Anecdotes & excerpts

2011-10-31T22:03:00.001+08:00

It was particularly quiet that night. The moonlight permeated softly through the cold darkness of that bedroom. Albert held her in his arms. His lips were a few inches away from her ears. His eyes ran across the strands of her long dark hair. His fingers moved them, next, away from her paper-white cheeks. He looked at her profile with fondness, and wondered to himself, how much he's in love with this half-asleep woman in his arms.

"Car?"

"Yeah?" she mumbled half-awake.

"Do you feel how much I am in-love with you?"

She was quiet for a moment. She recalled the times she was happy with him. Like that time they were in Victoria Park, sitting down, watching the birds walk around on their scrawny feet on the cement pavements, and the old people, walking, jogging. She had her head on his shoulders as he napped behind his heavily tinted aviators. It was the early morning. They just came from a crazy night at Lan Kwai Fong. The chemicals were still swimming around their nervous system, as the buzz gradually slipped away.

Tears started rolling down the side of her nose. She sniffled them into her nostrils as if she didn't want him to see them, and remained silent.

"I'm sorry for all the shit I put you through."

The right side of her lip wrinkled in a half wince. She gave out a gentle sigh that escaped through her nostrils. It was so subtle that a pin-drop would make a louder sound.

"What are you getting at, Albert?

"I'm letting you go, Car."

They both fell silent for a while. Albert grabbed Carmen closer to him. Somehow it was forthcoming. Carmen felt it was going to happen soon. The exact time was the only thing she was uncertain of. They haven't fought in months, and Albert has been busy with the family business. She hasn't heard any story of him seeing another girl. They would see each other occasionally outside on social events, which would often with him asleep beside her peacefully, in her apartment every now and then. There were nom more fuss or hisses of repressed anger. Their dinners together would be uneventful. They would talk about the matters of the days and the previous ones. They were like an old married couple, exhausted from all the drama of passionate love.

A few weeks ago, Albert was driving them from a movie. She sat on the passenger side and stared at the different colors of the headlights of cars that ran by them. Albert was quiet. She was quiet. They were both tired from the all the days business. It felt different because that night he just held her in his arms. They didn't make love. It occurred to her that they haven't for quite a while. It bothered her somewhat because he used to be very aggressive with her in bed despite all the other girls he was seeing. But that night, and the previous nights, he was different. He was gentle and unselfish.

"I see it now. I guess I've realized it for while, but it just wasn't clear in my head 'til a few days ago. We're just too different for a compromise, and I've asked too much of you already."

"Ok."

Then Carmen took one of his hands that was resting on her stomach and pulled it up to her lips and kissed it gently. And slowly, they fell asleep.

2011-10-20T23:45:00.003+08:00

It baffles him how a songwriter can casually perform such a painfully personal song to a crowd without having to dispel tears. Much less perform it over and over to different people. Recalling his traumatic experiences alone in words proves to be a very sour pickle. He wanted to blame the people who caused his misfortunes for his current rotten state, but at the back of his head, he knew he was the sole cause. He made every decision. He was in-charge of his life.

It was the fact that the people around him seem to act with carelessness and folly as if ignorant, at that moment, to all the atrocities that are going on elsewhere in the world that made him feel like hurling his guts out. Although he also knew every single person in that room had a personal tragedy to carry around everyday, and that they must be thinking of the same thing. So he faked his smile and joined in the singing just like everyone did, and he clapped and cheered for the wonderful performance. For it captured experiences in his life and summarized them all in a heartfelt marriage of melody and words.

For split-second, he felt genuinely happy as he applauded. A glimpse to a time that have long been forgotten.

2011-09-29T20:12:00.000+08:00

"And he parked the car, and grabbed me in his arms. I broke down and cried even harder. I'm sorry. I never meant for it to happen," Carmen confessed.

"It's ok."

"Really?"

"Yeah, come on, I dated him back in high school. How many years back is that? A decade?"

Carmen sniffled back the tears that were about to come out. She looked at her sister, she tried to pry into her eyes, where she found comfort. Cassie smiled at her reassuringly.

"So what happened next?"

Carmen bit her lip gently as she thought about it.

"After a while, I stopped crying. He drove me back to my apartment building. I couldn't sleep that night. I thought about it. I've never really thought about it that much before. I don't know. It's like an endless debate in my head ever since I found out he was cheating on me. It takes a break for a while. Things happen. Then, new things come to light, and the debate resumes. But that night, it was endless. I'd walk around my apartment, watch TV, listen to music, go out to buy stuff at the convenience store, but it would still go on in my head. You know?"

"Like finally crying about it, put everything on perspective?"

"Yeah, exactly. It's like holding my breath for a long time and finally letting it out."

Cassie smiled and took a sip of the wine.

"I called Iñigo the next day, I told him that we should stop. I didn't want to complicate things anymore because I end up getting hurt as well. A few weeks later, Albert breaks up with me. He told me, 'please don't think I don't love you anymore because I'm breaking up with you'. He said he just didn't want to be unfair to me anymore. It took a while for us to get there, but I think we've reached that point where I think our relationship really needed a change."

They were quiet for a while. They were home, the two of them, after such a long time, face to face, across each other on that dinner table, in that big dinning room, which was empty save for the two of them. The warmth of the chandelier's light, the stillness of wine on glasses, the warm food half-consumed were the only things that kept them company.

"I envy you. You remained intact despite being exposed to someone like Albert. You're like those people Philip told me. There are those anomalies that no matter how much and how frequent they get exposed to the HIV virus, they remain uninfected."

Carmen smiled.

"I remember this one time a few years back. I was with Ben, the guy from Glasgow I was with for a while. We were having sex, and I wasn't really into it at that time, but I let him in anyway."

Cassie shifted her fingers on top of the wooden table.

"And in that moment, without the intoxication of libido, with the sobriety of loving someone and understanding someone, I finally understood what it meant to get fucked. I've always had things my way until Adrian died, and I had to stay in Europe alone and deal with that pregnancy by myself. I was twenty-one then. I've had sex with more than twenty-one people, probably even more, most of which are empty meaningless sex. I finally understood it, what you always knew this time. I don't know where you learned it. Our parents never taught us that."

2011-09-24T22:54:00.001+08:00

"Don't you get tired?"

"I do, but, you know, what we're doing right now... I'm cheating on him as well."

"Have you ever cheated on him before?"

"No."

"So why now?"

"I don't know. It just happened. You invited me to dinner, and we kept going out, and eventually something happened. Honestly, I didn't expect this to happen."

There was a pause for a while. She thought about what she said. To be honest, he knew she always had a crush on him. He just wasn't sure how far she would let this go.

"Ok, maybe I was half-wishing this would happen."

He smiled at the road as if he was trying to smile at her, trying to comfort her. If she could read his mind, she would understand that it was ok. He wasn't judging her. Maybe she could. She stared at the cars and people they drove past with an expression as blank as an open hole ready to be probed. But, they were quiet for a while.

"I don't really see the big picture between me and Albert yet. Maybe one day I will and I'll get tired of these lying and cheating."

"Would an open relationship be a bad idea for you two?"

"I remember asking him once, what if I cheat on him?"

"What did he say?"

"As long as I don't catch you."

There was a bitter moment of silence. She hated that conversation. She hated the fact that she couldn't leave her womanizing lover. She hated that he wouldn't admit to his infidelities. She hated that she was the kind of girl to wince the other way whenever she would catch a story of him fooling around with other girls. She hated that she kept coming back to him despite countless efforts of breaking up with him. She hated that she understands why he is the way he is and that somehow she has accepted the fact that he will most probably never change. She hated her resignation to that vicious cycle. She hated that somehow she has managed to turn out a little bit like him, that she has cheated on him as well.

"When you love someone you let them change you in ways you cannot control. You open yourself to that strong possibility. Sometimes you like how you turn out, sometimes you hate the person you become."

Tears started to roll out Carmen's eyes. Without even the alarm of a sniffle, Iñigo was able to feel them running down her cheeks. For a brief second he took his eyes off the road and glanced at her. Somehow, he knew he was responsible as well for turning her into this person, a cheater. He wished he could stop the car at that moment, so he can hold her in his arms. Suddenly flashbacks of all the faces of the girls he made cry flooded his mind.

"Sometimes I don't know who's worse. Albert who cheats on a girl, who at least he pledges his love to, or me who goes around dating girls but never taking them seriously."

2011-09-24T01:15:00.001+08:00

There was an awkward pause followed by a burst of awkward laughter.

"What did you just say?" Philip stifled his laugh in between words.

"I have psychotic tendencies."

There was dead air. As if the dogs that howl in the dead of the night were massacred. There was supposed to be cold chills that ran through Philip's veins. He was supposed to feel scared for his life, but he didn't. Instead, he felt a certain curiosity for this person lying beside him, for his candor and candidness. His attraction for him developed a level of respect and connection that was on the same height as compassion. Compassion, after all, is what you feel for a kindred in whatever way, despite differences.

He may not have fully comprehended everything at that time, but this boy will perhaps be the most influential person in his life. This conversation happening at this very night, while they were undressed on top of those white linen sheets, their legs entwined together, faces a few inches away from each other, as they stare on the other's eyes, would be the most compelling thought that would haunt Philip until his death.

"The world is truly a sad place, Philip. We are born to die, but we are raised to live our lives, to make a better future. That's what they like to say 'for a better future'. Maybe I'm selfish but I want to live my life for myself. I want to enjoy my short time here on this earth."

"Short time? Why? Are you dying soon?"

"No, I mean compared to this earth that has seen so many millenia already, what I will see, what I will experience, what I will get to know is but a millisecond."

Philip was quiet. Maybe it was the methamphetamine still lingering on his system. Maybe it was the exhaustion of the four hour tryst they had just taken a break from. But, the grasp of his mind just expanded from the size of the earth to the vastness of, perhaps, the universe.

Adrian, all this time, was stoic, staring directly into Philip's eyes as if he was staring at a galaxy inside his pupils, lost in the embrace of his thoughts.

2011-08-22T23:30:00.003+08:00

"So what is it that you want then?"

"I just want to be with someone who sees the world the same way I do."

"Here's a two-million dollar question for you. Do you really think it's possible for two people to see the world the same way if we're all so different from each other?"

"Well if you do the math, I think it's possible."

"Oh, you do? You think out of the million possible things that can happen to a single person, in a billion different ways, in a trillion different permutations, you think two people can actually see the world the same way?"

"You're saying that the way we see the world is dictated by the things that happen to us."

"Yes, I do believe so. How else do you think we learn?" Adrian said with a grin.

Philip, annoyed, threw the pillow he had clutched in his arm onto the floor in protest.

"Well, now I don't know what to say."

Adrian laughed. "Oh, cheer up. You're too serious. You're gonna kill yourself with boredom eventually."

"How else will people take me seriously, if I don't take myself seriously?"

"Why would you want to be taken seriously? People would expect too much from you if they take you seriously. You'll wear yourself out trying to meet expectations."

"Now, I don't know what to say again." Philip pouted.

There was a pause. Adrian was still reveling in amusement. He had a grin that could knock walls down.

"Well what kind of person are you then if you don't like to be taken seriously?"

Adrian thought about the question for a second. He could brush off that question with a witty evasive answer, or he could give him the straight truth.

"I'm the kind of person who doesn't believe in anything. I can kill a person if I was faced with the right motivation."

That was the naked truth, as they lie there on the white sheets of his queen-sized bed, naked, post-coital, beside each other.

2011-08-16T17:12:00.025+08:00

"So what happens when all of this finally ends?"

The voice echoed in the hallow room. The letters on the computer screen flickered sporadically, dancing like restless fireflies as silence swatted the night. You can practically hear violins moaning sorrowful cries. Bricks were cracking into rubbles. Walls were crumbling piece by piece. Debris were falling, gliding down the air with the speed and grace of a crashing plane.

It was about to happen, whether they liked it or not. It was not something that could be put off, or delayed. It was coming, swiftly and with unrelenting force, ready to sweep what is to what was. They knew it was going to happen one day. They just didn't know how and when. Somehow they prepared for it, but it wasn't enough. They unconsciously did so with each day they woke up, but somehow they were like lifeless zombies. They didn't fully understood then the gravity of the present situation. It was not because they underestimated things, but things just eluded their imaginations.

There was silent pause. Most of them didn't know the answer. Some of them hesitated. The answer was too bitter of a pill to swallow.

Suddenly, bombs were going off. Munitions were being fired. Bullets were flying, piercing through everything. Explosions were happening side by side, like long winding dominos taking each other down. Casualties were being thrown off and casually littered all over.

People were gathering together. Mobs were marching down the streets in mass hysteria.

Dialectics happen both with civility and barbaric violence. Revolutions always happen with violence, with reason or without, whether provoked or unprovoked, coming from both sides or just one, in random singles or well-planned mass victimization. There is always aggression. Damages are done. Infrastructures are mangled. Cityscapes and landscapes are rebuilt and changed. Mindsets are reprogrammed. Point-of-views are re-evaluated. Vocabularies and history books are rewritten. Everything is never the same.

There were shadows in that room, ten of them, some were sitting, others were standing, all of them uneasy about the future at hand.

"We move on. We let others take over. Humans die. Ideas change. Societies evolve. Even gods fade away. Aren't you tired of all these yet?"

And there it was, the bitter pill.

2011-08-09T00:57:00.003+08:00

I wish I wasn't bound by this flesh
that dictates the codes, habits,
and morals which I am subject to;
daily banalities,
which I must endure
and bore my spirits.
Oh Teleute, set me free.

— P. Pasencia

2011-07-25T22:33:00.023+08:00

"I've killed countless number of people, Philip," Adrian paused as he heard himself say it out for the first time.

"For kicks," he continued.

Philip didn't respond in shock, confused, not sure if he was weakened by his terminal illness or the shock of the piece of information his dear friend is sharing with him.

"Do you still remember that second night we spent together? I told you I was the kind of person who would kill another person if I was given a reason compelling enough to do so."

"Yeah." Philip, still in shock, could only muster that monosyllabic response that trailed of casualness.

"I'm bored," Adrian cried. "Nothing excites me anymore but the prospect of my own death."

Philip was still quiet as Adrian continued to sob. He wasn't afraid that he was sitting right beside a murderer. He was going to die anyway whether sooner by the hands of the person sitting beside him or later by the virus that is slowly metastasizing his brain cells. Possible brutal death by the hands of his dear friend wasn't the reason of his current state of shock either because he did, after all, had masochistic tendencies. At one point, in the split second of his thought, he reveled at the idea of his friend brutalizing his body. He thought of it as taking their sexual relationship to the next level.

He was in shock because it's the first time he has seen this side of him – crying, weak. He felt sorry for him. Whatever he was doing now, unmounting a load so heavy, it must be because it must be too heavy a burden for him to carry by himself.

"Who did you kill?"

"Different people. People I deemed unworthy of life. There was a point when the sex and the drug use didn't excite me anymore, back then, when we were younger. It happened first when a guy attacked Cassie. He wanted to rape her, and she was pregnant with Iggy's baby, and I killed him. It was just an accident but I felt excitement again. It was a rush that I could not explain even up until now and I wanted to feel that thrill again. Before that I met this guy who looked exactly like me – we were practically twins except we didn't have any close blood relations – and he was this prostitute, I was a regular client of his. Eventually, I made him stop turning tricks and asked him to move in with me. That's why I stopped inviting you to my place then. Nobody knew about him. He didn't have any family, hardly had friends that would really miss him. He just liked getting high and was stupid enough to take my offer of giving him an infinite amount of chemicals. That's how I managed to keep him locked in my place. He was my second victim. I used him to fake my death. I killed him, and it was exciting for me. The whole planning sent shivers through my veins and the act itself made me feel alive again. Then I ran away, and continued killing people randomly in random ways and I kept getting away with it, something I can only do in our country, but now, it has become boring. Nothing thrills me anymore. I've ran out of things to do to feel alive. Only the idea of dying and seeing if there is anything that comes after death excites me, but it's a small flicker in a vast cold darkness of boredom."

"So why haven't you killed yourself?"

"Because of the uncertainty. I'm afraid that if there is nothing after death – and a big part of me believes in that – that there might still be hope in this life for me, and I would have missed it altogether."

2011-06-02T15:16:00.011+08:00

"Forgive me if I'm apathetic."

Philip smiled at him as he bowed his head in apology. It's the first time he is seeing Adrian this way. It's like meeting someone who has always been around your periphery all these years for the first time.

"We don't have the luxury of things like time and choices like we used to have back when we were younger. We've got shreds of all our decisions in the past, and those made by the ones that came before us, littered on the path ahead us."

"I don't quite understand where you're going with that."

"Me neither."

They stared at each other for a second and then both of them snorted a chuckle realizing how pathetic they must sound like. They kept at it for a couple more second and then there was silence, and they didn't know what to say to each other. There was the sound of the cold wind in that winter stricken land, where snows grow on the greenest of grass.

"Sometimes, I wonder how we got here," Adrian confessed.

"We made decisions. We lived."

"Have you ever been in those mad moments when you feel like your life is being turned upside down, and you can't get a hold of anything no matter how hard you try to, and it feels like you're shooting barrels in the dark?"

"Many times. While I was working at an agency, that's exactly how I felt."

"Did it ever felt like you got out of the dark?"

"I don't know. I haven't really thought about that."

"Sometimes, I feel like I never really do, that maybe I'm always in the dark, and I just get used to it that it starts feeling like being in the light."

"You know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think this world is dark – if it wasn't for the sun and the other stars, this universe is nothing but darkness – and we're all born into it, and when we sleep, we dream of the light, and when, finally, we die, we reach the light. All of us – without prejudice."

There they lay on the snow-drenched grasses, looking up the dark sky, when the northern lights started dancing in the atmosphere.

2011-03-09T22:48:00.016+08:00

"Everybody keeps asking me why we broke up, and I'm so tired of giving the same spiel every time. I've practically given every version I can think of of the same thing. On the other hand, I don't want to alienate myself from people, just because I don't want to answer the same question again, because that's when I start getting really lonely. I just want to talk about other things, but then they won't just leave it alone."

"Let's talk about other things then."

But there was silence, except for the sound of the wind, the giggles of the children around them playing, the leaves rustling, the grasses swaying, and the cars zooming in and out of the streets surrounding them.

"I miss it… having someone to go home to… kiss… hug… just the comfort it gives me. But then I know that there's so much at stake as well – emotional investments, and all that shit. And you just can't pick a random person and just magically be comfortable with him."

"And then there are all these guys trying to get in my pants, wanting a piece of me, and, sometimes, I give in and give away a part of me because I get really lonely, and, you know, I just need to feel a body next to me, so even for a single moment I could escape the incredible palpability of this loneliness."

"It's weird, isn't it? Sex with a stranger is a lot easier than with someone familiar. And to think we stressed out so much on having sex for the first time back when we were younger like it was the top priority, when really, the hardest part about relationships wasn't it. Where are the boys we use to have good conversations with back then?"

"They're already taken."

"Or gay."

Cassie smiled at her as she continued to listen to her. They sat on a concrete bench, in a park that was once familiar but, now, old.

"Sometimes, I pretend that he just went away somewhere faraway for a while. Maybe someday he'll be back."

"Well, he's not really gone you know."

"I know." She chuckled.

"He's just with someone else now."

"Actually, no, they're not even together anymore. Two days ago he called me and told me he wanted to get back together."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him 'no'. I just don't think I can go back anymore. All the while I thought I was already his choice, when I was still just an option."

"And he was yours?"

"I've planned my whole life around him. Now, I have to go back to the sketch board and redraw everything. And everyday, I feel like I'm running around aimlessly, in circles. Days go on slow, and I don't feel like I'm making any progress at all."

"Time is our worse enemy, isn't it?"

"No, it's just the memories."

"Well it's a good thing you haven't ran into him yet."

She smiled.

"It's so hard – beginning again. Aside from moving out, looking for a new place, changing address, updating records and all the other leg work I have to do, at the end of the day, when I'm so tired and beat up, no matter how distracted I am by all the business of the day, I still have to cope up with the fact that what used to be there isn't there anymore."

The wind blew.

Cars went by the streets around them.

Grasses surrounding them swayed.

Several children ran around the park, chasing each other in innocent rapture.

Everything that was alive continued to breathe, and those in motion went on to move, but what used to be there wasn't there anymore.

There was something comforting about Makati on a weekend. What was busy on the weekday, alive and bustling, filled with people moving about, preoccupied with the things they needed to finish, seemed like a ghost town, anemic and forsaken.

2011-02-12T23:32:00.017+08:00

"We were in love then, weren't we?"

"We were."

"But things changed. Life happened."

"I think we're still in-love. I still love you, just not the same way."

"I know."

"Like parents."

"How so?"

"You know how most parents become overprotective of their kids…"

"But then they learn that at some point, they have to let go."

He smiled in the darkness.

She smiled as they sat there beside each other, miles away from everyone.

"Did you ever want to change anything we did then?"

"No."

"Not even the drug dealings?"

"Nope."

"Not the whole yakuza mishap?"

"Nope."

She smiled, amused.

"What about the baby?"

She didn't talk for a while, lost in her thoughts. "I still haven't figured that one out yet."

He smiled. At that moment, that was all he could think of doing because not even putting his hand on her shoulder would be enough.

"Have you told Iñigo?"

"Yeah."

"How did he take it?"

"We haven't talked about it. It doesn't matter now. The baby's gone."

In the quietness, there was he and she. There was an inch gap between their thighs, but not a single nanometer between their souls.

In their obscure lives, clarity and conviction was no longer an aim. Remorse was a wine they drank to relish moments. They carried on casually with traces of attachments from the past hidden in their pockets.

Once, they blazed like forest fires, consuming everything that came on their direction. Now, they flicker and sway like a thousand candles waning in the dark, almost dying, but never consumed by the gust of wind.

2011-01-25T11:37:00.022+08:00

It's a rush – an interminable, unbridled, incomparable rush. You'd think coming from it, one should already be dead or passing through the afterlife, idly waiting to be reborn a clean slate and wait again for the next one to come by. It's that one big wash of violent paint that conquers every pigment in one's life's canvas. All those small little details that once seemed inconsequential have now been put together right in the middle of the foreground, and those things that once mattered have been abruptly and cruelly pushed aside to the background. For a single moment, everything in your life seems to finally make sense. What should come after, ideally, would be death.

It's not something you can easily forget. You carry it around with you everyday. It weighs on you, but with every single day that passes by, you kind of get used to it, like it has become part of your own body mass, though you still remember you have it with you. When you look at the mirror and you see something's there, lined on your face, like a scar, or the wrinkles on the side of your eyes. There are mornings you wake up, and you feel a heaviness pushing down on your chest for reasons that seem to elude your comprehension. Maybe because it's buried deep down in your consciousness, piled on over by the mundane banalities of day to day life.

No one should be allowed to live through it. There should be a law against surviving a murder, whether a spectator or the perpetrator, because you don't come out of it the same person as the one that came in. It changes you. Suddenly you realize the irony of life being both fragile and inconsequential.

The beginning is all a blur now, like scattered stardusts in space.

2011-01-10T23:38:00.006+08:00

"Oliver?"

"Philip, is that you?" the boy said to the phone.

"Yeah."

"Where have you been?"

"Oh, around."

"Oh."

"Listen, I don't have much time." The male voice on the phone sounded tired. A female voice interrupted, "you have five minutes left on your credit."

"What's wrong?" asked the boy on the phone.

"You remember that question you asked me before?"

"Which one?"

"You asked me, how do we ever create something truly new and creative."

"Yeah?"

"You've seen In the Mood for Love, right?"

"Yeah."

"Watch Roman Holiday."

"Why?"

"You'll realize how Wong Kar-wai cut that film into bits and pieces and rearranged it into his own film."

There was a pause. The boy on the phone was confused.

"Nothing is ever new these days. Reincarnation, either in body or in spirit."

Oliver smiled as tears started to roll down his face. Slowly, gradually he started to move to the realization on the nearness of death to this dear friend.

2010-12-08T00:44:00.005+08:00

"Sonnet 8"
by Philip Pasencia

One day
I will meet you
and
you will be perfect
in my sight
and I will abandon all reason
and

jump

through walls

up flights of stairs

over buildings

You

will be
the end of me

2010-08-10T13:58:00.012+08:00

Sometimes, years ago, his hands would tremble, his fingers would jerk awkwardly and he would bite his lower lip out of frustration. He would try to calm himself as he tries to nibble on his nails, and he would whisper and plead to himself, "please God, make it stop."

It happens seasonally like clockwork, but without warning, without any followed schedule. Not even like the rain where clouds herald their arrival or the turn of the hour that happens expectedly every sixty second, the chemicals in his brain just happens, by chance, to mix a potent compound that drowns him with a flood of sorrows for no reason at all, or perhaps reasons that elude him.

No tears manage to escape the ducts of his eyes. They're trapped there no matter how hard they try to burst through the thin membrane that holds them.

Some of his kind likes to draw blood instead from their forearms to just even balance out the greater pain they feel inside, the kind that surpasses the physical one, as blood would trickle out of the cut. He likes to torture his fingernails. He cuts them unwittingly to nothing, not even a centimeter left, following the voices inside his head that screams at him in a chorus. It soothes him to see the blood come out on the exposed fingertip. He presses it and the pain the pressure sends jolts of euphoria all over his body.

Hours would past like minutes, as he sat their on his bed, moved by nothing as everything around him continued to move away further from him.

He would lie on his bed sometimes and look at the ceiling and stare at the blankness, his mouth gaping. He thought of nothing and at the same time everything occupied his mind. The whole universe jumbled around the infinite spaces of his thoughts.

And so it was for hours and hours like they won't seem to end. A part of him would be detached from his body, sitting beside him, observing him, trying to snap him out of it, but his bitter world seems too sweet and comforting to remove himself from.

He does not cry out for help.

2010-07-08T16:41:00.002+08:00

The fiancée ripped the shirt of her fiancé.

The fiancé grabbed her playfully, briskly but with enough gentleness and care not to harm her waifish arms, pulled her close to him, and they dropped afloat onto the soft cotton covered mattress. The tip of her nose kissed the bridge of his just as they bounced up a few centimeters in the air.

She giggled.

He laughed and then panned his head slowly to press his moist lips against hers. He tasted the champagne on her lips, slowly, gently, fervently.

He wondered at that moment, as he glided both his palms all over her back that was exposed by her purple silk jacquard dress, how long will this last?

She was wandering around the same trajectory where he was floating.

At that most abrupt intimate moment, they were both happy and scared, perhaps for different reasons but degree and intensity was precisely equal and similar for both. They were, as opposed to everyone else that surrounded them might surmise out of the polar differences between the places they come from, in-love.

"Do you like the ring?" Joaqi asked.

"It's beautiful!" Karen smiled.

* * *

They stood there as still as the water on the pool behind them, each held their a half-empty glass on their hands. The light of the dawn shone on them.

"It's unfortunate for us that we gravitate to people who are more passionate about something else than us." Joaqi suddenly broke the silence as he and Cassie stood there on the veranda watching the horizon blankly, his guests safely, earshot away across the pool behind them. She smiled, stayed quiet but not offended.

"Are we talking about Karen?"

He smiled in agreement.

"It's unfortunate for us we're not like them. We're the weaker kind." She paused and emptied her glass in one chug.

"But the ride was definitely worth it. It's something you look back to seasonally your whole life" she continued.

"Yes, they're something, aren't they? But you can't absolutely decide whether you need them or you hate them. What about the doctor? What kind of a person do you think he is?"

Cassie leered at the implication of Joaqi's question, pausing for a moment, trying to avoid falling on his trap.

"He's a person of interest but he'll never be Adrian."

"He's Stephen, Sabrina." Joaqi winked.

Cassie tried to conceal her wince at the mention of the sobriquet.

"Funny coincidence, isn't it?" he added.

2010-01-31T09:34:00.015+08:00

"What's wrong?" the art director asked the copywriter, who was staring blankly at the crowd.

The copywriter, catatonic, held his vodka tonic with his right hand and continued to look at the sea of intoxicated homosexuals gyrating, bathing in green colored laser lights and a cocktail of sweat from each other.

"Hey," said the art director as he gently nudged his shoulder with his.

"Oh… what? yeah, I'm ok"

There was a long pause between the two of them followed by a familiar track. The crowd, amped, went crazier as the orthodox lyrics "I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as it's free" boomed out on the enormous speakers that surrounded the darkness in which they all blindly worshiped in.

The copywriter abruptly but gently placed his drink on top of the bar they were standing against, tried to run but failed due to the packed crowd that trammeled him. So he resigned himself to slither around, slowly and painstakingly through each torso that was in his way out of that darkness. His chest began to contract continuously with each step.

"I can't breathe" he whispered to himself.

There were faces that looked at him. Some of them smiling at him, at someone else or just simply smiling at the dancing lights. He was surrounded by all these faces, some familiar, some of strangers, but to which all he felt absolutely alienated from. His chest wouldn't give in. It moved inward, tightening its grip on his heart. He pushed his way past through finally breaking out to the entrance, and down to the courtyard.

"Hey, Philip! What's wrong?" The art director chased after him.

And, the copywriter fell down on his knees to the ground; his eyes welling-up; his chest moving sporadically in and out in violent protest; his fingers tangled around each other, fidgeting nervously. He wailed like a child, softly but with so much agony. The art director tried to pick him up but he refused, at least his weight did for him, and he wasn't even a physically heavy person to begin with.

"I don't know what's wrong. I'm sorry." He managed to speak in between sobs. "I think I'm gonnna go home now. I'm tired." He continued.

2009-11-21T16:49:00.042+08:00

Yellowknife, Canada.

Adrian and Philip sit beside each other, wandering into the ionosphere, bathing in photons dancing excitedly, colliding with each other, and for a single moment they become more than mere atoms, more than stardusts.

"Whenever I see beautiful things like these northern lights or a flock of birds soaring up and down the air in unison, I wonder why I ever wanted more, why I ever wanted to be relevant or important, or why I ever sold out the people that I did for money or power or did drugs… why I ever slept with those many people. I should've just wanted to write about these things and try to capture these moments, so I can always look back at them. So much time wasted."

"It's good that you regret those things… not because they were wrong – or at least you think they're wrong. I'd feel sorry for you if you didn't have things you regret because that would mean you didn't live at all." Adrian said with a half smirk. "People tell you how you should do things. They say, 'that's how the world operates' (Adrian mimics an obnoxious commanding tone), but really, that's just people."

Philip smiled in agreement.

"Well I wish I wrote something about these things."

"Yes, but people these days they don't appreciate writing like that. Poetry has been overshadowed by advertising copies. Nature and humanism has long been replaced by capitalism."

They sat beside each other on frozen grass outside the cabin they were renting, marveling at the dance of changing colored lights floating in the sky. The air was chilly. The skin of dead animals kept them warm.

"Where should we go next?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"It's so palpably close. I can hear the peace of the universe drowning out the violent screams of this world."

"Where do you want this journey to end?"

"I want my ashes to be scattered in a desert."

"Why a desert?"

"Because."

"What?"

"Because that's how I feel like. Just another grain of sand in a multitude of a variety of others."

Adrian paused, in thought, for a moment. He pondered on the biggest joke of their tragic situation. They were born into a time with an overwhelming number of options and promises that built their hopes and elevated their egos. They worked hard to compete not only to survive but to get ahead, only to find out later that whatever status in society they were born to (high or low) or position they end up taking up when they've grown up (leader or follower) they were all equally just another cog that keeps this universe, with its own rules and systems (beyond any human concept), running. What's worse is there are those who die who never realizes this at all, or perhaps they are the blessed ones after all.

"Dakar?"

"That's an idea."

2009-11-10T12:20:00.010+08:00

There are times I weep in a dark corner, alone and silently. It's not because I'm sad. I've dealt with the fact that I have HIV and that I could now possibly have a tumor in my brain. It didn't even have much weight on me when I found out I have HIV because I knew there are ways that I could keep living and doing what I do without the disease getting in the way. I've accepted that fact. I have long been comfortable with the truth that I'm not immortal, or that I can only live one life, this life, or that if there is an afterlife, I've not the slightest idea what it would be like for me; I can only do one thing at a time; or do one occupation, although there is much that I want do and achieve. I know I'll never be a relevant poet, like I have always wanted to be when I was younger. I will never be able to make people cry out of joy, or sadness because that's what being human is about: feeling things, boiling in anger, getting hurt and being so happy beyond your imagination. Despite all of these things we are capable to do, think and feel, somehow we are still limited to one life, just one job at one time, one body to foster or destroy, which ever we choose.

Yesterday, we just finished a big account for a big client that I have been working on so hard. I have already grown fond of it. Someone told me once that I should never get attached to my work because when it gets criticized it will feel like I am being criticized, but how can I not? When you love your work, you put so much of yourself into it. Every decision you make, what gets included and what gets edited out, is a subtle way of telling the world who you are as a person. Sometimes, I think I'm the only person left that I know who is passionate about what he/she does. Everyone seems to be doing it for the money these days. I don't care if I get criticized. Criticism is good. I like it because I get to understand my work and myself better by gaining a different perspective. You don't always have to accept every criticism but it is important to always listen to it.

We finished the production of the campaign yesterday. I have been losing enormous amounts of sleep and my time to it. I slept only three hours the other night and spent most of yesterday waiting for the whole thing to be assembled completely. And, no matter how much I might voice out sometimes, I don't mind putting out that much effort. I enjoy it.

I weep now, because I'm so emotional. I feel happy about the work we have done and sad that it's over. It's just like a dream now, what happened yesterday. I am overwhelmed by emotions I don't even understand. That is why I'd rather not talk to anyone about it.

–Philip

2009-11-01T22:28:00.007+08:00

Dear You,

I've always been strong. Everyone thinks I'm not because I've always been hiding behind Adrian's back, but they don't know I'm the one who's actually been keeping him standing firm and formidable. I was the only one he would cry to. I was given that honor, to be the only to wipe his tears, and to feel them warmly pressed against my breasts when he sobs, trying to cover his lips, so nobody would hear him whimper. I was the only one who knew his weakness. At first it was just me, and then there was Philip. I miss him terribly though. I don't think I could share all those things I shared with him with anyone else. It's so hard to imagine trying to do it all over again. I tried but, sometimes, I would just get tired or bored because I've already done it before, or I would end up hating that person because he could never be Adrian. Sometimes, I wish I could be born again, but then I wonder if I would know Adrian if I was someone else.

I was born alone. I had two older sisters but we never shared the same mother and that was the reason why we never became close like sisters usually are. Sometimes, I wish I would've never been born, but then I wouldn't have known Adrian, and I wouldn't have felt special because I was the only person who has ever seen him weep, and love. I love him for that. If it wasn't for him, I would just be another stardust in the universe that floated around the empty spaces. There would be no gravity that pulled me somewhere, no explosion, no spectacular wonder in the skies.

Sometimes I wonder if you hate me because of that. That you never meet someone like Adrian. That you never get to experience what I did with Adrian. You never felt alive in a single moment that you seemed to travel faster than light around the whole universe. That is why I don't know how whenever my thoughts veer to my memories you, or so I would like to think of them, I always break down and weep. You are that fatal flaw.

I would've kept you. If I weren't afraid that all those chemicals that I've taken before I found out I was having you might have a permanent effect on you, I would've kept you. If I knew then that our drug debts then were already settled, and I would not need to hide and runaway, I would've kept you. If I wasn't beaten up, when that bastard tried to rape me, I would've kept you. If I wasn't in Europe, all alone, I would've kept you. If your father didn't seem to me, then, a deprived, selfish, ambitious young boy, I would've kept you. I would've kept you and you would be about nine years-old now.

How would you be like? Would you be a boy? A girl? It wouldn't matter to me. I would've loved you any way. I would love you like I loved Adrian. Then, I'm going to share with you everything I did with Adrian. I would do them all again like it was my first time to do it. I would ride the roller-coaster in Florida with you, and we would've screamed and shrilled at the top of our lungs. We would drive around the red soils of Marrakech together and screamed and shrilled at the top of our lungs. We would jump out of the highest cliff on the Dead Sea and we would scream in excitement and joy. We would run around the shores of Cape Cod and chase each other and laugh and shrill at the top of our lungs. We would go to the peak of the mountain in South Africa, in the dead of the night, just the two of us, and we would scream and shrill like we have never done so before. We would scream and shout out all the pain and suffering of the world cause by deprived, selfish, ambitious young men who grew up to be monsters. The stars will hear our cries. They will cry with us, burning brightly in the night sky.

I wish now, that I knew then every single thing that are in my thoughts while writing this letter. Maybe I would've kept you then. What kind of a mother would I be like?

Cassandra

2009-10-30T09:55:00.013+08:00

Joaqi stared into the darkness that covered his eyeballs. He thought of Karen, wondered how she was doing now, what she was doing at that exact moment. Was she happy, the same way he is happy at that interminable moment, engulfed in the cold summer breeze so early in the day at the beach? It was half past eight. The sun was up, but gentle, covered with clouds, warm but comfortably hugged by the mass of cold water vapor lingering in the atmosphere.

"Someone's excited about the party he's throwing." A female voice spoke from somewhere.

He opened his eyes and jumped from the hammock he was comfortably lying in at the sight of the peachy young lady in a vintage champagne floral-print chemise in front him.

"Cassie, so glad you could make it!"

He wrapped his arms around her earnestly, overjoyed to see someone he has always been fond of again after such a long year of isolation.

"Wow! You look great! How have you been?"

"I'm doing good. All the work with the foundation has been enormously therapeutic for me."

"That's great to hear. I've missed you, you know."

"You always do." She smiled gently. "I missed you too."

Joaqi laughed earnestly.

"I'd like you to meet Dr. Stephen Lao. He's working directly under uncle."

She moved her gaze into Stephen as he stepped in from behind Joaqi and started to reach out his hand, but hesitated for a split second. Joaqi reached for the hand and shook it.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, doctor. I was excited to meet the man who is Dr. Valencia's protégé. I've heard so much about you."

Stephen grasped Joaqi's hand firmly and shook back.

"Thank you for inviting me to your party, Senior de la Torre."

"Ha! Please call me Joaqi. I'm not responsible and wise like my cousin to warrant that title. Save it for Iggy. You'll meet him later."

"So I've heard."

Joaqi laughed again, amused.

"Well, I hope Cassie hasn't totally sold me short to you."

He smirked at Cassie.

Stephen smiled.

"Come, let's get you, both, settled inside."

Joaqi took the lead back to the ancestral home he's been taking refuge in for the past year.

"Shall I put you in the same room?"

He grinned cheekily back at the pair behind him.

* * *

The old man chuckled, amused at the question about the past of young doctor from Hong Kong.

"You of all people should know, Joaquin. Sometimes, we have to take a step back, so we can make a leap forward."

The young man smiled.

"Your foundation is a very prominent and vital institution in this country. It seems so unlikely that you picked this someone without ambition from our neighbor over a fellow countryman who had ambitions to do great things."

"I'm tired of men, who act like gods, with great ambitions, they are more likely to end up being the monsters that corrupt this society. I've seen it happen countless times. It's time that I pick a different choice. This young man does not have ambitions that reach up to great heights, he simply wants to do his job properly and he doesn't stop until he does."

The old man smiled. "And that is more than enough", he added.

"My concern is that he's an outsider."

"Perhaps that is just exactly what we need."

2009-10-26T21:05:00.014+08:00

Dear Adrian,

Earlier today, I fainted in a meeting while sitting peacefully bored, listening to my art director deliver a pitch to our client. I was rushed to the nearby hospital. The doctor had some tests run when I woke up. They found a growth in my brain. They're not sure yet what it is, but I feel like it's the end of me. I'll have to go back for a biopsy, so they can look into it more. They showed me the image and it was eerily huge. Then, I wondered if it must be because of my habit of staring directly into the sun. I asked the doctor about it but he only gave me a vague answer, which didn't really give me any comfort at all.

It's funny, isn't it? A year ago, I found out I have a possibly deadly virus, which, thanks to contemporary medicine, can be controlled. Cassie told me you had it too. It didn't really matter or had any weight on me somehow. Perhaps it's the fact that I can do something to get through it, that my life won't stop because of it, or maybe I've always known I had it coming, since I slept with all those guys. But then, this happens. I'm perfectly content with uncertainty, but this kind of uncertainty that can actually, and is more likely to, lead to my early demise scares me shitless. Or maybe it isn't too early. I've always been afraid at the mere thought of growing old. Maybe this is the universe saving me from facing my fear. Is it because of that silly habit of mine – staring at the sun?

Do you remember when I told you that when I stare into it, it's like there's two ball of fire that chase after each other endlessly around the corona? That day at the beach, as we laid there, just the two of us. I never really told anybody about that. I've always felt it was such a creepy weird habit. I was afraid that people might think of me the wrong way. At that moment I felt like I was doing just exactly what I was supposed to. Despite the scorching heat of the sun, and the sweat running down my body, I felt like the body I was in was really mine, and was made exactly for me. It's like all the deviations of my life in time-space converged at that point and I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Sometimes, I wonder what I would be like if you never left – what Cassie would be like. Maybe we would be happy. Maybe we would've been tired of each other already by now and grown apart. Maybe I just miss you.

It's weird that I chose, of all people, to write to you, a departed friend. Maybe this is like a letter of notice, that I'll be seeing you again soon. Either way, it's been a while since I last communicated with you. I remember talking to myself, pretending that I'm talking to you, for months after you died.I know I can always talk to Cassie, but sometimes it just feels so different than talking to you. I would imagine just what you would say. Somehow, I've adapted your sharp humor. You always had something funny or witty to say. Sometimes, it was annoying, but always, always, it made sense. That's one of the thing I miss most about you. No matter how twisted and insane your words can get, they always made sense. You're the only person I know who can make me feel altogether stupid, silly, smart and wise at the same time.

Well, I have to go now. I'm meeting someone for dinner. I just had to get this off my chest. I don't think I can go on this dinner without crying, if I didn't write this.

I miss you, friend.

Philip

2009-08-07T13:46:00.013+08:00

"I feel like this isn't my body anymore – the one I'm in." Philip breathed out the telephone receiver.

"You know, they say, when you sleep, your spirit wanders out of your body. That's what I do most these days – sleep. Maybe, because my spirit doesn't feel at home in this body anymore."

He closed his eyes as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line. The boy has become incredibly and drastically thin. It's like he was back again to his weight a few years ago. He's been naturally thin but ever since he decided to do something and lift weights, he was able to shape his built better.

"I don't know. I don't feel like going through with this anymore. I'm thinking maybe my time is up."

The voice on earpiece must've said something pretty clever because he seemed amuse. There was a glint of smile on him.

"It's these damn ARV's. I can't enjoy food anymore. I feel like hurling at the faintest smell of steamed rice. My hearing is heightened whenever I take my evening doses. Every single cricket sound echoes in my ear."

There was a faint grin on his lips. He must've heard some amusing conspiracy about himself and his condition.

"I can manage the dark and brooding image but I don't know if I can pull-off a southern accent."

He sniggered and then there was silence. A long pause followed as he listened to the earpiece.

"I don't know. Some days I feel compelled to do something but most often, I just rescind in defeat. I think I'm quite content at this current state for now."

"Well isn't that it? We're all just waiting for something to happen?"

"I know. I'm getting old–"

"Yes, old not older."

"I was riding the bus the other day and I realized how terrified I am of riding the train because I might catch something due to my condition. You know me, I love train rides."

"Because they're usually full of people and I never could tell what those people might be carrying."

"Well it's been a while since I started with my medication. I don't know if my condition has gotten better."

* * *

"I have to say, you really have changed. You used to be fearless. It didn't matter to you what you have or what you might get. That's what I loved about you, dear old friend. You reminded me so much of Adrian. Now, you're sacred of a crowded transit."

Cassie paused for a moment.

"You used to believe that the only thing that mattered was that you were happy and you weren't hurting anyone. It didn't matter if you got hurt."

"I hope this is just a phase." She paused again.

"I miss you." She added.

2009-08-01T12:44:00.009+08:00

"Sometimes, I wish I can hold your hand and understand how you are feeling exactly."

Joaqui leaned in to Cassie's ear and whispered as everyone else, Lia and Iñigo included, turned to look at the strange creature on the DJ's booth. Cassie tried to keep her stoic, unimpressed expression.

In a wash of changing colored electric lights, Cassie and Joaqi were engulfed in an echo of laughters and hoots, and reverberating basses.

* * *

Joaqui stared at the waking sun as he leaned his back into the air and dug his toes deep in the powder sand that tickled with its icy coldness. He took in as much cold breeze as his lungs could contain. The warmth of the sun felt like they were swirling along with the air.

It has been a gloomy summer visited by one typhoon after another but the clouds seem to be clearing up today. It was the kind of weather perfect for sharing.

* * *

"Joaqui's one of the guys you want to be in good terms with if you're going to takeover the foundation."

"From what I heard he's losing control of their family's business to his cousin."

"It's not about what he owns or controls. It's what he knows and who he's friends with."

"Are you saying that out of spite for your Iñigo?" Stephen smirked.

"No, I'm saying this so you know."

Cassie and Stephen are discussing the party they were headed to as they drove along South Super Highway. Cassie is trying to explain their host to Stephen.

"So you're saying he knows powerful people and he knows very useful information?"

"No, it's what he's done and the character of the people he attaches himself with that I'm trying to make you understand."

"From what I know he's been nothing but a reckless womanizer and party animal, who's had a penchant for gold-diggers."

"Say the people you've been talking to about him."

"Those people know him personally."

"These days everyone seems to know everyone personally. Just attend someone's party and you're entitled to say you know them personally, but how well? It's easy to judge someone when you know little about them, isn't it?"

Cassie paused for a second.

"He would be valuable to you because he's the kind of guy who doesn't fight wars for victory. He fights them so there will be not another that comes after."

2009-05-14T01:27:00.060+08:00

"The usual." The girl dotted her faint sigh.

"Cheer up, babe. I couldn't have thought of a better welcome gift for you." Joaqui pecked her cheeks before he disappeared. The boy might appear intentionally cruel but like he always say, it's all good fun. If you can't laugh at the joke, then it must be on you.

Cassie clenched her jaw, wiped the Prada dress, on her, off of any dust or speck and braced herself. Lia managed to wrap her arms around her and hug her tightly in a matter of seconds. Iñigo lazily walked behind her.

"Oh my god, Cassie! When did you arrive?" She yelled, her mouth about two inches away from Cassie's left ear. Probably because her shrilly voice was still feeble to overpower the strong bass coming form the speakers.

Cassie shuddered. It took her a wince to recover her composure.

"I just arrived a few hours ago."

"Oh my god! This is so amazing. You're back!"

"Yes. Oh my god."

Cassie tried to take a step back, trying to unlatch herself from her grasp.

There was suddenly an awkward air between the two old friends. Lia realized seven years away seemed too callous. There was neither an attempt for communication from both ends, largely due to the fact that Cassie left abruptly without any notice and she never felt the need to look back to the things and people she left behind.

"Hello, Cassie." Iñigo apprehensively positioned himself a few inches away, beside Lia.

"Hello, Igo."

Iñigo smiled. Cassandra was the only person he allowed to call him that nickname. Obviously, to make mockery of his weakness. Although back when they were together about seven years ago, it was intended as a joke and a term of endearment.

"So you guys came here together?" She inquired slyly with a silly smile.

Lia threw Iñigo a look. Iñigo just stared at Lia. They were probably sending vibrations through their eyeballs, talking in codes, about what explanation to give.

"Uh, where did Joaqi go?", Iñigo asked. "I thought I saw him with you just a second ago. He told me he couldn't go tonight. Some problem with that ex-girlfriend of his."

"Karen?" Cassie asked.

"No, Celine." Iñigo corrected.

"Oh, her."

"I heard she got herself into trouble again–"

Lia was going to continue when Cassie interrupted.

"He got me a drink." She said to Iñigo.

She threw Lia a smile next.

"Would you like another one? I can send him off again when he gets back to get you another one of that." She asked her referring to the empty glass she was holding daintily with her well-polished fingers.

"Oh, I love your bag." She continued without even waiting for an answer. "I had a some one last year. I lost it somewhere in Bordeaux when I went to visit my mother there."

"I thought you stayed with your mom." Iñigo interrupted.

"Oh no, I visited her occasionally but apart from that I was all over Europe."

"Here's your drink, mademoiselle." Joaqui waltzed beside Cassie as he wrapped one of his arms around her waist while the other held the glass of Brandy Alexander in front of her.

"Hello there, my cousin and my cousin's belle du jour."

Joaquin smiled in jest.

"Wait, so are you guys here together too?"

M.I.A's "Galang" was roaring out of the speakers. Some girl, who looked like a panda because of the black-eye shadow makeup around her eyes and her pasty skin tone, was on the decks. Some underage girl who posed as a photographer and had a "bi curious" model boyfriend, who was just about to be really famous at that time. It was apparent in her photos that she had a lot of fun with Photoshop filters, although her inked illustrations were quite notable.

Before the current track playing even hit the second chorus, it was interrupted by roughly a second's pause, a short ear-bleeding feedback on the speaker and then, the guitar riff of The Scorpion's "Rock You Like A Hurricane" started blasting out through the room. It was quite a distinctive experience to say the least – that party named after some new colloquial most of the attendees use as an interjection. Panda Girl hooted and howled from the decks as she raised her arms up in the air.

2009-04-10T12:19:00.021+08:00

Before we proceed further in our clandestine tale of juvenile narcotic dealers and Japanese crime lords, let us turn back the pendulum and go back in time before the suicidal girl, mentioned by our dining pair, jumped off her building, and just after our very limber heroine arrived back in Manila.

There was a rather ostentatious underground party being thrown by a presumptuous, infamously overpriced, relatively up and coming fashion designer at a quaint bar near the exit of The Fort. This new little regular event was supposedly staged every near end of the week, where music from the likes of The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, and every other band with names prefixed by the article 'the', are played by amateur DJ hipster kids alike, who didn't know squat about turntables or Traktors. There have even been reported incidents of rough transitions highlighted by a striking moment of awkward and embarrassing silence between tracks and mishaps where a track would be abruptly cut in the middle by another track. It was what it is, a party for spoiled rich brats thrown by desperate rats who blow smoke up their asses to inflate their already swollen egos.

Alas, though one shouldn't wallow at the misfortunes in character and the folly of these promising young talents. Restlessness fueled by their hormones and the chemicals they induce is only natural. If it wasn't for young man's appetite for risk and curiosity for new horizons, we'd still be making fires out of rocks. They are blank slates, full of promise and energy. So many years will be counted for them to grow. They may not have the financial stability of their parents yet but they have the entrepreneurial skills. These spawns of once ideal hippies and radicals have grown as anti-thesis of their parents. Where their parents were ideal and such romantics about society and morals, this generation seem to have a more pragmatic and more convenient dogma, highlighted by a concealed apathy for whatever it is that doesn't closely involve them.

Maria Cassandra Valencia (often spelled with an Ma. in documents, instead of Maria, like it was some royal title she inherited), prodigal illegitimate daughter has just returned from her seven year long sabbatical. Walking beside her and keenly observing the crowd, a very eloquent and sharp-looking mid twenties man, the reckless and controversial eldest cousin and heir apparent to a multimillion dynastic estate, Joaquin de la Torre.

"Kids these days. They just don't know how to party anymore."

Cassandra smiled a contemptuous smile at no one in particular. "We were these kids once you know, Joaqui."

"No, back then, you girls weren't as skanky as these ones and us guys weren't as trashy and ignorant as these black eye-liner wearing hipster boys. We never flaunted our recklessness."

"But we were far more ruthless."

"These kids don't have anything against us when it comes to destruction. They're amateurs."

"Well, they'll grow up. We did."

"The problem with democracy is that these children of the nouveau riche get the same opportunity as we did, but do they have the same upbringing as we do?"

"So why did you bring me to this party?"

"Because everyone's here." Joaquin grinned. Everyone was such a scary word. Cassandra looked around and sure enough she recognized a pair of faces she dreaded to see.

She smiled at them. It was too late. They already spotted her. Their faces painted surprise with so much expression.

"Lia." Cassandra whimpered.

"You want me to get you a drink?" Joaquin taunted.

2008-12-23T02:17:00.003+08:00

"Honestly, I didn't appreciate music until I was already doing my internship." Stephen confessed with a short smile across his lips. His teeth glinted with a slight shame.

"Well, you said grass moves you, and the trees, and the bugs." The girl leered at his awkwardness. "I think we are all moved by different things. The important thing is we are moved."

They were moving their way back to the villa now.

It was already dark. The moon smiled at them along with the stars that all seem to blink endlessly towards their direction. The crickets sang their usual penumbral nocturne, while the fireflies lit the night with their customary dance. The sun has gone around the same time it always does. Everything was as it usually is.

"There's no point in living if you can't feel alive." The boy smiled victoriously as if he just found an anomaly in the system.

"Garbage? Right." The girl sniggered.

"Yup!", the chap chirped cheerfully.

"Well, well… look who's a music fan now." Her lips smirked towards his direction.

"So, that guy who brought you to the hospital. Wasn't he the cousin of your friend?"

"My, my, doctor, who have you been talking to?"

"Well, you know… people seem to know a lot about you, people."

"Us?"

"Yeah."

The doctor's shoulder rose up into the cold breeze as his hands poked inside his pocket. The girl eyed him with brows arched up. There was a moment of awkward silence, which she knocked off by fishing his hat off his head.

"You're going to have to take this hat from me to get your answer."

Then, she was off, moving with the speed of a ten year old.

"Hey!"

She laughed. She was enjoying this.

* * *

"The unfortunate thing is I always end up desiring the ones who I can't be with and the ones who want to be with me… well, initially I feel a certain gratitude for their affection but time wears it out and I grow bored of them."

She knocked the cigarette just below that bone at the bottom of the thumb of her clenched fist. She closed her eyes as she ran it through her nose, relishing the pungent aroma of the tobacco.

"The song was never sang by the right voice."

"You know, I'm supposed to tell you that that is bad for you." The doctor interrupted with a smile.

"Care for one?"

He grabbed the pack of cigarette from her, took out a stick for himself, took the lighter after her, and lit up the whole place around them, underneath another tree, with one flick of his finger. He huffed. The sound of the burning treated leaves echoed with the song of the crickets in the silence of the night. He puffed. The smoke danced with hers as they were engulfed with toxic fumes, shielded away from the fresh air of the province.

"Hypocrite."

"We are all entitled to our own hypocrisy." His countenance changed for a fleeting second as he smiled slyly at her. For that second, she felt a slight tinge of some sort of fear creeping up to her. Something happened over dinner that reinforced his confidence robust. It baffled her. She tried to brush it off.

"I remember what he told me once, Iñigo. He said he finally figured it out. The only chance that I will love him was if Hope Sandoval sang Wonderwall. That idiot. I love him. Just not the same way I love Adrian."

"People are all different. That is why we love them differently, and on different degrees."

He leered at her this time. It's as if he's about to hit that bell on that high striker in her head.

She froze. She felt a chill running through her veins.

2008-12-17T15:06:00.002+08:00

Once the main course was out of the way and the questions about the past few days were answered, a new dish was served with a new batch of questions on the side. This time, with less calories and less drama. The two strangers in front of each other started to loosen up.

"You know I've always wondered. Weren't you ever jealous of Adrian and Cassie? I mean they were together a lot. They used to be together. Then, they broke up but they were still friends. Then you came in the picture. Didn't you ever feel threatened by your cousin?"

"Adrian was gay. That was why they broke up."

"Wow!"

Carmen was stunned, shocked and appalled at the fact that she never had a clue about this sudden out of this world idea. She was quiet for a second. Trying to jog her memory for anything that she might have missed while her mouth was gapping.

"What's up with the 'wow'?" Iñigo laughed at her odd reaction.

"Are you serious?"

Carmen paused again, embarrassed and still trying to recover from the shock.

He continued to laugh, covering his nose and his mouth, afraid that some of the sticky dessert might stick out. "Oh man. You really had no clue?"

"I don't know whether to laugh or be angry. Cassie never told me. I mean… he was so much of a guy's guy. He was handsome but he was never the one who was made up too much. All the girls loved him. He was charming and funny. I just thought they were really best friends. They've been like that ever since they were kids."

Carmen was so animately unaware of her surprise. She was flinging her arms around trying to explain her ignorance. She went on and on with the speed of a skilled secretary typing.

The boy, amused, let her go on. "They were both interested in the same things. They did a lot together. They were sparring partners--"

"Wait." He interrupted, surprised and taken aback. "Sparring partners?"

"Yeah, they practiced different martials arts remember?" Carmen had this funny expression in her face. She realized that, apparently, she wasn't alone in her dark little corner of cluelessness when it came to her sister and his cousin.

"When they were younger." Iñigo reasoned out.

"No." She smiled a quirky comedy sort of smile.

"They stopped because of that stupid fight where Adrian got beaten up." Iñigo was, obviously, still in denial. His eyes gave it away. The were as big as the balls of sweets in front of them.

"Oh, believe me, that incident never happened again not because they stopped. They got better. Scary better. Pero that was really funny, no? Cassie was fighting those big tough guys with Adrian. Barehands. Buti na lang they didn't beat her up." Carmen shook her head violently as she recalled witnessing her sister and his cousin violently going against each other with an unbelievable intensity.

Iñigo, still amazed at these new pieces of now useless information he's finding out about his cousin and his former lover, just half-listened to her and the other half smiling at all those things about his past relationship that puzzled him then but are making sense to him now.

"I saw them spar once. My god. Those two are really crazy. You should've seen him pinning her to the floor. You know I never saw the point in it until they started getting really deep in with the Yakuza."

"No wonder that Japanese guy we saw one time was scared shitless at the sight of her. Or was it just her connection with that Kohji guy?" Iñigo finally came to his senses after recalling that one particular incident at a hotel lobby.

"Are you kidding me? They owed Kohji a lot of money. If anything, he'd be the one after them."

"No wonder she looked so athletic." Iñigo smirked, amused as he recalled Cassie naked.

Carmen rolled her eyes. "Why don't you go after her again?"

"Me and Cassie? No." Iñigo smiled. "We had our time. It's all in the past now."

"Well there's always those stories about former lovers getting back together. Wouldn't that be romantic?"

"No. You know her. She's not that kind of romantic. Besides, it's that cute doctor's turn."

"Not like me? Sappy?" She always thought he never liked her. She was surprised that he even invited her for dinner. Now all her insecurities about him came rushing back to her. It was evident as her back slowly and slightly arched a little.

"No, you're not sappy." The boy simply smiled sincerely left without anything else to say but still running around his vocabulary trying to form something better to explain this amusing young lady in front of him now. He knew her from high school but only by a few facts and speculations. He knew she was his former lover's half-sister and that she had a thing for him. He never liked her though. She was too much of a hoity-toity, snotty peabrain, he thought then. Time proved to be such a funny thing though. He changed and realized that people, no matter how silly they may seem, have their own kind of depth about them. She obviously has. Her devotion to her philandering partner fascinated him. He had a thing for dedicated women.

2008-11-28T09:54:00.000+08:00

The two of them, barefoot, facing each other, sat on their legs. They were having an orgasmic serving of Salmon Cheese Roll at a quaint Japanese restaurant along Arnaiz Avenue. The sensational dish seemed to shoot out wads of creamy melted blue cheese into their tongues with each grind of their jaws, and it was just for appetizers. They were both speechless for a while, relishing on the flavor of the delectable dairy that enveloped the seafood sushi being savored by their taste buds. Each bite was sending out thousands of different sensations from the synapses on their tongues to the neurons on their brains. Each current seemed to weaken their defenses. They looked at each other sternly as they tried to hold themselves together, trying to read the other's mind while surveying the countenance of the person in front.

"So how... is... Cassie?" The boy staggered between chews.

"She's fine. She'll be staying in Bulacan for the meantime. Uncle and Agnes will be taking care of her." The girl proudly replied, gratified at the upper-hand given by the vacancy in her trap.

"Did she say what she was upset about?" The boy asked with a squirm right after he swallowed the masticated roll down his throat.

Carmen paused with a poker face, staring down at the lined-up rice rolls left sitting on the table, struck, suddenly, by the question about her bastard sister's sadness.

"I mean, did Lia's death have anything to do with it?" The boy continued as he shuffled his chopsticks with apprehension between his fingers as he mentioned the dead girl's name.

She continued to stare at the table. Lost in her own thoughts. Thinking about...

"It's strange how two sisters can be so much strangers to each other."

Iñigo paused as he tried to recall why he invited her out to this dinner again. Days ago, he got a call from her asking for help about an emergency with her sister, Cassandra. She was found unconscious, lying on the ground floor of her building a few moments later after she was reported scaring fellow residents downstairs with her delirious murmurings. He was in a law firm nearby. He arrived just as the building guards were manhandling the poor chemically drowned girl to a van. He insisted that he take them both to the nearby hospital instead. The next day, he called the girl right in front of him now to ask for an update about his former lover's condition, which proceeded to the invitation. His curiosity felt that he had to know what really happened.

"Why should it bother her? If there's anyone to blame about Lia's suicide, it's you. I never liked her but what you did to her was really nasty." The girl came back to her senses.

Iñigo smiled, slightly embarrassed by her comeback. He felt sweat suddenly forming out of his skin. So he tried to form his own defenses but with no actual success. He realized that his faults were simply too obvious to be denied. "Lia had her own problems but, yes, I admit our break up might have tipped the boat more for her. I just thought that the similarities of the incident to Adrian's might have brought back memories."

"Adrian didn't kill himself. The Yakuza got rid of him. He and Cassie really pissed those Japanese off. Buti na lang uncle was able to fly her off to Paris before they got to her."

"Where did you get that information?"

"My uncle."

"Oh." The boy came out with a defeated kind of surprise after realizing how little he knew about the cousin he thought of as a brother. "What did they do?"

"They were too busy taking all those chemicals they were supposed to deal that they forgot they have to pay off their dealers. Ewan ko ba why those two were dealing drugs for extra cash."

"They wanted to be independent." He recalled a thought he had ages ago. He has always been fascinated by the unbreakable messed up relationship between his cousin and his ex-girlfriend. He knew his cousin was a homosexual, which became the paramount belief he held on to that there was never anything between them that could hinder his relationship with her, and yet, still, he had troubles connecting with her. It didn't seem to matter that much to him back then. She was a divine figure to him in the twilight of his pubescence. Her devotion for his cousin had him hooked on her.

Carmen, noticing his moment of nostalgia, joked. "She has a cute doctor. Not exactly my type but definitely one of hers I'm sure." She laughed gently like the lady she's always aspired to be.

Iñigo smirked. "Well I'm sure the cute doctor is going to do a good job keeping her from trying to kill herself again."

"Actually, he's back here in Manila."

"Ah..." He trailed on, trying to figure out what proper reaction to give her to conceal his uneasiness. "And what about your boyfriend? Why isn't he her tonight with us?"

Carmen froze for a heartbeat. Her heart skipped the next.

"Oh! He's probably out somewhere with one of his other girlfriends. He won't mind."

"You're okay with that?"

"Yeah… well… what am I supposed to do? Cry?"

"Take this advice as an old friend. You deserve better."

Carmen smiled at the boy sitting in front of her, the boy she once harbored an innocent infatuation for back when they were younger.

2008-11-25T17:45:00.004+08:00

May 24th, 1999

Dearest C.C.

I wrote this letter before we left for Paris as, most of my letters are for you, an answer to your request. This being the only letter apart from the one we buried in that island in Pangasinan that you coerced me to write. I handed this to Kohji-san when I gave him the payment for our debt. I asked him as a favor, to hand this to you, at a time convenient for him whenever he receives news of my passing, which is hopefully not in the near future. If ever, he goes first before me, I have asked him also to entrust this letter and the task I have asked to one of his most trusted men. I wrote this also, in any case that I might forget to mention to you that I have HIV, and among other things that I will be sharing to you in this letter. I'm writing this under pressure of time because we have to leave in a few hours. So if I get lost in my words, I ask for your patience.

First, we are explicably where we are: chaste and burned. Sometimes, I feel like I have caused you the biggest share of your sorrows. If I didn't think it would be too impractical to completely remove myself from you, I would have. All those chemicals and a life seething with cruelty is too bad for such a gentle soul like you. We're just unavoidably dependent on the other.

Do you remember that time in Marabella? The day after the party, when I was sitting at the beach on a gloomy afternoon while Philip was asleep, you sat beside me and you told me that you think perhaps every one loves most the person one cannot truly be with in its truest sense. That that is what life is truly about. Because what else shall one do when that person finally attains that? We're comfortably lonely, complacent in this somewhat loveless state we have. For us, now, that is just a distant childhood dream we've grown out of. I take my responsibility in soliciting this predicament to you, which I, on some part, regret. I confess though, I never saw us going down this road. Once, I also dreamt the same dreams you had for the two of us. I just woke up earlier.

I didn't love Philip – for a time perhaps but that was mostly infatuation. He amused me more than any guy I have been with even up to now, I have to say, but I never felt anything for him remotely close to any part of my feelings for you. He is a friend at the most. You, on the other hand, are a totally different matter. Perhaps, even now at the time of writing this letter, I am still confused of what my true feelings are for you. I'm not even close as to figuring out how we will be in the future.

If time grants me, I would never need to say this, but if ever there is a case that I am hindered to prove because I feel I am treading on a wobbly thread myself, I trust that you will believe my words that I will take care of you and that child in your womb. I paid the debt to Kohji-san already as I have mentioned. He told me that man who attacked you is Yusuke's brother and his intention was to take advantage of you and in no way was he one of Kohji-san's. We have no more reason to fear Kohji-san. Although I told your uncle that it would still be best if we left the country because if word gets out about your condition, and I doubt we will be able to conceal it in the coming months, I fear propriety will put too much pressure on you and you may make terrible decisions. I believe that anonymity will bring much comfort to you in your current condition and help you reflect better on what to do. I also didn't tell my cousin. I don't think Iñigo is smart enough to take responsibility for this. I decided to let you make that decision for yourself on how to deal with him.

I have considered marrying you as a consolation but given my condition now, I doubt I will ever be able to give you a child that is both ours. I don't think a disabled child would truly make you or me happy. Hopefully that child will be the consolation. I know the both of us well enough (and yes, apparently, I am considered disabled). We're too much of logical idealists, which is the worst kind of sentimentalists, I think.

Millions of years will pass and billions of solutions for a trillion more problems will be made and I will still feel this same confusion for my feelings for you. "We do what we do because of who we are. If we did otherwise, then we wouldn't be ourselves." Perhaps you will be the only person I will truly love in this lifetime.

"In a trillion years, stars will no longer shine. We'll get it right or come back again still hopelessly hopeful. What lies I learned lessened my ability to be present. My love will never change though we've ruined everything. The stars still conspire for us."

With all my heart,

Adrian

❧

2008-11-11T02:20:00.000+08:00

"The tricky thing about happiness is when you're a child who's not so bright, like me, you're stuck with your parent's idea of happiness until you hit a wall. And believe me, hitting that wall isn't such a pleasant experience."

"A nice family in a nice home with a nice job?" The doctor replied as he followed her sit, leaning against a nicely sized mango tree that embraced the breeze around the two of them.

The girl was a lovechild, a desperate attempt at a son by a son of a haciendero with the French belle best friend of his homosexual brother. Her mother, having no legal claim at the estate of her father, fought for her place in the haciendero's son's family. The haciendero's son's legal lover fought for her's and his two older daughter's. She died, first, in grief and resentment. Then, finally, in a consequential accident. Her mother left her father after and went back to her country. She never remarried, but, rather, distracted herself, isolating herself in her work, earning her own estates. Her father did so as well. So much for happiness.

"That is the conventional happiness. Although it comes in so many forms these days." She retorted with a snide laugh.

"A convenient happiness is more like it." He laughed with her.

"Despite our best efforts to deny our limitations and weaknesses, it always manages to manifest in our inevitable need for stability. We don't change as fast as technology. We ease everything in. We mourn." She continued.

"I remember a few months before Adrian died, we were about seventeen or eighteen then, he introduced me to this guy he was dating."

She still remembers his face so clearly as that bright afternoon. His cheekbones, his jawline, every crease, every dimple, every pore was still embedded on her memory. She remembers that summer. She remembers the marble sidewalks and the white stone walls, how the light illuminated everything in that bleached town. It seemed like a summer haze. The heat, the brightness of the place, the strong perplexing emotions caused by their hormones and their adolescent idealism. The sun was as bright and promising then.

"We were in Marabella. The three of us went out. The guy turned out to be such a darling that we're still good friends now. We went out for drinks, to get high and to dance later in the evening. We were there, the three of us, in the middle of a crowd of mostly half naked men. We all just took another round of purple MG's. We were all peaking. The music was like magic and the moment was just perfect. The three of us were just dancing under a luminescent new moon. It didn't matter that I wasn't his girlfriend anymore. He's my most favorite person in the world. He was the only person who's seen me from childhood up to that point."

"I thought we were going to get married. It didn't matter if he slept with guys." The girl smiled again, faintly but something more radiant like a ray of sunshine from an old world on a cloudy day.

The doctor inhaled the last of the remaining ambience looming from the sunset. Then, he smiled too, with her, as if he was there in that particular moment that was.

"But he wasn't ready to live the rest of his life in the closet?" He asked.

"He never came out. He didn't have plans. He just didn't want to be happy living a lie."

"It wouldn't be right to live your happiness at his expense either. He's a noble man."

"Of course, I'm telling you this in full confidence that you will honor confidentiality stipulated by our medical relationship."

The doctor laughed.

"Don't worry, mademoiselle. I may not be as noble as your friend but I deeply honor my profession."

Then, for the first time, she laughed an innocent laugh. Not outlined by contempt or scorn but by pure genuine amusement, perhaps, by his self-depreciation or his mildly comforting character that seems to be exactly what she needed.

"I realized that that was happiness. Even if you took out the chemicals out of our system, it would still be. The chemicals just aided our inhibitions out of our system. So I can see the bigger picture. All that mattered was what I felt."

2008-11-06T06:27:00.000+08:00

There they were. Two figures leaping over that big gapping hole that drops into a shallow rocky lake. The grasses swayed their heads watching them fly through the air and they were crushed, finally, by both their pairs of shoes as they landed.

"Looks like you're an expert at this -- saving guys." The tall chap with the hat chirped.

"I have saved a couple of boys in the past."

Cassie chuckled with a sly note.

"I didn't realize you were so limber." The chap replied.

"A woman's entitled to her own secrets, don't you think, Dr. Lao?"

"I supposed so." He lowered his gaze to his feet with a slight embarrassment as he started walking away from her.

It was such a lovely afternoon for a stroll in the fields. The breeze kissed their skins ever so gently as it waltzed with the dancing tall straws of grass, as they stood guard between these two strangers.

"So why did you do it?" The concerned physician queried.

She turned to him. Her hair glided so effervescently along with the breeze as it slithered around her. He looked at her move listlessly. The sight of her against that sun. That figure against such brilliance, much like a nymph frolicking along the grass. Her lips pouted so effortlessly towards him as the sound of the last syllable trailed in the air. "What? Swallow those pills?"

"Why did you try to kill yourself?"

"I didn't intend to kill myself. I just wanted to get high."

"Why?"

"Because I was unbearably sad and utterly inconsolable. Those pills have never failed me in the past."

There was a long pause. It may have lasted the whole sunset. It felt like it.

"Why were you sad?" He began to ask again.

She smiled for a heartbeat. Then, she threw a stare at the sun as it said farewell to that particular day. That day is gone now. Every little detail of it is nothing but a piece of memory, forever shifting and undulating in their memories, left with no certainty.

"I don't know."

"You know, the hospital wasn't the first place I saw you." He scrambled to pick something out of his brain to keep hers from thinking about the fateful past few days.

"Yes, I remember that party a year ago. You were there too."

"No, that wasn't it either."

"Really now?"

"I first saw you about seven years ago. I just arrived in Manila, at the airport." He said bitting his lips with regret.

Cassie smiled. His trepidation amused her. "Go on."

"You were there. I wasn't sure if you just arrived also. You looked lost. I wanted to ask you for directions. But then, I guessed you were lost too. So I figured it would be pointless to ask."

"I was confused. There's a difference." She joked.

"You looked sad. But you're smiling now. So is that a real smile now?"

"Soon."