Angelito

I am excited. I run up the steps in my high and pointy shoes feeling like Carrie who is about to take on New York except that I am just Camille taking on the new teacher.

I am a little flushed and disheveled when I get to the faculty room but if there's anything I learned from Carrie, Meredith and Kate it's this: If you look sexed you'll be sexed. So sexed it is.

The small crowd parts. I see him. He smiles in recognition.

The coordinator gestures, "Camille this is --- " The introduction is unnecessary.

"But I know you!" I say in my best flirty voice. But because it is him and he looks like a good boy and because we go way back I sound like I am joking. So it does not look suspect that our handshake is prolonged and that he pulls me in for a really sexy hug.

Illegal Alien

It was easy enough to get here. Easier than I thought. I feared I would have to go through severe checkpoints where fierce-looking officers demanded for my non-existent visa and searched me for third-world drugs. But here I am like magic.

The mall feels very familiar. I wonder if any mall across the world can make me feel at home but I doubt it as there are certain malls in the Philippines that make me feel lost. Ever for example.

Anyway I like it here in America. I play a game with myself. I look around and try to guess who the Filipinos are but I'm bored within minutes. (Just too many Filipinos, I guess. Not exciting enough.) I consider taking a cab but what if the driver can tell I'm an illegal alien and turn me over to immigration? I fish out my cell phone from my luggage and try to remember how to reach Sunshine.

TNT Forever

I walk around my new house and feel so much at peace. Dressed in my robe, I stroll around my garden which has a fountain and a gate that connects to a chapel where I can hear a choir sing.

Someone asks me, "When are you going home?"

"Never! I will be TNT forever!" And I laugh a bit but I realize that I am telling the truth.

Later on, or more like in a blink of an eye, I am in a big, beautiful mall with Paolo.

"I've been here before," I tell him. And although it doesn't look exactly familiar, it feels familiar and it's enough to make me happy.

Yumi

For Sunshine

I hear about this special flight that stops at San Francisco. I book a seat immediately. When I get there I ask how to get to LA.

"Is LA far from here?"

"Yes. No. Somewhat. It all depends" No one will give me a straight answer.

I'm starting to feel really, really desperate, what being stuck in a foreign city with no change of clothes (would it snow?), and no visa (scary!).

But I do manage to teleport to LA and it's Imo I see first, then Nacho who gives me a hug and says, "Ninang Camiw!" and then I see you all smiles and Asha a little nervous and a little thing bundled up in a stroller whom I presume is Yumi. I peer at her and try to decide who she looks like but my eyes are finding it difficult to focus.

***

If I could do just one near perfect thing I’d be happy
They’d write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes
On second thoughts I’d rather hang about
and be there with my best friend if she wants me
- Belle and Sebastian