Waxing Brag

Then the time to break the silence was upon her so she screamed.

***

In the mundane side of life, there are stuff called bills and vacations. I invite you to free-associate about how the two could come together to make things interesting for someone who spends 80% of her waking hours mooning over the perfect recipe for macaroni salad.

Oh, where are my manners?

Hello, dear friends and familiar strangers! It’s been a while since I’ve set my foot in this here Broken Coffee Cafe. I do apologize for the dust on the furniture. I just got in after months of riding on a runaway, souped up roller coaster. Here, let me get a dishtowel and wipe down this bar stool. Come on closer and let’s chat awhile.

How has it been?

Stupendous? So-so? Middling? Huhum? Great?

As for me, I am still groggy from my runaway ride. It would have been fun

Nothing Fancy

Life is short, so goes the old cliche.

I feel the truth of this in my bones. And so as I ruminated on this nugget of wisdom, it gave me a choice between two actions.

One, ignore the cliche. We all become worm fodder eventually, and we cannot do so much about it… except be 100% organic so the worms would not suffer from any terminal disease or long-term side effects when they do their bit for Mother Nature and go through the process of breaking down our lipids, adipose tissues, muscle mass, bones, et cetera, so we could revert to being of the earth, literally. Not that the generation of worms would also be here for long.

The second option left me thinking about the paradox of everything. Enough prepubertal musicians have belted out what they wish to do since life is indeed timed like a parking meter — even though I have yet to see a real parking meter. Tee hee.

Also, films abound about what one would do because his or her days are numbered. To nail the message home, we see characters willing to go to outrageous heights to fully experience life because the parking meter is slowly ticking to zero. And predictably, there is a sense of self — even contentment — at each ending.

As expected, we become aware of our own

Pain

Bite me.

Please.

Draw blood. Let raw nerves scream in agony.

Bite me. Please.

I hurt today. It is the hurt that throbs at the temples and makes one choke. It is the pain that radiates from the heart and permeates the soul.

So bite me, please. Let the pain be something from a fleshwound. Not this. Not this grief that threatens sanity and sears the spirit.

 

Sunlickers

As my years have stacked up, I’ve been having several health complaints, one of these is my borderline sugar level. My doctor advised me against indulging in too much sweets. I could manage without the candies, the brownies, the bonbons, the donuts, the cakes. But… but what is life without ice cream?

Somehow, a part of me rebelled. Nobody takes ice cream away from me.

Here’s how I got around the good doc’s injunction.

Runningboarding on a Safeway Bus

Today is a total deviation from the hectic schedule of work because I spent the entire day running errands for the household instead.

And there, I slipped. I mentioned work, didn’t I?

I’m — again — doing the workaday grind five days a week,  part of the labor pool, one of the bazillion commuters standing on the train station platform, drenched in sweat while waiting for the boxcar to carry me to my destination.

If the station is so crammed with commuters that one cannot drop a pin in the middle of the throng, I skip the  overpopulated cattlecars and ride the bus.

A bus ride in the metro is actually an exotic activity in itself — a unique flavor that the Department of Tourism should not miss in exploiting as another sport that tourists must experience firsthand while vacationing in this here tropical paradise of ours. CamSur has its wakeboarding; let Metro Manila have its runningboarding on a Safeway Transit line.

Here is the main perk:

Lystan

• The age of the drowning man has arrived.
• Consequences of choices are ripe for the picking.
• Candlewicks pick up flame and lick thick waxes down.
• Entities dance to tuneless dirges.
• Dreams of aisles and veils portend the desire of a dying heart.
• Unnurtured soul cries — silently, bitterly — behind fierce mask.
• Lost believer making their way back to the beckoning fold.
• Pains, joys, tribulations mingle for perfect sustenance.
• Cast adrift in sunless seas, tides ebbing, flowing to final oceans.
• Ends of worlds no longer matter.
• Maps no longer bear compass points to lead the way.
• Directions are meaningless — the only choice left is to trod onwards.
• Forward, forward, forward to bleak horizons feet doing the work.
• Goodbyes are spent, hellos are still minted and unused.
• Oceans swallow sleeping ships and spew them back to empty piers.
• Baggages are packed, unpacked, and packed again.

Tropical Depression

photo courtesy of guardian.co.uk

Perhaps it is the bleakness of a city cloaked in gray filthy fog that has dampened my spirit and made my soul long for home.

Perhaps it is the realization that coming back to the city of my birth does not have the same significant heft as staying in the mountains with the people I love.

Perhaps it is just the fickle side of me awakening and realizing that the only creatures that I talk to whenever I am home are two stray cats who have found refuge on the window ledge of my kitchen.

So this is how loneliness looks when personified.

No wonder others find comfort in the thought