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.

Kissing House

If I kiss you where it's sore will you feel better? Will you feel nothing at all?
- Regina Spektor, "Better"

In the center of this world is a well where people come to have a drink of flavored water that changes color depending on the person's intentions. After all, we all have different intentions for drinking. Some of us drink because we are thirsty. Some of us drink because of habit. Yet some drink just for the fun of it. And who knows the million different reasons people need water? For every person a different reason and different color of flavored water.

All houses in this world have only one room. Thus, each house has only one function. A bed house, a dining house, a bath house, a kitchen house... The town bell ding-dongs every time it's time to change houses and it's so pretty how people, all at the same time, exit a house and enter a new one. Each inhabitant knows which house to inhabit next.

As much as I love order, already I am plotting to possess a house of my own. It's a kissing house. You go there to get kissed. I like it there. It will be mine.

Ecological Implications

Put the lotion in the fucking basket, bitch, put the lotion in the basket.
- Greenskeepers, Lotion


I find myself in front of a class I didn't know I was taking. My partner, someone I didn't know was my partner, is sharing talking about -- oh i don't know what he's talking about. I feel so foolish. Standing there in my office clothes, about to be humiliated because I didn't prepare for the report. And then my partner turns to me.

"Clarice," he says, "will walk us through part two."

I throw panic looks at the audience. I am hoping someone will recognize me and confirm that I am not Clarice!

When I see Moe I look at him and try to say with just my eyes, "Well, you recognize me, don't you? You know my name, right?"

But he's waiting, just like everyone else, for me to walk everyone through part two.

I'll get through this. Maybe even find it funny one day.

Suddenly I have an epiphany! I clear my throat. I know how to proceed.

"Thank you, Dr. Lecter. The ecological implications of the premise discussed in part one..."

Indeed

It's the ugliest baby I've ever seen. In fact, I wouldn't call it a baby but a tiyanak. Her body looks regular enough but its head is a huge adult's head. Lots and lots of pimples, scars and every kind of blemish you can name. It cries and cries. Finally, one of the nurses tell me, "Please leave the room. Your presence upsets the baby." MY presence upsets HER! Indeed.

Boring

Hectic. First I had to give Rachel and Freddie a ride from the convent to the hospital. Then I had to pick Paolo up from the storage house where he's doing an inventory of our furniture. When I finally got home, Sockie and Chesca were playing full force. Barbie dolls (mine), GI Joes, LEGO, RC cars. What a mess.

Sockie and Chesca are 4 years old which means I am 10 and too young to drive, too young to do furniture inventory, too young to be married, too young for this life.

At that moment Sockie trips, falls, hits his head and starts to bleed. I pick up my little brother, and take him inside to be bandaged. But just before I let him go and give him to Mama I whisper to him, partly to terrorize him, partly because I have no one else to tell, "I've seen the future, you know."

"What's it like?"

"Boring."

And he starts to cry, brat that he is, and tells Mama I am scaring him, and that I called the future "boring."

Monster Car, Monster Engine

Lying was inevitable because it was the only way with you. It became so routine that I'd lie even when I didn't have to. Like when you asked what I had for lunch I would say "pork loin" when it was actually "chicken with gravy."

Because I had a strict curfew and because I wasn't allowed to leave the school grounds, my date had to sneak my out of the school gym. (The levels of humiliation I had to sink to just to cover up a healthy teenage life!) We held hands. We went a hotel. We went to a bar. He smelled my hair. I ordered a Martini because it sounded nice and all the boys at the table held their breaths while I took a sip.

You didn't think anything was amiss because I made it back to school in time for my pickup time. How, you might ask? Well, he drove like the devil in his monster car and I think, because of his monster engine, I came.

I'm telling you this now, Mama, because I never got to. Because I don't need to lie to you anymore. And I'm sorry if I'm incoherent and if this isn't really coming out the way I want it to. I love you and I'm sorry I had to lie to lie to you about what I had for lunch, or who I was with and where.

Akin to Happiness

Out of the 36 ways of avoiding disaster, running away is best.

I have made up my mind to sit through this meeting, not really listening but just saying "I concur!" and "Absolutely!" or sometimes when feeling poetic and on fire with enthusiasm, ecstatically interject, "Absolutely fucking brilliant!" in random (yet intelligent) manner just to get it over with. And if I get asked a question I don't have an answer to I'll just say, like I was taught by great corporate guru to say, "I don't see why this is my problem." And then so that I appear to have a grasp of corporate workings I can follow that up with, "I think so-and-so from accounting / human resources / public relations could give us a better picture of what you are asking."

I drink one coffee cup after another. The person beside me, this hot unknown in a suit so expensive I could steal it, sell it and buy a ticket to the States to visit Sunshine, asks me why I like coffee. I think about what to say to hot guy in haute suit. But lethargy overtakes me and I decide, instead of coming up with something clever and flirtatious I can just say: "It makes me happy. " Because it does. This rush I get from coffee-- my heart actually beats faster -- is akin to happiness.

I look around this table and feel so ineffectual. There IS a part of me that wants to get out. Run. Don't look back.

Or even better:

Grab the hand of hot guy in haute suit and run, pull him along, run, make out in the elevator, run, make out all the way to Hong Kong, New York, the French Riviera, wherever else his wealth can take us.

However...

My legs feel like lead. And the coffee has lost its effect. I pour myself another cup and wait for the next rush.

Pretend We're Normal

Annie and I run upstairs to the theater where she has a show that I promised to watch. When we get there she disappears backstage and I eye the audience and think about where to sit. It's full of familiar faces but it's Dax, in his usual attire of khaki and white, who comes up to me and we talk about the strange things that have been happening lately.

We reviewed it events from the start. When the alarm sounded, we ushered as many students as we could into the chapel. I haven't been paying attention to the drills and neither has Dax so we were confused as to why we were taking shelter in the chapel. Turns out it was a bomb drill and this I found out the hard way. I tried to sneak out to buy some coffee when my favorite coffee store exploded. Huh.

"Why do we even go to these performances?"

"I dunno. To pretend we're normal."

"Pretend. Hm. Well, okay."

Beauty

I don't understand why you're hitting me, Mama. And a part of me wants to die just so you'd stop. I want to understand, I do. Is it because I am not like you? Or it it because I am?

I flinch. More afraid and confused than in pain. In fact, there's no pain at all.

I'm sleepy. I'm drifting. I watch myself watch you.

I see that...

It takes all my self-control to keep my eyes on your fierce, magnificent beauty.

Phone Gone Mental

Beware the Ides of March.

At first it's merely annoying to not be able to make a phone call. But the more I keep trying, the more my tension builds up and soon I'm panicking.

The keys of my phone are scrambled and every time I try to press a button some weird thing happens to my phone.

I keep at it all night --pressing buttons of a phone gone mental.

Shoot Me Now

Oh jesus christ almighty.
Do I feel alright? No not slightly.
- Lilly Allen

I dread this class which I never knew I had to take. But here it is on my class form. As true as day. I grumble and make my way to the room. I'm already late as it is.

I look around me and everyone else is so young. I wonder if they notice how old I am. Am I the oldest undergraduate? Who must I call to check? Surely there must be someone I can call. What if they don't believe me and lock me up in the Discipline Office for... for... wanting access to confidential records? What if they tell my parents that I've been cutting this class for ten years? What if my parents force me to matriculate myself? I'll surely, surely die. There goes my vacation money.

Even my clothes are all wrong, I think. I used to think that chucks with a short skirt were, like, the height of fashionable rebellion. And while I here I am wearing them, I feel ridiculous and well, let's face it -- mainstream. Not at all like the fashion outlaw I fancied myself to be. I disappoint myself. I miss my regular office clothes. Shoot me now but it's true and I'll say it again: I miss my regular office clothes. I miss my boring job. Could it be that the real rebels are... are... those nerds in regular boring clothes who have submitted to the office dress code because they've found another form of dissension? Another outlet for rebellion more profound than fashion? And is wearing something like, say, ratty sneakers to the office when you're not supposed to still a form of rebellion if it just so happens you can't afford anything else? Oh god. I can't think clearly. I must find this class but it looks like I am lost.

Blimey. This is fucked. I wish I had stayed in bed.

Secret Smile

Chapter One

This is funny.

This is funny?

Yes, yes, I know we should be panicking but there's something so ridiculous about us hiding in a bathroom stall. Hiding from the bad guys.

Wait a minute, they are the bad guys, right? Not us?

This is the girl's bathroom, right?

Dear God! The things you worry about! Does it matter? We run, that's the point!

We did this for TL's birthday, remember? In high school? We switched bodies when we hid in the bathroom to surprise her. Camille became emotional and cried. Jill comforted her.

And Chingkay?

Well she had no choice but to be epal. She became frontwoman. She handed TL the flowers when the door flew open.

TL acted like TL. She beat up Medina. We saw it from the slits of the bathroom door.

Nuts!

Hilarious!

What did Medina do?

'What did Medina do?' What an inane question! Tingin mo ba may laban si Medina kay TL?

Where were the others? How come we weren't complete?

Sssshhhh. They're coming.

Fuck, ano ba, your feet are sticking out!

Ang sikip naman kasi! Move it! Move it!

Tangina. They heard us. We split up. We run.

Chapter Two

So Camille runs. She's giggling at first but soon she realizes the urgency of the situation. If she gets caught and tortured, who knows what secrets she'll spill? And because she is a Classicist who is a closet Romantic not to mention a lapsed feminist and confused Catholic she prays. "Dear God, please send me Mr Darcy." She giggles at this but yes, a Mr Darcy, why not. If she had a friendster account "Mr Darcy" is what she would put under "People I Would Like To Meet" but to baffle the readers of her page she would also put "Married to Mr Dacry" under "Status."

Chapter 3

Camille knows her friends are waiting for her on the other side of the bridge. But before she worries about crossing that bridge she has to worry about escaping this building.

She finds herself in a test kitchen. Stainless steel.

Surely there is an air shaft somewhere? She tries all the windows and when one finally opens she gets out and stands on the ledge. It's night. So many stars. If she weren't being chased she would gladly stay in this position and count them. But she hears them coming.

She leaps. She finds that she can fly. She flips in the air and in her inverted position she sees the building from the outside for the first time. It's beautiful from the outside. It's a house. No, no -- a mansion! A fountain. A manicured lawn. An English garden. She's seen this house before.

It's Pemberley! It's Mr Darcy's house!

She knows she will one day live in Pemberley. She's convinced of this.

The stars are the only witness to her secret smile.

At the Aztec Hotel

We're all waiting in the lobby. I have my room key. There are flowers everywhere. And lights. And mirrors. And Aztec chocolate.

My heart skips a beat when I see him. I wait and wait for him to come to me. I put my hand inside the pocket of my jeans just to touch the key.