PInk Dress

The invitation said cocktails. I am wearing my pink dress with flip-flops -- an oversight on my part -- and I sip my drink looking bemused, practicing what to say in my head should anyone question my inappropriate choice of footwear.

They've done something clever with the pool: floating candles and lotus flowers. Maybe I should sit on the edge of the pool and kind of romantically dangle my legs over the water. That way I can do away with the fashion catastrophe I am wearing. But I wouldn't want to get my pink dress wet. Conundrum.

I suddenly see him. No, no, I hear him asking around for me. I run towards him and pull him aside.

"What are you doing here?" but I am not really angry.

I pull him along. We sneak up the stairs. It's dark. The carpet muffles the unbearable flipping-flopping of my flip-flops. I find my room. We enter it and wordlessly tumble into bed, our lips locked in a kiss.

Secret Rhyme

The earthquake has made the house tilt and now water is coming in through the windows, the doors, the ceiling. We all huddle in the room that seems the driest although by no means is it dry. I realize Forest is missing. I run out to find him. I might have lost him forever. Poor baby won't even understand what's happening to him. But I find him under the bed, where he usually hides and I call him, "Kwinks?" But he's mad at me for losing him so he doesn't move. I pick him up, hug him tight and recite a silly secret rhyme: "All dogs are baby kwinkas who love linka-linkas and babies and mommies should be together forever." This pleases him. He puts his nose to mine and everything is okay.

His Hair

Like pixelated scraps of jazz mags in your headlights.

It's the last few minutes of class. I can't concentrate because Moe is outside the door making faces at me. I roll my eyes at him, feign anger, ignore him but he keeps doing it until I laugh and my teacher looks at me and asks, "What's so funny?" And I say, "Nothing. I mean, what you just said. I mean, isn't it funny how so many people aren't aware of that?" And my golly, what's this, I keep laughing at my moronic answer and can't stop. "I am such a moron!" I think and laugh and laugh. You know when you start crying and just can't stop? That's how the laughter just keeps escaping me. I purse my lips to try to keep my mouth shut, I pinch myself, do my best to collect a somber thought: poverty, heartbreak, death but not a sad thought sinks in and the laughter gurgles up my body like water from underground.

The wall expands, becomes fluid, like an infinite dream.

Outside the room:

Solemn gazes of students deciphering a painting.
A boy in a workshop holding a ruler.
Footsteps in the courtyard resembling a clear pulse.
Music from a boom box. A boy learning to bike.
Sunlight bouncing off fountains. Dogs sniffing the air. A sandbox.
A girl tying her shoelace. Fishballs frying. A kite floating in the sky.
An old man sweeping leaves towards a little fire on the pavement.

I am still laughing. I go to Moe who is waiting outside. I touch his hair.

Twilight

Daddy and I are walking down the street of our old house. We see an alligator cross the road. Daddy, clown that he is, chases it. I say, "Stop it, Daddy, it's not funny." The next step he takes is into quick sand and I see him get swallowed by the ground in a second. I run to where he is and only see a rumple in the otherwise smooth sand. I stick my hand in this rumble and feel around all the while shouting, "Someone please help me save my Daddy!" I think I even feel his fingers for a while.

I panic. I run up and down the streets. "Help, I need help, someone please help me!"

There's no one there. It's twilight and the houses cast funny shadows on the pavement.

Newsletter

I turn my camera on
I cut my fingers on the way
I feel me slipping away
- Spoon

"It's for the official newsletter," the photographer says. Moe and I look at each other because it's not clear which newsletter our faces will appear but our confused glance is brief and we go back to being camera whores. It's almost, dare I say it, like a wedding pictorial. An everlasting time of keeping up everlasting smiles. But this time, maybe because I don't have hairpins poking my scalp, and maybe because for some reason my cheeks don't hurt from smiling, I'm having fun.

But when I look to the left, I realize it's a bedroom. Auntie Nieves' bedroom, in fact. And Paolo is sleeping and I kinda panic because he's late for work. So I tell Moe, "Go wake him up."

As soon as Paolo wakes up and I look behind me, I see that I'm back in my house and there's a party. And Paolo's girl friend arrives and I look at her closely and I stifle a giggle until I find Paolo alone and whisper to him, "Tell your girlfriend her shoes don't match."

Only Forest

It starts out innocently enough -- a rash on my left arm. It's Mama who notices when it's worse. But by then my whole body is covered in boils and the more stressed out I get the more vicious they grow. Mama won't even look at me and shoves me off the bed when I try to get close to her like I used to do when I was sick.

Only Forest still wants to sleep beside me.

Take this Club

Isn't this fun? It's like hell with a cover charge.
- Simon, Sex and the City

This is TL's lakad, for sure. It's fun to see friends in action, fun to watch them do things they're paid to do. We watch them secretly amused, laughing inside because we know this person is not this person pretending to be so... in charge.

Take this club for example. This is work for TL and as official kibitzers we take advantage of the bar, the boys, the beluga caviar.

The lights swirl. I feel lost. I see all these faces I don't recognize. I'm afraid. The floor tilts. The walls shrink. I try to scream but can't find my voice.

After the End of the World

He doesn't know street names but he drew me a map anyway which I follow the best that I can. And I start to feel really nostalgic when I recognize where I am. Taft Avenue is gone, ashes. Nothing remains but a school which has a name that I can't remember.

I pull myself together. Some structures around me are still smoldering. I hear sirens. This is the first day after the end of the world.

I see her desk. I start to cry. Everything is wet, grimy, but still intact. First, her records, her library books, her lunch box. I'm happy she isn't here to see this.

I leave as soon as I am done and start to worry which courier will agree to send this stuff.