117th Steet

Mama says, "Trust me, it's easier to get to the Mall if you cut through this parking lot then cross 117th street."

It sounds so impossible. I haven't even heard of 117th street. It connotes chaos because it sounds like Divisoria's 168.

So I say, "Oh, I dunno Ma. Maybe I'll try that when I'm not in a hurry and when I'm wearing the right shoes."

But she insists and even walks me part of the way but then she has to leave.

"Remember, 117th street!"

Mama is right, who would've thought. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a street like this would exist in Ortigas. Floating neon signs, midgets, purple chickens, book shops and the smell of caramel in the air.

I see the Mall but linger on 117th street.

Excitement, Conspiracy, Love

When the rain poured and people who were partying in the streets came inside the hotel, a beautiful stranger pulled me aside for a kiss.

But there was too much jostling and an almost-stampede and we got separated but as I was making my way to my room, there he was again. Smiling and beckoning, "Here, follow me, come."

And I giggled from excitement, from conspiracy, from so much love.

He opened a door to the hotel's ballroom and we danced the waltz the whole night. There in that ballroom -- gold gilded everything, ceilings as high as the sky, and mirrors all around for me to watch the beautiful stranger and myself glide, glide, glide.

Just One, "Bang!"

I chase The Enemy into The Twilight Hotel. I'm wearing my new pink shoes so I don't run very fast but I know that I should've because he steps into the elevator and winks lecherously at me as the elevator slowly closes.

This is when David steps in -- literally out of nowhere. He's wearing a gangster suit and a gangster hat and with one lovely move of his gangster hand he stops the elevator doors from closing.

Wow, I think, that's so sexy.

And David lights a cigarette, just as he always does before a kill, before he pulls his gun. Then I hear it. Just one, "bang!"

EAF

We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.

I turn cold when they tell me they have revoked my college degree because I failed to show up for Algeb101 that one term I was supposed to and to prove it they show me an old copy of my EAF. I explain to them that I have in fact completed my Algeb101 and that my grade was, uhm, a 1.0 but still I passed and that counts as completed, right? The very idea! After all these years! They could've talked to me about this ten years ago when I was still a student!

They say I don't understand. I must take it now before it's too late. They give me my EAF and say, "Here, read it carefully this time."

So, since I have no choice, I try to find that stupid class but I keep misreading the time, the room, the time, the room, the time, the room. I give up and wonder how to break it to my parents that I haven't graduated from college after all!

Going Up

We manage to outrun them and hide in his apartment. Paolo locks all the doors and I shut all the curtains. I peek outside. I see the men with guns split up -- some take the stairs and some the elevator. I am surprisingly not afraid. I know what to do.

I tell him, "They're on their way up. They've covered the stairs and the elevator. We must go up!"

But to my horror I see that someone has shot him with a tranquilizer gun. "Wake up!" I yell at him. "Move! Walk! I will never forgive you if we don't make it!"

Another needle comes flying past us and gets Forest. So I carry Forest and continue to yell instructions and threats at Paolo who moves like his bones are made of jello.

Up the stairs we go and into the building's penthouse where we see Ms Abiog.

"I've been waiting for you," she says, smiling.

"Oh dear," I think silently to myself, a sleeping dog in my arms and a sleeping husband at my feet.

Easier Than Sorry

She urges me to go on. She's crying as she says to me, "Go on, Camille, please."

The hanging bridge shakes as I take a step. To get to other side, Anna and I must brave the rain, cross this slippery bridge. And try to get along.

Everything is wet. And trembling.

She keeps talking to me about when we were young and I can barely hear her for the rain and the noise the bridge makes as it swings and shakes.

"Shut up," I hiss. "Please, shut up. I want you to know that I am just putting up with you. We'll reach the other side together but I never want to see you again."

The sky swirls like it wants to fall. But what falls is only more rain.

I start to think we might never make it but suddenly we're there. We're here.

Because I'm so relieved and because it's easier than "sorry", I pull her close for a wet, trembling kiss. For old times' sake.

Shroud

It's our biggest fight ever and I keep it up because I'm winning. Our beautiful furniture, our appliances -- everything downstairs is wrecked. So we move upstairs, to the next level and keep at it.

I throw all his shirts out the window. He breaks off the heels of my shoes. I smash his guitar. He slashes my pillows and goose down swirls around the room. I throw his Ipod in his face.

It looks like I've won but he goes to my dressing table, picks up my favorite bottle of perfume, opens it and pours the contents on the floor.

"Nooooooo!" I scream. I scream and scream.

Falling around me, goose down like snow. Around me too, the sweet smell of flowers embracing me like a shroud.

Shore

It's a giant banana boat and it looks sturdy enough not to capsize. Well, it doesn't capsize but my friend and I get thrown off. It's not so scary at first. In fact, we swallow so much sea water from all the laughing as we try to get back on the banana boat.

I'm gripped with a brilliant idea. Why not swim to shore? It looks far but with the two of us swimming, it would be fun. Like people in Amazing Race! Like a real adventure!

So we let go of the banana boat and start drifting.

The sea. I have to admit the shore isn't as close as it first seemed. We swim to a life bouy and hang on for a while. The banana boat is gone. The waves are getting bigger.

"Now what?" I turn to my friend but she's gone.

So I swim to shore but the tide keeps taking me further and further. At times I almost reach it, I almost touch it, but another tide comes and takes me far, far away.

Shawn

We grin at each other. He hands me a Ving card just as a crowd comes in. I'm so surprised that I drop it and to make sure no one sees it, I step closer to him to step on the Ving card. We're standing so close that I smell his hotel-laundered shirt.

We're both still grinning when he leaves me. It could've been just my imagination but when I move my foot, there it still is. I pick it up and stare at it for a while.

It takes me a long time to assess the situation.

Finally, I go to a secret place that harbors a secret drawer and add that Ving card to the many others that are there and make up my mind to pretend that those plastic keys don't exist.

In My Dreams

They spot me walking in Greenhills and they call out to me and we talk in a very polite and grownup way about our so-called lives.

"How's teaching?"

"How's photography?"

"What's it like being the operations manager of google? Manlibre ka naman."

I see Daddy at my far right make a gesture of impatience so I turn to him and say, "Daddy, maybe you can go ahead? I'll just stand and talk here a bit."

We wait until Daddy is out of sight before we burst out laughing and stop the grownup bullshit. And as if to acknowledge how ridiculous we've been acting they tickle me and punch each other and they take turns stroking my hair and then I take a step to hug either one of them but I stop myself because I realize it's important who I hug first and I'm not ready to make that kind of weird decision now.

These two boys. Look at them. Who would've predicted they'd turn out so nicely and we would all stand around and make bullshit small talk.

They sense my aborted embrace. Then to solve matters, David, always the pragmatic one, takes a step back and Teejay, beautiful Teejay, hugs me and whirls me like he does in my dreams.

Fiona, Wishing Well, Rain

The minute I see Fiona I tell her all about my class.

"It's a major's class, right? It's not like a typical gen ed literature class wherein I can just fly by some selections and watch movies whenever I don't feel like teaching and not care if they understand theory or not. I mean, these are literature majors! What's gonna happen if they end up taking their masters at UP and they're so full of shit and someone like Neil asks them. 'Who put all that crap in your head?' and they say, 'Why, our teached did, Camille Dela Rosa, that's who!' I'll be soooo fucked!"

Fiona laughs like she truly understands so I continue and monopolize the conversation some more.

"I've never felt so harassed in my life. Never. I've never worked so hard. Never!"

It starts to rain but we don't care. We walk outside the campus towards a wishing well and we look down it and she asks me, "Do you wanna be the first to make a wish?"

"Really? You don't mind? You're sucha friend! Okay here goes..." And I close my eyes and take a deep breath and start to formulate the wish. I learned from The Labyrinth that a wish had to start with "I wish" for it to be granted so I'm very careful. This is something I want very, very badly.

Beside me, I sense her feel around her pockets for a coin for me to drop.

But I don't need the coin.

I feel that it has come. The moment the planets are aligned in my favor and the universe is standing still, waiting for me, me, me and I stick my tongue out to taste the rain.

"I wish..." I jump in the well, bottomless like guilt.

Fiona's panicked voice seems far, far away, "You weren't supposed to throw yourself!"

"Sdeah rieht edih dna nur yeht semoc nair eht fI."

The Accident

I don't remember how long I've been married to him.

I don't remember marrying him at all.

But he seems nice enough. Lets me be. Gives me a shitload of money. Sometimes, at night, when we're sitting on our posh couch in our posh apartment watching TV and I happen to stare at him without him knowing it, I decide that he's cute.

We have his and hers bedrooms. Two master bedrooms which I wonder about. He asks me, "Don't you remember? You insisted on two master bedrooms." His and hers bathrooms. His and hers everything. His and hers lives.

After dinner he tells me about the accident I have forgotten. The accident that made me forget everything including who I was.

"Your friend Moe was driving." He pauses. "Do you remember Moe?" he asks.

"I don't."

He continues, "You were officemates and you were bound for work that night and Moe was driving very, very fast in spite of the rain. The car's wiper broke but he drove on because you said you didn't want to be late. Do you remember?"

"I don't."

"You hated being late..." and I see him try not to go into too many details.

"And then?"

"Um. That's it. You crashed into a truck and you were dead when you got to the hospital but then they brought you back to life."

"And my friend? Moe?"

"He didn't make it."

He senses my sadness and walks to his room to leave me alone.

I sit by myself for a long time and make up my mind about something.

When I am ready, I enter his room. I don't bother to knock. He's lying on the bed and sits up in surprise when I come in.

I look at him squarely as I disrobe.

G-Spot

I run up and down (down and up?) the stairs. People from below (above?) me shout, "Slow down! Slow down!" But I can't! It's too exciting.

They say, in this labyrinth, is a G-spot. G for God. The perfect prayer place. Anyone standing there while praying will get his or her prayers answered.

For real?

What shall I ask for? Will I ever find this spot?

I keep running. It doesn't matter. I'm so happy.

Raspberry Swirl

Things are getting desperate when the all the boys can't be men.

He finds me at my old desk and asks me to help him look for Nyanne.

We search the grounds until we find her and she tries to explain to me that it's late, that the school bus is going to leave without us, but before she gets any further, he goes up to her and yanks her panties down. Pink panties with yellow flowers.

I wonder what color mine are but as I am about to look under my skirt he takes my hand and we run away.

"Can you fly?" he asks me.

"Yes, of course," I say.

So we take off and fly over the roofs and we can hear people below us looking for us but since no one bothers to look up, no one finds us.

We land on a field of barley and daisies and he asks me, "Can I give you pleasure?"

"But you're just a boy!, " I say.

"How?" he insists. "I'd like to make you come."

"Well. Like this," I say, pulling my panties down.

He stares.

"See this?" I point. "Eat it. Go ahead, eat it like it's the most delicious candy you've ever tasted or better yet eat it like it's the first time you've ever eaten candy.

He lunges at me and I topple down.

"Stop. Go back. Crawl to me and beg."

So he crawls and begs me, "Let me eat you, let me eat you, please." And I'm so turned on and he reaches me and then tastes me and eats me until I come.

Concubine, Concubine

As the King's favorite concubine, I know certain things. I know that outside these walls, all Chinese children are being slaughtered like pigs. He tells it to me in detail so that I am able to see what goes on. The children first then the adults.

The Chinese community is thrown in confusion. All their dead children line the pavements. They are not buried; their stink allowed to weigh heavy around them like a shroud.

"Why kidnap them when I can kill them?"

"Do they smell like dimsum -- the Chinese, I mean -- when they're left to rot?"

"Like rotten dimsum." The King can't make up his mind who's funnier -- him or me.

Elephants stomp around the disheveled city just because the King thinks it would be a hilarious picture and I have to admit it kinda is.

The King and I huddle together in a naughty air of conspiracy. It's all a childish prank to him. With his one hand in between my legs and his other hand cupping his mouth to my ear, he tells me his other gruesome pranks. He set China town on fire because "it's so ugly and smelly." It was funny, he adds, to watch the little Chinese "peasants" run around speaking Chinese that "sounded ugly."

Something occurs to me. "Do you rape the women?"

"What for? Anyone I fuck will just like it."

His hand between my legs. I can't think. I can't follow his logic. I can't argue.

"Castro is coming to wage war on me. He loves the Chinese."

"Noli de Castro?"

"Fidel Castro. Hello! Let him come. Let him make his way to me."

Dead Chinese bodies will line the runway he lands on. Dead Chinese bodies will be the dimsum he eats. Dead Chinese bodies will make the incense to scent the air he breathes. Dead Chinese bodies will be the very streets he walks on.

"You're crazy," I tell him, "What makes you think he simply won't send a nuclear missile from Cuba?"

He laughs.

He lays me on the bed and starts fucking me.

"Concubine, concubine. My favorite, favorite concubine."

Gold Slippers

When TL and Bunny finally arrive, TL presents me with a no-reason present. Gold slippers! They fit exactly.

"Sabi sayo kasya!" Bunny says to TL.

"We were worried about the size," TL says.

"You know, I don't understand it myself but it appears my feet are growing! Weird! But these fit exactly. I love them! Thanks!"

The Good Pass

It's a coed retreat so it can't be St Scho but it sure looks like the St Scho retreat house in Tagaytay and there are 30 of us to a room -- boys and girls! We even have unisex bathrooms!

Everyday, a trainer teaches me how to play soccer. None of us have any of our old clothes so we're outfitted with all the clothes we'll ever need. I have all these cool Adidas sportswear in my closet. I get to wear a new combination everyday.

Our days are busy and the house gets pretty chaotic but even so our society, because that's what we've become, is peaceful like we know Big Brother is Watching.

Moe sleeps across from me. We don't talk. We don't even look at each other directly but I look when I think he doesn't notice and he looks when he thinks I don't notice. We've memorized each other's movements so we don't have to cross each other on the aisles between the beds or have to be in the unisex bathroom at the same time or have to eat together. Sometimes, it can't be helped that we're being trained together but even on the field we don't say a word to each other. No one can tell we were friends or that we even met before.

Moe and I are ever so civil like strangers are to one another. One day, playing on the field, the day he wore his blue jacket and me my white, I almost called out to him, "Here, here! Pass to me!" But I stopped myself but I think he understood anyway because he kicked the ball to me and I was so embarrassed that I botched the good pass.

That night, we followed our unspoken routine. We never crossed each other on the aisle, we never used the unisex at the same time. Right across from me, can you imagine? And not a word. I said to myself, "Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will set this right."

The next day he was gone. His bed was made. On my bed, beside my pillow was a package he left. Bric-a-brac, pictures of us, (returned) letters from me to him, letters he wrote to me.

I open one and start to read. "Dear Camille." I cry so much that I can't read anymore.

Then I hear the bell that means it's time to train so I leave the package there on my bed and soon forget about it. I even manage to convince myself that I was just dreaming. There was no Moe and no package. It was just a dream.

Masquerade

I've stumbled upon a masquerade. I'm not masked but when I look at what I'm wearing I'm surprised to see I'm wearing an odd green and white button-down ruffled combo. Ruffles, geez.

The strip of bars looks unfamiliar but I feel right at home and go from bar to bar, sipping my tea which everyone thinks is beer.

Since everyone is in a mask they think I'm in a mask as well. They think I'm someone else pretending to be Camille.

I remember looking at the nights at Ortigas. Empty streets. Traffic lights changing for nobody. A scene from a David Lynch movie.

This night redeems all those empty nights. There are tiangge strips, bars, clubs and concerts, amusment parks, wild rides, car races.

I stop at one stall to buy fish balls.

Nyanne's UST Friends

"Nyanne and Camille lived in their gingerbread house."
- Pax '95 (High School Year Book)

I'm driving Nyanne to a party. She won't say where and she won't say whose except to say, "Some friends from UST."

Since I don't know where we're going exactly, she gives me last minute instructions, "Turn right, right, right! Oh fuck, we missed it. Make a u-turn there, there, here!"

Soon, we find ourselves in Commonwealth (the end of the world) where the only familiar place to me is UP but we go past UP and I begin to suspect where we're going and start a harangue.

"No, Annie, no! I'm not driving you anywhere anymore! I know where we're going you can't trick me into going!"

But she finds the whole thing hilarious and I begin to feel the downside of having good manners because as much as I want to tell her to get out of the car, I just can't.

And my suspicions turn out to be correct because it's Moe's party and as I consider where and how to park, I also consider what to do about the situation. I decide, as we're walking to the party, to tell Nyanne some of the truth.

"See here, Annie, maselan na sitwasyon to."

"Maselan? How?"

"In a lot of ways I can't explain right now! Besides, I'm not even invited!"

But I've been spotted. Moe hands me a beer and tells me to sit anywhere but I'm too dumbfounded by everything that I just stand there with my beer.

Nyanne, meanwhile, goes across the street to a boy's dorm and starts flirting with everyone and I hear her laugh her really loud and hearty laugh, the only one that could match mine in high school, and I'm so envious because she's enjoying the night and I'm not.

I go around Moe's party and I find no one to laugh with, until Moe who is the host after all, takes pity on me and talks to me but it's so noisy that I can't hear what he's saying. I watch his mouth move, I watch his movements but I can't understand a thing he wants to tell me.

"Slow down! What? What are you saying?"

He begins again but I still don't understand anything.

So I give up. I walk back to the car and leave Nyanne in the boy's dorm.

The car makes a toot toot toot noise as I back up and check all my mirrors to see why. Why? I'm not going to hit anything! But it continues even more loudly toot toot toot and there really must have been something back there because I crash quite loudly. My head hits the steering wheel and I get knocked unconscious.

Dear Prudence

Training and Quality Office, 37th floor. Dim lights.

What's going on?

"Mermaid, I thought you resigned!"

"I did. I'm back. Pretty cool, huh?"

"But I thought I resigned as well! For good! Forever!"

"You must've been dreaming!"

It's too good to be true. Jill, Lovey, Jojo, Doods, Ariel, Me. Just us in our favorite room. We're all pooped from training and all talking quietly and laughing quietly and just taking advantage of each other's company before our Quality cousins come in and just burst with shrill chatter after the whole shift of just listening to all those boring calls.

I want to tell Jill, Lovey, Jojo, Doods and Ariel, "I really, really love you, you know?"

What's gonna happen if they find out I really resigned? Will I be escorted out of the building like the people who stole from company money?

All my passwords still work. My work station hasn't been touched. My headset is right here. I've never worn my ID but look, I'm wearing it now! Outside is... darkness. It's... night! I guess it's true. I'm back.

I should just keep printing these manuals before my passwords expire or before someone detects my presence and I'm called an impostor but, oh no, shit!

"Shit!"

"What?"

"The printer's not printing!"

"You'll have to print outside."

"Noooo!"

"It's simple! You can select the printer you want to print with, you know?"

"I know that! I'm not completely inane! I just don't want to step out to the colony! Please just let me stay in here! I don't want to leave! You might not be here when I get back! Please! I'm afraid! Things just change a lot around here and I don't want to lose you. And in my dreams I'm not going to be with you for long! Please!"

"Camille, we swear, we're not leaving this room."

So I go. Click, click, click, my shoes would say except that the floors are carpeted. So with my chin up I glide.

The colony is bigger than I remember. It stretches on and on. I hear the familiar drone of voices. I feel sick. But I carry on walking until I reach the printer and wait for my stuff to come out. Pages and pages of the training manual.

I'm so afraid. I wish it would finish printing already. All these people I love. Will I lose them? What will happen when I leave this place? Will we find a way to keep in touch and be friends? I'm scared!

To keep myself brave, I sing, "Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play? Dear Prudence, such a lovely day. The sun is up, the sky is blue. It's beautiful and so are you."

Eventually, a heavy drowsiness overtakes me and I fall asleep.