The Weekly LitWit Challenge 4.3: Metamorphoses
I was still wearing my scarf but I wasn’t quite myself this morning.
metamorphosis
noun ( pl. -phoses ) Zoology
(in an insect or amphibian) the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages.
• a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means : his metamorphosis from presidential candidate to talk-show host.
ORIGIN late Middle English : via Latin from Greek metamorphosis, from metamorphoun ‘transform, change shape.’
The classic classic: Metamorphoses by Ovid.
The modern classic: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
LitWit Challenge 4.3: In 1,000 words, preferably less, write a story in which the protagonist wakes up and finds herself/himself transformed into an animal, plant, or object.
Deadline: Sunday, 9 January 2011 at 12 noon.
The prize:
The Helmet of Horror by Victor Pelevin, a contemporary retelling of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, from The Myths series.
Let the transformation begin.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
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January 4th, 2011 at 13:38
When I saw the title “Helmet of Horror” – I automatically connected it with something else. @_@.
January 4th, 2011 at 14:23
I am not sure if I am dreaming, but all the sensations are real. The wetness, the stench and the moist are all here for me to bathe. I cannot move my body and my hands and my feet are gone. I don’t know what is happening. All I remember was that I was drunk and I passed out on the sidewalk. When I opened my eyes I was here, standing alone in a comfort room, with my spine bonded on the wall, my face wet and reeked in urine.
Wait. What is that? I heard some men talking outside. They are talking about their escapades last night. Oh they’re approaching. I must go but.. but… I can’t seem to remove my back from this wall. What is this? Must shout… Hey mister! Mister! Help me I can’t move myself! Help!
Can’t they hear me? They are just talking about their mistresses, but they cannot seem to hear me. The bulky man is unzipping his pants.. He is taking out his dick! Wait mister! I am straight dude! What’s the matter! Ahhh.. You fucker! Why did you unloaded your piss on my face!
He put back his zip back and in his shiny belt buckle I saw the reflection of my fa.. face? My face is white? Shiny? What the hell. It takes a while to process this.. I am a Urinal.
January 4th, 2011 at 14:49
Before Miranda Priestly slept that night, she felt uneasy. She had this queasy feeling that something will happen. She drew her curtains aside and stood looking at her flamboyantly and meticulously horticultured garden, looking for anything that might cause this anxiety. But all she saw was nothing worth her attention. She withdrew from the window and hastily clutched her mink Chanel robe and laid her body in her precious curly maple Parnian Furniture bed and drifted off.
At the first gesture of the afternoon, Miranda woke up. But i guess ‘woke up’ is an overstatement. Miranda found herself feeling light and furry. She tried to get up since today is the Costume Institute Gala where she is a guest of honor. When she tried to assume a 90 degree position, she did but her line of vision is still the same. Nothing happened. Thinking that some of her body parts had gone awry, she tried again. Still nothing happened. As she tried to feel herself, she discovered to her horror that she became….if you kindly dig this….a bag. Yes, a bag. Feeling hysterical and catatonic, she tried to feel the brand. Jumping off the bed( yes, she can off the bed), she positioned herself in front of the mirror and saw- as if to add insult to injury- that she transformed into an ordinary bag with Hello Kitty design and flower prints.
At this point, Miranda is beyond consolation and she started rattling off names of designers she designated as saints to ask for help but no voice came out. The door opened and thereupon her assistant came. Thinking that perhaps Miranda went out early, she took office supplies from Miranda’s coffee table and,as she went out,noticed the hello kitty bag shrouded by the Chanel robe. She laughed and muttered something about the grossness of the bag.
She picked the bag up and went out. Meanwhile,Miranda contemplated shouting to this assistant and planned termination once she became herself again. At this point, the assistant clutched the bag and said,” If Miranda saw me holding this ugly stuff, I be today’s my day”. Then with a smirk, she threw the bag in the dustbin.
Days later the world was scandalized by Miranda Priestly’s disappearance. She was later replaced by her immortal enemy, i.e. even if they are reincarnated they will still feud, Andrea Charlton Casiraghi Follet.
The bag, or Miranda, however remained unseen even if children reported seeing a moving bag in a dump site. Those reports, sadly, awaits to be proven.
January 4th, 2011 at 20:36
There’s nothing worse than money problems. Emotional pain may be agony and sickness can kill you but nothing gets you down like a dollar pinch. When you get hit by a financial crisis, you become worse than dirt. Those struggling with their job deadlines can always hope for an unannounced storm and if you’re sick, everybody else starts treating you with pity as a prelude to the deference the living bestows on the dead. But when it comes to being broke? Tsk, tsk, tsk… you become the appendix in the human body, the sand in the food chain, the kitschy decorative flower pot a tourist bought in some godforsaken place. You become worthless once your dollars slip away from you. Worse off, you’re a worthless piece of shit with no dime to your name. This is why people call the penniless broke. Do you want to see a man broken? Strip him of all his financial assets, then you can break his spirit.
So you understand why I’m wearing black, carrying this silver plate I stole from grandma’s china cabinet. I can’t believe you can summon a devil in the middle of a parking lot but I guess that’s better than shivering plain sight in a cemetery with tomb stones staring at you.
Bippity, boppity, boop. Pinch of sugar, drop of your own blood and something that’s precious to you — my sole one and only twenty dollars — I’d exchange you for an energy drink but I want more of you — specifically you’re worthier cousins.
One second. Two seconds. The hair on my arms started rising.
Twenty minutes.
“Yo.”
I turned. What beauty! I guess the devil lures in more suckers this way.
“Hi. I want to sell my soul.”
“Hmmm, and in return?”
“I want to roll in gold. I want to wake up not to the sun shining down on me but to the glitter of diamonds. I want rubies, sapphire, topaz, every kind of precious stone.”
“Done.”
Done? I wanted to ask. But I could not voice out my query. My surroundings have changed. I felt myself being moved. Distantly, I can hear someone talking.
“Would you like to try this on ma’am?”
I wanted to take a look and there, right in front of me, is the biggest goddamned diamond I’ve ever seen. I would’ve cried if I had tear ducts. As it is, the oversized zit on the overdressed woman trying it on made me want to laugh at the same time.
Ahh, being a mirror is better than going to hell. As it is, this is my kind of heaven. I hope somebody tries the emerald earring next.
January 4th, 2011 at 21:58
METAMORPOSER
by cbs
(all rights na all rights reserved)
Ako si Gregorio Samsam, kilabot ng mga sampayan. Walang sampayan akong pinalampas, basta may nakasabit na panampay, sya kong sinasamsam. Sa aming lugar, kilala ako sa palayaw na Kit, kapag may nagtanong kasing maybahay kung nasaan ang mga damit na sinampay, ang sagot lagi ay
Kinuha ni Kit
Sinong Kit?
Exactly!
Di ko alam ang sanhi ng aking fetish (at di ko din alam kung ano sa Tagalog ang fetish, tiningnan ko na sa Tagalog English dictionary ni Carl R. Galves-Rubino pero wala sya dun, although may entry na “festschrift: n. parangal) subalit di kayang arukin ng aking mababaw na panghusga ang alituntunin ng mga sanhi. Shet. Nonsense ang pinagsasabi ko.
Sa kaliwa’t kanan kong pagkalantari sa anumang bagay na sinampayin, nahulog ako sa balon ng hustisya. Sa kulungan, dun ko nalaan ang isang napakasakit na bagay. Wala silang sampayan.
Tangi kong ginawa ay manalangin sa dios ng kalayaan, Patawarin mo ako, makalaya lang ako dito, di na ako mangungulimbat ng mga jacket o panty na pagkaylalaki, o anumang damit na nakasabit sa tuwirang kableng nananalaytay mula Pole A to Pole B.
“Paggising na paggising mo bukas, humayo kang malaya”, saad ng masidhing boses sa likuran ng aking ulo.
Nasa dagat ako ng kaputian, sambit ko sa aking paggising. Ano itoh?
Tas nakita ko ang mga kakosa ko, para silang mga higante, tas nagkaroon ako ng isang masidhing uhaw, hindi sa bagay na sinampayin, kundi sa dugo, kahit sa dugo ng mga kakosa ko.
Ahhh, ano it!! sigaw ko pagkakita ko sa mahabang karayom na nagsilbing nguso ko. Bzzz, bzzz sabi ko sa mga kakosang nagmumuni-muni, pero tila di nila ako naririnig, tila di nila ako napapansin, kaya lumapit ako sa Mayores na himbing pa sa pagkakatulog. Tinusok ko sya ng ngusong karayom sa malabalbuning hita, Pwe, anlansa ng dugo mo bok!
Bumunghalit ang boses sa likuran ng aking ulo. Anupa ang inaantay mo. Puga na. Indahin mo na ang wagi ni Robert Louis Stevenson, Here is the door, Here is the open air, Itur in antiquam silvam.
Bzzz, bzzz, malaya na ako at ngayon ay nasa gitna ng inyong pagkaharapan. Pero isang pakiusap lang po sana, sa ating pagsasalu-salo, sa inyong pagbubunyi sa anumang bagay na pinagsasaluhan, sana namam ay wag kayong pumalakpak.
January 4th, 2011 at 21:59
LitWit 4.3: How to Offend the Christians, the Filipinos, and a Minority With Fiction
On the eighth day, God created the Ego.
But He left that project alone, neglected if you may, because it was an utter waste of Divine energies. There is no advantage in the Ego. There is no benefit in owning one. An ivory elephant, in all its beauty and grandiose upkeep, will still have its share of beholders and admirers. Meanwhile, the Ego will have a steady fan base of one, and it will be just as expensive to maintain. Furthermore, God found out, because He is all-knowing and all-seeing and all that wonderful Goddishness, that the Ego is a devilish catalyst to unbelievable feats of pride and shamelessness that he completely abandoned that insidious undertaking altogether.
He then remembers that, like Hayden Kho, the Ego was the Devil’s idea anyway. The latter suggested this “wonderful innovation to your most intelligent creation” on the seventh day. They were chillaxing then.
And so it goes that God discontinued the Ego and designed its destruction. He thundered this awful pit, and buried the Ego along with several of his major disappointments. These failures include Mahal’s ex-boyfriend-turned-tasteless-drag-queen Jim Girl, that talentless scourge to Filipino Action Movies named Mikee Arroyo, his parents, the Ampatuans, the as-duplicitous-as-she-is-over-acting Mariel Rodriguez, and the PCOS machine. The aforementioned clawed their way out of this fetid prison, and, by and by, became Embarassments to the Proud, “Tabo”-Wielding Filipino people.
The Ego was left alone in that dreadful pit. It was then tangible, but, because it was this limbless mass of curdled pus, it had nothing to employ for its salvation. It died in that pit, and God was relieved.
But the Almighty was not taking any chances. Several of his greatest disappointments have escaped and are destined to raise hell in the Philippines. He then commissioned the Devil to take the Ego’s remains so it can burn forever. “Trash the damned thing,” the Almighty boomed, and in consequence, the Ego was the first officially Goddamned thing. Now, in what can be the rarest display of obedience, the Devil complied. But he was then busy planting fixers in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pasay City; those things are as old as time if you should know. He was, then, too distracted to pay full attention to his ordained office that he took to his duty half heartedly. What the Devil did, though, was that he took this handful of brimstone and emptied his palms in the Ego’s grave.
The Ego burned, for sure. But it was a mistake, an Almighty mistake, mind you, and by their very nature, mistakes linger. It turns out that the Ego, like sin, cannot be completely disposed of. It burned, sure it did, and it was a massive heap of black ashes by the time the brimstone had performed its appointment. But it didn’t perish in the way that dead things stay completely dead. Because there was movement in the midst of the Ego’s pitch black remains.
The Ego’s divine architecture was moving to the whims of an infernal blueprint. It’s ashes squirmed in this hideous dance, the Macarena, as it took this familiar shape. It looks as if, no, it was turning into what looked like God’s greatest, vainest creation.
The Ego’s ashen remains became human. But it’s conception was damnation, and it’s engineering had such detestable influences. it’s thought processes were wired with an affluence of pointless bitchfits and rhetoric nonsense. Furthermore, these were reinforced by this unprecedented degree of self-entitlement and a knack for shameless self-promotion. And it was armed with this most curious artifact, an HP laptop that came with this intermittent DSL connection because it was powered by Globe. And it had a Google account, too.
Alas, from the Ego’s rot was born the first blogger.
January 5th, 2011 at 15:49
“Food on the counter. Heat it up. Be back at 9.
Xoxo”
I left you this note a while ago. The last line – I never meant that.
I’ve packed my things with a heavy heart. I’m leaving you I say as ripples gush down my cheeks. You and I both know what we have doesn’t make sense. I have fortune awaiting somewhere, you have runways to walk on. What lies ahead we both know won’t make us happy yet neither this does. For the nth time, I’m tired of goodbyes. Better off this way.
But what is this now? This is easier. I’m getting what I want! You touching me; I touching you dying with the tide of the waters running off you – and I don’t care! This is what I came for. You’re letting me go there. Seventh heaven.
January 7th, 2011 at 02:06
Raha’s alarm clock rang at exactly 9 A.M., his preferred time of waking. Superficially, the day started with a predictable normalcy that was to be expected of his middle-aged life, except that morning, he woke up with a nagging feeling that there was something quite off. He stood up, yawned, and wore his slippers as he went to proceed with his daily routine – a schedule which he has followed robotically for years.
He headed to the bathroom to defecate, a ritual he had been able to maintain every morning with the help of his religious consumption of fibrous foods. (His mother had ingrained upon him the necessity of habitual bowel movement early in his life, and he observed this quite faithfully.) Yet, as he sat on the bowl, he felt like it was wrong, entirely wrong, to be sitting there. After he wiped himself and flushed the toilet, he stared at his face on the mirror. He knew he was supposed to be seeing himself, but a stranger looked back, a stranger that he felt he knew, imitating the way he ran his hand on his beard. A wave of fear crawled on his skin, and he turned towards the bathroom door, his heart pounding.
Just in time, his wife called him from downstairs, announcing that breakfast was ready. It was the same meal they had every day of their married life: oatmeal pancakes with a dollop of peach jelly on top, a hard-boiled egg with the yolk removed, a fist-sized serving of skinless chicken breast, an apple, and a glass of orange juice. He sat beside his wife, and together they ate everything slowly, methodically, carefully chewing each morsel and washing it down with a sip of juice every five bites or so.
“I’m feeling a bit different today,” he blurted to his wife, “like I’ve changed somewhat.” His wife looked at him and touched his forehead. “You’re not feverish, did you eat anything bad last night?” He remembered what he ate, except it was nothing out of the ordinary from what he usually had – a piece of fruit and a glass of protein shake. “Nothing fanciful, just the same old,” he sighed.
“Well, what could it be?” His wife asked. But he couldn’t answer, because things seemed just as it should be — except it wasn’t. He reached for the glass, felt it, and while he knew that it was cylindrical as he stared at it, there was a certain absurdity to its shape, as if it was part of a world he did not entirely understand, like a detached object that had no purpose nor meaning to him.
He put down the glass and took another bite of the chicken breast, and though the taste of chicken was just as it should be, there was an eccentricity to its very ordinariness — an eccentricity which he believed had enveloped everything he could sense. That morning, he perceived a certain rawness to everything – a primal quality to the way things were – and it was then that he was utterly convinced that he was no longer the Raha that was before.
Something within him ached to explode, an un-Rahaness that filled him to the brim of his being – to be succinct. Soon he could not take it any longer. It had taken possession of him, this him that was no longer the old Raha: clouding his mind, pulsing through his veins, and controlling every contraction of his muscles.
Without warning he suddenly pounced on his wife – the unsuspecting woman who was chewing her pancake delicately – and clawed her face with such violence the bolus in her mouth choked her. As she gasped for air, he tore her clothes apart, exposing her nakedness, and he ravaged her mercilessly, clamping his jaws on her breasts, and then on her throat – an ecstasy glistening in his eyes as he consumed her flesh, the warm blood overflowing in his mouth, and he felt alive, very, very alive for once in his entire life.
January 8th, 2011 at 02:08
He woke up with a start to the sound of a bus roaring past just a few meters away from him. Everything he looked at had a grayish hue with occasional splashes of blue and green. He feared that the large amounts of alcohol he consumed last night compounded by his stumbling on something as he zigzagged his way home which caused him to hit his head on the ground and lose consciousness, somewhat damaged his eyesight. His girlfriend had left him, he was probably going to be fired from his job and his family and friends did not think much of him. Now, he was losing his eyesight. He tried to rub his eyes but was horrified to see that he had a paw with soft pink padding and sheathed claws. Where did his hands go?
Something was not right.
A car roared past to his right and another to his left. He was on an island in the middle of a two-way street. Whenever a car passed by, he could hear various high-pitched squeaks emanating from different parts of its body beneath the generic roar of the engine. He never heard anything like it before.
Above the din of the street, he heard a short sharp yip. He somewhat recognized it and his small heart began to beat faster. He quickly stood up on his four toes. His small black pointy ears twitched this way and that, trying to locate the source of the sound. He took a few small steps towards the familiar sound, placing each of his hind paws almost directly in the print of his corresponding forepaws. Despite the suffocating stench of diesel, he detected a faint female scent. His little black tail was perpendicular with anticipation.
Then he saw her.
A large cat was looking at him from right across the street. Humans would describe her as ginger. She made a little backward movement with her head and a short sharp yip came from her open mouth. He made a series of high-pitched meows in response.
When the street was clear, she bounded towards him, and upon reaching him, proceeded to lick his black forehead. Her slightly rough tongue plastered his whiskers to his white cheeks and pink nose. He instinctively and urgently searched for something beneath her fur-covered belly. He found a teat He immediately took it into his mouth and warm milk gave him vigor. As he eagerly suckled, she thoroughly licked his white body and black tail. For some time, he sucked while she licked.
After he was satiated, she gently bit him on the scruff of his neck and lifted him off the ground. She waited for the street to clear before trotting back to the sidewalk. She deftly wove her way through the flurry of human feet and slipped through a hole on the concrete wall of an abandoned building. She climbed up some decrepit stairs and took him inside a small hole of a concrete pillar. Inside the hole, two kittens were frantically mewling. Upon their arrival, the two kittens rushed to their mother and took possession of two of her six teats. She laid him on pieces of torn paper and lay beside him. The two kittens, his siblings, curled up against their mother’s belly, relentlessly sucking nourishment from her. He snuggled between her belly and his siblings’ warm bodies. He was home.
He felt at peace and safe and assured for the first time in many years. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought that he liked his new form. He was certain that it was a good way to start a new life.
January 8th, 2011 at 09:01
“Taste is the most social of the senses,” my boyfriend Jonathan says on our first date, before plopping a piece of hot bread dipped in extra virgin olive oil into his mouth. “If you de-construct the word ‘companion,’ for example, the word literally means ‘the person you have bread with.’ In Spanish, bread is ‘pan’, and in French we have ‘pain.’” His eyes are aglow as he shares this, but there is no trace of condescension in his voice. It is one of the first pieces of countless trivia I will eventually learn from him. I deliberately stare into his eyes over candlelight. I deliberately make my desire known. Across the table, my hands surrender into his.
—
A few weeks later, I am lying completely naked on the bed and watch in adolescent anticipation as Jonathan strips off his clothes. I feel a heat around my throat. I’m breathing in a peculiar manner; I only breathe like this before sex. I close my eyes, tilt my head back as he, now in dishabille, leans over me and kisses me. First slowly. Then wildly. I moan quietly and he moans back desperately. My hands dig into his back. I don’t know if I want to pull him into me or push so hard against him until my hands break the barrier separating us. “Make love to me,” he tells me in the quietest, most gentle voice I’ve ever heard him use. “Oh shut up and f*** me already,” I say, catching him off guard until we both break into laughter.
—
Jonathan is now at U.P (he is a Master’s student pursuing further studies in English), and I am at Coffee Bean settling down with one of Jonathan’s favorite books. It is a very poetic and erudite work by Diane Ackerman entitled A Natural History of the Senses. Jonathan doesn’t mention his “superpower” at first, but I soon, like Lois Lane, uncover it.
He reads like a devil. He’s the type who can pick up a book by Michael Crichton and call up an hour later to describe how the first 100 pages went. Oscar Wilde purportedly could do the same thing and would challenge his contemporaries. So could President Jimmy Carter, reading two or three novels a week while in presidency. The idea of speed reading begins from that day on to consume me. And the desire to be like my love becomes even more pronounced with each day.
—
As he enters me I close my eyes and rock along with him. I am only aware of the sounds we make : the awkward creaking of the bed, and the sharp, deep, intakes of breath we produce. His eyes are closed. He is in an erotic trance, as I am. Today he is the most silent lover I’ve ever had – also the most present. We are enveloped in each other. Every rock back and forth is the physical statement of a mantra: I am him. He is me. We are in a cocoon, awaiting for the moment we awaken.
—
Here’s how I imagine it goes. As my eyes speed through each phrase, each sentence, each paragraph, I see the images, like a cartoon flip-book, appearing rapidly in succession. Now I’m going so fast there’s not enough time to say all the words. My mind processes them. I am amazed at the reading process: an alchemy of printed word to comprehension. When I’m done imagining this alchemy, I realize my nails are digging into the book’s cover. As my nails dig into his skin. My breathing is deep, as if I’d just gone on a run.
—
We’re making love again: today, we’re going faster – and more loudly – than we’ve ever gone. Jonathan’s had a difficult day at school: the moment he stepped into my apartment, he carried me to my bed. He pounds harder into me. I gasp, feeling his erectness in me. I moan louder, as if to encourage him. Tension… Soon he brings me to an orgasm… A wave of relief.
At the height of my climax all our memories together flash in succession: The candlelight stare. The addictive scent of his Hermes cologne. Wandering bookshelves with him.. .A vivid, rapid succession of images: maybe this is what it’s like to be Jonathan when he reads. An odd insight to have after a climax. He comes into me – gasping – a second later.
–
Jonathan must leave for a few years to Northwestern University in Chicago to pursue his doctorate. “I’ll fire you a text as soon as I arrive, then we’ll Skype! I love you so much, sweetie.” We kiss, lovingly, longingly. I watch him leave, helpless. But my heart swells with pride. My heart is in awe of who this man is. I am in love with a genius. Not every girl can be. I want to be like him, I want to read like him, I want to have a mind like his. I take a breath when I realize the moment’s over, and I head home.
–
I am alone on my bed; the room is black. I switch open the light, heat up some leftover pizza, and pick up a book Jonathan recommended. Reading Jonathan’s books, touching the pages he touched, experiencing what he experienced, I am communing with him, transformed. For what is a person but his memories?
The book is Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, in which Pecola, one of the star characters, is a black girl who desperately wants blue eyes like the white children. She buys Mary Jane caramels, looking longingly at the white girl with blue eyes on the wrapper. As she eats, soft caramels melting upon tongue – at least for a moment – she has transformed into Mary Jane.
I don’t know what happened that night Jonathan left, but from then on I began to read like a devil.
January 8th, 2011 at 09:11
Somnambulism. For two years, I’ve wandered unknowingly. Snapping into consciousness in places I have never been. I ride a bus. Dine in a restaurant. Dance in a club. Blackmail a political figure. Sometimes wake up in the emergency room after aggressive resuscitation. One time in the surgical ICU with an ET in my epiglottis. Pretty much everything I do while I’m awake.
Only that I’m not.
It attacks particularly when the moon is not illuminated. Pitch black.
Like tonight.
With a tender splat, I fell swiftly to the ground. Snap into a hazy wakefulness. Half-believing. Adrift.
Skatole filled the rural breeze. The sun pierced through the pitch blackness. The pandesal vendor’s call for “kesooooot!!!!” and the scraping of a walis ting-ting against the ground gathering fallen leaves swallowed the silence.
I lay on the ground unnoticed by the early risers running late for work. One by one they got out on the streets hailing for a ride. Adrift with the normalcy of the morning. Like a warm cup of coffee. A sumptuous garlic rice. Or crap on the cover of the daily broadsheet.
I seemed to have fallen into a trance watching them get on with their lives. Students cramming for an exam in the school bus. Employees sucking up to their boss. Husbands reliving a mind-blowing one-night stand.
People gathered. I stepped aside to make way. Nothing happened. I looked at me. Inanimate. Alive but lifeless. Plump. Unappealing. Unwanted. Digested. Crap.
I was assaulted by a sprinting 4-inch stiletto. My flesh parted. Then another cut. And another. And another.
‘Til there was nothing left of me. Not even enough to bury.
January 8th, 2011 at 20:12
The first person I told of my becoming a frog was my boyfriend. He laughed and said he’d have to leave me now, because we were always fighting when I could walk and talk right and do things normal anyway, and now that I’ve become -something else, that’s how he put it, he said it’s best to part.
-But I never wanted to be- I paused -like this. I woke up and I’m this way, I said.
He smiled and said -I know that. I understand you. Completely. But we want different things now. I’ve to fix, you know, certain, you know, things, and you do too. It’s not your fault you woke up the way you are.
My final protest was a quiet -well, at least we won’t be having those stupid fights over dinner, you know what I’m saying.
He put his hands on my face, like holding one’s face when one has something important to say to them, he did this and looked at me, and said -it’s not about that. It’s never about that.
So he left.
I never found out what it was about. I did not want to ask. There’s no persuading him when he’d made up his mind. I slept. On my belly, which required some time to master, but I did it after three days.
An idea came to me. I wondered where the other frogs were.
I thought, why am I here, in this small apartment, which I’m pretty sure now I can’t pay anymore. I kept thinking about them, the other frogs, and one day, I decided, I would try and find them, I would maybe live with them, maybe that’s how it should be.
I stayed at my apartment for another three months. It really didn’t matter if I left in three days or in three months, but I’d already paid for those three months, they required that much deposit when I moved in, so I thought better use it all up.
I guess that was just human of me. I’ve only been recently transformed into a frog after all, and I still have no idea what frogs think of these things.
There must be a pond somewhere, I told myself, where other frogs live, and for months I walked and walked, the way frogs do of course, but the idea of walking was something I was not ready to give up yet, so I say I walked, and then I found one, quite a big pond, slightly murky, but there were frogs there.
I said hello to the first one I saw and she looked at me weird, like I said something wrong, and then after a few minutes she said, -you’re accent’s funny.
-Really? Well, I used to be human, you know, but one day I woke up and I’m, you know, like this, like you, a frog.
-That’s interesting. You like being one? I really find it funny the way you speak. You’re, it’s, toneless, how you talk.
-I don’t hear the difference, I said. I really don’t.
-My name’s Christina, she said.
-Hello, Christina.
So she became my first friend there, in the pond. I thought, it’s not so bad. One day I will learn that about tone, I’d master it, and speak like a native frog speaker.
I was having the most difficult time learning, Christina always said -you have to really listen, and I did, but I could not hear anything, it’s all the same. But she was my friend so I said, -ah, but I think I would need more practice. She said it’s fine.
It was the first time she’s met a human who’s turned into a frog, she said. Maybe it was supposed to be not easy.
While practicing one day, it rained hard, and it did not stop raining. It rained for days, with only a few minutes of sun, and then, suddenly it felt like our pond was being pulled, which I thought was impossible, because one cannot pull water, and then everything started spinning, spinning hard, and I passed out.
When I gained consciousness I saw not water, but clouds, black and heavy storm clouds, and a lot of dead frogs around me. I don’t remember some of their names, but there was Jack-Jack, and Analisa, and Sergei, and Poks, and Mr de Balibari.
They were all dead. I was dizzy. I started looking for Christina but she was nowhere. The spinning started again, but it felt different. I realized I was falling, and the clouds were thinning, and I was falling.
I saw other frogs, and we were all falling from the clouds, hundreds and thousand of us, and it was still raining, and we were falling with the rain.
I heard the voices of the other frogs. Some were screaming, afraid of what was happening, but a few were talking, just talking, in their normal voices, and they were talking about everyday things, and their kids, and the pond, and what they did yesterday.
Before I hit the ground, I felt a delicious sensation, like I finally understood what it meant to be a frog. And then I heard it, finally, and I said, -ah, that’s the tone, I hear it, I hear the difference now.
January 9th, 2011 at 07:43
Mom: Brandon! Open this door!
Lea: He’s not there, Mom. I’m telling you.
Mom: Stop covering for your good-for-nothing brother, Lea. I know he’s inside. If I could just open this.
Lea: You’re going to break the door!
Mom: I’m going to break his neck if I catch him inside. Did you hear that Brandon? Where have you been for two days, huh? Aren’t you supposed to be at school? Open this door. Now!
Lea: He might be at Christopher’s …
Brandon: Why do you always manage to get inside my room? Am I not allowed to have privacy?
Mom: Brandooon! You sonofabitch!
Lea: Mom! The neighbors will hear you!
Brandon: Can you shut your mouths? I’m trying to get some sleep here. Please. Jesus!
Mom: I cannot believe this!
Lea: Mom! Come on, let’s get out of here.
Mom: What’s a cigarette doing here? Smoking is not allowed, not inside this house, not ever!
Lea: But Mom, Brandon is old enough to …
Mom: Yeah, yeah, but he doesn’t know what he is doing. Brandon! Can you hear me?
Brandon: Whatever, Mom.
Lea: Mom, let’s get some air.
Mom: I don’t want to see any cigarette in this house. Not in this room, not on this bed, not anywhere! Lea, hand me that lighter. I see it there, on the desk.
Lea: Mom!
Brandon: Stop shaking my bed!
Mom: I need some air, dammit!
Lea: But the smoke alarm …
Mom: Are you thinking that I am going to smoke? Here? And I don’t appreciate that tone, Lea. I am still your mother!
Brandon: She’s too old to do what she wants, Lea. She’s good at anything, she knows everything.
Mom: What’s wrong with this lighter? Oh, there you go.
Lea: Mom! Can you at least smoke outside?
Brandon: Fuck! My hair’s burning! Mom, stop it! Nooo! You’re gonna kill me! Mom! Stooop!
Mom: Were you saying something, Lea?
Lea: Can we go out? Now? At least Brandon doesn’t smoke inside his room.
Brandon: Shit, nooo! Mooom! Leeeaaa! Fuuuck!
Mom: Oh, I thought I heard something. Do you have Christopher’s number? Call him. Now.
January 9th, 2011 at 09:59
Something is amiss in the land far away.
The Sleeping Beauty is insomniac and even the strongest sleeping potion was not potent enough. A recently divorced royalty kissed her hoping to break the spell but he turned into a Beast.
Little Red Riding Hood dresses up in a wolf costume and gobbles up the wolf together with a flock of sheep.
Pinocchio cannot tell a lie and its nose grows shorter and shorter until it grows at the back of its head. Geppetto who cannot handle the incessant truths eventually chops him up.
Lusty, the eighth dwarf, wakes up one day and finds that he is the only dwarf left. This makes him sad until seven Snow Whites, who lost their way, turns up in their cottage. He cannot decide who is the fairest of them all so he imprisons them all in his room.
Meanwhile in a murky forest surrounded by thick mists, a gathering of wicked fairies, hags and witches is ensuing.
“Our spell worked”, they cry in unison while watching the events in the magic mirror.
“This is clever”, says one of the wicked fairies. “Why would I let her sleep and preserve her beauty when she can stay awake and have wrinkles and eyebags. She will not only die in a week, but she’ll die looking horrid”
“And I don’t care if there are 100 Snow Whites; they will all end up molested anyway”, says the evil Queen.
“But wait, where are the goody-goody fairies?”
“Stupid, you were one of the goody-goody fairies”
They laugh and cheer as they take out the Witches’ Brew and parties all night.
But somewhere near, hiding behind a tree, someone is watching. Someone hears their secrets. Someone will save the world.
After a week of continuous partying, the evil Queen decides to check on her magic mirror. She shrieks as she sees that everything is back to normal. She thinks she is still intoxicated so she wakes up everyone. No, she isn’t wrong. Even the good-turned-wicked fairies are missing from their group.
“Mirror, mirror, playback everything that had happened since the gathering”, orders the evil Queen.
A mysterious man kissed the Insomniac Beauty and put her to regular sleep.
He counselled Belle and the Beast and they eventually got back together. Belle was so happy that she cried on Beast’s shoulder turning him back to a man.
He opened up Little Red Riding Hood and took the wolf out and sewn her back together. Then he put the wolf in a sheep’s clothing
He convinced Geppetto to re-assemble Pinocchio. When finished, he told Pinocchio, “For now, lie incessantly. You will learn your lesson eventually”
He found the seven dwarfs buried underneath their cottage. It turned out Lusty was schizophrenic and buried them when they were sleeping. He killed Lusty and the 6 other Snow Whites.
“You are messing up the numbers”, he said.
For one week, the mysterious man did everything to put the world back to normal.
“This may not be perfect world but at least this is the real one”
This angers the villains so they look for the mysterious man.
“Who are you”, says the evil Queen
“I don’t have a name”, says the man. “I am the character who was never mentioned. I am the one who is always overlooked, who never made any impact to any story. I was the one who was never in any scene”, he replied
“Wait, I don’t remember you from anywhere”
“Exactly! I am even worse than an extra; they at least had appeared in a few scenes. While I…I was a nobody. But thanks to you, now I am Somebody. When I heard your secret, I realized I have the power to influence a story. I can do everything that is possible in this world. I can even make you vanish!”
The man swayed his arm
“Be gone villains!”
At these words, the villains cower in fear. However, nothing happened.
“Aha!”, said a wicked witch. “You only have the power to put everything back to normal. But you cannot change what isn’t traditional. This world needs us or else there would not be any story
“For being a snot-nosed, meddling somebody that you are, I will turn you into something even more insignificant than you originally were: A tree among the thousand trees among the hundreds of enchanted forests!”
Before the wicked witch could flick his wand, the good witch interferes.
“I cannot overwrite his spell, but I will wish for you to be a tree that is important. Something that will play a big part in another story”
* * *
In Pandora, the Tree of Souls is having neural connections with the minds of Na’vi.
January 9th, 2011 at 10:18
PREQUEL: a surfeit of moringay soup—saltless, fishless moringay soup!
I THOUGHT I was in hell. Because the “room” temperature was unpleasant. Darkness, everywhere! And there were hideous sounds. I thought fast: voices from newly-judged people either in elective offices, online services, or judicial halls—judged people and SATANETTES! This was hell. Pure acid. I was totally smothered by its power. So I was judged. I had amnesia like Toni Gonzaga. I was an indie Toni Gonzaga with an indie grittiness and an indie set: I didn’t know that I met God, talked to Him about sins, bargained like tourist Pinoys in Silom district in Bangkok. Every second passed, I fell deeper in a very gingerly way. Alice in Wonderland. But unlike Alice, I didn’t see any flashing icons or interesting “circumferential” panorama: no floating piano, no familiar rodent, no yummy tart! What I saw was gobness! Throbbing gobness, animated gobness, and … the air was great. I dunno why.
The cavity was empty. Well, the acids were inviting. I wanted to drink it but I couldn’t. What I saw next was: some illustration. Probably a word order, like noun-verb-adjective; looks like “beauty is noun, beautify is verb, beautification is noun.” On the wall was this massive trinity of open-flower maps. I turned my head. More of those visual aids but scattered like standard distance of masterpieces in a painting gallery in Lisbon. Then I heard this overwhelming groaning. From severe pain. From severe pain that has been there for a long time. Then I saw a solo chunk…of longganisa—resistant to this seemingly peristaltic movement!
No need of twirling piano to poke me who I was. The stench and motion of that rodent, I mean, that solo longganisa revealed my protean side: I am an endoscopic tool inside an ulcer-history tummy. Not hell.
SEQUEL: MORE saltless moringay soup to ease off the ulcer pain! and more reading on How to beat STRESS!
January 9th, 2011 at 10:29
I woke up to a smell so revolting I wanted to throw up. “jesus christ what is that?” I asked as I looked around. But I couldn’t see anything as it was so dark. I felt bodies wiggling, wanting to get out, cramped inside this small place. Underneath, I could feel the earth moist and reeking with the stench of urine and feces. I didn’t know what was happening and for a moment I remembered those scenes in The Wire where Greek mobs transported girls to foreign lands for prosititution. Just last night I was partying with my friends. I must have passed out what with all the drinking and now I find myself here. I must escape I thought, but just as I was to push my way out, the door opened and a man came over and grabbed one of us. I could hear shrieks and cries and everyone was now pushing violently. In all this commotion, I felt a strong thump and I found myself out of the craphole. I ran. Past the man in overalls, and I never looked back. I didn’t know how far I had gotten, but I stopped finally and noticed how vast the land was. There were all sorts of trees and crops. The grass was green and it felt cool against my bare feet. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my back. I wanted to look up to gaze at its brilliance but somehow I couldn’t raise my head. That place must have given me a stiff neck! I exclaimed. Just then, I felt someone grab me from behind. The man seized me and I struggled to free from his grip. “Where are you taking me?! Let go!” I demanded. But he just laughed and said, “You little pig. You’ve been very naughty. What should I make of you? Ham? Bacon?”. Pig?! Ham?! Bacon?! And here I thought they were going to make me a sex slave!
The man who turned out to be the farmer/butcher carried me back to the farm for slaughtering. He held my head up, knife in hand. From here, finally, I get a magnificent view of the sun. And I kept my head up to marvel at its glory for as long I could.
January 9th, 2011 at 11:40
Iron Oxide
Franz Kafka would have been amused if he saw the eight of us. Eight Roachans, as we came to call ourselves.
Long ago we were chosen for the first manned mission to the Red Planet. It was hailed as the first interplanetary voyage of a terrestrial species this side of the galaxy.
Little did we know what we were in for.
The space agency tasked to bring us to Mars did not have the technology to transport us safely over six years and billions of kilometers across the cosmic void that was deep space. The ion-powered ships were there but the scientists weren’t so sure if we would survive the journey.
Without earth’s magnetic field to protect us, they feared we would be lucky to survive so long without lethal cosmic rays turning us into cancer-stricken astronauts by the time we set foot on Mars.
But the whole world was already told of the mission and our leaders were hoping that it would somehow give people something to cheer for given the social and economic decay of those times.
So this brilliant genetic engineer had this idea to turn the eight of us into cockroaches.
Hardy human-sized cockroaches who were resistant to radiation, tweaked to survive for god knows how long, induced to hybernation, packed into these interplanetary ships, then shot to the Red Planet. Then we would do our experiments in Mars on our Blattarian bellies. Problem solved.
Except that things didn’t turn out that way.
So there we were, scurrying across the Martian soil, conducting our experiments as Roachans, when a radio message came crackling from earth. “Abnormal tectonic activity. Widespread destruction. Over.”
Then the radio went dead.
The eight of us just looked at each other in silence. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.
It had been twelve thousand years since we last heard that radio message. There were millions of us Roachans living within the Martian subsoil since then. We had no idea what happened to earth and our beloved Atlantis twelve thousand years ago.
Until we heard faint radio signals one hundred years ago. We learned from TV documentaries emanating from earth that Atlantis sank to the ocean.
But humanity survived, thankfully. Now the eight of us founders of this Martian outpost have not decided just yet if we are to make contact with humans again.
Are we going to be embraced as fellow humans? As former humans? As Martians? As cockroaches?
We have no idea.