The winner of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 6.7: Endangered Specifics is. . .
annemp and here is the winning entry. (For the rules of LitWit 6.7, look here.)
It happened on a rainy Wednesday night – not that it matters since it was the sort of thing that did not pick a date. I was on my way home from a friend’s house, aboard a jeepney that was carrying four or five other people. It was the latest I have travelled on a PUV alone, and the roomthily sparse passenger carriage made me jittery. The jeep being the most plebicolar form of transportation in the area, it catered to a variety of passengers you’re never sure what to expect of – irate menopausal women who refuse to help your fare reach the driver, teenagers so engrossed in their blateration that they almost miss their stop, and among them, hooligans waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on their prey. (Trust issues and stereotypes – the trademark of the sodalitious. Of course, the elite have their own robbers; although they do not pounce, the gentle perpetrators.)
Ironically, the sluggish flow of traffic calmed my anxiety to a lull, resigning me to staring at the shiny damp floor of the vehicle. After a few minutes, a flyer slid rather quickly across my field of vision, as if it had been cast to the floor on purpose.
I looked up to see the guy beside me holding a clear book-full of brochures, flyers and calling cards. The other few passengers turned their heads to look at him as well, but he was oblivious to us as he intently skimmed through the files with what seemed like an acrasial expression on his face. As if in silent agreement, the others shifted their glances somewhere else, probably attributing the misplaced flyer to a sudden gust of wind. I, on the other hand, continued to stare at him, mentally debating whether or not his irate countenance was something to worry about – or if he really was annoyed to begin with (some people are just unlucky enough to be born with a default expression). The latter was confirmed when the brazen foppotee grabbed the piece of paper he had finished reading, crumpled it, and tossed it behind him without even bothering to aim for the window. He WAS of a sour disposition and to worry or not was not really a choice I could make – my heart went ahead and raced frantically. Litter Peter then looked around, making it clear that he had little remorse for what he had just done. His eyes were not those of a lurking predator but ones that belonged to a starved house pet. In retrospect, littering and mugging had no strong logical connection but I was too nervous to realize it then. I quickly checked my bag for hiulcities and secured the pockets, eager for the patration of my ride and at the same time overflowing with the lubency to get off at the nearest stop.
I then noticed the man sitting on Litter Peter’s other side, and how he, too stared oddly at our common neighbor like something was off. That his body displayed a predilection for pugnastics comforted me a little, but as the jeep approached the side of the road I was still determined to make the jump – only Peter went ahead and gracefully alighted. I let out a long sigh of relief – which was truncated by Boxer Guy’s plegnic announcement that he was holding us up.
Congratulations, annemp, please post your full name in Comments (it won’t be published) and we’ll alert you when your (very heavy) new thesaurus is ready at National Bookstore in Rockwell.
Update: annemp, you can pick up your prize at the Customer Service counter, National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati, any day from Wednesday, August 24, 2011.
For this week’s LitWit Challenge we are mulling over the sort of fire you must walk through in order to get this:
Haha Valyrian pun. Later.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
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