

by C

.

as I lay myself on this bed of smoke,

i surrender my gift to see colors.

dullness is sweeter than seeing meaningless images

 of you.

the gossamer threads that link

my every breath

and heartbeat

to you

have

been

severed.

and as promised,

i will burn my pledge of existence

to

efface the memories

that i hold dear

(but which for you are nightmares)

 

speculative f(R)iction [a dialogue]

E:This is something that even my equations can't define. For the first time, I am groping for answers.

RB: Are you scared?

E: Maybe. Or, I don't know. Alright, I'm scared. Will that change anything? This thing that's happening now is something unknown to me.

RB: There's nothing to be scared of whatever is happening now.

E: And why?

RB: Well, we are now the unknown and fearing our own existence is the worst thing that we can do to ourselves. There's no point in finding an explanation to all of these because there's really none. Embrace the fact that for once, you are clueless about your own world.

*notes.drifters