Monthly Archives: January 2022

One Friday Afternoon

13 Replies

| Clark, Angeles City |

The gate shrieks as I step outside. It is freakish, reminiscent of the wail of despair that lingers in the air and haunts the hearers. 

If not for that sound, I would not be able to see the rusts and peels that have splotched its black paint. I would not be able to realize that in 15 years since my transfer, I had never bothered to check it, not even once, with its facade now resembling the other gates in the street that have known no care, gates that have been forgotten and have gotten embroidered only by the thickening rusts and moss.

Beside the gate, under the thick metro smog that levitates like the possessed, three kids are slumped on the pavement, without masks, unfazed by the unceasing awful stories about the ravages of the pandemic. I watch them laugh their asses off as they parrot the corny lines from an ad of a loser hell-bent on staging a political come-back. They have opted to just surrender their fates to the saints and those with superpowers, I suppose, just like their recently laid-off mothers, who walk miles and miles every day searching for a job while reciting the sorrowful mystery. 

A few meters away from the young daredevils, I already sense the larger-than-life presence of Kuya Nonoy, from the smoke he emits that clouds the half-empty store of junk food and sanitary napkins behind him, and the crescendo of shrieks he produces that shake the neighbors on siesta. I can hear his laments, the curses he profusely showers to Duterte and Duque, his promise to throw rotten eggs at them as simple payback for the negligence and further misery the two have inflicted on the poor like him.

As I walk past the swelling crowd that gets engrossed in Kuya Nonoy’s perfervid monologue, I notice him looking straight at me, bearing the eyes of a child asking for a candy for a job well done. I give him a sweet, approving smile.    

The crowd is still raucous with a cacophony of cheers, jeers, and sneers when I reach the corner of the street. I stand facing what was once the melting pot of all that had been ignored, abused, and rejected – the broken vases, unupholstered sofas, stale sodas, spoiled food – often swarmed by flies, cockroaches, and other weird-looking insects. It now houses the well-maintained, fully-embroidered grotto that has become the convergence point of people who feel unloved, unappreciated, and neglected, consistently abuzz with lamentations, intercessions, petitions, and grievances from its frequent visitors – Kuya Nonoy and his gang, the desperate job-seeking mothers and the kids they leave behind, at the hands of those who give a damn. 

Across the street, I glimpse at the sign tacked at the window of the water refilling station that reads “permanently closed,”  at arm’s length from the wall lamp striped with blue and red beside the ajar door of the barbershop that has seen better days. There is nothing in there other than the unswept strands of hair from its last customer.

After a brief pause,  I continue to make my way towards the next crossroads with heavy steps, crushing the fallen leaves from the lonely, imposing tree and stones chipped off the cracks in the pavement. I chance upon the 90s matinee idol flashing his killer smile in front of the onetime flower shop that no longer sells flowers and bouquets but promises fully ornamented with colorful words. As I get closer, I find out that I am smiling back at a standee of a virgin trying to penetrate the tempting yet filthy world of politics.

I haul my body that suddenly becomes exhausted, not from the short walk but from the feel-good platitudes that I just read, the over-the-top recycled promises that are as treacherous as the pervasive virus. At last, I can now see my destination, standing proud before the spot-less, rust-less cars that have probably never experienced any forms of neglect.

I flump into my favorite spot in my old haunt and breathe in the smoke from my cafe americano. I gulp down as much liquid as I can to immediately wash away the shrieking, haunting, and lingering images of neglect and misfortunes from the world that has promised its people the opposite. I then close my eyes for their much-needed break. 

 My eyes have traveled a lot just from a 5-minute walk.

Images from:

https://www.pexels.com/photo/monochrome-photo-of-girl-s-eyes-2083932/

https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/how-taking-midday-walk-helped-ease-my-work-anxiety-47700301

Fangs, Fragrance

6 Replies

| Tomas Morato, Quezon City | 

Letting go, planned or unplanned, becomes inescapable when one hits forty. It’s not that one suddenly turns into an unloving, disengaged beast without rhyme or reason; it is more of realizing that one’s fangs are better to be used in cutting off things that are no longer pragmatic and sensible to keep.

It is not an easy affair, though. Some things are hard to cut off, even with the sharpest fangs. They are stubborn and seductive, often in the guise of the “I deserve it” or “I worked hard for it” justifications. I had almost fallen into that trap, hesitant to end my dalliance with fancy bags until I saw them lining up like unclaimed cadavers in my closet, cobwebbed and dusty.

Self-discipline is what whets the fangs. And so far, I have had hard-fought triumphs of letting go. Not until I come face to face with perfume, because whenever that happens, I become a toothless prey.

Perfume can effortlessly put my ready-to-kill fangs into a state of total worthlessness. It’s able to find my Achilles heel, and there is a huge possibility that it’s because I have always been a willing target. So even before the battle starts, I have already lost.

My apathy to escape from the spell of perfume has resulted in more than a hundred bottles of fused notes from different brands or houses, as cognoscenti call them. Occupying the mid-part of my closet, they look like babies in the nursery screaming out for my attention.

For someone who grew up with a great-grandmother fully bathed in floral scent every second of the day, I have always been under the impression that my hoarding is justifiable; it is deeply entrenched. And however edged the fangs are, they would always be blunt in cutting the habit off.

The truth is, I have a special relationship with each of my perfumes. They are vivid, scented memories encapsulated in bottles, reminders of the beauty of life in a world that has become a brutal beast. They are a staple of my soul. They make me feel I am human.

Or a fairy freely frolicking in woods flecked by budding blooms. Or a princess as delicate as well-kept china, her well-kempt hair flows like a sparkling river in her crease-free lavender gown.

And that’s another thing about perfume. It is a magic carpet ride that can transport any wishful to dazzling, unconquered places. It is a mystical elixir that one can spritz or sniff to transform oneself into a princess with a boyish charm, a brunette and voluptuous celebrity, or a kick-ass lady boss revered by all. It is the perfect vehicle to get away from the torments of the gagging inanities and insanities.

Perfume lets one remember and lets one forget. 

And so, I have made peace with the thought that perfume is something I cannot utterly slash from my system, even in my fifties or sixties or even in my grave. Letting fragrance go has never been an option, for how can I detach myself from something that makes me human, and a blonde bombshell?

Image from:

https://www.istockphoto.com/search/2/image?phrase=perfume+bottle+on+black

Being Forty and Something

9 Replies

| Tomas Morato, Quezon City |

I turned forty when even a simple celebration was taboo. The world was mourning then, with the dead in phalanx across the once noisy streets and the alive, even the most rapacious ones, in dead silence in the corner most part, begging only for one thing – to wake up the following day, nothing more, nothing less.

In our place, paranoia was as haunting as the howls of the neighbors’ dogs at night. It was palpable; it damped down the spirit that the Christmas lights at every window tried to jazz up. But that did not stop me from having a decent party. Not with my life-of-the-party soul sister Mitch, the only person I knew of exempted from the strict imposition of curfew and other spurious policies made out of iffy grounds, gracing my about-to-get-boring event with his Christmassy presence.

When all were at wit’s end, being with someone you immensely enjoyed chatting with was in itself a present. It was a comforting hug after months of mourning, filling up the longing of somebody like me who had nobody to talk to for more than eight months but coffee and ciggies.

And so, the show went on, backdropped by the curtain of smoke from the coffee, ciggies, and recently-delivered food. The rest of the team I handled joined the event virtually, doing what they do best – trading banter, generating a euphony of laughter that supplanted the hiss of homesickness hovering over my place. In times like this, laughter was not only the best medicine; it was one essential key to survival.

I had my most unusual birthday, and it was not bad. At the very least, I had a good laugh that was so elusive the past days. That virtual space, in its expanse, provided the venue for a get-together to laugh our asses off. To be human again. True, some elements were missing, and I would still prefer face-to-face, but if only for laughter, which I live for to keep a tab on the dwindling mental health, it served its purpose.

The world was weeping, but it did not forbid its children from celebrating life. Laugh to survive, embrace change to pull through, persist in these trying times.

Live for the moment. I turned forty with a decent party.

Image from:

www.physicsworld.com

Rewind

3 Replies

| Tomas Morato, Quezon City |

I live to tell – that’s how I always think of myself. My mantra and my mission, that thinking has become my way of life, personal or professional.

And so I write. I have always been in awe of words. Words have the unseen immensity and depth that capture the shade and hue of the beauty and madness of this world. Words can amp up and tone down the picture they paint, and just like a face, they can launch a thousand ships.

I love exploring the pulchritude of words. I write because I live, and I write because I tell.

I write because I exist in the most interesting of times when unprecedented changes in all facets of life happen, revealing more and more the craziness of this planet. But however stark raving mad things have become, they need to be written. They require telling, the Didion way or not.

And so I’m writing again, attempting to journal the world in the eye of forty-something. In these interesting times, to write is a must. 

Images from:

https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/cellphone-connected-with-earphones-pen-paper-coffee-cup-wooden-background_3003746.htm