My first

book is coming out soon.
I am grateful.



After the body displaces water
stories


By Daryll Delgado

automatic writing 3

unbearable, awkward constrictions; the increasingly loud syncopation; the too-fast rhythm that you can barely move or breathe to; neither walk, run, nor lay to; much less dance to. tonight, when you lie, and tomorrow, when or if you awaken, what must you do with the rampage, the iron hooves and angry feet, the wild race that continues -- the entire history, really, in and of your child heart? hear this, can you hear my plea, you seem to be saying with your flailing little hands, with your eyes which stare back at me from inside the little glassed-in room, eyes that see through me, beyond me. measuring eyes i cannot not read. ready, alert eyes, even when they can barely keep themselves open, pulled in shut by pain, sucked in by valves and vessels that are about to explode, from exhaustion, from keeping the little organ intact all these long years. years spent growing up too fast in a household that has slowly, ambivalently taken you in, out of pity, out of fear, out of nothing but those eyes, that tiny body. dying now, i can see that, i recognize that release for which that body is begging. in generosity, in service, it made no difference, that little body always seemed to be begging for something, always. all ways of forgetting i have mastered are now rendered useless against the memory of those eyes, the only indication of the furious little beast about to burst out, finally, from its cage. age: fifteen; time of death: 6 in the morning; life on earth: painful and brief; struggle: never-ending, never known; smile: wan, always, and unforgettable; grace: utterly unbearable.

(in memory of maimai).

automatic writing 2

How do I do this without implicating myself, revealing too much? Much of what i know of theory is that everything is about me, and in my dreams, therefore, you are I. I want to tell you, I feel I should, warn you about a dream I just woke up from. From what I can remember, there was a dark alley, and we were being pursued by a menacing figure. Figuring out the chronology, forcing my own logic onto the dream scenes is wrong, I suppose. Suppose, however, I tell it this way: we hid in the bushes, and then watched a musical. Music, almost, that I still hear humming in my pillows. Low, slow, now bouncing against bare motel walls, now entwined with this unexpected Virginia rain. Rain fell on us as we squeezed into the impossible space between the ground and the thick thorny plants. Plant, skin, breath, pebble, knee, forearm, shoulder, stone, bone, neck, thorn, chest, nape, branch, elbow, collateral ligament, that soft inside edge. Edging closer, heavy steps approaching, and then it's the musical, again, a bare stage, you and I, or, fine, I and I, singing, pressed together, don't ask me how.

Open Angle (fiction, abridged)

I arrived on the 5A.M. flight and it was still dark when I entered the house. The only light that was on was the one over the staircase. The smooth granite floors were softly illuminated. The winding staircase looked like it was floating in a gleaming sea of darkness. All in all, it had the effect of a surreal stage and lighting design. I was then a lighting design apprentice. I made a mental note of the properties – visibility, safety, and cost – of the lighting fixtures I was going to propose for the play I had just been recruited to be a part of. I noted the possible locations and positions of the lights on the stage.


I dragged my suitcase across the floor and was about to lift it as I reached the stairs when I was startled by a dark figure in the living room. I dropped my suitcase in surprise and the figure, seated on the sofa, turned to my direction briefly before facing the window again. It was my dad.

I knew that he didn’t see me. He was almost completely blind by then and only went by his memory. I will explain this later. He also couldn’t hear very well without his hearing aid, which he only wears to church or to the court, so I decided to walk toward him instead.

When I neared him, I realized that he was speaking in a low, conversational voice. I thought at first that he was addressing me, and then I realized that he was addressing someone else. That is, it very much looked and sounded like he was talking to someone named Buddy, the name his friends called him, when he was young. And then I saw that he had a cigarette in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other!

Everyone in the house – the two household staff, the driver, and the caregiver – vehemently denied giving my Dad cigarettes or pouring him brandy. The very idea appalled them, and they didn’t hide their opinion over the absurdity of the accusation.

The caregiver, who had always been sensible and practical, and neither given to superstition nor the supernatural, after much prodding from the others, finally declared: “It was Buddy who gave him the cigarette, poured him brandy, and did other things besides.”

The caregiver was right in that matter, but he had to be dissuaded on others. I told him who “Buddy” was. But it turned out that he was correct when he said that Dad wasn’t talking to himself “in a multiple personality disorder kind of way,” as we were also later told, although this, too, was explored extensively by the doctors whom we eventually consulted.

I told the neurologist that Dad had been having a hard time adjusting to his loss of eyesight, and had been depressed for a long time. I told him about Dad’s behavior at the hotel, where he was confined for several days after the surgical procedure.

It had been a week since the surgery. I had barely slept when I sensed my dad awaken from what I suspected wasn’t exactly the most fitful of sleep. I had been trying, for the last several days, to get used to the sight of him – eyes covered in plaster and bandages – and was very relieved when the bandages were taken off the day before.

I heard him groaning. I turned to his side to watch him very slowly lift his legs and drop them heavily to the carpeted floor. Then, he pushed down on his feet and tried to maneuver a sitting position. It was excruciating to watch. He fell back on the bed a number of times until he somehow managed a most awkward sitting position – his body tilted to the left, his head almost dropping to his shoulder, and his hands trembling, as he tried to plant them on the bed more firmly. He straightened himself up a bit and faced the wall.

I watched him stare at the wall. The room was bathed in soft light still, even if the sun had risen probably an hour ago already. The light softened his features too, gave his skin a kind of glow, made him look so much younger and healthier than he actually was.

Good thing we had opted for hotel, rather than hospital confinement, I thought. The doctor just came to visit once a day. The hotel was located right across from the bay. We had no view of the sunrise since the room faced the Manila Bay, the idea being that since we’re staying in a hotel called Sunset View, we might as well pay for that view. This was also one of the post-surgery treats we had promised our father, and ourselves – a spectacular view of the sunset. We did not factor in the possibility that he might not see anything at all right after the surgery, that his eyes would still be bruised and traumatized, and will take some time to recover, if at all.

Dad straightened himself up further. I was tempted to stand and assist him, but wasn’t sure if that gesture was going to be appreciated. So I just watched him -- no, watched over him . When he had stabilized himself, he let out a deep sigh, and then I saw him reach both arms for the wall, or something, someone by the wall.

“Dad,” I called out to him. “’Tay,” I called out even louder, to snap him out of what I thought was a dream. He continued to ignore me. And then I saw him nodding, heard him talking. I got up from bed and walked over to him, stood in front of him. He just looked past me. I peered into his eyes, and they looked very much like they were seeing eyes, but they weren’t seeing me.

To be fair, the surgeon had never promised anything about eye sights being restored, only, at the most, the physical eye being preserved.

“Surgery, if you take this option, and I am hoping you will, would involve either laser treatment or making a cut in the eye to reduce the intraocular pressure, what we call the IOP. The type of surgery doctors recommend usually depends on the type and severity of the condition. But the point of the procedure is to help lower the IOP, especially when medication is no longer sufficient,” the doctor had explained the week before, holding up colored photo prints of cross-section images of my father’s corneas and irises.

I had stood behind my father’s wheelchair, and every now and then whispered to him what the doctor was saying.

“We have several options daw. Based on your tests, you are a good candidate for a procedure that has proven very effective for patients with a similar case. Basically, the procedure will involve creating a kind of bypass in your eye, so that the pressure will be controlled, and then the eye can slowly start working again! This is all very good news!” I pressed his shoulders and half-hugged him for emphasis.

“Normally, we would recommend laser surgery first, before filtering microsurgery. But if the eye pressure is very high, and the optic nerve is badly damaged…” He made circular motions over a certain part of the picture with a laser pointer.
The doctor paused, in mid discussion, to give me time to digest the information and to relay it to my dad.

And, I translated: “The doctor’s saying that there are several variations to the procedure, but that your type of glaucoma, a rare one in this country, and common among Caucasians, would seem to require a certain type of surgery too. Kasi, you’re a mestizo!”

The doctor raised his eyebrows, the only sign of impatience and incredulity he allowed himself. And then he continued. “With laser surgery, we use a tiny but powerful beam of light, right here, basically, to make several small scars in the eye’s trabecular meshwork…”

Me: “That’s the eye’s drainage system daw…”

“Yes, actually, it is the eye’s drainage system,” the doctor said, and I tried not to show how embarrassed I was that he could hear everything I was whispering to my dad after all. “And the scars we make will help increase the flow of fluid out of the eye,” he said, now making short slow waving motions under the eye.

He paused again to give me time to translate, but I let him continue.

“On the contrary, the filtering microsurgery would entail, yes, creating a ‘drainage hole’, with the use of a small surgical tool, instead of a beam of light. We perform this, sometimes, after laser surgery does not successfully lower eye pressure, or if the pressure begins to rise again after some time...”

Me, in a much lower voice: “So, the procedure basically ensures that the drainage system in your eye works properly, so it won’t clog and increase the intraoccular pressure. You need daw to release some of the pressure, in the form of fluids, tears…” And at this point, my dad turned to me with a questioning look, but I continued. “So, yes, the process involves keeping the tiny passages clear and… well, healthy that way, so it can let light enter and the eye can do what it is supposed to do…”

The doctor started turning off the viewing board, and turned to switch the room lights on, still elaborating on the procedure. He returned to his table and faced us.

“The surgery will preserve the eye, the physical properties, however, it cannot reverse vision loss,” he said, waiting for me to respond.

“Dad, the procedure will preserve what eyesight you still have, and there’s still apparently a good amount of that, it’s just sort of covered by all the pressure, which the procedure will reduce permanently, so that the eyesight is maximized, and then little by little, maybe even in very micro levels so that you’ll hardly sense it, I mean that’s why the procedure is called microfiltering, so the eye, as the pressure decreases, adjusts, little by little, in vey micro levels, to the cleared up passages, after being so used to clogged ones for a long time, because it will take some time to adjust to the absence of something that’s been there for a long time, and then, yes, little by little, in very micro levels, the eye will slowly start to see… You’ll just have to be very patient, really.”

“I just want to know that I’ll be able to read again, look at pictures of my wife, enjoy my daughter’s work” he said, addressing the Opthalmologist.

The surgery took place at 7 in the morning the following day. The orderlies wheeled Dad out of the room at six, and by eight-thirty, I was called in to the recovery room. My dad was in a wheel chair, both of his eyes were bandaged shut.

The doctor came out of the lab and told me that although both eyes had to be covered, they did not actually touch Dad’s left eye, that it was only actually the right eye they operated on. He explained that the left eye did not have any vision left at all, so surgery would not have done anything, and might have only traumatized it further. The right eye, however, still had about 8% of vision left, except that the functioning parts are outside the core, that is why he could not see complete images, rather he only sensed them when there is movement, so that, at best, he could see the outlines or the silhouettes.

To my dad, I said: “The surgery was successful! The doctors were able to save your eyes from being eaten up by the disease! They will slowly recover from the scars of the surgery and then very slowly, little by little, the eyesight that is left will be put to work again.”

To me, the doctor said: “We should really show your dad the whole picture, so the process of adjustment can be facilitated.”

He would never be able to see again, the doctor said, in as plain and stark a manner as he could.

So I knew we had a problem when I heard Dad saying, that morning, a week after surgery, that his vision, indeed, was back, one hundred percent! Praise the Lord, he even added.

Hallucinations were one thing, but this, this was something else.

I decided to stay in my dad’s room that fateful weekend, so that I could observe him. Earlier that day, his caregiver had said that he had overheard Attorney and Buddy talking again, about taking a trip, visiting a friend who lived three towns away from the city. The caregiver said that he was worried about what my dad would do, or what Buddy would do to my dad.

So I volunteered to watch over Dad, hold vigil, and record the whole thing, in order, finally, to settle the matter with the caregiver.

By twelve midnight Dad was snoring, while I was still at work on a lighting design for an upcoming play. I motioned for his caregiver to retire for the night as well, and he gratefully left the room. I locked the door after him.

The room had two windows, one facing the east and another one facing the south. Between the two windows sat my dad’s old desk, and on top of it my mom’s picture. I moved the desk so that I could continue to work and chat on my laptop while frequently glancing over to where Dad was, snuggled now under the covers, and snoring rather loudly.

I continued to chat with my mentor over YM, and excitedly explained to him my proposal: how to position the lights, where to locate them, so that when they’re all turned on, the effect is the opposite of illumination.
When I glanced over to Dad, he was no longer there.


I swear I did not doze off, I couldn’t possibly have. Even if I did, I know that it was only for a few minutes, because my last chat response said so.

Needless to say, nobody believes me. Needless to say, we looked all over for him: In the house, in the village, all over town, all over the country! We have been looking for four years! Four years.

It’s very hard for me still. Although, in many ways, yes, perhaps also the best. The best for me, and for everyone concerned. I know, I understand where people come from when they accuse me of these horrible things, because it is true that I have been, well, enriched by the situation. But how can I defend myself? How can I tell people of just what my dad and I went through after my mom’s death? Why should I even bother?

I still come home as often as I can, to check on the properties, the caretaker. To warm the old house, so to speak.

I still prefer to take the 5A.M. flight, and it is dark when I enter the house, the only light that is on is the one over the staircase, the smooth granite floors are softly illuminated, the winding staircase looks like it is floating in a gleaming sea of darkness.

we try hard

for our sundays to be more like the ones we grew up with.

we challenge ourselves, build the fire ourselves, melt and mold the gelatin ourselves.



but first it must look like this:






so it can become this:










and then we top it off with this!

The Project (fiction, an excerpt)

The concept
The concept is very rich. It is hardly new, not exactly groundbreaking, but it promises many possible subject positions, ideological standpoints, from which we readers can view and assess the subject matter being tackled by this project being presented before us.

This so-called “middle class, urban, self-involved, ultra aware, highly emotional, at turns petty, pretentious, confused, languageless, hungry, empty, and ultimately at a loss,” Philippine human scribbler of the 21st century is a peculiar subject. Indeed it is. A peculiar subject, and therefore a worthy matter that, I am more than convinced, merits our attention and investment.

Apart from offering various standpoints, what the project also seems to be proposing is for these locations being made available to the readers, to become locations of self-slash-selves or inter-subjectivity-slash-subjectivities. This is an outdated idea, for sure, but it is in its very suggestion – and not suggestiveness –, that the quaintness – a quaintness we can easily repackage and sell – lies.

On the matter of quaintness, I presume we are all in agreement, and so I will no longer go into a discussion, of its economic and political significance.

We then move to the next criteria, the execution.

After the body displaces water (fiction)

Part I.
http://www.philippinesfreepress.com.ph/06-2010/after-the-body-displaces-water-a-manual-for-divers/

Part II.
http://www.philippinesfreepress.com.ph/07-2010/after-the-body-displaces-water-a-manual-for-divers-part-ii/

automatic writing

because it has been too long since I made the resolve months ago to revive this blog
because it has been two months since i posted the notice in this blog and nothing has followed after that because there is not much to write about
because it is not true that there is nothing to write about
because the truth is that there is much so much but i am swamped with work and family and self and selves
because it is not true that i have that many interesting selves that each one demands time away from writing
because writing matters to me it is everything and i should write every single day
because i should stop writing in the way i do now with and in my mind only
because the mind truly has no limits and is the one thing that astonishes still
because we need limits and margins and edges of things
because surfaces have real edges even if they tend to make things seem cramped and brutal and short
because life is actually cramped and brutal and much too short
because it is too damn long and boring and everything keeps happening over and over again and people don't learn their lesson
because people sometimes do learn their lesson and undergo remarkable transformations and are amazing absolutely amazing that way
because i need amazement and nothing else
because one day when it seemed like it had been too long since anything amazing has happened i opened my inbox and found three poems
because discovering poetry while randomly checking personal emails in the middle of a busy workday restores my faith in a big way
because i need faith and my faith needs restoring every now and then
because the only other person who had such faith and such a relationship with faith has left for another country and i have no one to go to a church with on random days
because i think of leaving the country too
because i am starting to hate the constant leaving and saying goodbye and have recently developed a paralyzing sense of anxiety over flying
because there is no exhilaration like the exhilaration of taking off and that final lurch before flying
because exhilaration is the only way and the only way to exhilaration is to take off and fly and do it on very early mornings
because one very early morning when i was convinced that there was nothing nothing nothing more to this you do the one thing that helped me finally close my eyes and truly peacefully sleep
because i need to sleep and have been troubled by the lack of it in a way that is not healthy for everyone concerned
because to me it is essential that everyone concerned do not remain concerned for too long
because this has gone on long enough and i can now allow myself to stop just stop.

reboot

i want to revive this blog. i have been trying to recall the initial impulse for putting it up in the first place. i do remember that i started this blog at a time of major transition, at a time when one could not afford to think in terms of what's certain or uncertain, when what was there was all that was there, when one was always only half aware of things coming to an end, of the potential tragedy that underlined every innocent, hopeful, gesture. when all acts were, after all, just symbolic of other acts. all of those leading up, ultimately, to this. this life, this work, this job, this apartment, this set of friends, this afternoon, this cup of coffee, this sore throat, this insistence for a stick of cigarette. whatever this is, it has remained, more or less unchanged, in the last four years. of course, then, prior to this, i had no means to recognize those episodes for what they were. the mind is amazing that way. it puts up these shields, making the body invincible for the time being.

when this blog was put up, it only had ten, or maybe less, links. and that seemed to have been the point then. it was part of a conversation, a small gathering. i know that it is probably too soon to romanticize those times. but, i want to revive this blog, nevertheless, because i want to recreate those times. (maybe this rebooted blog can be all about the question: what were "those" times?).

i want to fabricate again that space, that voice, which was both innocent and weary, intimate and open, hesitant but ready. ready to disappear, whenever it had to.

i will not make any commitments. and this blog has no one to commit to. but, for the time being, this blog is alive again. and will contain only, or mostly, live texts, live entries. if there is such a thing. all texts are essentially dead. only the author is ever alive.

the textures, the colors,

the movements. to witness absolute freedom, and unmistakable precision, of expression. nothing like it.

i haven't been satisfied with any performance this way in a long time. just came from the imogen heap concert at the esplanade in singapore, and she was brilliant. and playful, and fun, and entertaining, even if a little too trippy at times, and worth every peso i spent and more. when she announced that she'll be back in singapore before the year ends, i went crazy and screamed "come to manila!!!"

let's hope she does.

(pictures to follow)

international women's day

and everybody says this about their mother, but, nanay was really beautiful, and i would say this had she been someone else's mother.

not too late

for resolutions, is it? here are mine:

1. sleep more
2. drink less
3. walk more
4. sit less
5. read more
6. talk less
7. write more
8. write less (write shorter stuff, that is)
9. call home more often
10. go out less often
11. be more patient
12. be less tolerant

there. one resolution for every month of the year. let's see if we can still recognize this version of me. happy new year all! =)

Preludes

(fiction, an excerpt)



A man died singing. He had sung a total of three songs before he heaved his last breath and collapsed on a chair. It happened at the Municipal Hall. The time was three in the afternoon. The sun was high. Heat seeped into people’s bones. Tuba warmed their blood even more. Someone’s ninth death anniversary was being celebrated. Another man’s life in that party ended. It ended on a high note.
…

At that very moment, Nenita, the wife, was at home, picking leaves for a medicinal brew.
Earlier that day, Nenita had been lying on the sofa, slipping in and out of an afternoon sleep she should not have heeded, embracing Willy Revillame in her dreams. She had had no plans of taking a nap. She had just wanted to catch a glimpse of Willy after she sent off her grandson for the city, before she resumed her cooking.

At the sala, she opened the window to let some breeze in. But the air was so dry. Outside it was very quiet. Everyone was at the Hall, to attend the ninth death anniversary of the juez. Most of them bore the judge a grudge, but they were all there anyway, eager to see what kind of feast his children had prepared. The children had all come home from America and Europe for this very important occasion in the dead man’s journey. Nenita herself did not mind the judge so much, even if she had always found him rather severe. It was the wife whom Nenita did not feel very comfortable with. There had been some very persistent rumors involving the judge’s wife that Nenita did not care so much for.

As soon as Nenita was certain that her grandson had left, she positioned the electric fan in front of her, sat on the sofa, and turned on the TV to catch the last segment of her favorite show. The next thing she knew, Willy Revillame was pulling her into his arms, soothing her with words of condolences, before handing her some cash and offering his left cheek for a kiss. There was a huge applause from the studio audience, even if they were all weeping with him, shaking their heads in amazement.
Nenita forced herself out of the dream and the motion brought her entire body up and out of the sofa. She found herself standing in the middle of the sala, face-to-face with a teary-eyed Willy. Her heart was beating wildly. Her armpits were soaked in sweat. Her hair bun had come undone. She looked around guiltily, she thought she heard her husband swear at her. She felt her husband’s presence in the living room with her, even if she knew he was at the death anniversary party. She quickly turned off the TV and made her way to the kitchen.

She should not have taken that nap, Nenita berated herself. There was an urgent order for ten dozens of suman she had to deliver the next day, for the judge’s daughters who were leaving right after the anniversary. There was already a pile of pandan leaves on the kitchen table, waiting to be washed and warmed, for wrapping the sweet sticky rice rolls with.
She had spent all night until early morning boiling the sticky rice and mixing it with anise, caramel and coconut milk, until her hands trembled and the veins swelled. By the time she was almost done, she had to prepare breakfast and brew a special tea concoction for her grandson who had spent all night drinking. He had very barely made it home – drunk as a fish, crying out a woman’s name like a fool – early that morning.

Nenita then remembered that she also had to prepare the medicinal tea her husband needed to take with his dinner. She had yet to complete the five different kinds of leaves, Ampalaya, Banaba, Bayabas, Dumero, Hierba Buena, the last one she purchases from a man who only comes to town on Thursdays. She was getting ready to pick Ampalaya and Bayabas leaves from her garden when she heard her husband’s voice again, his singing voice. She realized that the sound was coming all the way from the Hall. The sound was very faint, but more than perceptible, and certainly unmistakable to her.

It was the only sound she could hear, when she stepped out of the house and started picking the leaves. Everything else around her was quiet and still. It seemed as though the entire town – the dogs, the frogs, and the birds included – had gone silent for this very rare event: her husband singing again.

She had not heard her husband sing this way in a very long time, ever since he became ill – when the sugar and alcohol in his blood burned the sides of his heart, almost getting to the core of it. Since then, he would get out of breath when he sang. And he also easily forgot the lyrics, especially to the Italian classics, and some of the Tagalog Kundiman he used to be very well known for.

Nenita herself never understood all the fuss about her husband’s singing, and the fuss his brothers and sisters made when he stopped singing. She could not even understand half of the songs he sang. They were mostly in Italian, Spanish, and Tagalog. He rarely sang Bisaya songs, the ones she could understand, and actually liked, even if she herself could not carry a tune to save her life. Thankfully, their grandson was there to indulge her husband in music talk. She was happier listening to the two of them talk and sing, and strum guitar strings, from the kitchen.

She used to feel slighted whenever her siblings-in-law recalled with such intense, exaggerated regret, the way their brilliant brother squandered his money and his talent, and oh, all the wrong decisions he made along the way. Including, though they would never say directly, his decision to marry Nenita. They liked to remind their brother, themselves, and anyone who cared to listen, of what their brother used to be, what he could have been, whom he could have been married to. Nenita ceased to mind this, and them, a long time ago. She had forgiven all of them. They were all dead now, save for one brother who lived in the city. She never stopped praying for their souls, but she was not very sorry that they died.

Nenita knew that her husband was happy the way he was. She never heard him complain. He had nothing to complain about. She took him back every time his affairs with other women turned sour. She took care of him when he started getting sick, when the part of his heart that was supposed to beat started merely murmuring and whistling. Thankfully, her friend, the herbalista, had just the right concoction for this ailment. Even the doctors were delighted with her husband’s progress.

Nenita took her husband back again when, with the money her in-laws sent for his medication, he went away to be with one of his women. People say her husband went to Manila with the judge’s widow. Nenita never confirmed this. Nenita never asked. She just took her husband back. Nursed him back to health again. After that though, Nenita noticed that he spent more and more time alone, in the toilet. And when she asked if he needed help with anything, he would just mumble incoherently. So she let him be.

She could have prepared him then that other brew her herbalista friend had suggested at the time, the one that would make his balls shrink, give him hallucinations, make his blood boil until his veins popped. But she didn’t, of course.
She did buy and continued to keep the packet of dried purple leaves said to be from a rare vine found only in Mt. Banahaw. She didn’t even know where Mt. Banahaw was, only that it was up there in the North. She did know that she would never use the herbs, even if she wanted to keep it, see it, touch it, and feel the soft lump of leaves in her palm, every now and then. She derived some sense of security, a very calming sense of power, in knowing that she had that little packet hidden in one of the kitchen drawers.

She listened more closely to her husband’s singing. She closed her eyes and trapped her breath in her throat, the way she did when she listened to the beats and murmurs of her husband’s heart at night. Listening to the air that carried her husband’s voice this way, she almost caught the sound of his labored breathing, and his heart’s irregular beating.

He was singing a popular Spanish song now, about kissing someone for the last time. Nenita remembered being told by her husband that that was what it was about. Kiss me more, kiss me more, that was what the man wanted to tell the woman he loved. Nenita found that she could enjoy this one; the song was recognizable. She laughed lightly as she found herself swaying in slow, heavy movements, to the music of her husband’s voice.

She started imagining herself as a young woman, dancing with this beautiful, dark man who eventually became her husband. And then she heard him choke, heave a breath before he sang: Perderte. Long pause. Perderte. Another pause. Despues. And then there was applause, in which Nenita joined, still laughing at her silliness

After that, all was quiet again.

Nenita gathered the leaves and went back inside the house. Just as well, because it was starting to be very, intolerably, hot outside. Certainly hot enough to boil an old man’s blood and pop his veins, she thought.

Direct attacks on the imagination

(a reply to/an echo of Chingbee's post. See: http://curiouscouch.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/we-tell-ourselves-stories-in-order-to-live/)

I have been to Mindanao several times. There are many Mindanaos. Many different kinds. I have been to a few of them. First, as a young dancer on tour with a dance company about 15 years ago, next as a fellow for the UP writers workshop almost a decade ago, and then several more times as a journalist and for NGO-related activities which always get me into close contact/require me to work with community organizers, lawyers, and media practitioners. In my most recent trip, I literally skirted the Mindanao which is now marked in our collective consciousness with backhoes, and shallow mass graves, and the image of a hundred gun-toting, crazed paramilitary men triumphantly leaving a very bloody scene, ready to resume their normal lives, after killing some 60 innocent unarmed men and women, on that beautiful Monday afternoon.

It is a sickening sight. You'd be totally without imagination not to be affected by it. It doesn't matter if you have never been to Mindanao, or know no one in Mindanao, or know little about Mindanao. The kind of calculated display of power, the very efficient application of a very specific kind of violence; the scale of it, the magnitude of it... The utter impunity with which it was carried out. This is hard not to imagine; rather, hard for our imagination to not be attacked in some way, to be tickled, at the very least. It is harder not to imagine that we have also, somehow, been attacked in a very deep and painful, and embarrassing, and disgusting way. My struggle since last week has been precisely this: against imagination.

I have been forwarded, but have no intention of checking the list of those who have been massacred. Not now, not soon, anyway. A week's worth of report writing has to be rushed in a day-and-a-half's time. A very dear friend, a very important person in my obscure little life just died. A bright light went out and created a permanent darkness in my little corner. This one will take some getting used to, a process that cannot be rushed. And yet I am able to cook, and eat, and shop, and watch movies, and drink with friends, drink with my sister, feed the dog, feed the household composed of my husband and myself, and entertain the occasional droppers by in our apartment. I even managed to start writing a 3-story cycle. I finished 2, and could not go on from there, however. My imagination finally abandoned me. Or, maybe, I need to write a different story altogether. Or, I need to write differently.

My friend, Chingbee, writes in her blog that "Given we artists are allegedly known for our imagination, then it would certainly be a failure on many counts if we are unable to imagine the Maguindanao Massacre as a direct affront to us, unable to imagine the means by which we can combat the seductions of silence and complacency and forgetfulness, unable to imagine the methods with which to address each other and cure our ignorance and ensure that life does not go on unmarked, unresponsive to, and unchanged by this most sickening of all the sickening events we have been through under this regime." She suggests that the story is the arena on which we must act, or fight. Just as the government has been shamelessly twisting the facts and exploiting the power of rhetoric to confound the public, so must we wrestle from them the words and the images, the characters and their motivations, the plots and the resolutions.

We must protect our truths, our stories. And, perhaps, we must tell [only] the stories that need telling in these difficult times.

husbands and wives

Rain in Singapore today. Wet streaks across windows. Water pearls form on glass panes. Tops of buildings tower over trees, and melt in the milky haze.

The girls are still in bed, cowering under thick white sheets. Clothes, shoes, boxes of spices, bangles and beads, plastic and paper bags are strewn all over the carpeted floor. Steaming cups of coffee rest on window ledges.

I brewed the coffee. I hope the coffee aroma permeates their dreams, and eventually takes them out of their sleep. The girls continue to ignore it. I am almost done with my second cup.

We pooled our funds and got what passes for a suite in this tiny hotel. It is bright and airy. We are surrounded by windows. Windows look out into other people’s windows. This city-state is big on windows.

Everything here seems fabricated though. The chaos of street festivals, markets, shops, food stalls, have a disconcerting awareness in and of themselves. The non-Asians are easily fooled. Come to Mindanao, I want to tell them. Come to Quiapo. Come to Samar.

At the concert last night, my mind flew, and I missed out on some important pieces. I always need music to think. I did not know I needed to think of anything in particular last night. I will tell you later what I thought about.

I never quite just listen. I do not know how to just listen. I mean, I have very keen ears, they prick up when there’s a rupture in the harmony. But I cannot imagine this: sitting through a musical performance focused solely on the act on stage. My kind of music is that which takes me out of the act, out of the moment, makes the mind fly and expand. Makes my heart stop completely, as in an attack.

At certain parts of the performance, I was enrapt with the musicians backing up the main act. I realize I still have a fascination for second voices, and back-up musicians. Must be from all those years of singing first, and never learning second voice as a kid. When I sing without my siblings I cannot hear myself.

This is why I feel sorry sometimes for marrying you. I wanted so much to keep you as a backup vocal. You were my second voice. Now we sound alike. Does this make you make you mad when I say this?

We girls are here because our husbands make us sad. This is our collective secret, the general belief. The rationale for the shopping bags and the wine. Nobody here knows that I am happy. Even if I am married. Nobody would believe. It remains my part of the secret’s dirtier little secret. I am careful not to sound smug. You remain my biggest, most shameful, forbidden love.

A Guide To Cine Europa 12

by Philbert Ortiz Dy
posted on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 in Festivals, Movies in
http://www.clickthecity.com/movies/?p=5593

the sick and the dying, the lonely and the broken-hearted

Dearest Amelia,


It is raining here again. Skies were overcast all day. News says that LPA (that’s low pressure area) has already become Signal No. 1, and they’re calling it some male name now. Classes have been called off, office workers are making their way through traffic, trying to beat the heavy gray clouds gathering in the distance, desperate to be home, before the heavy rainfall. I do not know why I start with a description of the weather. Well, in your mails, you always talk about the weather. And you do it so well, so engagingly. The weather! Imagine that. I guess talking about the weather, where you are, is a real, legit way to pass the time. Here, it can be absolutely inconsequential, unless it is of the type that brings about floods and famine. You know, weather in the extreme. One afternoon, for instance, on my way home from work, I just happened to glance at the sky, and saw how beautiful it was, the brightest blue and the deepest pink in a wonderful, graceful, elegant sweep. I mass-texted people, telling them to look up, look up now! Guess how many replied? One. And all he said was: “cool”. It wasn't cool. It was a bit warm, actually, even if there was a slight breeze. But, there, see, everyday weather here does not affect us much. Life goes on. In your case, however, I am amazed at how it always matters, sometimes terribly so. The winter especially, no? I really hope you have recovered from it – the leaking pipes, broken boilers… Sounds real disastrous. Sorry. But then you get beautiful breaks for autumn, and spring, and now summer, too. It must be really lovely at this time of the year. Do you still grow flowers in your little yard? Do the blue and yellow birds still come for the dew on the leaves and the seeds you scatter for them on the ground? I really loved my time there with you. Here, you just don’t do that. You don’t notice the changes in colors, the flowers blooming or dying. You don’t feed birds. That’s too… I don’t know, indulgent? It's as though you're not allowed to appreciate the lighter, brighter things in life, in nature, being in a place where there's too much darkness, too much heaviness. Or, maybe it is just me.

This is embarrassing. One time, I was doing some work, out in our tiny backyard. The weather this time was pretty mild. And there were a couple of birds, you know, those brown ones we see everywhere. I shook out the contents of my bag of chips to the ground for them and they all scampered away. I waited, kept still, but they wouldn’t budge, balancing themselves on the barbed wires, waiting, keeping still. Staring at me like I was some loony. I stood up, went inside our house, and watched the birds from the windows instead. But they still wouldn’t make the move for the crumbs. Apparently, even these birds here think it’s crazy to feed them like that, like they’re your pets, and to not expect anything in return. El caught me spying at the birds from the window, and he laughed so hard the row of birds fluttered away in surprise. El obviously shares the sentiments of the suspicious, arrogant birds. It just is not done here. People do not feed birds! So, yes, please, do send me some of those pictures please, from my visit there three years ago.

I can’t believe it’s been that long. I can’t believe you’re a mommy now and that soon you’ll be taking little Tommy to football or wherever it is European mommies take their kids to. Or to the park to feed the birds, maybe? Haha. But, yeah, wow. Who would have thought, Ames? El and I have been talking more frequently about having one ourselves. A baby, I mean. I keep changing my mind about it. I mean I do want it, even if I will never say it. Not to anyone, anyway. I have not seen the doctor. Hell, I haven’t been to a hospital since my mother died three years ago. But I really should go, you’re right. I keep having these darting pains in my abdomen more frequently, pains like the ones I used to have, just before El took me to the hospital for, you know, that incident last year. I have a very deep suspicion that it would never happen again, that we would never be able to have one again. Ever. There. Thank you. I just had to say it. And I would rather that I be the one to tell myself that, than it be handed to me, you know, in print, in stark medical language. Then it would be really official. And I am not sure how I am going to take that. I feel really bad for El though. I really, really do. I feel bad, sad, on my own, too. Sometimes, I feel more angry than sad.

So… How’s the weather? Oh, we’ve already covered that. Sorry. What else is there… Do you remember Manu, from the org? Tallish, fair, sharp chin? Nice haircut, as in consistently well-styled hair? He had asked me out once, to go to mass with him, remember? And you all found that pretty funny. I laughed too. Except that I did not find it that funny. I sort of did want to go to mass with him, just out of curiousity. But, obviously, that was not going to be very cool. And so… Anyway. This is so weird. I have just been thinking about him lately. I mean, there was nothing there, right? Nothing to think about, nothing to dwell on. Except for that one time, during a Christmas party in someone’s mansion, in New Manila. I don’t know if you remember. You were pretty absorbed, enrapt actually, with whatshisname, the tall jerk. Sorry, I know you used to really like him. I didn’t. I didn’t really care much for that group, even if you were very much into them. Or they into you. They were too cool. Haha. And, really, I just wasn’t cool enough. Or, I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t like them enough to want to be like them. But, that Manu. He was different, wasn’t he? He was not cool, as you guys made it very apparent, in your treatment of him. His fault, too. He wanted to go to church with me! Haha. Remember when, at some point during the party, people were lying on the ground, puking into the pool, you and your boyfriend decided you wanted to drive to the south, to Tagaytay, and you practically, literally dragged me. Manu ran after us, and I pulled him into the car, and made him drive. You remember? And we drove. I mean, he drove, you and your boyfriend sat – made out!— in the backseat. Manu and I tried not to look, tried very hard to stare ahead. We were both glad to be out of that party, actually. So we just drove on, past Ortigas, and then C-5, until we reached the city limits, and that’s when we noticed that you and your boyfriend had gone silent. You had both passed out! What a sight you both were. I wish we had digicams or phonecams then.

We could have turned the car back to the party, no? But we were on the South Luzon Express Way already. And it was quite nice, too – the quiet, steady drone of motor on highway tracks, the rush of the wind against our faces. The city and its noise, its buildings and its lights, all diminished the farther we went. Then we realized that we both didn’t know where Tagaytay was, exactly. Manu found a nice, safe spot, took the car to the side, and asked me if I wanted to step out and sit on the hood instead, cool ourselves before we head back. And so we did. We got out of the car, sat on the hood, and, you won’t believe this, we watched the stars. Did it ever occur to you, during your entire life in Manila, to look up to the night sky, to watch the stars? Manu was not as uncool as we all thought he was. Even if he was wearing a collared Bench shirt that night, tucked in his well-ironed slacks! While we were sitting on the hood, he untucked his shirt and kept smoothing the creases down. I don’t remember what we talked about exactly though. I vaguely recall him telling me about his father's home in the province, right in the middle of a field, where, apparently, they would take strolls, at night, and lie on their backs, look at the stars. How quaint, no? Or, maybe he didn't talk about that. Maybe we did not talk about anything at all. Maybe I am making it all up. But I remember him. You remember him, right? I do remember that night. I don’t think Manu and I ever talked to each other after that night though. Did he drop out of the org? He sort of disappeared, didn’t he? I bumped into him on campus, on a few more occasions, but he only ever nodded at me in slight acknowledgment and, always, there was this impenetrable look about him. I heard his name mentioned, a few years ago, in some forum. Apparently, he had moved back to his father’s province and started a rather progressive publication there. So many other things were said about him and his group. After that, though, I had not heard of him at all. Anyway… Why have I been thinking of Manu? I really don’t know. But, recently, every time there’s news of some organizer or reporter or social worker killed, it stifles my breath, clamps my heart shut for a second. And then, I have to stop whatever it is I am doing to scan the report for his name, for any wayward description that might identify him for me. When did I start to care so much? So, so strange, this. I really don’t know, Ames. Must be all these bad things happening around us...

A man was found dead in his apartment, just across from ours, did I tell you? Oh, Ames. Terrible. He had been dead for four days already, before the building maintenance guy here found him. I used to see this man every Saturday, watering his plants, sunning himself in his garden, with a dozen cats around him. I used to be so jealous at how the birds did not mind him. They would feed freely off crumbs of bread scattered on the table in front of him! And, he always said good morning. Nobody says good morning here in our apartment block. Nobody here feeds cats. Nobody here waters plants. Nobody here feeds birds! This man, he lived alone. He didn’t have family. No friends called on him, no lovers had breakfast with him. His plants died, too, Ames. His cats started loitering in other people’s apartments, spilling garbage cans over, stealing food from kitchens, screaming and scratching at each other, every single night, until they bleed. They have become unbearably violent, they have turned into such beasts, in their grief. Some started hanging out in our garage, pissing on our front steps, every single day, as if to tell us to deal with it, deal with US! The nice old man, whose name I never bothered to learn, who lived alone, who died alone, was responsible for the balance of things here in our little world!

I couldn't get up from bed all day yesterday. There were about twelve missed calls on my phone, demanding emails in my inboxes. I couldn't deal. Middle of the workweek, unconfirmed meetings, unsigned checks, unwritten reports, and there I was, worrying over what would happen to the dead man's books, the plants in his garden, the secret dvd collections, the very well-chosen clothes and shoes. Who's claimed his body from the crime lab? Who's going to light candles for him, hold vigil for him, say prayers for his soul? El said that we should light candles on his veranda, get his full name, offer him a mass, if that would make me happy. But that is a bit hypocritical, don't you think? We had all the chance in the world to get to know him and we didn't, and now he's dead. Since last week, I have been watching for movement in his apartment, waiting for anyone, someone, to come by, so I can talk to him or her, ask about the nice, strange, lonely man who lived and died there, all by himself. There are days when I am gripped with such a strong desire to know what's on his kitchen shelf, whose photographs he kept. What was the last satisfying meal he took? Whose number did he dial last? Other times, I feel extremely overprotective of his privacy. No one, not a single person has a right to know the insides of a house that has been well-lived in, alone, for many, many years.

Oh Ames, please come and visit me. Please let me visit you!

I think the typhoon just arrived. Signal No. 1 is here, intent on gaining force, turning into Signal No. 2. The streets will be littered with filth and mud, and canals will flood. Little houses will float, families will lose their homes. The displaced and the desperate will fill Baclaran, walk on their knees to implore the Mother of Perpetual help. A ferry will sink. Again. Some kid will try very hard to not let go of the hand of his brother, but the current will be very strong. Billboards will come falling on cars, killing their drivers. Or, maybe not. Maybe this is nothing. Maybe parents will be glad of the chance to leave work early, prepare steaming bowls of soup for the family. Kids will be happy making paper boats float on little streams. Lovers will be daring enough and will drive out of the city in the rain, to spend the night in some high altitude place overlooking a volcano's crater. Or, maybe they won't even make it there, getting only as far as the highway, far enough to say that they have left the city behind.

Dearest Amelia, how are you, really? You look happy in your pictures. You lost weight very quickly. But I am worried when you tell me that on your days off, instead of reaching for a book, or thinking of a poem to write, you just doze off instead, from fatigue. I was worried when, at the park, you cursed rather violently at a white man, and muttered, under your breath, that he deserved to be hungry and homeless. I am worried when you tell me that you shy away from other Filipinos who smile at you and approach you and want to talk to you at the park. Should I be worried? Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I just am imagining all of these things. I cannot be relied on too much, these days. I am so utterly, terribly, embarrassingly maudlin. You wouldn't recognize me. But if you tell me you will come here for vacation, then I shall certainly be cheered, and I shall not bore you with my useless imaginings about the sick and the dying, the lonely and the broken-hearted, the poor and the unemployed, in a word, all who need your perpetual help… Amen. (I can’t believe I can still recite the Perpetual Help novena from memory!) Kidding aside, I promise not to bore you with issues at my work. And I promise not to drag you to one of El's hoity-toity art gallery events, either. And, I just might allow you to bring me to the doctor for that much-needed check up you've been bugging me about, or to drive to Tagaytay for a very sinful bowl of beef Bulalo. Which reminds me, I have to go and prepare dinner now, make myself useful around the house, close all the windows, shut the storm out.

Please, please you take care of yourself, Ames. Try to enjoy the brief summer respite. I miss you, miss you, miss you. Send my love to the little one, and his father, too.

Love, love,
J.

whose culture reigns?

I've been conversing with FB friends on the whole national artist awards controversy, and i am not fully comfortable with how the messages are being shaped. i am attending the 'pagluluksa' tomorrow, but i cannot say that i am wholly in agreement with the movement's call. i think there is a need to inquire into the motive behind the act first. what does the president have to gain by doing what she did? i have a strong suspicion that this issue was created precisely to divide us, to expose the biases of the academic elite. and we are leading ourselves right into the cracks.

i don't think it was right, or even necessary, for the film critic Tioseco to say that the number of caparas films and wowowee viewers cannot ever be a barometer of culture. why not? why can't viewership ever be a gauge? maybe not according to established practice, or existing award criteria. but, who has a say on what defines culture, what doesn't? whose culture are we talking about anyway?

there was a very good opportunity to discuss various and varying notions of 'culture' during the ANC show; instead, only one prevailing notion surfaced: high culture.

the message in this campaign should be clear: there were clear, established processes, procedures, and parameters. and the president disregarded them. we protect the system, we uphold the standards; because these are what lend prestige to the award; these ensure that our money, our admiration, our approval for the use of the title 'national artist', go where they rightfully should.

flash creative non fiction

"conversations, no. 2"
(random studies, from ten years ago!)



It is 6:39 P.M. when we enter my dingy apartment. The darkness in the living room breaks our conversation, and, for a moment, silence hovers, until female snores swell from the floor. We quietly step over my roommates, wrapped like blankets to/around each other. It is too late for embarrassments. In the shadows, their totally shameless shapes and figures are unmistakable.

Slowly we make our way to a corner, where a wooden foldable table stands for the day’s crumbs and scraps, which still cling onto the tabletop, along with some plates left unwashed for the next day or the next meal, if there will be any. What kind of life is this that you lead, I can almost hear my mother’s voice even as I am straining to hear what he’s thinking.

We grope for the three-legged bar stools, we smile at each other in conspiracy, our teeth bared, candid, in the dark. One takes out a lighter, the other whips up a candle. Soon, a willowy smoke and a tiny wavering flame, sufficiently disturb the concentration of black in our little corner.

In the miniscule light, the clarity of his eyes is a shock. I stare at the two tiny dancing pyres, one in each bespectacled black ball. I am hypnotized by the spectacle.

Oh, you were saying, we were talking about my wanting to go away to this small city in the Visayas, to live alone, and write, my ultimate wish. And he is quieted by this. Have we never talked this out before? We never really talk anything out, between the two of us. Why we got to talking at all, we never talk about that, too. I am emboldened to ask, while there are glowing wicks in his eyes flickering and swaying, animating his eyes like mad.

And what about you? You're not sure? You still don't know what you can do, what you want to do? I press on: You must want something fiercely, passionately; to be out of the ordinary. You know, you should forget for a while --

He doesn’t take his eyes away from my face. I know only because I cannot stop staring at them. He answers by asking: Can you forget for a while that your father’s back is exposed to the sun all day? That your mother is in a makeshift kitchen, blowing air into a pipe to keep the firewood burning for food to cook in time, for supper suffered in silence?

Once he said: We have become too poor to even afford decent conversation.

How do I tell him that wishes are free, that, sure, we have not even gotten to the discussion of our college thesis, that we might not even graduate and become decent members of the workforce, be the society’s saviors, the way we have been trained for! All that will be taken care of later. If I were a man, it would have been so easy for me to leave all this -- I gesture with my arms, to the sheaf of papers, the clutter on the table, the books scattered around the two entwined bodies on the floor.

I am drawn to life on the road, for some reason. If I were good enough with the guitars I’d be like Joplin, play in the streets –

Over this, he shakes his head and break into a lazy, lopsided smile - that endearing imperfection — then he takes off his glasses and exhales heavily onto them, creating fogs on the lenses that he briskly wipes off with the edge of his frayed collar. I am, all of a sudden, gripped with a terrible certainty: Things will change, irrevocably. You will not remember this.

I try to stop him from getting up to switch the lights on, from waking the two brazen mummies on the floor, from revealing the rest of the apartment in its full shabby glory.

It is not even 8:00 P.M. when the little white candle melts, and the dancing optic flames altogether disappear.

harry potter or mano pater?

there's absolutely no comparison! mano pater is a living, breathing sorcerer. he types up my father's pleadings and memos on an old trusty olympia typewriter. he is very handy with ribbons and printwheels. he has all legal forms down pat. he doesn't need to consult any manual. he knows everyone who matters in the bulwagan ng katarungan. he has my father's back all the time. my dad is a 77 year-old provincial, pro-bono abogado. mano pater, who is probably older than my father, is his super senior-citizen secretario. (mp gets a kick out of being called that.) my dad's not doing too bad himself.

this is a very random post. i just wanted to weigh in on the whole harry potter buzz. may anyone who googles harry potter be misdirected to my post about mano pater.