The Mythical Finance Cave

It breathes the ardor of unfinished business. Stacks of magazine file boxes surround the lone gas-lift chair rolling around the space during sloppy afternoons. There are several law textbooks shelved in a makeshift cabinet hanging from the ceiling. The four walls are painted in pink which makes me wonder if they’re the ones who make most days lousy and unproductive. Strewn papers crowd the glass table at the corner. Sometimes when necessity requires the presentation of certain documents to funding officials I hobble around those papers in search for a certain document which I recall was laying down somewhere deep among those garbage as a workmate often calls it. A tall CD organizer is full of mixed up CDs which was once organized to no avail. A white telephone near the door occasionally rings. And when it rings the sound fills the empty spaces in the hall. Rumors have it that spirits populates this room. And the sound of the telephone became a dreadful sound that leaves everybody shocked.

An abysmal cat who’s owned by the old woman at the basement frequently visits until after she was caught in a silent controversy by bringing in her kittens, all three if them. Some say they brought fleas during those rainy months which made all the people feel itchiness to death. One kitten was punished to death by a guest who can’t take the torment not to say the sight of the poor kittens. The cat and her two remaining kittens were never seen again. Two paintings by a student in UP hang in one of the walls. It was rarely appreciated. Once the painter visited, he said he was very much elated to see his works again hanging among those walls. A high window facing the east portion was hardly ever cleaned. Its glass was blurred by the dust that’s probably glued to it forever. One, as tall as me could peek from it. Our neighbor has a playground below. Few children play there and only during Tuesdays. You can hear their shrieks and laughs from here.

A former office mate tagged this place as my finance cave. I can have this lonely place forever she said in jest after our head told everybody that no one can enter this compartment without permission. And so when one’s looking for me they answer in such spontaneity as if my life is only within the bounds of the four corners of this room. He’s in his cave. This is half-true, I stay in this part of the world 8 hours a day; six days a week. I say half-true because my spirit frankly resented the absence of verve. Sometimes I find myself peeking at the window again trying to find sources of comfort among the inert see-saw and swings. Hoping to hear the raucousness and gaiety produced by these playful objects in the hearts of those children during Tuesdays.

Sweet Victories

“If you want something, go get it. Period!” – The Pursuit of Happyness

The frailties of human living is deterministic on one’s ideals and the road in their endless quests. As a matter of fact, many of us couldn’t get by most of our wants lest are needs are met first. But, why? Someone’s always taking advantage of our weaknesses and limitations always whispering in our consciousness that we can’t get by-“Wake up, you’re dreaming!”

Last Saturday, I had the chance to talk to a friend after how many months of estrangement, and revelations just confirmed what I thought are only mine to keep. She’s tired of her work and hopes to be in school again after a hiatus. She’s pretty tired of her work which enslaved her to routinely activities which probably diminished most of her faculties by now. But her option seems to be roughly between maintaining such “wonderful” job or to be jobless. We joked among ourselves. Said she: In this part of the world chances of employment are very high. However, there only exist two lucrative jobs. Your musings will let you pick between being a call-center agent or an English teacher. I said: In most cases, you’re doomed to not having any choice at all, and forcibly what else. She said: The pay is only a little above the minimum rate and this can afford her at most two tosses of blue margarita every week to satisfy her chills of the long-run process of desensitization to life’s cruelties and inequities. “Why can’t I have what I want.”- a question of the low-spirited voice that behooves all notions of hope.

But, really, it’s easy for one to say that you can enjoy both worlds. How true, how true? The proof of the pudding is in the eating. You can call it a struggle bordering on the most wicked form of tolerance or rather persistence. My friend resigned into saying that we must do what ever we want as long as we’re living forget when it never rained but the pour is so great and overwhelming. We can! The sweetest of victories is when you achieved things in the most painful and hardest way.

Trail-walking Sagada

(photo by: Marian Sanchez, travel comp)                                  

It took us six hours and a half of convoluting trails to reach a dreamy and solitary place. In between miles, a constant yearning arouses in my mind a distant and moribund thought. The unending visions of a sad and gloomy memory take me back to a commune which had complicitly made this return trip part of a piece in a resultant and conspiring circle.

My travel companion woke up to ask in curiosity if the trip would be for eternity as the bus slowed down to submit and traverse a sharp curve. The whispering wind would tell us later on that this trip was indeed for eternity.

The bus parked beside a lonesome inn devoid of any soul and spirit. I knew that beneath those yearning souls lie buried in the earth forgotten memories of tranquility and comfort. A friend once told that the feeling could never be explained because it will always be forbidden. And indeed as we walked, passed tombs and epitaphs that remind corporeal beings how life recedes into whitewashed graves, a tender feeling gently harps into the unaffecting heart which would inevitably allow a person to ask to himself if the moment would endure.

Yes, the moment would endure. . . forever. It clings steadfastly among barren worlds like mine reverberating the height of the experience into one soulful and nostalgic dance.  

Summer’s Ending

The smell of rain constantly effuses a feeling that resembles those days in June. This is not the rainy season maybe but the drizzle for three consecutive days make us feel that we’re up to days of tripping down damp passages and eternal longing for lukewarm baths. The teacher said it was too early for summer’s ending and that if there are really sunny days to speak of for the past months this should not be the time to end it. He has a scheduled vacation in

Palawan

after the Holy Week he boasts. And everybody was envious of course.

Back at home, the memory of summer’s ending is quite downbeat. It was like a mourning of the complete departure of solitary walks to feel the coarseness of the warm sand during afternoons and the endless dipping in the brackish waters of the nearby river during high tide. It was also because of the grown fear of tempests that brought long days of heavy rains and the necessary in-door predilections that breathe a momentary discreet attitude among souls. Continuous outpouring would make dams overflowing with rain water and because we’re near the outlet rivers our lives became prone to soak-yourself-in-floodwaters-in-eternity life. Part-smile and part-frown for the devastation and it makes us  love the place more. I don’t know why.

Once in days of childhood, an enormous water spout that visited the community ravaged some houses and uprooted some of late Tinio’s bananas at the back of his house. I saw him came close to the water spout with his bolo swinging in the air like a desperate man trying to outdo the troop of hundreds with his lone bolo in a heroic stance: fighting to death. I confessed such incident to my mother hoping that she would do something to cure Tinio’s psychosis. She only responded with cracks of laugh. I came to know that such is not a sign of madness it was an attempt to shatter the swirling water spout.

There is more to the memories of the start of the rainy days.

But, could the premature downpour be brought by global warming? Oh, and there’s  the little child surmising the indelible fact of divinity in the offing. Oh I see, yours is a life of dreams and comic interpretation of phenomena that beat old wisdom and false truths in this world.

What about the death of thirty thousand fishes?

thirty thousand fishes is a working title of a current pastime where I try to recollect all the memories of a past that had probably inked into my consciousness forever. That past was so powerful and vivid and I thought it was worth coming up with a story initially but the experience had seen me writing a good number of words, paragraphs, chapters and so on. . . am posting the pambungad of an experiment I started for about two years now. . .an experiment which seems to last a lifetime. . .

What about the death of thirty thousand fishes?

It marked the end of a smooth sailing passage into life’s tumultuous moments.

The bulwark of water coming from the water pump reflects the silver moon that hanged in the night. It was way past midnight and my father and I were busy salvaging the repugnant breathing of every fish that’s populating the pond. The froth created by the endless panting by the little fishes was creating an enormous white island in the middle of the pond. My father was standing still at the bank which made me chill more with the damp and cold wind passing from the north. He was a resolute man; resolute and firm. This was summer and he knew very well the danger that is brought by the season.

Finally. . .

From friendster blog to filipinowriter to blogspot. . .I finally found a repository of my thoughts and untold journeys. . .as thirty thousand fishes unfold. . .

Aristotle’s Resignation on Filipino Democracy

Previous to the Fair Elections Act, TV ads as a medium for campaign were limited by the Omnibus Election Code. After its institution, we see among ourselves campaign cum commercial ads spawning in our TV screens and few days later a list of the top spenders who shelled out millions to avail of their right under the said Act. I just want to bring to the public’s attention the guiding principle behind the passing of RA 9006 which is “to ensure equal opportunity for public service xxx among candidates”. The present trend does not, in my opinion, lead to this end for it only renders those who are financially capable to avail of TV ads. As a result, it makes the playing field more uneven among candidates considering that the general Filipino electorate relies on “name recall.” I can’t but ask myself if my country, a land of heroes, has deteriorated in the most deplorable State that maybe even Aristotle can’t imagine to exist in democracy. I will not probably cast my vote again in view of the fact that my vote will never work for the betterment of the country.