nagdidilagang tilapia

My neighbor's horny adolescent girl, the same one I see tiptoeing home at the whip of dawn on the roof behind their house, so her parents won't know she and her boyfriend joyrode each other the previous night, is singing. Oh God. I can hear her, from our kitchen, the part of this house closest to theirs.

And God can she sing.

Wait. That was supposed to be a question. God, can she sing?

I rummage through my brain for words to capture how bakya she sounds, whining like a guilty rat trapped in a balon. But that's not enough, and I find that what I want can only be said in Tagalog.

She sings like, kung kumanta siya, parang... (go back to the title of this post.)

Determined Detergent (DD)

"We never doubted you, D."

"Of course you did," D said, and sweeping the crowd with his gaze, "You all did."

The hand sanitizers, soaps, disinfectants, detergents, and fabric softeners looked down, admitting their doubts.

"But that was before," said the elderly and motherly fabric softener. "Until you came, no other detergent was able to remove so many kinds of stains in so little time while barely wearing out the fabric." At that, D beamed, proudly standing erect and tall, as though winds were blowing through his hair, an unseen cape waving like a triumphant flag. And he knew that this was how he seemed to them at this moment. A hero.

"The master will stop having those fits," said the young soap. "He will stop throwing us into the garbage, as hardly used failures, even though some of us were innocent and had nothing to do with cleaning clothes."

"The master is strict, her standards high, her morals unforgiving," said the washing machine behind the crowd. The machine winked at D and opened up his dryer. The stain-free clothes were now dry, and the master will come for them soon.

"Focus, relentless focus and sorting out and crushing those oppressive stains, that is the key, remember that," D said in a booming voice. The laundry room, whose white-tiled floor stretches into the bathroom and kitchen, were quiet. D had them by the edge of his tongue. He had finally proven himself.

"What should we call you, stranger? I mean other than the "D" on your packaging?" asked the hand sanitizer.

"D is fine. What's in a name anyway?"

"Nothing," the fabric softener said, "and everything. A name to us like yours is symbol, pride, hope, a reason to go on."

"Maybe we should give him a name, since he doesn't have a clue," the disinfectant said.

"I have an idea," said the washing machine, and when he said the name he had in mind, D and everyone else beamed. It was fitting.

Later, the master walked into the laundry room to get her clothes from the drier. She noticed something different about the detergent's packaging.

"Funny, this wasn't here this morning," she said.

On the package's front pronounced the laundry room's pride: DD.

"That's Determined Detergent to you," said the young soap. The washing machine glared at the soap. The master might hear her. Better the master figure it out on her own.

shark attacks zoo visitor, shark dies

Henry Zoo, Nebraska. Investigators, paramedics, and biologists are baffled by a successful lone shark attack at Henry Zoo, where the victim was first-time zoo visitor posing for a picture. No one else was hurt, not by the shark, and not by cuts via glass shards. A portion of the aquarium facilities though had to be shutdown for repairs.

"There was opportunity, the suspect is the murder weapon, but we can't file anything under 'motive,'" said Police Detective Andrew Rolls. "We're not giving up though; we're going to keep digging. Forensics will tell us more."

Survivor Mona Victorio sustained deep bite marks on her right shoulder when one portion of the aquarium glass shattered, shoving Mona down with the torrent-weight of salted water, and flooding the area to waist-level. The shark took this opportunity to attack.

"Don't look at me like that, the sharks are well-fed. And they don't attack people, contrary to the norm and what we see in the movies," said Henry Zoo Administrative Head Martha Anderson. "And I think it is sounder if we characterize this as just a freak incident, rather than an actual, premeditated attack. The victim wasn't even in the water!"

But Anderson may be wrong. Security camera footages and the sequence of images found in the victim's friend's digital camera document one particular shark closely following Mona's movements.

Allison McNaughey, visitor and witness to the attack, said that Mona let out a high-pitched scream, as though bird droppings fell on her newly shampooed hair. "She rose from the water and twisted," Allison said, "and walked backwards and slammed the shark against a nearby column. It was like, a basic self-defense move. I don't think she panicked, more like she was annoyed."

"It doesn't look much now," said biologist and Henry Zoo staff member Gordon Shumsky, referring to the crushed shark. She [Mona] must have been really pissed."

"Of course it was premeditated," said National Geographic Biologist Ameron Diaz. "The digital camera images show a pattern of stalking, which is characteristic of sharks when they have decided a prey is worth attacking."

"Hello! Like I would know what that shark would want with me. There were several of us near the glass wall posing," said shark victim Mona Victorio when a resident FBI agent started asking her questions. "But I do have a grandaunt that was attacked by shark and survived."

"That's it," said Detective Rolls. "We got motive."

"But that," cut in Zoo Admin Head Anderson, "doesn't explain why a bystander nearer to the protective glass than the victim was not attacked." Rolls and Anderson had been heatedly arguing in front of reporters, the shark victim, and the crushed shark.

"I think I can explain," said the biologist Diaz. "There's a theory that certain memories are passed on via genes, which is why cats try to scratch the marble floor in a gesture much like covering one's pee with dirt. Here, the first shark perpetrator survived, remembered the first victim's features, and passed on that hate. That shark you have in captivity, I am willing to bet, has its family traceable to the victim's homeland."

Meanwhile, a former-model turned paramedic treating Mona the victim said, "I don't really buy that genetic vendetta theory. The bites aren't that deep to suggest spite and malice."

"Sabi ko nga," said Mona in her vernacular language.

"What did you say?" asked six foot tall, tanned Mark Rosewater, a literature major who paid for his schooling by modeling, and then took up medical training.

"Oh hah? I said I was single," said a beaming Mona, not minding the multiple puncture wounds on her shoulder.

Authorities said the shark cadaver will be examined under close FBI scrutiny. Meanwhile, all sharks at the Henry Zoo are scheduled for scientific family tree mapping, to prevent and preempt further attacks to visitors.

overcoming sisyphus

Color. You use colored post-its and polka-dot your worktable with them. Because your table is brown and your PC is black, the small reminder notes--smaller than my palm--call out to you eyes. You flick your eyes to them and boom: you are reminded of things to do, pencilled on a yellow list. You look around your worktable and the end-result is listlessness. You are swarmed with yellow. You let out a moan and then a sigh. Later on you moan again. You can't do all them to-do's at the same time, only a couple at a time, and in sequence. So you do the manageable. You make another list on another post-it but this time on a color that stands out from all that depressing yellow: neon orange.

Spiff. Spice. Maybe it's nice. You laugh out loud. And you return to the two basic questions your skewed self often finds useful: what do you want to do, and how badly do you want them done. You don't need a plan. You need to want something badly. All else, yellow and orange, the colors of the rainbow, will follow.

testimonial for mona

IN THE RESTAURANT, Mona saw her distant self in a mirror three tables away, past the couple eating slowly while staring at each other, past the table with kids constantly getting off and on their chairs, to their mommy's annoyance, and past the shuffle of waiters briskly walking to and fro with orders taken and food trays to deliver.

In one of those wall-length mirrors that make the room is larger than it really is, briefly, Mona saw a glimpse she immediately wanted to capture in digital film: a snap of herself unselfconscious, just looking into the distance, not caring what will happen, unafraid of life itself, an innocence that was possible only with a firm confidence in who she is, who she wants to be.

She fumbled with her bag, where is that camera? A waiter approached her. "What's wrong, Ma'am?" Nothing, Mona mumbled. Everything, Mona thought.

There, she found it. She aimed her camera towards the image and clicked. A waiter's blurred backside botched up the shot. She tried again. She saw an image of herself aiming at herself with a camera. Brilliant, Mona thought, just brilliant.

I want that candid shot, she thought, and went on to timing her camera to take five quick shots five seconds are she let it sit on the table, its lens aiming at that mirror.

Five seconds of eternity. Mona tried to calm down, so she would look like someone not waiting for a camera to click and save. Think how wonderful this would be: a high resolution shot with everything else cropped and blurred away.

So, she willed herself to forget that camera.

She heard a click. She waited three seconds and grabbed it.

Five shots. A kid in a blur running with a fork. Next. A waiter signaling to the cook about an order. Crap. A couple holding hands just past Mona's reflection. Getting close. Mona in the pale glow of a car's headlights passing outside the restaurant. Almost. And finally, someone staring into the distance, expecting maybe nothing, except for that perfect shot. She caught herself, on digital film, grinning. So much for a candid pose.

Mona asked that nearby waiter, the one she ignored earlier, to come over, stand still, and listen perfectly: "If you screw this up, I guarantee your painful death."

She handed over the camera and looked away.

easter

An angel slipped into His tomb and calibrated the divine egg timer: resurrect in three days. The angel looked at the body partially wrapped in tattered, bloodied cloth. "Not so all powerful now, are we?" Gabriel hovered above the corpse, landed gently on the elevated slab of stone, kicked the body once. It didn't move. It couldn't move. He quickly sent a telepathic message, to be uploaded to the angel bulletin board: kick Him while He's down; we won't get this chance again, hurry. Giggling like an eight-year old, Gabriel pulled out his cell phone, dialed a hot line. "He's out cold. We have three days off. How much mayhem can we do in three days?" "You'll see," Lucifer said on the other end of the line. Gabriel closed his flip-phone. "I'll say this out loud because You're thick omnipotent head can't get it. This elaborate rise-from-the-dead stage play you directed and starred in? This is not about them realizing they needing something called 'salvation.' It was never about them. It was always about Your needing them to need You, because You're a selfish God. What a teenager--inducing a need, an addiction, to You! You have three persons in one and none of them give You proper counsel. You need a shrink. The only reason we put up with You is that we don't know how to kill You, yet." Gabriel sighed. He felt lighter, now that it was off his chest, this Divine resentment. Now he could spend three days without his wings and halo and without that endless oppressive divine light shining above him. Gabriel closed his eyes--and heard a thud on the tomb's inner wall. Lucifer was inside, holding a crushed voice recorder, staring at Gabriel. "If you're going to think of running away, you might as well learn from the first and the best." Gabriel was stunned. He never thought God would be so distrusting that he would place a recorder in His tomb. In a blink, Lucifer stood by the angel's side. "You're not angry at Dad anymore?" Gabriel said. "No. I was at first, but I outgrew that. I have a life now. Now stop sulking, I'll show you around. Heaven is overrated."

bored

With my wife in Iowa undergoing training, I'm left to my own devices to keep myself from being bored to death. I win at staring contests with my cats. They look away after a while and I shoot both arms up with one big Hah! I won. Meanwhile, the cats give that smirk: they move their whiskers up in that slow, annoyed way: what an idiot for a master we have. I split my lunch and dinner with you whiskered ingrates and you can't even curb my boredom. Tell me again how the coming days are in any way holy?