erwin

Though his mask hid his face, Erwin's jaw dropped. Above the San Francisco bridge, the Hob Goblin dangled his screaming girlfriend with his right hand, while aiming the other at the traffic below. "Noooo!" Erwin screamed, his voice muffled by the winds. The Goblin let out a sarcastic laugh. He truly was enjoying this. Erwin's muscles tightened. Standing on one of the bridge's thick support wires, he couldn't do a thing, though he was a sprint away. "Take one step and I drop her. Take one step and I rocket the support wires till maybe a dozen cars slide off into the cold waters below." The scenario was similar to what the earlier Goblin nearly pulled off. "I know what you're thinking, hero, but the son outlives the father, the successor outperforms his predecessor." Another long laugh. "Deal with me!" Erwin pleaded. "Let them all go!" "As you say, webhead." The frames of life slowed down. Erwin ran and dived for the girl, his right wrist aimed at the Goblin, the other toward a spot on the bridge. The Goblin fired rockets. Erwin's web splattered on the Goblin's visor. Erwin grabbed his girl while the other webline connected; swinging from that one, he saw that the Goblin had recovered, that the support wires had snapped. The Goblin took to the air, eyeing Erwin. The bridge was groaning. Cement and steel tilted and cars began to slide to one side. Erwin threw his girl toward a support beam and fired webbing to both cushion her impact and keep her there. Gunfire from the maniac above, slicing his webline. Now, Erwin was airborne, in a free fall while the Goblin sped toward him, ignoring the girl. Erwin took out his cellphone, as he saw cars beginning to fall from the bridge. A hero is never alone. "Hello, Clark? Putang-ina tulungan mo ko!"

siege

Siege woke up with a fork stabbed on his right leg, just above his knee, while the drunken scent and snores of naked Latino men and women hung all around him, on a love bed so large and so soft he felt he would drown. He lifted the dead-weight of an arm of a woman hugging his waist. Where are my pants? he thought. Siege flicked his head and shook it. He ran his hand through his hair. Pizza. He reeks of pizza. How long have I been out? He pulled the fork out of his leg. Some of the skin came off with the fork. The wound healed in front of his eyes. What universe is this? He knelt on the bed. He was at the center. All around him were naked sinewy bodies. To a harem he shall go, he remembered saying and then pressing a button. There! On the carpet. Siege stood and his knees wobbled. Why do I feel so weak? He avoided stepping on one butt and breast after another. He got out of bed. So stoned are thee, he whispered to the crowded bed, the remote beside his right foot. It all made sense. Someone tinkered with his relaxation program. Oh he's going to kill someone in his dorm. Siege pushed the button and the room faded like a TV screen; it went dark and then bluish, the default setting of his immersion program. Siege crawled out of the desensitization tank and saw his roommate at the center of his red bed, with a fork on his leg in a sea of naked sleeping men. I guess, Siege thought, I have to recalibrate the program. The real world keeps butting into his fantasies. A knock on the door. He wrapped a towel around his waist. It was the pizza guy, a long haired Latina girl, the one whose breasts he avoided stepping on. Siege licked his lips and let the towel go. Maybe the program is fine as it is. As the girl was handing him the pizza and her bra, the naked men on his roommate's bed woke up, and walked up to him. To a harem he shall go. He thought of pressing the button again. And decided against it.

unapproved testimonial for a friend

Teacher Noel's heart skipped a beat when he saw the rows of girls all in skirts. The permutations shocked him. Christmas morning came early.

boots

Storm's gone. I miss it already. I was forced, yesterday, to use this one umbrella, a really big one, with the signature colors and seal of my alma mater, the kind of memento you keep in boxes that age in your attic. My wife had brought with her one of our umbrellas, and I had ruined my green one last rainy season--never got it fixed--and it was pouring yesterday, what with those hard winds slapping the rain around, hitting me with a carpet of water at each wind's shove. I ran back inside, stepped out of my wet shoes, ran upstairs, and pulled up a chair to step on. The big umbrella was on top of our closet. Tearing the plastic wrapper, I sighed as I stepped back from the window, to give the umbrella room to unfold. It was big after all, and as it openned up, somebody's laundry slammed on the window, and then vanished, caught up in the torrent of wind and rain. I closed the umbrella, went down stairs, put my shoes back on, and openned the door. When the wind shifted and rammed me with rain, I took back my sigh. I had a dome on top of me, big as a beach umbrella, shielding me from hard rain and torn up shreds of plants. If only I had a pair of rain boots to match my umbrella's color.

unbreakable

Ramirez could barely see through the blood in his eyes. He smelled his own stink, tasted his own blood, everything he ate and drank had gushed out, and when a switch fell down voltage routed his whole being, sending a thousand tiny painful simultaneous stabs to his core, his feet kicking puddles of his own piss and shit; he would scream if he could, but even lifting his eyelids open needed the strength of his entire being. So when he tried to curse them all he did from his barely moving lips on his bluish-red swollen face that hung on a limp neck was mumble.

A hand grabbed the hair on the back of Ramirez's head, pulled it up and settled it on the chair's backrest, leaving his jaw to fall open and saliva to ooze out. "Just tell us what we want to know," said the gentle but persuasive voice.

"Ab jub balaaa," Ramirez tried to say.

"We know, we know. You just balance the books, sign the checks," the voice said in a sing-song mockery, "and keep the money in the bank for your distinguished clients. On and on, you've been repeating that since we hauled you in six hours ago." Mirano's hand let the head go and it fell down and sagged to the right. Had it not been for the restraints, Ramirez would have fallen over.

He won't break, this man, Mirano thought, at least not in the time we've been allowed to tease out the clues from him. Mirano whipped back to his Captain, who nodded. The Captain wants to talk. The door swung close behind them.

A match struck and inflamed both cigarettes. Mirano and his Captain inhaled deeply and then winced. The abandoned factory still smelled of rusted metal. The thick air of the evening was stale, just like the hole they're in.

"They have his family, Sir, that's why he is this--"

"We got something."

Mirano threw his lighted cigar and killed the tiny embers with his heel.

"We can't break the encrypted files in his laptop, but there's a pattern we saw, and it might be a clue..."

The door swung open and a raging Mirano grabbed Ramirez by the head. He screamed in the half-dead man's ears, over and over, the same question, till the Captain managed to tear his grip from Ramirez's face.

Mirano sighed and inhaled the smell of puke and blood and piss and fear in the room. He paced frantically as his Captain spoke to the tortured soul: "Just tell us what we want to know." And the Captain's eyes slid from the pulp on the chair to the pacing man who said, almost under his breath, a question that will get them closer to the heart of things.

"What is the missing pulse?"

testi for my two baliw friends

Camille

A veiled woman walking down the street caught my eye. So still were her shoulders when she walked. The air around me thickened. A breeze unveiled her face, undressing her long hair and I couldn't breathe or move at the sight of her. "Shoot to kill!" my captain roared from behind me. "She's the infidel we're looking for!"

Abi

She poured a spoonful of the skull-marked bottle and swallowed it. Bitter. Just a slight sting in her stomach. She expected nausea but it didn't come. But then, that's me, she thought. I can take on anything. Except him. Him was the he walking back from the men's room, dodging other restaurant customers, flirting, with his brown eyes, with the waitresses. She took a menu from a waiter passing by and propped it up on her table for two, shading the gestures of her hands. She emptied the bottle on his coffee. "Hi, love," he said and she glared at him, and then she looked away. "I'm sorry. Old habit." After a thick silence, he said, sipping his coffee. "You sure there are no hard feelings?" She put everything she had in that smile.

exile

After an ear infection that sidelined with me at home, I'm back in the lounge that is my new workplace. I call it that, a lounge. So relaxing. My corner inside its inner room is stuffed with a large box filled with my stuff, one so big I have to sort them out tomorrow. Because I'm a sloth and disorganized, the lounge people did me and themselves a favor: they bundled and shoved together all of my stuff. I think I'm going to write each of them a Friendster testimonial, by way of thank you. I'm still working for my alma mater's PR arm, though I've been relocated, because I am Godforsaken anti-social, and my boss knows writing can be mood-driven, to a quieter place. It was not that silent this afternoon though, when college students excitedly argued their project proposals to my boss, who held the power to veto cash grants to students' artistic endeavors, for which they wanted university funding. I felt relieved to listen to their emotional gestures and spontaneous laughs. I'm not that old, but being around people who are, can make you. So I have to thank my boss for understanding the quirk of a man I am, and for exiling me here, in the lounge, as opposed to the other, tunnel-like office, where I had probably aged 10 years. Feels good to be back. No, this can't possibly be exile.

campus life

2006. school's in.

catatonia

2006. flight of stares. promise of rain.

bundy clocking woes

2006. exile.
2004. in my mind.

the domesticated life

2006. replacing the lock with sandwiches, or just how tired i am this morning. allergic to maids. how to apologize to rice. boots. regardless.

puta ka!

"No, Marcus and I are not an item, we just hang out!" I yell to the FX-load of people: the driver, the two passengers seated up front, the four in the midsection, and three with me in the back. Only Judith beside me is the intended audience. But this is how you avoid admitting everything during the cramped ride back home. You keep your voice down until your best friend infuriates you with her prying and you cry out in denial.

"Louder. I don't think the MMDA lady outside heard you," says Judith. I can feel glances, hear random bits of murmurs inside the FX. I am the one nearest the door. Is this bitch daring me?

I pull the doorhandle before any of three passengers near me can protest. The morning rush of sirens and engine roars and bus horns blast inside the FX.

"Manang! Yoohoo! Yes, you! Marcus and I are not a couple!--"

"Puta, Ellie--" Judith interrupts, but I can scream louder.

"--we are just going out! Nothing wrong there, di ba!?"

The FX brakes to a sudden stop. I let Judith reach the door handle across me and pull the door shut. She glares at me.

I glare back: "Happy now?"

"Miss," says the driver,"could you two just text each other about your lovelife instead?" His rearview mirror frames for me his exasperated eyes. He clearly doesn't need this so early in the morning. The FX is still not moving.

"Oo nga, keep your personal lives to your--"

"Opo, Lola,--" Judith fires me that look: let's-just-get-this-over-with, --"my friend and I are sorry."

"We'll be quiet the rest of the way. So sorry po," I add.

The other passengers sigh and resume their bored looks. The driver guns the engine back to life. There's a knock on the driver's window. He rolls it down. It's the MMDA lady. Via the rearview mirror, the driver shoots me that look: nuissance. I shoot him my indignant counter-look: live with it.

"What did I do?" the driver asks the blue-uniformed manang, who tells him to shut his engines off. He does. She glares at him and walks to the back of the FX while waving for other vehicles to pass us by.

"Lagot ka, Ellie," Judith whispers.

"Puta ka," I say under my breath.

The door swings open. The manang to whom I hollered my exasperation a while ago is eyeing each of us in the back. Her eyes settle on me.

"Were you the one who yelled at me?"

I blink. No one says a word. The manang’s eyes roll up and she sighs.

"Just make sure," she begins. I can feel it: everyone in the FX is just as attentive as I am. "Just make sure that Marcus isn't seeing anyone else. Mahirap umasa."

I am stunned. Judith is giggling. The manang looks dead serious. I can hear mumbles of sus maryoseps behind me.

"Partner!" another blue-uniform yells from across the street. "What's going on?"

The manang turns to her and yells back, "It's ok." Then, in her normal voice says, "just a potential accident." She smiles that knowing smile and slowly closes the door. The driver scratches his head. The engines coughs to life and we slide away from the manang and speed up on the road ahead.

Judith is suddenly too busy thumbing on her cellphone to even look at me. Her grin tells me she is already texting the world of what I had just denied, of what had just transpired.

She presses send. I know so, even without looking closely. We have the same cellphone model.

“Good thing you don’t have Marcus’ number,” I mumble, the streets a blur as I look out the window.

“I do now.” At that I scramble to open my bag, but I already know it’s not there.

“Puta ka, Judith!”

sudden fiction in english

2006. unbreakable. puta ka!

the last time i tried poetry

a mouse sped by
and i said hi
that's it
writer's block follows

the last time i tried poetry

a mouse sped by
and i said hi
that's it
writer's block follows

regardless

I am missing, no matter how deep into my ruble of papers I search, a sachet of coffee. I've tilted my desk and it's not among the items that fell over. I've lifted each cat in the bedroom and it's not under them either. Under the bed, the space under cabinets, the nooks where my cats hide my stuff they steal when I'm looking elsewhere. Not there.

Maybe I had consumed it and hadn't noticed. I look in the trash bin. Nothing Maybe I disposed of the wrapper elsewhere. Maybe I never bought that sachet in the first place.

I retrace my steps, rewind the morning as it unfolded. I kicked the blanket down and crawl out of bed. I heard the PC humming to life after I switched it on. My neighbor was playing "Staying Alive," which I could hear when I fixed my first cup of coffee in the kitchen. Got a little irked when I saw the newspaper in disarray; the cats must have been looking for the classified ads. Maybe they want to move out. Then I went back upstairs to write. And then now. No remembrance of where I put that other sachet.

There is a paraphrase of Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is usually the best one. My cats stole that sachet of coffee. They have stolen and hidden stuff before. They could do it again. Fine, they did it. Or I consumed it without remembering where I disposed of the wrapper. My memory's playback is suspect. Or I must have never bought a sachet in the first place. All of these are plausible. No real evidence for any single one of these hypotheses. So much for science.

A leap of faith, maybe. That might help. Which hypothesis feels most intuitively true? The cat theory. Yeah, that one. Why? If I have to explain that intuition, it's because my cats are cute and they steal stuff from my desk. Paperclips, post-its, receipts. No point in this. I couldn't find any stolen stuff where my cats usually hide them. And no point in defending an intuition. An intuition does not need any defense.

Either way I want my second fix of caffeine.

This a time when neither science nor faith helps you arrive at a decision. My investigation can drag on and on and still I would not find contentment. I just have to make that decision myself, regardless of scientific or religious truth.

I'm going out to buy some coffee. Regardless.