skydiving without parachutes : nanowrimo

2005-11-30T01:13:00.000-08:00

Chapter Three – Unfinished

The apartment was nearly empty.

John carefully stacked the numerous poly boxes on top of each other inside the bigger cardboard box which had been reinforced with packaging tape. Every window in the apartment was open, allowing the sun light in. A music CD player was running in one side of the house, two tiny black speakers unleashing the full musical impact of Josh Groban’s rendition of the Prayer. Seth was gathering the dvds and stuffing them into a black garbage bag. The bag had a large strip of brown masking tape upon which were written the words DVD MOVIES. Elaine was wearing a pair of rubber gloves and boots. In one hand, she held a bucket that was filled with the various toiletries and other bottles from the bathroom. In the other, she was gingerly holding a wet plastic bag that she had labeled THROW AWAY. Kimberly was outside with Jenny, setting up a small table and preparing some glasses of raspberry ice tea, and tuna sandwiches, for those who found the work making them hungry.

Gerald was in the bed room, still packing his more personal affects together, when Patricia knocked on his door.

“Hey,” he smiled at her and tried to maintain it, but it was clear that he wasn’t really that happy. It was clear that he felt torn about everything that was happening. Part of him did not want was was happening. But part of him knew it had to be done.

“Hey,” she raised both eyebrows upon seeing his half-hearted smile. She walked into the room, and sat down beside him, “We’ve discussed this.”

“I know,” he sighed, “Doesn’t make it easier.”

“No one ever said it would be,” Patricia admitted. Gerald reached up and touched her chin. He looked at her face and wished so much he could lean forward and kiss her. But he knew he couldn’t. Or rather, he shouldn’t.

“I am sure everything will work out for the best in due time,” she told him and took his hand into hers. She held his hand with both of her hands and brought it to her face. Gerald cupped her cheek and felt his eyes begin to grow misty.

“Don’t,” she told him, “Don’t or else we both will.”

It has been a few months since that fated day in the Coffebar Café when Patricia and Gerald (and in some ways, Kimberly, Elaine, Seth, John and Jenny) first met. From the odd starts and sudden curves that the two faced, things came to a much calmer pacing of events when the two found themselves finding one another once again in a small indie-film friendly café called Cinekape. There, the two discovered how much more complex and pronounced their feelings for one another truly were. And in the many months that followed, the two took their time to get to know each other. The two remained honest to one another, never hiding behind any pretenses or artificial expressions of happiness or interest. They promised to be who they were. And they promised to permit the other to be who they wanted to be.

And for many many months that followed, things worked out. Not perfectly, of course, for there were no such things as perfect relationships between two people; but they were wonderful months that were filled with true understanding, maintained commitments and honest emotional truth.

“I just cannot help but feel frustrated… why do I have to leave?” Gerald sighed as he spoke, unable to remain silent about his emotions, and in many ways it was something that Patricia always appreciated about Gerald. There was a clarity that he gave. Whereas in some relationships, there would be some unspoken game of guess how the other was feeling, Gerald did away with such pretenses and honestly spoke how he felt.

“You know you have to,” Patricia told him and sighed, “And you know I will not stand in the way of your dreams.” Patricia held him tighter and tried to keep from crying. She knew he knew how much she wanted him to stay. And she knew how much she was afraid of losing him, just as he was afraid of losing her, but she wanted him to reach for his dreams. And she wanted him to succeed. “You know you want to.”

“Funny how the world works out,” he muttered softly, “You got couples all over the world who can’t wait for a chance to break up and see other people. And they find all these hundreds of ways to complicate the lives of other people. Then you got people like us who have found one another amidst a sea of dissatisfied faces and players and abusers… and we have to.. have to-“

“Shh,” she held him closer and shushed him to be quiet, “We have discussed this already, Gerald. We know what this conversation is leading to. We know in the end, it boils down to you chasing after those dreams you have long hoped to reach. Just as I have my own dreams.”

“We have each other,” Gerald repeated, recalling what they always told one another, “We will not lose one another. So long as we choose not to.”

The two fell silent. They sat on the bed, Patricia leaning on Gerald’ side as he wrapped one arm around her shoulder and held her hands with his other hand. Gerald sighed and tried to relax. Patricia rubbed her hand against his chest, as if hoping to sooth his heart.

“I’m scared,” he told her.

“I’m scared too,” she admitted, “To be honest, I have always been scared. You have this effect on me, Gerald. You made me feel happy. Too happy. And it scares me.”

“I know what you mean,” Gerald told Patricia as she ran his hands through her hair, “This.. all this feels so new. So different. So comfortable. Yet frighteningly too comfortable. It feels like… everything fits. Like everything is how it was supposed to happen.”

Patricia fell silent. Gerald could almost sense her thoughts. * Everything other than this trip you are taking. This trip to study in the United States. * Patricia looked up at Gerald and saw him frowning. She ran her hands on his face, whispering at him to stop frowning. To not feel that bad about things. To accept that there are things we have to accept and embrace. And there are things we have to do, or else we will live the rest of our lives regretting not doing so.

“What if we only have one chance at this,” Gerald suddenly spoke up, voicing out a fear he had long denied to exist, “What if we’re giving up something that finally does make sense in this world? What if we’re being fools and giving that up?”

“Do you remember what you told me when you first admitted you we’re falling for me?” Patricia asked Gerald. Gerald remained silent. Though he remembered what he said, he was not sure how to think that moment. All he knew was that he felt like he was taking too foolish a gamble. One that could cost them everything.

“I told you I that I needed to tell you something. I told you that I was skydiving. I felt like I was skydiving without a parachute.”

Patricia smiled when Gerald smiled at the memory. She held him closer, “You were falling.”

“Yeah,” he admitted to her again, “And I still find myself doing so every day.”

“Then we have nothing to fear,” she told him, “because we’ve been falling for months now and we never worried about what happens when we hit the ground. We just have to remind ourselves that ultimately, it is our choices to make. Our choices to decide how long we keep skydiving. How long we allow hold on to each other. And when we start jumping off planes again.”

Gerald smiled and began to cry. Patricia pressed her hands against his eyes and kissed his forehead, then wiped away the tears and looked at him straight in the eyes, “We’ve survived each other. How can the world be any worse a challenge?” He grinned, finding Patricia’s words true. Dealing with the world was far easier. One can always just ignore it. The environment giving you hell? Then move. The distance too large between lovers? Then travel. There was always a solution to dealing with the world.

And when it came to dealing with the heart. There was always a choice. Ultimately, everyone always has a choice.

Gerald looked through the many photographs of him and Patricia that they had taken and found himself still finding it hard to believe that they have known each other for such a short amount of time. She picked a photo of the two of them climbing trees and laughed as she looked at the picture, “I’m still wearing my lucky socks!”

“Check this one,” Gerald picked up a photo that had him in a mock shocked expression in a restaurant. Patricia took a few seconds to recognize it, “The one where the table next to us suddenly started talking about that old children’s show who had a host who looked like you!”

“Yeah,” Gerald was laughing and slid through the other photos until he found the series of photos of him and Patricia simply making fools of themselves in front of a camera. “This was at that coffee place. Remember the kids outside the window who were making fun of us, but we didn’t care. As far as we were concerned we were happy.”

Patricia lifted a picture and told Gerald, “I want to keep this.”

It was a picture of the two of them. It was taken while they were walking by one of Patricia’s friends. Gerald was walking with a backpack on his back. Patricia had a bag too, and they were both oblivious to the world around them.

A moment of silence crossed over them again. Gerald realized he had something he had to say. He gathered the pictures up, piled them on one side, then took Patricia’s hands into his.

“I know this sounds cliché and all that, but you do make me really wish I could be a better person. You make me wish I could have a better job. Have more time. Be more free. Afford more things to give you. Or to treat you out with. You’ve changed me in some ways. In many ways. And sometimes it scares me to know how much there were things about me that I used to be defiantly certain of as part of my identity. How there were things about me which I would never betray or give up for someone else. And now, these very things are things that I find myself at times wishing I could simply wake up and be rid off one day. I wish I was less complicated. For you,” Gerald held Patricia closer and kissed her cheek. Patricia felt her tears fall. Gerald leaned close and kissed her eyes, then wiped way the tears with his right hand. She looked at him, tried to smile, but instead wrapped her arms around him and simply held him tight.

“I can’t lose you, Patricia,” Gerald whispered to her, “But since I can’t take you with me, I promise you. When I can. I shall come back for you. To take you with me. Or if you rather, when that time comes, to stay with you.”

Patricia simply closed her eyes, held him tight and knew somehow, deep inside, Gerald already knew the answer. They held each other for a very long time. Long enough for the bright morning sunlight cast upon the windows to fade as the sun set and the moon rose to the sky. Long enough for John, Seth, Elaine, Kimberly and Jenny to big them good night and promise to come back tomorrow to help for the packing of everything else. Long enough for the cd player to finally run out of power as the batteries died, and the apartment fell silent save the sound of two hearts almost breaking.

And still.

It did not feel long enough.

But it was definitely not the last time they would ever find themselves taking another jump together. That , they knew absolutely, for certain.

- the end -

* *

Skydiving is a work of fiction.
But the inspiration behind it, and the love that fuelled its writing is definitely not.
This novel is dedicated to my Panda Bear, Isha,
my parents
and to God, who makes all things possible.

Word Count = 2,108
Previous Count = 48,133
Total Count = 50,241 of 50,000

2005-11-29T22:35:00.000-08:00

Gerald was out on the street, running down the sidewalk and hopping on to the first bus he saw that was bringing him back to the café where he first had met her. He wished John and the two others knew where he could find Patricia but then he remembered the only reason they knew her name was because he was yelling it out in his apartment the the day he met her.

As the bus made its long winding journey between the narrow streets and frustrating traffic, Gerald failed to realize how tired he was. His eyes narrowed into slits until he had fallen asleep and failed to realize he missed his stop. By the time he opened his eyes, he was way past the café and now closer to his old college alma mater which he had long ignored ever visiting, Quickly telling the driver to let him off, he hopped down on to the street and noticed how much the place had seemingly changed. What was once a school with the university mall on one side was now a long stretch of eateries and restaurants for the students to indulge in. Feeling still a tad sore from his long journey, Gerald cursed himself for having fallen asleep and checked the phone if by any chance she opted to call again. Unfortunately, there were no new calls, and the missed calls were only registered in his broken phone. And the broken phone, unfortunately, was left behind back at his apartment.

Feeling dejected and lost, Gerald sighed heavily at the evident disintegration of something that had barely begun. Just before meeting her, Gerald used to think being stuck with Jenna was the worst that one could endure to at least have a semblance of companionship in life. In some ways, he know began to think he was right to think that. For even as he realized how he had most likely blown away in chances with the one and only woman who seemed to actually get him and understand him the way he truly was, he did not even find himself considering going back to Jenna or find anyone else. It seemed she was who mattered to him now more than ever.

And he had lost her even before she had become part of his life.

Gerald walked down the long stretch of the road, ignoring the small herd-like gatherings of students that moved about in packs, as if to walk alone was to invite being devoured by higher batch students. He walked past the numerous groups of smoking teens, who shared stories of failed conquests, notable crushes and the latest gossip in regards to celebrities or sports controversies. He walked past the long lines of people that waited for a chance to use a pay phone, or the next FX shuttle, or the turn to purchase a ticket for the tram over head. He walked and he walked until he realized he was no longer among the vicinity of his old college alma mater and now deeper in the darker areas that most students shunned away from for their own safety.

And he found himself thinking, was that it? What that was the had finally come to? A point when he suddenly did not care for his own personal safety? A moment of ridiculous self-destructiveness for having failed in love? Has he not outgrown this pathetic attempt at gaining attention?

Gerald shook his head, realizing he was above this. He was past all this. He was someone better now. Someone more mature. And he did not see any point in treating his life as if it no longer ended because the chances of love had. After all, that was utter foolishness to believe. Love always had a chance. Love always remains there, waiting for someone to accept it into their homes. And maybe it did not work out with one person, one can never know when the other person comes along.

That was, after all, how it all began, was it not? Gerald with Jenna. The stranger in the café. The ape-faced muscle man and his botoxed big bosomed bride. Was not that first meeting in itself a moment Gerald everything was falling apart?

The grumble came quite suddenly, and Gerald looked around first, frightening it was some rabid dog or other strange pet that had the aims of mauling him, before he realized it was his own stomach. Rubbing his belly, Gerald realized that he had not gotten anything to eat for dinner, even with all the food that was gathered in the apartment. He reached down into his pockets to first check if his wallet and John’s phone were still there, then hailed down one of the public passenger jeepneys to take a ride towards the closest mall.

He was just hungry, Gerald decided, and he would feel much better once he had a chance to eat.

* *

Patricia entered the small café and thanked no one in particular for the dim lights the place had. Shaped like a lunch box, the rectangular café had three couches and five tables spread out in the room. At the central wall between the door and the bar, a large white screen was where the projection of an ongoing film showing fell upon. Patricia carefully maneuvered in the dark, until she found an empty table that contained a single nearly empty drink. Patricia sat down, assuming the previous customer had decided to leave and did not finish his drink.

She was wrong.

“Excuse me, this is our table,” the voice came and Patricia turned to see a heavily made-up drag queen looking at her with eyebrows held high. Not too far off, another woman, biologically female this time, tapped the gay guy’s shoulder and motioned with her eyes. Patricia shook her head and was on the act of apologizing as she stood when the drag queen suddenly pointed at her and asked, “Patricia!? You’re Patricia right?”

Patricia looked back at the drag queen and was taken a back.

“I know you?” she gasped and reached a hand out for a hand shake. Kimberly ignored her hand and leaned forwards, kissing the air close to Patricia’s left cheek, then the same to her right cheek.

“Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?” Kimberly asked Patricia and sat back down, motioning her to join him. Patricia noticed another girl sat on the other side of the table. It took Patricia a moment to remember her.

“Hot Cholocate, but served chilled, right?” the girl told Patricia.

“From the café,” Patricia began to realize, “You work there?” she asked the girl. The girl smiled and reached her had out towards Patricia, “We both do. I’m Jenny. This is Kimberly. You can join us.”

“You’re alone?” Kimberly inquired as Patricia hesitantly sat back down.

”Am I not supposed to be,” Patricia jokingly replied when Kimberly prodded more.

“What about the cute geeky guy, what’s his name, Gerry?”

“Gerald,” Jenny corrected him.

“Oh yes, Gerald. The guy who left his bag?”

Patricia felt silent, feeling for a brief moment the urge to let it out, but her will was stronger than the pain she felt. “We’re not exactly seeing each other.”

“You aren’t?” Kimberly seemed shocked.

“Kim, I think this is private. We shouldn’t-“ Jenny tried to dissuade her gay friend but Kimberly heard none of it.

“What happened? Did he cheat on you honey?”

Patricia looked at them both, “You know him?”

“Oh no,” Jenny smiled, “But I was there. When he first saw you. He was really staring at you. It was cute. I used to think that would be creepy or something you’d only see in the movies. But no, he was really staring at you.”

“You should have seen how nervous he was when you two first met,” Kimberly told Jenny and then faced Patricia. Kimberly slid a cigarette out of a bronze cigarette case which he kept inside his sling on bag. “He was totally falling all over himself over you. He was stuttering at times. He even tried to ask you out but ended up saying it just as you stepped out the door.”

Patricia smiled, thought there was a hint of bitter sweetness in it. She shrugged and tried to answer the earlier question, “I guess some guys just seem worth it at the start. Until you get to know them more.”

“Oh no.. he did cheat on you,” Kimberly shook his head, “And its been what.. three days?”

“It was strange though,” Patricia admitted, “At times it felt like more. Like week.. or a month already. There was this comfortableness about it. A clear understanding you could simply be yourself.”

“Ay,” Kimberly snapped his fingers and pulled out a lighter, “That would have been too good to be true. No one out there is who they claim to be anymore. If they aren’t in the closet, its’ because its too filled with skeletons, you hear?”

“Still,” Jenny sighed, “It is sad to hear it did not work out. I mean, what would I give to have some guy ask me out sometime.”

“Ariel,” Kimberly teased Jenny having noticed her choice of words reminded him of a song from the Disney musical, “Maybe if you would listen to me and try changing your ‘I am dressed to go to Church waredrobe,’ you’d have bigger chances and finding some guy.”

“But I like wearing this,” Jenny complained.

Patricia looked across the bar and tried to decide what she was really doing here meeting baristas whom seemed to know her more than she did them. She threw her gaze around and noticed how the film had ended and barely a couple of people even noticed. The director of the movie, a scrawny guy who stood by the bar, muttered half-hearted thank yous to the unresponsive couple and backed up his stuff.

“I guess, not everyone really finds what they want,” Patricia found herself muttered, as she looked around and noticed all the film-maker décor the café had. “You would have thought in a place like this, he’d be more noticed.”

“Who are you talking about?” Kimberly asked and Patricia turned to face him and smiled. Patricia shook her head and was about to explain how she was just day dreaming when a voice emerged in the darkness and caught her notice.

“Honey, stop that! There are people here!”

Patricia turned her head to see a lovely looking woman sitting at the table just behind theirs. Beside her, a bulky man who evidently lifted weights a lot continued to tickle her and try to steal kisses from her. The girl slapped him a few times, though her slaps seemed more of a play than an actual attempt to ward him away. The people at the counter realized how quiet the place was now that the film was over and decided to play some music. Strains of Damien Rice’s Amie began to play.

“Hi,” a third voice came and Patricia realized the two love birds had a third companion with them. The guy seemed to ooze over confidence. And his lips seemed to be locked in a smirk that may have seemed attractive during the early eighties. “Feel like hoping over to join us at this table?”

The strains of Palchelbel’s Canon in D Major suddenly played from somewhere at the muscular man’s side. Even with the music playing in the back ground, Particia found herself remembering Gerald mentioning it was his ring tone. Patricia stared in surprise as the ape-faced man pulled out his own cellular phone, brought it to his ear, then handed it to the over-confident man. “For you,” the muscle man shrugged, “Your neighbor.”

“Hey we’re having dinner here in Malate. This café just before you hit Starbucks. Just head here if you want to join us. I’m busy,” the over-confident man closed the phone and focused his attentions on Patricia again, “So, feel like joining us? More the merrier they say.”

“Uh, actually,” Patricia was not sure how to ask what she started to think was going on.

“We’d love to,” Kimberly answered and stood up, motioning Jenny and Patricia to follow. Over-confident John’s eyes opened wide as Kimberly sat down between him and Patricia and offered a long-nailed sequined hand towards him. Jenny stared at the table for a moment then asked, “Uh.. you’re the double espresso, no sugar, no cream and you’re the chicken salad with no dressing and a green tea frap.”

Seth and Elaine both suddenly recognized Jenny and laughter broke out as they suddenly easily became good friends. Amidst questions of what one was doing in a rival café (this is in Malate, our café was in Makati, so its okay), how much did the procedures cost (the botox cost a lot, with numerous injections before you complete the full compliment of sessions), John realized how small the world was when Kimberly realized who John was and revealed that he and John’s ex-girlfriend knew each other. Kimberly and Jenny introduced themselves but were too engrossed in the conversations to remember to introduce Patricia.

”What I don’t get is why do you have that ring tone as your ring tone?” John suddenly turned to Seth who brought out his phone and snickered, “It was meant to catch your boy off guard in case someone ever called me. You know, get whatshisname… Gerald to turn his head.”

And Patricia felt that moment the sudden urge to turn her head.

She stood up, just as the song hit its instrumental cues. The cellos sung their emotional cries as Patricia found herself rising from her seat. Gerald stepped into the café, looking around for a brief moment only to rest his gaze on the last person he thought he would see that night.

“Hey,” Gerald barely could speak.

“Hey,” Neither could Patricia.

Both felt their hearts expanding in their chest so much that it felt like they would burst. Patricia felt the tears come again and this time she found it was more than she could control. Gerald looked at her and saw the tears that threatened to fall. He reached up his hand, hoping to wipe them away, as he started to explain.

“Patricia, listen-“

“I know,” she told him and he stopped. He stared at her, amidst the feeble candle light and the strains of the cellos that seemed to blanket away any other possible sound in the room. He smiled now, and ran his right hand across her face to wipe away the tears that had finally fallen.

“I’m psychic,” she gasped as she cried and felt the warm touch of his hand on her cheek.

“I know,” he wanted to say so much. He felt the urge to finally admit so many things in his heart. In his head. So many confessions. So many feelings. So many admissions. But he couldn’t find the words. The courage. The strength to say them. Not when he had finally found her again. Not when she had finally found him again. Not when any he might say wrong could lead to him losing her again.

“Oh, I totally forgot, this is-” Kimberly remembered Patricia was with them and turned to introduce her when she noticed Patricia was no longer on the seat. Jenny gasped and found them standing and staring at each other’s eyes. Seth and Elaine could only hold each other tighter as they looked at them. John raised both eyebrows and actually nodded in approval, “Yep, the fruit cake is now a man.”

“I know I’m difficult some times to understand,” Patricia told Gerald deciding she had to at least explain some things, “I know I can be strange. I can be scared. Or scary. Or both at the same time. But I do hope you give me time to get used to all this. I am just not really used to all this.”

Gerald nodded and took into his hands her hands. He brought one hand to his lips and kissed it gently. He stared deep into her eyes and found the strength to speak. “It has only been a few days.”

She smiled. And nodded.

“Three.”

“Maybe even less... if you count by the hour.”

“Or more if you count the hours we were asleep,” Patricia teased.

The two broke into a laugh slowly realized many others were looking at them. Gerald bit on his lower lip and whispered, “I believe my friends are somewhere here.”
“I know,” Patricia told him and motioned to the table where John and the rest of the gang were watching them. Gerald looked at the table, then glanced back at Patricia in disbelief.

“Okay, now that really is like… spooky,” he told her, “You have got to warn me about these things. It really can transform a man into a cowering mess.”

“Trust me,” Patricia admitted, “I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“I guess we’ll get the hang of it, eh?”

“No rush,” Patricia told him and he offered her his arm. She wrapped her arm around it and the two walked towards the table, waving away the cheers and laughter than their new found friends felt the urge to give them. Patricia and Gerald sat down, their faces now aglow with smiles as the John ordered for some more drinks and food to be served while Kimberly, Jenny, Seth and Elaine continued to share stories about people they knew. Gerald and Patricia joined the stories, laughing along as they shared their own little anecdotes and jokes. And if any of them were to have glanced from beneath the table, they would have seen that Gerald and Patrica’s pinky fingers were locked together, as if not wanting to ever let go.

Word Count = 2,968
Previous Count = 45,165
Total Count = 48,133 of 50,000

2005-11-29T22:33:00.000-08:00

Gerald had just arrived home as he walked back into his apartment and tried to remember if there was anything he had forgotten to do. Still riding high from the recent excitement and fun he had in his impromptu dinner with Patricia, Gerald found himself wondering if there was anything he had neglected that would ruin the happiness he was feeling that moment.

The answer came to him faster than he could say the word, cellular phone.

“Hey, you back home yet, fruit cake?” John’s voice hollered from outside the door. Gerald groaned out loud and before he realized it gave John the very sign that he was home. “Ah I heard that grunt, you fudge packer. Now open this door up or I am going to call your folks and remind them that they have a kid who is dying to step out of the closet.”

“John,” Gerald slid the door open but blocked it with his foot to keep it from opening up completely, “What are you… oh no..”

Outside, John carried with him two six-packs of beer. Behind him, Seth and Elaine carried with them a small pyrex container with pork barbeque and spaghetti. Seth also had a two liter bottle of soda under one arm.

“We bring gifts,” John explained and tried to shove the door open.

“What is going on here? Why are you doing this?” Gerald groaned in an evident show of disapproval, “I am tired. I just got home. And I am sleepy.”

“What, you do not want your neighbors to be friends?”

“Neighbors? Friends? John, we have lived beside one another for nearly four years now. Why on earth would I suddenly want to change that and become your friend?”

“I was not referring about myself, fruitness, but it is really nice to see how you fixate on me,” John sneered and the moment Gerald realized he meant Seth and Elaine, took advantage of his momentary shock to shove the door open.

“We just moved in,” Elaine told Gerald as Seth and John walked into the apartment and set the food down on the dining table. Elaine motioned towards a door further down the hallway, “There was a free room there for half what Seth and I used to spend. So we decided to take it before anyone else does. But since we moved in before having it refurnished, or arranging for our own stuff to be moved from our old home-”

“-You thought it would be better to have dinner here,” Gerald sighed, “Sure, come on in.”

Elaine gave a cheerful thank you as she walked in, her eyes scanning the place like an excited child who had just been given the keys to enter a mysterious castle. Seth was busy looking around the apartment as well, and the two began to remind Gerald of crime scene investigators searching for clues. “All you guys need now is that weird funky purple light.”

“What?” John asked, not catching the joke. John busied himself setting the food on the table and digging through the shelves for plates, spoons and forks. “I know the food we brought with us is not quite up to par with what you normally dine upon, banana boy, but hey, give us a break here. None of us work for such a high class company, you know.”

“I was not complaining-“ Gerald stopped himself, realizing the futility of arguing with John. To do so was like trying to convince a mob to behave… by speaking to them one at a time… in a different language.

“Ey, you have the complete DVD set of Band of Brothers!” Seth called out, “And the whole Miyazaki collection. Everything from My Neighbor Totoro to Nausicaa: Warriors of the Wind… nice.”

“Uh yeah, thanks” Gerald turned towards Seth, half expecting some punch line to come. But when none came, Gerald slowly began to wonder if he was being too paranoid about the three of them being here. Dark visions of him being tied up, grossly tortured, then mutilated by the ape-faced football guy, the botox bosom queen and his passive-aggressive gay bashing neighbor danced in his brain. He would probably cry out for help and only then learn that the walls were only thin when they wanted to be.

“Gerald?”

“What, what..” Gerald blinked a few times, surprised to hear someone utter his name while he was visualizing the brutal murder. His brain nearly took a full three seconds to register the voice’s owner. “Oh, yes. Elaine?”

“You really read a lot?” she asked, motioning to a bookshelf that was filled with various books of all sorts. There were novels, role playing game books, manuals, magazines and even books that fell across varied interests. An encyclopedia on angels was set beside a book on living a purpose driven life. Beside them was a copy of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and a novelization of the movie Alien. Then beneath them were books with names that ranged from Demon: the Fallen to Chronicles of the Black Spiral. “Honey look, he even has a copy of Clive Barker’s Imajica and Doctor John Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. At least you are not one of those geeks horribly obsessed with comic books.”

Gerald opted not to answer. He bit his lip and shut his mouth and hoped no one would notice the eight plastic poly boxes that were set at one side of the room. All eight were filled with various comic books and trade papers backs.

“What is this?” Seth asked Gerald as he lifted up from a plastic green tube a strangely shaped semi-transparent object. It looked like a tiny golf-ball that was golden and translucent with numbers on each tiny triangular face.

“That would be a… twenty sided die. Not all dice came in six sides. That’s used during role playing games.”

“You role play?” Seth asked. Gerald knew he was to regret leading the conversation to one of his hobbies.

“Yes,” he replied, “Every weekend,” he added and mentally began scolding himself for even giving them more ammunition to use against him. Elaine looked at John and John shrugged, “Do I look like I know what he’s into?”

“I think it is cute,” Elaine smiled and made her way back to the table where John had set the food. Seth pulled out a few more of the strangely shaped dice and counted the sides. “A four sided. It looks like a pyramid. Come here, Elaine. Check it out. This one I think has twelve sides.”

“So what exactly do you role play as?” Elaine asked as she turned around and made to join Seth.

* I am going to regret this * Gerald told himself and took a deep breath before answering, “On some weekends, I play a vampire. If you’re familiar with Vampire: the Masquerade… well obviously you are not… hmm… Anne Rice. There you go, I play a vampire much like Louis in Interview with a Vampire. On other weeks I handle the game, with others playing superheroes. DC Universe. Superman. Wonderwoman. Green Arrow. That sort.”

“Whoa!” John looked at Elaine, “You mean you got girls in this thing?”

“Only for the superhero game. For the vampire thing, we are all guys,” Gerald explained, half surprised they were really interested in his hobby.

“Sounds kinky,” Seth commented as he handed Elaine the pyramid shaped die.

“I don’t know honey, I think its cute,” Elaine muttered.

* Kinky? Cute? * Gerald found himself realizing what they understood role playing to mean. “No.. not that kind of role playing. We don’t do it… uh… um… in bed…”

“Okay, that is just too much information man,” John teased Gerald and stood from the table, “Should I move the food to somewhere else you haven’t laid upon with your little orgy buddies while dressed as suck happy vampires?”

“I give up!” Gerald grabbed his hair and wanted to scream. All three began laughing and John raised both hands towards Gerald and playfully clamped them down on Gerald’s head and shook it.

“Ah, you are too easy!” John laughed as Elaine and Seth gathered by the table.
“I normally play a more political type of character,” Elaine admitted as she sat down and began placing some spaghetti on a plate. “Seth here tends to prefer to be a character who shakes things up. You know, an agitator?”

Gerald looked at the two, uncertain if they were pulling his leg again.

“We game too,” John admitted and began walking back to the table, leaving a confused and stunned Gerald who still tried to make sense of things behind. John sat down and began opening one of the cans of beer from the six pack they brought. Gerald inched closer, his eyes shifting between the three of them as he waited for the punch line.

“Seth here got us to try this game called Werewolf a few years back when he was still in the United States. We used to play through the internet, meeting up in chat rooms on specific dates. Elaine and Seth actually met thanks to that game,” John explained.

“Someone is obviously not telling the whole story,” Seth teased and John rolled his eyes, “Okay… okay.. Elaine and I back there were going out.” Elaine laughed as she placed the plate of food she had served onto Seth’s side. She began preparing another plate as she spoke, “John and I were together for two months. Only we weren’t really attracted to one another. It was more.. convenient than anything.”

“What?” John gasped out in false exasperation, “I was convenient!? You make it sound so naughty!”

“John,” Seth jokingly threatened him, “Watch it!”

The three began laughing and Gerald shook his head, “Ah, now I can’t tell when you guys are teasing me or not. This isn’t true is it. You and Elaine were never an item were you?”

“What, you saying I don’t have what it takes to score-“

“Score?” Seth interrupted John.

”Ak… I mean… I mean to be going out with a delectable piece of womanhood such as Elaine here?”

“Why did your choice of words make me feel more like a body part?” Elaine teased and placed down a second set plate on the empty space. Gerald presumed it was meant for him. He walked up to them, and still struggled to discern truth from fiction.

“Well, going back,” John tried to maintain control of the conversation. Slowly, it seemed the target of the jokes was to become John instead. And that, Gerald frankly would have preferred to have happen. “So Seth used to hold these games online right? He would go set up these little announcements in what used to be called bulletin boards.”

”Yeah, the good ole BBS systems of the past. Back then, the internet was not as user friendly as it is now. One had to know how to type certain codes and stuff. More like how some chat providers now work. Websites were few and far in between,” Seth added and turned to thank Elaine for the food. The two shared a silent moment smiling at each other.

“Okay, so you guys all happened to just one time go online?” Gerald tried to help.

“No, I was in the process of convincing Elaine to try gaming when we both noticed an invitation posted in one BBS by someone who wanted to run a werewolf game set in the Philippines,” John explained.

“Manila by Midnight: Garou,” Seth proudly proclaimed, “It was a sucky name but for its time it did catch on quite quickly. Had seven players hook up immediately. Two of them happened to be John and Elaine.”

“So you three all finally admit to being geeks,” Gerald spoke before realizing what he just said. The three turned to face him, their faces devoid of any expression other than shock. Gerald offered a smile and barely found the voice to utter, “…Joke?”

“God, you are right, he is easy,” Elaine laughed and stood up from her seat. She slapped Gerald’s shoulder as she walked passed him and headed for the refrigerator. “Anyone want some ice?”

The strains of music suddenly filled the air. All four looked at one another before collectively turning to face the refrigerator. From somewhere beneath it, sung Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major.

“My phone?” Gerald stared at Elaine, confused, and reached for his pocket. The pocket was empty. “But I just got it last night…”

“I recall kicking something by accident as I approached the table,” Seth confessed, “But I didn’t see what it was so I assumed it wasn’t anything important.”

“You kicked my phone?!?!” Gerald gasped aloud.

“How sure are you it was the phone I kicked?” Seth countered. “And what idiot keeps his phone on the floor?” Gerald stuffed his hands into his pockets and pulled them inside-out. The pocket where he kept his phone had a tear in it.

“You’re lucky it fell in your room,” Elaine reminded him, “Imagine if it fell out while you were commuting back from work!”

“Can someone please shut the phone up?” John groaned and tried to pretend he could not hear it, “I think I have heard that classical piece enough times a sane mind can take in a single day.”

Elaine immediately bent so gauge the narrowness of the refrigerator and the floor. Seth and John stood up and approached the refrigerator. “I think we can both lift it,” Seth told John while John gave his own suggestion, “You can lean it back, towards the wall, with enough time to reach in…”

“Guys guys guys,” Gerald called out to them, failing to notice Elaine walking towards the drawer cabinets in the kitchen, “Trust me, moving the refrigerator is the last thing you can do. The thing is old. And heavy.”

“I think we can do it,” Seth told John, “Come on… just help me out.”

“No no no we just need to prop it on one side for a few seconds. I can fish it out real fast,” John muttered.

And rather than participate in the argument, Elaine sat down in front of the refrigerator, slid the long wooden spatula she had found in the kitchen drawer, and fished the phone out.

The three men stared at Elaine as she stood up, dusted the phone clean, and looked at the numbers on the screen. The phone did not recognize the caller.

“I thought of that too,” John quickly added, “But I did not want to steal Elaine’s thunder.”

Handling the phone to Gerald, Gerald flipped the phone on in time to hear the caller put the phone down. “Hello-“ Gerald still found himself saying even if he knew full well the caller had already replaced the phone on the cradle. He tried to click on the call back functions and found the phone instead freezing up. Shutting it quickly, Gerald softly cursed as he started the phone again and hoped for the best.

“What’s wrong?” Elaine asked.

”Probably broke something,” Gerald sighed, “Won’t redial.”

“Maybe when it fell,” Seth suggested. Gerald nodded without looking at them, “Yeah,” his voice came with irritation evidently there, “Can’t be helped. It happens.”

The phone rang again and this time, Gerald quickly answered the phone. “Hello?” he asked and waited for an answer, “Hello?”

“The microphone?” Elaine looked at John.

“Most likely, the mic,” John agreed.

The three looked back to see Gerald scratching his head as he fiddled with the phone more. “The caller.. well, who ever called, I couldn’t hear anything.”

“The speaker then,” Seth suggested.

“Oh this is crazy,” John shook his head, “If the mic, the speakers, and the damn recall button ain’t working, then stop using that phone. Here.” John slid out his own cellular phone from his pocket and shut it down. He slid the battery cover off and slid the sim card of his own phone out of its place. Handling the phone to Gerald, he told him, “Drop it and you’re buying me one of those video camera – mp3 player cellular phones, you got it?”

Gerald smiled, inserted his own sim card into the slot, restarted the phone and hoped for the best.

The phone rang. And Gerald lifted the still booting cellular phone to his head. “Hello?” he anxiously called out before realizing it was the land line that was ringing.

Elaine and Seth rushed to their feet, ran to the land line and lifted it from the cradle. “Hi!” Elaine replied and motioned everyone else to shush quiet. Gerald quickly made his way to the phone.

“Hi,” Patricia responded, a tad surprised to hear a female voice in the other line. “Can I speak to Gerald?”

“Sure,” Patricia heard the woman respond only to giggle away from the receiver and mumble, “Honey, stop that!”

Elaine slapped Seth’s hands and walked past him to give the phone to Gerald. Gerald motioned the three to move away, “Quiet please?” he told them, not realizing on the other end Patricia was starting to see whole different picture. “Hello?”

“Gerald?” Patricia replied, her voice starting to shake. She felt something unexpected welling inside of her. She felt jealous. She felt angry. But she did not know why she felt all these feelings. She barely knew Gerald. It was not like they were dating. Or seeing one another. “Uh.. are you busy?”

“Not really,” Gerald explained and realized the others were there, “I just have some.. uh… some friends over.” Gerald decided to call them friends was a simpler thing to do. He did not really feel like explaining they were more strangers who just invited themselves over. Patricia, unfortunately, saw the reason for the hesitation differently.

“Oh, I see, they’re just friends,” Patricia repeated Gerald’s words then fell silent.

“What?” Gerald asked, suddenly noticing the shift in her words, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Patricia told him, “I guess I just wanted to say hi. Anyway, I won’t take your time with them from you. Catch you again some other time?”

“What? Wait.. Are you saying goodbye? What’s going on here?” Gerald asked Patricia, suddenly feeling paranoid that he had done something wrong. He could sense Patricia was hurting. Was angry. But he could not define what caused it.

“I have to go,” Patricia told him and put the phone down.

Gerald was too shocked to move. His hand still gripped the phone. His feet were still planted in place. The three visitors stared at him, wondering what had happened. It was John who approached him, carefully keeping his distance, and only spoke when he realized that Gerald was not speaking to anyone.

“Hey, fruit cake. You okay?”

“Not now, John,” Gerald replied without moving. He closed his eyes and tried to say things as calmly as possible. “Maybe it is time for you guys to go. For now. I think I need to be alone.”

Elaine and Seth looked at each other. John backed up to the two and motioned with his head. The three quietly made for the door.

“John, your phone-“

“Its all right, hommie, you can hold on to it for now. I’ll be just next door if you need anything,” John told him and the three quietly made their way out. Gerald finally sighed, and allowed his anger and pain to explode outwards. He slammed the phone back on to its cradle, then dove into the nearby couch to scream against the mattresses.

He was angry. He felt like he and Patricia had broken up. And the funny thing was, for both, he did not know why.

* *

Patricia hated how stupid she felt. She hated how she let some guy she barely new start to get on her nerves so much. And now, she hated how he thought she could be so easily fooled. She did not cry, however. No, Patricia was not the type who would cry when faced with such a slap in the face. Instead, she faced it head on. She stood against the tide and proudly kept her chin up. Only when things had simmered down would she allow it to affect her. Only when she was alone and it was in the dead of the night.

But for now, the urge to do something grumbled within her. Something to do. Something to break this moment of just starting at the phone and wondering what to do. She remembered the two calls she made to him, both of which were unanswered. Then the third one on her land line, which some woman who called him honey received for him. He was a bastard. A two-timing son of a bitch who thought she’d be easy. * Boy was he wrong, * she found herself thinking. If only she knew how wrong she too was.

She stood up, grabbed her own cellular phone and wallet, and decided to step outside and grab something to eat. Ice cream perhaps. Or some cake. Anything to drown the sorrows in.

* *

Gerald was still struggling to make sense of what had happened. He knew there was a misunderstanding somewhere but he did not know how it all began. So he tried working on things in reverse the way he would have in a role playing game. He considered the ingredients of the confusion and decided the two missed calls were part of it. As was perhaps the sudden mention of him having visitors, something which he remembered telling Patricia was an uncommon practice on his part.

Then it struck him. Elaine.
She probably was surprised to hear Elaine answer the phone.

Gerald tried imagining how it would sound if he was the person on the other end of the line. The two attempts to call, assumingly with no response. There was the off – chance she could hear him earlier when he picked up the phone. But that did not seem as relevant to what was happening. Elaine answered. What did she say back then?

“Hi.”

“Quiet please.”

“Not really, I just have some.. uh… some friends over.”

What triggered the confusion. Surely, it could not have just been the hesitation in his words? Gerald struggled to remember if he failed to bear in mind anything in particular. If he failed to pick up any particular phrase.

Head pounding from frustration, Gerald was on the verge of giving up when he decided to break the silence and turn on the television. The commercial showed a woman calling out to her husband, “Honey! What’s that?”

Gerald’s eyes popped open. “Honey,” he muttered and recalled Elaine calling Seth that a few times while they were perusing his things. He stood up and gasped in realization when he remembered Seth tickling Elaine while she had the phone. “Honey, stop that,” Gerald repeated and realized how it all made sense now assuming one thing was taken as true: that she was jealous.

He did not, after all, know for certain that she saw.

But he did not want to risk having her feel that way.

Word Count = 3,851
Previous Count = 41,314
otal Count = 45,165 of 50,000

2005-11-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

Lola Jocelyn stood alone amidst the silence remains of what was once a happy home. The brilliant display of lights and winds had long ended. What was once the center of an amazing moment of psychic power had been reduced now to what it truly was; an empty receptacle of what could have once been the heart of a thriving and living family. Lola Jocelyn walked past the debris and the dust and made her way slowly and carefully to the higher rooms where the now deteriorated remains of what was once a beautifully decorated bedroom existed. The walls, that once were covered in intricately designed wall paper and plaster were now peeling darkened things that resembled the disintegrating ribbons of bandage that covered an Egyptian mummy. The floor, once a sleek brown expanse of carefully cut and fitted boards of wood and shavings, was now a sad shadow of its former splendor. The floor boards were warped and have long lost their varnish. Some had even been peeled from their nails, perhaps by vagrants or perhaps by the most uncaring yet consistent thief of all: time.

Walking past the door that no longer hung upon its hinges, Lola Jocelyn took tentative steps into the room and slowly turned her head to gaze at its corners. She felt her heart expand within her chest as the memories that made this skeleton of a chamber have meaning rose to the surface of her thoughts. She remembered the beautiful brown shades that the wooden floor boards once shone. The pink, white and red wall paper that was plastered over the walls and in some places were loose enough for Jocelyn, then barely ten years old, would hide secretly scribbled messages of joy and fear and admiration… and eventually, when she reached the early years of her womanhood, love and lust.

Lola Jocelyn still saw, though the room no longer contained them, the intricate brass work lamp that at once time was her constant companion and protector of the frighteningly dark coming of night. She could still remember the marble-topped three toed table that carried the lamp, with its three drawers whose handles were brass rings that had a pearl in the center. She remembered how the top drawer was always reserved for the Holy Bible. And her rosary. While the second one was stuffed with her secret journal and the letters that she had received from numerous suitors. The third drawer was always locked. It was locked when she first was permitted to own the table. And it was still locked very many years later, when Lola Jocelyn was now old enough to have grandchildren, even if neither Juanito nor Carlito ever had given her any.

The bed. Lola Jocelyn remembered the huge bed with its brass work design, its thick white and peach cushions that on some occasions would tear and require some patching up and stitching after its stuffing was forced back inside. She remembered the large white sheets that covered the bed; all four of them with the top most one having the shells and flowers pattern embroidered upon its edge. And the velvety black and red final bed sheet covering that served as her blanket when the nights were cold. Lola Jocelyn remembered her pillows; her parents had wanted her to never feel alone. They had given her five to use. Four were nearly as huge as she was when she was ten. She used to even play pretend with them, setting them up on the bed like crouched companions as she served imaginary tea and biscuits. The fifth was a much more normally sized one, though it had the shell and flowery design embroidered on its fringes to match the bed covering. This pillow tended to be the one left on top of the bed.
Lola Jocelyn walked to the nearby window and stopped at its threshold. She brought her hands to her face and stared at them against the street lights from the distance. She looked at the numerous lines and markings that gave her hands so much more character and life. A smile slowly crept upon her wizened face as her eyes focused on something far more distant than the edge of the horizon where the city continued past yet could no longer be seen. She heard the soft chimes of the church bell ringing in the distance, or rather remembered how the bells would sound as they tolled the hour back then. She could perceive the heavy white curtains whose tails were decorated with the same shell and floral embroidery. And then the square slides of glass panels that made up the window, a design that was evidently expensive for its time.

For its time.

Which was a time that had long past but brought back to life by the memories of a tired dead woman.

Lola Jocelyn found herself staring at the glass and seeing her reflection; a shapely and comely young adult who loved to wear her hair with chopsticks rather than a ribbon or pin. A ravishing beauty who had very many suitors yet entertained only one at the window of her very own room.

Jocelyn noticed a few creases on the hem line of her dress and quickly bent one leg to reach down and smoothen it. The church bell was nearly done ringing and any moment, Jocelyn knew her parents would knock upon her door to remind her it was time for Church. But today was the fourth Sunday of the month, and Jocelyn knew today was the day she had to find some reason to let her stay. She had tried many other excuses in the past: feeling slightly feverish last January, an urge to vomit on February, there was the stomach trouble that supposedly afflicted her last March, and this April she knew he had to come up with something sufficiently different enough yet just as convincing.

Knock, knock

Just as she had expected, the knocks came. They were followed by the kindly concerned voice of her mother. “Lynn?” her mother loved to shorten her name. Her father, on the other hand, felt that shortening Jocelyn was inappropriate and seemed to suggest their daughter lacked formal breeding. “We are just about ready for Church. The bell has run. Are you ready?”

Jocelyn decided to give a delay before responding was bound to help make her excuse sound more convincing. Only, she did not really have an excuse yet in mind to use.

“Lynn?” she asked again and Jocelyn turned to face the door and felt a sudden burst of inspiration. Perhaps she could lie in bed, under the sheets, then cough a few times and invite her mother in. Play sick. Pretend she was developing a cough. She remembered hearing about an Uncle who died from a cough before. If she pretended to have a cough, her parents would surely demand that she rest today. It would cost a few pesos in indulgences to ask the Lord forgiveness for letting her stay in, but it was surely much safer than to let a child, or rather, a young woman with cough out into a cold night?

Jocelyn gathered her dress in one hand, then slid the top most bed sheet off with the other, and was about to leap in when she realized that to lie on the bed was certain to cause more creases upon her dress. And that would not do at all. Not with him coming by while her parents were out at Church.

His name was Edsel San Lucino. And he had been courting Jocelyn for the past four months. Ever since they first bumped into each other at the end of the previous year’s Christmas mass, Edsel San Lucino had been finding ways to get to know Jocelyn more. Edsel San Lucino lived in the town further down the river from where Jocelyn lived at; and at that time for one to live nearly a full two hours walk from his destination was a place considered to be indeed very far. While Jocelyn and her family were thankfully blessed with enough resources and familiar ties to own a furnished home, a large patch of farm land and a few horses, Edsel San Lucino was the only son of a farmer who worked in one of the fields owned by one of Jocelyn’s neighbors. Edsel himself worked on the farm land, though his skills and experience gave him the duty of caring for the horses rather than the land itself. Jocelyn knew Edsel was a charmingly handsome fellow who evidently was from a more modest family; she had seen him after all by the entrance of the Church wearing his off-white shirt, ragged brown pants and slippers. But still, such a difference in social class did not matter. As strange as it would have, the two discovered something had been born in their hearts from that brief moment of seeing one another. So while Jocelyn’s parents were busy giving hellos and displaying the expected familiarity and sincerity with the other well-off strangers who had attended mass that day, the young woman saw the opportunity to see if she could get to know him more.

As Jocelyn pulled the bed sheet back in place, she found her thoughts fluttering back to when she had first met the suitor who had captured her heart even before introducing himself. Her thoughts leapt back to that fateful night, after church, as she walked away from her parents and approached one of the tired old women who sat by the Church entrance. The old woman sold flowers and candles to those who cared to buy. In the corner of her eye, Jocelyn saw the man approach her and bring his straw hat down from his head. She feigned ignorance of his presence of course, and motioned to the old woman to buy some flowers. Sadly, Jocelyn had no way to know that the old woman was half-deaf.

“Ate, may I buy some of those flowers you have for sale?”

The old woman did not respond.

“Ate?”

Edsel San Lucino looked at the old woman, and then back at Jocelyn to see what was transpiring. Recognizing who the old woman was, Edsel decided to stay back and let Jocelyn try her best to get noticed.
“Ate, may I buy some of your flowers?” Jocelyn asked a second time, only this time she tried waving her hand towards the old woman’s face. The sudden motion of something close to her face startled the old woman, and she fell backwards, nearly hitting the floor. Edsel quickly stepped up behind the old woman and caught her with his sturdy hands.

“Ay ‘sus maryosep,” the old woman exclaimed, ironically using the Lord’s name, Mother Mary’s and Saint Joseph’s name in vain in front of a Church, “What was that?”

“I am so sorry,” Jocelyn apologized but the old woman did not hear a single word.

“Something flew at me? Something moved past my face?”

“Relax, Lola Vera, it was just-“ Edsel soothed the old woman but her agitation was not yet completely removed.

“Is it on my face? My back? Oh, this woman… she wants to buy something?” Lola Vera looked up at Jocelyn and offered a nearly toothless smile. Though old and tired and dressed in clothes that seemed to have more dust than color on them, Lola Vera smiled an honest and huge grin. Jocelyn found herself envying her happiness. And reminded herself not to look towards Edsel no matter what. “Do you want candles? Flowers? What did you want to buy? I have change.”

Jocelyn smiled, seeing how Lola Vera was now responding to what she thought was her earlier statement, “I would like to buy those flowers, please.”

“What do you want?”

“Flowers. Those flowers?”

“How about flowers? These flowers?” Lola Vera lifted the bunch of white daisies that had been gently nipped from what ever bush they had grown from, tied into a small clutch and wrapped in thin green cloth to keep the uneven stems from hurting the holder’s fingers.

“Yes those would do-“ Jocelyn answered only to see Lola Vera bring the daisies down and lift up the bunch of red roses as well as a second bunch that contained red santan blooms, “How about these? Roses. You like roses? All women like roses. Or these santan. They are lovely. You can grow these. Just stab them to the earth-”

“No no… I only wanted the daisies,” Jocelyn replied not realizing the only thing she said loud enough for Lola Vera was the word ‘No.’

“You do not want flowers? Candles then? For Church? For offering? I have many candles. They are not candles made from other people’s candles. These are real candles. New candles,” Lola Vera brought the flowers down and lifted some candles. A few were long and waxy. Two were inside red glass containers that had a spiky exterior like those you’d find in Church offering racks. One was a round candle with a small metal flap that pinned the wick to the wax.

“No, I wanted the daisies,” Jocelyn was getting flabbergasted. She huffed and reached for the daisies only to have Lola Vera suddenly slap her hand. Shocked, Jocelyn pulled her hand back and stared at the old woman in confusion.

The old woman shook her head, still trying to be helpful even if she failed to realize how wrong she was coming off on the girl, “Not these. No. Not candles. You want candles. These. These candles.”

“I do not want candles. I want daisies!” Jocelyn gasped and once again uttered the word Candles loud enough for Lola Vera to hear. The rest of the words faded away, failing to pierce her deafness.

“Candles, yes. Here,” Lola Vera handed Jocelyn two of the long stemmed ones. Jocelyn dropped them, unprepared to receive long yellow wax candles from an old woman, and shook her head, sighing audibly. Lola Vera mistook her reaction to mean she wanted a different kind of candle. She dug into her basket and began laying out on the ground in front of Jocelyn the other candles that she sold. There were short ones, stout ones, white ones, yellow ones. There was even one with the image of the Blessed Virgin upon it. And another that was decorated with pink and blue ribbons. Lola Vera gave another heartfelt smile; she was proud of the variety that she offered.

“No..” Jocelyn sighed and noticed the man was still there. She turned to face him and saw him looking at her as if he had seen something unexpected. She realized for the first time, as she turned to look at him now, how incredibly entrancing his eyes were. She liked how his eyelashes reminded her of her own. His were naturally shaped, curving just at the right moment to add more depth to the eyes. She remembered how on some mornings she would spend nearly an hour tugging on her lashes, hoping for them to grow more and curve just a tad better. She noticed the tight nose that he had; very unlike the fat and flat noses most men had. His mouth seemed a small touch off-center, which added a roguish level of charm to the man.

“Mind if I help?” he asked her, not once did his eyes leave hers.

”Please,” she replied, then took a heavy gulp before speaking again, “I would like that.”

He smiled and Jocelyn felt her heart flutter around her chest. She felt shy and sheepish. She felt her cheeks flush and tried to find some place to hide for a moment and let it subside. But she was also staring right at him and realized she did not want to risk looking away and lose sight of him. She was not even sure why she felt that way that moment.

“Lola Vera,” Edsel whispered to her ear. Lola Vera turned towards him and smiled, bringing one of her arms to his cheek and squeezed the skin. “Lola Vera… this kind woman here wants to purchase one of your flowers.”

“Flowers?” Lola Vera complained and shook her head. Just before she began to rattle about how Jocelyn was not making any sense, Edsel stepped back from the old woman, looked at Jocelyn and hand signed her to tell her Lola Vera was partly deaf. Jocelyn finally realized what was going on earlier.

“Is she deaf?” Jocelyn asked Edsel. Edsel nodded and pointed at one of Lola Vera’s ears.

“Try talking towards this ear,” he shared the information with her, “She hears better on this ear.”

Jocelyn smiled back at Edsel then ducked down to Lola Vera’s eye level and handed her a few coins to pay for the flowers. She leaned forwards, bringing herself closer to the preferred ear which Edsel showed her. “You do not have to give me change for the flowers,” she declared in a much louder voice then offered a friendly smile.

The old woman nodded her head. She looked up at the young woman’s eyes and found the true message she wanted to deliver to her. The words came clearer now even though there was no sign board or sign language interpreter that would have clarified what Jocelyn had just said. Lola Vera took the coins gladly and took from her bunch a single red rose among the other flowers. She handed this flower to Jocelyn and told her, “For you. Since you are such a nice young lady.”

Jocelyn blushed, having not expected to receive such a compliment. She took the rose and pressed it gently against her nose. She inhaled deeply and took the scent in, smiling as she found the beautiful floral smell still rich and yet soft.

“Thank you,” she told him as she rose back to her full height. In the distance, Jocelyn’s parents were done giving every one they knew a hello and a short chit chat. Jocelyn knew any moment now the two were to be looking for her. She approached Edsel, reached out her hand to him, and once again said, “Thank you.”

Edsel took her hand, gently kissed it, and introduced himself, “Edsel san Lucino, Ma’am. I would like to see you again.”

“So would I,” Jocelyn replied but before she could say more, the shrill call of her mother reached her ears. Pulling her hand away, Jocelyn smiled at Edsel one more time before turning away and walking towards her parents. Edsel brought his hand to his face and realized the soft floral scent from Jocelyn’s hand lingered on his fingers. He watched as Jocelyn was briefly reprimanded by her parents for straying too far, then made to walk with them as they moved to leave.

“If she found me interesting,” Edsel mumbled to himself, “She would look back.”

Jocelyn did.

It took Jocelyn a moment to realize her mother was still knocking on the door. She let go of the bed covers, deciding it would not do to pretend to be ill and end up with her dress in a mess. That would simply be counter-productive to what she wanted to accomplish. Quickly, Jocelyn made her way to the large dresser and opened them wide. She considered changing first into something simpler, then changing back into the dress once her parents were gone. But then she realized she did not have the luxury of time to do so.

“Lynn,” her mother asked for a third time and now worried, called down the hall for one of the manservants, “Bebie, Aldwin, the key to Jocelyn’s room. Please bring it here. Quickly.”

Jocelyn knew that if she missed this month’s chance to meet with Edsel, she would not be able to see him again for another full month. Or worse, he might think she no longer wanted to see him and choose to never return. Edsel came from a less prestigious family, and to travel the distance, Edsel had to embrace huge sacrifices be it financial or physical. A single journey to see Jocelyn consumed two full days for Edsel due to traveling and exhaustion alone, which in turn meant two days that would be docked from his pay. Though his parents repeatedly told him of the unlikelihood of Jocelyn ever choosing him over her most likely many other suitors, Edsel stayed firm and promised to visit every last Sunday of the month.

“Bebie, the key, quickly!”

Jocelyn moved to the window, slid it open, and considered jumping out. She found herself imagining what would happen if she landed on the grass outside, ran down the fields and into Edsel’s arms, and eloped. What if they were to find a future away from her family. Away from their constricting embrace.

“Eto na po, Ate,” the househelper named Bebie handed Jocelyn’s mother the key.

Jocelyn turned her back towards the window and watched as the door to her room clattered as the key was slid inside, then opened as her mother rushed inside. “Jocelyn!” she called out, nearly tripping over herself, then froze upon seeing her at the window, “What happened to you? Why were you now answering?” Jocelyn’s mother stepped closer but remained around ten feet away from her daughter. Perhaps she was too afraid that any sudden movements would cause her daughter to do something unexpected. Seeing the window open was already something that none of them expected to see. Forcing herself to be calmer, Jocelyn’s mother raised both hands towards her daughter and asked, “What is it? Lynn, what is bothering you?”

Bebie and Aldwin stared from the door. Bebie, realizing that the master of the house would most likely want to know what was going on, backed away from the door and quickly ran down the corridor to look for him. Aldwin looked around the room, as if to check if anything else would give some clue to what was going on.

“Lynn, what is going on?” Jocelyn’s mother repeated her inquiry and tried to stay calm.

Jocelyn felt her heart pounding in her chest. She felt the sudden guilt and pain of hiding the truth from her mother. She sighed and looked out the window and saw in the distance Edsel, still hiding among the trees and waiting to see the carriage which Jocelyn’s parents would have taken to Church leave the premises. She liked him. She was proud of him. But she knew her parents would never approve. Never let her allow a man of less class and stature court her. Even if she did not care about class and social status. Even if she did not care about wealth or inheritance.

But was she already willing to risk all that for a person she simply liked?

“Mother,” Jocelyn stepped forward and reached her hands out towards her mother. She felt the tears escape and fall like small diamonds, sparkling before shattering into tiny broken shards of water upon hitting the floor. Jocelyn and her mother held each other for a long time, ignoring even the questions Jocelyn’s father would ask as he walked up to the doorway. Jocelyn felt her mother’s heart beating so fast, and she realized her mother was crying too.

“What is going on here? Jocelyn?” Jocelyn’s father asked, his voice rising and almost angry.

Jocelyn’s mother held her still. She whispered to her daughter, “In the end, it is up to you to choose,” and with those words, everything fell into place. Jocelyn suddenly knew that her mother too lived much like her, and sought just as much as she did a sense of freedom from all that was expected and forced upon her. And that at one point in her life, her mother perhaps was at such a threshold, to choose the path her life was to take, and made none. Her mother chose not to make a decision. And so one was made for her.

Her mother had never married the man she wanted.

Lola Jocelyn realized she was crying again, even if she was long dead and ethereal. She wiped away the ghostly tears and turned to find Patricia standing at the door way, looking at her with worried and nervous eyes. It was almost as if history was repeating itself.

“Lola Jocelyn?” Patricia asked and found Lola Jocelyn walking towards her. The ghostly grandmother whom Patricia had long been spending time with, speaking with and at times praying over, brought her arms around Patricia and held her close in a tight embrace. Patricia, a bit caught by surprise by all this, looked around at first, hoping to see anything in the ruins of the room that would explain Lola Jocelyn’s sudden sentimentality.

“Lola Jocelyn, what is going on?” Patricia tried asking again.

“It is your choice,” the old ghost admitted to Patricia and loosened her hug a bit. She brought both hands to Patricia’s cheeks and gently guided Patricia’s face to look at the broken window behind her. Patricia stared at the open space and saw tiny trails of ectoplasmic light dancing at the fringes of the window. “It is ultimately your choice,” Lola Jocelyn reminded Patricia and gently let go of Patricia’s face to walk with her towards the window. The light had become a ring that followed the shape of the window. In its center, ripples began to dance, like the surface of the sea under a full moon. Silver trails dances and shifted until slowly the window became a true window to another part of the city. Patricia gasped as she saw the image of Gerald inside the portal, still in a bus on his way home.

“Who do you see,” Lola Jocelyn asked, “Inside this window, who do you see?”

Patricia gasped, uncertain how to answer and watched as she saw Gerald rising from his seat to offer it to a woman who just rode the bus and found it full. Patricia found herself smiling even if she was still confused as to what Lola Jocelyn was focused on.

“What is going on, Lola?”

“Tell me what do you see in this window. Who?”

“Are you feeling strange? Sentimental?” Patricia offered to help Lola Jocelyn answer but the old spirit would not be deterred.

“Who do you see?”

Patricia turned to Lola Jocelyn and smiled, “I see a good friend. A kind friend.”

“And this friend, he is important to you?”

“He-“ Patricia turned to Lola Jocelyn and peered at her with suddenly suspicious eyes that were half-hidden beneath nearly closed eyelids, “You can see what is inside this window?”

“No,” Lola Jocelyn admitted, “But I suspect it is very similar to what I used to see when I looked outside this window.”

“What did you see, Lola Jocelyn?” Patricia asked, turning back to face the window. Inside, she saw Gerald holding on to one of the hand rails above to keep his balance. He was singing, it seemed, and smiling to himself. He looked oblivious to the world around him.

“I used to look out this window and see a man whom I barely knew. A man whom I wanted to know so much more. And yet, even if we embraced the precious little time we would have for one another, it would never feel like it was enough. I used to look out this window and see a man whom I always told myself… always convinced myself was someone whom I wanted to have as a friend,” Lola Jocelyn explained, staring into the window now as well, though all see saw was the empty street outside.

“What happened, Lola Jocelyn, between you and this man?” Patricia asked her.

“What happened between me and him is the past now,” Lola Jocelyn explained very gently to Patricia, “And the past is the past. What matters now is you, Patricia. Is your future. The man you see in the window. What has happened to him?”

“He’s on a bus. He’s heading home. I guess he lived further away than I did from where we had dinner.”

“No, I meant in the greater scheme of things,” Lola Jocelyn turned to Patricia as if to see if she understood. “What has happened between you two?”

“He’s a good friend,” Patricia admitted, “He’s a very kind man. He’s nice. He’s funny.”

“But?” Lola Jocelyn asked, sensing the hesitation in Patricia’s voice.

“But I don’t really know him yet. It has barely been a enough time. I don’t really know what he wants. I don’t even know if he can be trusted,” Patricia admitted, “I don’t want to make the same mistakes I did before of trusting someone else too quickly. Or too blindly.”

“You have a gift,” Lola Jocelyn reminded Patricia, “And you have not chosen to use this gift to know more about him. Or to know what you want to know for certain about him. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Patricia admitted, shrugging as she spoke.

”No, there is a reason,” Lola Jocelyn prodded her more. Patricia thought for a moment and raised both eyebrows as she replied. Part of her did not even feel like it was truly the reason. “Maybe I want to try to find out the normal way. To discover the truth the proper way.”

“And in many ways, that is what makes it very different for you two,” Lola Jocelyn replied, “More so when you try to compare it to what you have gotten used to.”

Patricia looked at her, uncertain what she meant. As she turned her head back to the window and saw Gerald give the bus driver a signal that he was getting down at that point, Patricia heard Lola Jocelyn continue.

“Most couples, when they meet, they struggle to find that magical moment. They struggle to find that perfect minute when things seem to just work. Or to find that single moment they believe that they’d look into each other’s eyes and find themselves falling in love. Maybe it was because of the movies they have seen. Or the books they have read. Or maybe even the stories they have heard from others. But ultimately, they all find themselves meeting people then searching for the same thing: the magic. They find themselves wanting to see the magic that love brings into it. The magic that makes them realize, ‘yes, this is love.’

“But few of them ever really find it. Most of the time, couples find themselves losing interest after a few more dates. Or a few more weeks. Their reasons betray their real feelings at times. They claim to have lost the love for the other. Or speak of not feeling content. But never have they realized such feelings were not because love failed them. They were the failings of having struggled to find the magic of love in their relationship by ignoring its more obvious and less romanticized signs.

Lola Jocelyn stroked her hand against Patricia’s hair, combing it back with her fingers even as Patricia continued to watch the images that she saw in the window. Gerald had stepped down from the bus, then walked down the small curved road between a Church and a school, and reached a park that was still alive with many children playing and people hanging about.

“With you two, the magic is there. In more ways than you both expected it to be. And in many ways, it was frightening. Frightening to see how it all seemed to make sense. Or how it all seemed to fit into place,” Lola Jocelyn stopped for a moment, as if to see if Patricia was to contradict her. Patricia merely smiled, watching as Gerald walked past the park and went further down the street to stop at a light greenish gray gate. He fumbled with his pockets to find his keys. It was dark. And he had too many keys.

“What more do you need to see as signs?” Lola Jocelyn asked Patricia. Patricia watched as suddenly, a street light lit up, giving Gerald just enough light to find the right key. He shook his head in disbelief, slid the key in, and opened the door. The light shut back down just as Gerald stepped through. “Do you need to see him in your dreams? Do you need to hear suddenly confessing his feelings for you in the radio? Or his name suddenly appearing on walls and billboards as you make your way to work?”

Patricia turned to look at Lola Jocelyn and realized she was starting to glow. Small trails of light began to dance on her body.

“Lola Jocelyn?” she asked her, motioning to the small comet light trails that appeared then faded away. “Something is happening to you.”

“It was the same for Juanito and Carlito,” she explained, remembering that Patricia was not aware of the two’s transcendence from death, “They finally resolved their final conflicts. And now, I believe, I am resolving mine.”

Patricia looked at Lola Jocelyn, suddenly worried, “You are…. You’re going away?”

“No,” Lola Jocelyn told her gently, “I am going ahead. To where we are meant to go when our time here is done. We will see each other again, after all.”

Patricia suddenly pulled away from the window and turned to face Lola Jocelyn, “You can’t leave yet. Not yet. Not when I need your advice. Not when I need to hear your view on things?”

“There is nothing that you cannot decide for yourself, Patricia dearest. Among the two of us, you are the one who truly knows and understands what you are going through. This is not like you coming of age and going through puberty with me having gone through it before being armed with the precise information of what you should know. This is a matter of the heart. Of the head. And of your decision. When it concerns such matters, it is always different. No two such moments are ever the same,” Lola Jocelyn saw the lights that surrounded her body begin to glow even more vibrant and radiant. Patricia was starting to find it harder to see Lola Jocelyn. The light was just too strong.

“But how do I know what I should do,” she asked Lola Jocelyn, worried. “I… I am not good with this… I am not good with romance.”

Lola Jocelyn found herself remembering the words of her very own mother said so many years ago in this very room.

“It is your choice,” she told Patricia and felt the pull of the source of the lights beckon her to let go. To move on. To bid this world farewell, “It is ultimately your choice, Patricia.”

The light flared into a brilliant burst of starlight and fading moon glow. Patricia brought her arms down from her face to see that Lola Jocelyn was gone with only now fading small fireflies of light as a hint of her ghost having been there just seconds ago. Patricia, crying both joyful and sad tears for Lola Jocelyn’s farewell, found her gaze moving towards the floor area near the window. Almost covered by the debris and dust was an old picture frame. Leaning down to pick it up, Patricia found inside an old family photo of Lola Jocelyn with her two children and a handsome looking man. At the bottom of the photograph, engraved on the frame were the words; Jocelyn, Edsel with Juan and Carlo.

Patricia decided to keep the picture frame, to remember her old friends, and made her way home.

Word Count = 5,928
Previous Count = 35,386
Total Count = 41,314 of 50,000

2005-11-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

The shrimp was still fresh. The lettuce was nicely crisp. And the mangoes gave the salad the added touch of flavor.

Gerald navigated his fork between folds of green to find a tiny cube of yellow among the reddish white meat of the small decapod crustacean. He slid the small cube of mango out of his plate and held it in front of him with the intention of asking Patricia if she wanted some.

”No thanks,” she smiled and stabbed her fork upon the carbonara she had ordered for herself. Gerald grinned.

“You did it again,” he told her.

”Did what?”

“You did it again,” he repeated himself and scooped the mango cube into his mouth, “You answered a question I did not ask yet.”

“Well,” Patricia shrugged, “You were digging through your salad for almost ten minutes. Then you were holding that fork in front of you for almost two minutes. Obviously you had something to either say or were deeply thinking of how to say something. So I decided to trust my gut instincts and answer what I thought you were thinking.”

Gerald shook his head in disbelief, “You really are psychic.”

“So are you,” she teased him and began to use her fork to chop up the carbonara noodles into smaller easier to scoop stalks, “You were the one here to had some form of clairvoyant vision.”

”I know, it was freaky. Well, it was cool. And freaky. I mean, I could really see you. The windows and all that.”

”Hollywood inspired clairvoyance,” she mused, “Think about it, while some people see dead ghosts, you probably see them with light sabers and matching green mist or something.”

“No fair,” Gerald raised both hands from the table and interlocked their fingers in front of his face, as if hiding in shame, “I have one single moment of mutant ability and you have to tear it down to pieces.”

“One could hope,” Patricia teased him and scooped some carbonara onto a spoon.

“No thanks,” Gerald told her and slid a forkful of leafy greens into his mouth. “I normally prefer red sauce pasta… or pesto,” he explained between chewing motions.

“Now who here is playing psychic?”

They shared another hearty laugh and felt the world around them fade away. For that moment, there was no one else in the world that existed. No one else in the world that mattered. The noise of the city faded away. The sounds of traffic fell silent. The cold seasonal winds seemed just right.

”Gerald,” Patricia broke the silence with a question, “What is going on here? I mean, why did you invite me out for dinner?”

“You’re asking me a serious question,” Gerald asked, as if to clarify if the witty banter was not welcome. Patricia gave a nod in reply. Taking a deep breath, Gerald wiped his lips clean with the table napkin and gave his answer, “I like hanging around with you.”

“So you invited me for dinner because?”

“It was evening?”

“Gerald-“ Patricia was about to call foul but Gerald continued talking.

“Had it been morning, I would have invited you instead out for breakfast. Noon. Lunch. Heck, if it were around midnight I’d ask you if you’d like to go have a night cap. Or maybe some dessert before heading for bed.”

“But why?”

“Why am I asking you out?” Gerald looked at Patricia as if he did not know for certain what the question was supposed to be about.

“Yes, why are you asking me out? It is not like we really know each other,” Patricia asked with a smile.

“That is actually it.”

“What is?”

”We don’t,” Gerald smiled, “And I am basically trying to change that.”

The two fell silent again. Gerald was blushing, though he tried to pretend he wasn’t. He felt a great smile growing inside of him, having finally gotten the change to admit he liked her. He would never admit it, but Gerald was actually in more ways than not a coward at heart when it came to matters of the heart. Admitting his feelings was easy, but admitting his intentions was harder. Gerald, one must understand, was never self-assertive in the past. During his childhood years, Gerald was counted among the geeks and nerds whom was always forced to stand as the outsider when it came to any activities. He was seen as the strange one. The odd man out. Or the one whom was picked last when it came to group activities. Growing up in such an environment of detached interest towards him, Gerald learned pretty fast during those years how to simply admit when he did not feel comfortable. Or whether or not he would rather not force himself upon a group that did not appreciate his company. Being honest about how he felt was easy. But when it came to admitting why he would rather go home than play. Or why he would rather read his comic books than play basketball, it was then that he would falter. It was then that the fears of being ridiculed or called a freak would win over his sense of convictions.

And force him to lie.

He hated lying. But he hated more the strange looks and odd stares he would get when he would explain how he felt like the rest of the kids did not like him. Or how the rest of the group would mock the things he was insecure about. Or worse, how the very insecurity would be transformed into a joke that would then be the joke of the year used against him.

“I really believe I like you, Patricia,” Gerald took the risk and prayed that he had made the right decision, “I even want to see if this actually leads somewhere. But I think right now we are actually still in the getting to know one another stage so there is no reason to be paranoid yet right? It would be like getting way ahead of ourselves.”

Patricia gave no response. Gerald felt his old worries rise to the fore and ducked his head back to face his plate. Scoop after scoop of the salad found a sanctuary in his mouth. He felt too scared to look up and see what expression was on Patricia’s face.

“I’m sorry, what exactly did that mean?”

Gerald felt himself crumble. Was she making a joke over what he said? Patricia bent her torso forward a bit, hoping to bring her face more into Gerald’s line of sight. She offered her kindest smile, and asked again, “Ahead of ourselves?”

“Sorry,” Gerald shook his head nervously, “I’m assuming things here, I think.”

Patricia smiled but felt the pause grow into a pregnant and nervous one. She wanted to break the silence but was not sure how to do so. Or what to say. Gerald was already mentally counting the seconds which he believed would lead to Patricia excusing herself and perhaps giving some odd yet evidently plausible excuse to cut the dinner short.

Gerald was used to such excuses.

“We’re friends,” Patricia asked, as if to clarify.

“Of course,” Gerald responded and immediately found himself hating the answer he gave. In one mind set, saying yes would mean one was not interested in courtship. It would have given the impression that the other was really just someone whom was expected to be a friend. A buddy. Maybe even just some acquaintance. In another mind set, to have said No would have meant one had ulterior intentions in mind. Or perhaps unspoken plans. Which then would have suggested a very concealed motive. A lack of trust.

Gerald felt the fear rising in his chest. He felt the fear already winning the battle and his left foot already tapping the ground unnecessarily out of nervousness. He brought the glass to his lips and took a sip. In that motion, he stole a glance towards Patricia and saw how she took his answer:

She was eating her carbonara.

Paranoia went into over-drive. Gerald could hear himself yelling in his head, “Look what you have done! See! She is now uncertain of what you want! She does not even know how to act around you now! You have ruined it all! Ruined it all!” He swallowed two more gulps of water without bringing the glass down.

“Okay,” Gerald broke the silence and set the glass down with a resounding clatter. The other people in the restaurant turned towards them, wondering what the noise was about. Gerald raised a hand in apology, stood up and mouthed a few “I’m sorry” apologies to the staff who came to check if some customer had thrown a glass in anger.

Patricia smiled as Gerald sat back down and the two shared another moment just smiling at the incident. They tended to have those moments, Gerald now began to realize. Moments of silent happiness, shared without either side having to initiate it.

“Okay,” Gerald started again, “I want to explain something. But do know that I am very unused to this…”

“Uh huh,” Patricia nodded in reply as she wiped her own mouth clean with the napkin she held in her other hand, “Okay…”

“Okay,” Gerald exhaled to try and calm himself down. “I really like you. And I like you a lot that I do not want to rush things. I do not want to risk turning this into some rebound thing. Or some weird physical thing. I want to get to know you more. Because so far, from the little I do know of you, I like what I know already.”

Gerald felt the cold sweat in his hands. He felt the quiver in his voice. He felt his knees go weak. But he felt a renewed sense of strength and pride. He had done it. He had admitted what his intentions were. And he had found the courage to risk being vulnerable and saying it. He remembered how some friends used to warn him that for a guy to admit he was interested in a girl was an act of great stupidity. Doing so would do nothing other than make the guy vulnerable and bare. No guy in his right mind would do such a thing, they used to tell him. No one who wanted to play the game right, that was.

But Gerald was long tired of such games. Gerald was very tired of people who would make bets with their friends as to whether or not they would get some gal’s phone number. People who would show interest in some other person they meet, chat the small chit chat, then get their numbers but never call. Or the people who would intentionally try to make the other leap through hoops. Or get jealous. Or play these mind games just to test one’s loyalty or one’s favor.

Gerald wanted someone who like him simply wanted to be real.

To be emotionally honest.

To be emotionally true.

So he took the risk.

“I want to get to know you more, Patricia.”

Gerald held his breath. He stared at Patricia’s eyes and noticed that she had stopped eating. There was a long moment of silence that threatened to grow into another pregnant pause. Gerald was already screaming in his head. He was remembering how stupid he was to think there would be others who didn’t play “the game.” He wanted to find the nearest time machine and jump back a few minutes. He wanted to delete this hideously embarrassing moment that ruined it all and try to keep in mind that no one really liked a guy who was honest about his own feelings and fears.

Patricia wiped her mouth again with the napkin then slowly stood from the table. Gerald felt his heart on the verge of breaking as she tried to force a smile on her face and excused herself.
“Sorry,” Patricia admitted, “I know this seems awkward. But really, I just need to pass by the bathroom.”

“Sure,” Gerald replied and watched her make her way to the restroom without once ever looking back. Gerald remembered an old movie he had seen in the past that told him a simple truism he always believed in. “A person who is interested would always look back.”

She never did.

* *

Patricia closed the bathroom door behind her and thanked God for having allowed her to reach the sink before her tears began to flow. She felt the huge burden of emotion on her chest weigh her down and released all the pent up frustration and fear out by crying it out in silence. She stared at her reflection on the mirror and found herself wondering why this was all happening. Why to her? Why now?

With trembling hands, Patricia turned on the faucet and allowed the water to flow. She placed both hands into the torrent of water and relished the cold soothing spray of water that doused her fingers to a calmer state of being. She bent forward and cupped her hands to gather what she could of the water, then brought the water to her face. It was like a cleansing ritual. Or a baptism. One that brought her from an old life of pain and self-doubt into one where she believed she found a possibly honest soul who actually felt she was worth his attention.

But was she ready for this?

Did she want this?

Patricia remembered the events that colored her past. The previous lovers and failed attempts at finding someone to share her life with. She remembered the half-meant promises, the lies, the proud proclamations that never amounted to anything, the selfish desires that twisted her needs into demands, and the pain. She remembered the pain most easily and the terribly difficult effort of recovering from each broken heart. The complicated task of shifting through her wounds and picking up the tiny glass shards of her heart from the mess of falsehoods and abuse. And not to forget the intricate task of gluing each shard back together again in hopes that someone else would someday want to embrace the multifarious effort of taking care of it again.

She saw herself as damaged goods, even if she had never allowed any physical act of violation upon her. She felt like she was too fragile to risk letting another person be part of her life.
But now, she felt like she stood at the edge of a cliff side with a parachute on her back named Gerald. Was she ready to take another gamble. To take another risk?

Patricia heard the intermittent knocking sounds coming from the door and realized that there was most likely someone outside wondering if she had fallen asleep in the loo. She gave her face one last drench of water to wash away any hints of the tears that fell earlier and suddenly discovered to her horror that there were no paper towels in sight. She reached for her purse and realized it was not at her side. Wet with water still on her face, Patricia decided to face the music and hope the door.

It was not like she could end up any more embarrassed than this.

* *

Gerald was fidgeting at the table, running his fingers in small circles as they tapped the table out of sheer nervousness. When he noticed the small line of people outside the ladies room, he felt even more foolish. He could imagine Patricia inside, perhaps gaging in disgust or laughing her heart out. Or perhaps even so embarrassed by his words that she had pried the window open and escaped off to God knows where ever it was she lived. He emptied his glass of water and hailed down the waiter to ask for a refill.

By the time the waiter had finished filling his glass, Gerald saw the bathroom door open and a very wet faced Patricia returned to the table. He looked at her with a curious interest expressed on her face. “What happened?”

“My bag please?”

“No paper towels?” Gerald asked as he handed her the bag. Patricia simply nodded and opened the bag. She dug through her things and found the small stash of facial tissues that she had been saving for emergencies like this.

“Psychic again!” Patricia joked and the two felt the tension immediately shatter. Once again, they felt the warm and clean comfort of being together. Once again they felt familiar. Safe.
“I like how you laugh,” Gerald found himself admitted.

”I like how you make me laugh,” Patricia admitted before she realized what she had said, “You have a knack for it.”

And suddenly, both felt like whatever oddness gave the night a strange direction earlier had suddenly faded away. Dinner came and went. Dessert followed. And by the coming of midnight, the two discovered how late it was and decided it was time to make their way home.

“I can commute, really,” Patricia insisted but Gerald would not hear any of it. He handed the waiter the payment for the food and folded the receipt twice before placing it in one of the pockets in his wallet, “No, I insist. I want to make sure you get home safely. If I don’t, I will end up worrying over you all night.”

“Really, I can,” Patricia tried to convince Gerald but found he remained firm on his decision.

”It’s final and I will not change my mind,” Gerald replied at first in what sounded like an assertively aggressive voice, until his tone revealed the frankness of his offer, “I will only let you go on your own if you have someone from your family or friends to go with you. Okay? So, let’s go.”

Patricia rose from her chair and found Gerald standing towards her with something in his hand. She looked up at him, a bit uncertain what was going on, until he realized what he held in his palm.

“A fortune cookie,” he explained, “There was a jar of them at work. Decided to take two and have us find out what our fortunes foretell.”

“Wow,” Patricia giggled, “Let’s find out!”

“Don’t forget to add ‘in bed’” Gerald reminded her but discovered Patricia did not even know what he was talking about. “In bed,” he explained as he cracked his own cookie open, “You are supposed to read it and add the words ‘in bed’ at the end for the more humorous and honest message.”

Patricia cracked her cookie open and began digging through the broken sweet cookie parts for the slip of paper that housed her fortune. She read it silently first, then began to giggle. Gerald found his and noticed something amusingly odd about it.

”I got two fortunes in mine,” Gerald gasped, “Very lucky then!”

“Listen to this:” Patricia began reading her fortune, “Do not pick a fight, be understanding instead…”

“…in bed,” Gerald continued it and started laughing. Patricia grinned as she took a shard of the sweet cookie and bit into it. The sugary flavor danced on her tongue. Liking it, Patricia took a second piece and nibbled it before asking Gerald to read his fortune.

“There are two,” Gerald explained and laid them down on the table, “See?”

Patricia picked up one of them and read it aloud. “Men may doubt what you say but they will believe what you do… in bed!”

Gerald, between gasps for breath due to laughter, read the other one, “Look for the simple pleasures. Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life… in bed!”

The two tried to stop laughing but their bodies refused to comply. Like hyenas giggling, Gerald and Patricia continued to heave with every laugh, tears welling in their eyes from the effort. Though they were just friends, they felt a close and frank relation to one another already there.

Already present.

And growing stronger by the day.

Word Count = 3,328
Previous Count = 32,058
Total Count = 35,386 of 50,000

2005-11-27T02:53:00.000-08:00

Gerald was standing at the corner of Lilbeth’s office, looking over the various designs and layouts they were to use for an upcoming ad campaign when he felt a sudden urge to step towards the closest window and stare outside. The feeling came upon him quite suddenly, wrapping over him without warning like the rising of temperature, and touched him deep within. He looked up from the corner, a number of the printed layouts and color proofs sliding free from his hand by accident, and scanned the room for any possible source of where the emotions had birthed from.

“Lilbeth?’” Gerald inquired as he slowly looked around the corner office. He was not even sure what he was hoping to find as he turned his gaze across the room. It was not as if she would know why he felt the sudden urge come upon him. Not wanting to allow any of the printed paper work to find themselves under the mercy of uncaring shoes, Gerald dropped to all fours and began gathering every sheet that he had accidentally dropped. His mind was preoccupied, however, still dancing with the urge to stand up, walk towards the nearest window, and look outside.

* *

Across the street, the anger that had been brewing was surging more and more intense within Patricia. Glenda Lee was unknowingly fanning the flames to a divine retributive strike with each reprimand and scold that she directed towards her daughter, Hamz. The child was cowering and crying now, tears streaming down her face as she frustratedly struggled to convince her mother of her innocence. Her brother, Jeriel, on the other hand, contentedly continued to play with the computer game they were earlier having fun with. Her struggles seemed to be more icing on the cake as far as Jeriel’s selfish happiness was concerned.

Patricia reached into one of her pockets and reached for her cellular phone. She glanced at the time and swam deep inside her thoughts for a reason or an excuse that would allow her to pull Hamz to her side. Or to get her out of the unfair and unjust situation she was in.

Glenda Lee slapped Hamz on the buttocks once more and literally dragged her daughter from the floor towards one of the rooms. Throwing a barely meant excuse towards Patricia, Glenda Lee slid the door open and yelled at her daughter to stop crying. Patricia knew it was now or never.

* *

Back in Kantong Kuba, Carlo and Juan felt a sudden shifting in the very energies that permitted them ghosts to remain in the world. Having long been entities composed of the ethereal substance that also gave solidity to emotions and feelings, Carlo and Juan stared in mute horror as their hands and bodies began to swirl like the surface of a lake rippling from the winds of a rising storm. Both ghosts were uncertain what could cause such an experience. Fearing the worst, the two quickly made their way through the old house and sought the matron and mother who bound them as a family.

Lola Jocelyn was standing in the old abandoned section of the house where the living room once stood. Within the shadows of the ruined chamber, the matron sat before the no longer functional fireplace (one that was most likely built for mere decorative purposes rather than for any actual use) and held her hands towards the non-existent flame. Juan and Carlo looked at one another worriedly and slowly approached her; Neither knew if it would be all right to interrupt her lucidity. Neither had the courage to speak up and break the silence.

From the ashes and dust that created a small desert looking landscape within the fireplace, a small spiral of wind began to rise and grow in strength. Like a sudden gray shimmering water spout, the dust danced and rose higher and higher until it emerged from the fire place and stood before the matron’s prostrated form. Juan and Carlo, fearing the thing to be some apparition or phantom from hell or some similar purgatory, ran to their mother and brought their hands up in time with their screams, ready for battle. The matron grabbed their shoulders both and held them close as a brilliant and vibrant light surged from the form that stood before them.

“Look!” she gasped at the two as the dazzling and blinding light exploded outwards from the very humanoid seeming form before them.

* *

“Look!”

Gerald shot up from the ground and once again accidentally drops the sheets of paper. With the color proofs and the many storyboard sheets twirling away from him, Gerald watched in a mixed of confusion and awe as a great light exploded from the building across the street. Part of him was yelling at him to run, to find a safe place to duck behind, or (perhaps brought about by the terribly tragic events that have transpired in New York City on the eleventh day of September) to quickly leave the building and get out. But fear seemed to find less purchase to hold on to him and take him as its prisoner when Gerald’s keen vision pierced through the blinding light and saw what he last expected to see.

Within the heart of the brilliant and dazzling light, a shattered window framed the image of someone whom had been dancing in his thoughts the whole evening at work.

* *

Patricia turned to face Hamz and Glenda Lee and held her cellular phone up in her hands. She bit on her lower lip, feeling a moment of uncertainty, then dropped the device from her grasp. Glenda Lee and Hamz bought yelped in surprise, even as confusion slid between the fringes of their thoughts, and watched as the phone hit the carpeted floor with a muffled thud. A few tiny pieces flew from the floor as Patricia focused on that very moment to give voice to her anger. To her frustration.
“Look!” she yelled and somehow, she felt the world around her screaming. She felt the walls groan. She felt the ceiling shrudder as the windows behind her suddenly exploded outwards in her minds eye. She focused her imagination and visualized the very room being blown wide open, the windows shattering outwards and the thousand brilliant shards of glass falling outwards as she stepped forwards towards Glenda Lee and her poor daughter and forced them to confront truth. It was all in her head of course. It was all a visualization that she had used to focus her thoughts and her intentions. It was all in her mind.

She used her special gifts and imagined the room to be swept open by a magnificent force of light and wind. She imagined the air that surged past her, out the window, and carried the discomfort, the confusion and the misplaced anger out of the room.

She used her understanding of what magic was. Of what her gifts were. She used them in her imagination, in her visualization, to cleanse the room of all that made it the mess it currently was. She purged the room of all the misplaced anger and pain.

“You have to stop doing that,” Patricia continued and planted her hands on her waist. She ignored the fact she had just thrown her phone to the ground. She knew to reach them she needed to spark their attention somehow. To provide some catalyst to force them to leg go, even for but a brief moment, their defensive shields and self-doubt. Without doing so, she would have had just as much an effect as one would have talking to a brick wall. “You have to stop siding with one child whom you love more and force all the blame on the other. You have to stop that. They both love you and they both need you to constantly remind them that you love them.”

“What?” Glenda Lee replied, caught off guard.

“Stop making them hate one another,” Patricia continued and tried to keep her own voice from shaking. She felt her knees buckle. She forced herself to focus. To keep talking. She should not show them she was uncertain. “Don’t you see what is happening here? Hamz and Jeriel… their rivalry is not the kind of rivalry you would normally expect of siblings any more. It has grown up into something far more destructive.”

Glenda Lee cocked her face towards Patricia, not comprehending what Patricia was saying. The words were still not sinking in.

“Wake up and see what you have been making them believe,” Patricia pleaded to Glenda Lee, “Open your eyes Glenda Lee. You have been making your children think the only way they can see you love them is if they make you hate the other.”

* *

In Kantong Kuba, Lola Jocelyn, Juan and Carlo watched the dust figure begin to mimic the events that were occurring across the city in the building where Patricia was. They listened with rapt attention as Patricia spoke the truth that Glenda Lee had long feared and never had the courage to accept. Or to believe. Juan slowly turned towards Carlo as Patrcia spoke of the rivalry the two siblings suffered. He somehow felt that Patricia’s words unknowingly were hitting him in a way which he never realized. Even his brother, Carlo, seemed to inwardly sense this. Carlo bowed his head and closed his eyes as Patricia’s words came to a halt. He clenched his hands tight, turning them into balls of fists that shook with a guilty surge of rage and humiliation.

Lola Jocelyn turned to face the two spirits and knowingly stood from her place. She walked away from the two siblings and made the small trek to the doorway that lead to the next room. Somehow, each step seemed far longer and far more distant than they were.

“Is she,” Juan began to ask but felt his voice fade. He felt his voice falter as the emotions that cropped up from the idea of what he was going to say gained strength. And the idea frightened him a lot.

“Is she right?” Carlo repeated the question for Juan and found he could not turn to look at his own brother. He did not seem to have the courage to do so. Or the convictions to know the answer.

“Among us three, who do you believe would best be able to answer that question?” Lola Jocelyn asked in return and finally stepped out of the room. She could not allow the two ghosts to see how much the words have struck her. How much they bit into her core.

“I… I did not mean to,” Juan admitted to Carlo, though he remained still unable to face him. Carlo relaxed the anger that he trapped in his fists. He felt the rage fade away. He found the courage he sought to face his brother and made the effort it took to face him.

“I’m sorry,” Carlo admitted to Juan and tried to say more. But there seemed to be nothing more left to be said. The two brothers hugged one another and began to cry again. Long denied regrets and anger suddenly finding place and forgiveness, the two barely even noticed as their forms began to glow even brighter. Brighter. And vibrantly more translucent. Until there was nothing left of them but the silence of a now empty room and the wisps of star light that gently faded into the night’s somber embrace. Juan and Carlo found release of the regrets that kept them bound to the world. And they at last found rest.

Lola Jocelyn knew her sons had gone. She knew they had finally found the peace they had long sought and hoped to find. Deep down, the two siblings were unable to move on having never forgiven one another for the envy and hatred they mutually inflicted on one another. And now, through Patricia, they have moved on. Lola Jocelyn felt her heart heave with the bitter sweet joy of knowing her children finally have gone to the better place that came after all the perils and trials of life had passed. And for the first time in many many years, Lola Jocelyn wept.

And wept in joy.

* *

Gerald ran outside the building and dodged the many cars as he crossed the street and made his way to the building in the other side. He had no idea how he saw that vision, or what it meant. But he knew that she was there. It sounded impossible. But he was certain she was.

He arrived beneath the shadow of the building and ran straight into the door as the door was flung open from the other side. Hitting the ground with a groan, Gerald looked up to see a very embarrassed and apologetic Patricia emerging from the other side with her hands covering her mouth. The two recognized one another and stared in mute surprise.

“Hi,” he told her, “Want to grab some dinner?”

She said yes.

Word Count = 2,184
Previous Count = 29,874
Total Count = 32,058 of 50,000

2005-11-25T14:16:00.000-08:00

The room felt unbearably claustrophobia inducing. Patricia felt sick and dizzy. She felt the urge to get out and escape the room’s choking confines. She wanted to scream. To leave. To give Glenda Lee a piece of her mind. Deep down, Patricia was not sure if her common sense and understanding would win in the end. The desire to do something. To act. To complain was there. It wasn’t an urge for revenge mind you. It was merely a desire to set things right.

There were such times that Patricia felt the urge to use her gifts for such purposes. And in such times, Patricia noticed how much she would frighten herself at times. How much she did not seem to recognize who she was. The urge to avenge seemed to come so naturally.

* *

Back at Kantong Kuba, Lola Jocelyn was watching her two children in silence. Concealed by the long shadows cast by the curtains and the very darkness of nightfall, the matron watched her two ghostly sons as they argued over her recent decision. Carlo was not too happy that Lola Jocelyn seemingly did not remind Patricia of her duty to help them. And to have her not be given such reminders on a day where she quite directly admitted having had thoughts of leaving, Carlo felt that Patricia was slowly edging towards abandoning them in the haunted town block. Though appearing many years his junior, Juan actually had been dead far longer than Carlo. Though Carlo was his elder brother by birth, by death Juan was the one who had much more experience.

“You have to talk to her, Juan,” Carlo pleaded to his younger brother. The ghost could barely relax. Juan watched as his brother paced back and forth. Carlo kept his arms across his chest each time he talked about this. Lola Jocelyn suspected it had something to do with not wanting to be told he was wrong. “You have to tell ‘Nay that if no one tells Patricia that we need her, she might think it wouldn’t be a problem to leave life. To not be heard.”

“Carlo-“ Juan tried to interrupt but his older brother continued to rattle on.

“Who know what kind of danger she might end u having to face alone? Who knows what chance mishap may befall her? With us, she tends to be safe, Juan. To let her leave is to abandon her to the danger.”

“Carlo, you are over-imagining things,” Juan sighed.

“I am not,” Carlo almost yelled back.

“I just want to make sure we arrive completely,” Carlo admitted.

“Arrive?” Juan asked again, lost in the choice of words.

“They were expecting. They were hoping?”

“They were,” Carlo admitted.

“I do not understand,” Juan admitted but nonetheless gave no outward signs of contempt. Juan wiped his hands against one another and then shook his head, “I am sorry Carlo but I have no idea what in the world you were talking about. I tried to remain civil. I tried!”

“Oh stop that,” Carlo shook his head, “You are starting to sound annoying. You are trying to make our little family thing sound more like some sort of hidden secret society.”

Juan laughed and brought his legs up to hug them in one embrace. Carlo gazed out the window once again and began to mutter to himself, “She… she will be okay, right? She will be okay…”

“Carlo, you are worrying over nothing. Patricia has been visiting us for quite some time, yes, but prior to that, she did have a whole world of experiences to explore and try,” Juan came up to his brother and rubbed his shoulders, “Patricia has been outside the haunted block much more and much longer than most. So unlike you, she actually does live in a non-haunted environment far more often than you realize. She will be fine!”

Carlo scratched his head, and Lola Jocelyn found herself amused at Carlo’s ever so human motions. Contrary to what their own persistent existence suggested, those who comeback do not end up with ghostly hair lice. Lola Jocelyn decided to watch a bit more. Oblivious to their mother’s observations, Carlo and Juan continued their conversation. The other spirits were busy doing their own thing, after all.

“Perhaps it would be best you start over from the beginning,” Juan remarked and sat down on the closest piece of furniture which could serve as a bench. That happened to be a broken down shelf whose inner shelves had fallen apart. Weightless as he was however, even the flimsy remaining surface was suitable for Juan’s needs. “You want me to go to Lola Jocelyn and convince her to contact Patricia because you feel that Patricia might lose sight of her responsibility towards us if she is not reminded of it. Did I get everything right so far?”

Carlo ignored the sarcasm which was dancing between Juan’s words. He nodded in ascent then tugged on his own shirt in a physical display of uncertainty. “She’s young. She’s still easily swayed. She can be vulnerable, especially when it concerned matters of the heart.”

“And are you sure that wasn’t what you were focused on instead? The matters that touched her heart?”

“Juanito,” Carlo called out his brother’s full name. It was a practice their mother always did when she was unhappy with them. “Do not talk to me as if I was not your older brother.”

“And do not talk to me,” Juan retorted back, “As if I have no understanding of matters that did concern the heart. I am not a child either, Carlo.” Carlo fell silent. He remembered the numerous times Juan had shared with him his thoughts and his ideas rung true. Carlo knew it would be folly to ignore the things his brother had come to realize. “Whose heart is the one we are concerned about after all, brother. Who’s heart is it?”

“I just. I don’t know,” Carlo finally admitted.

“Patricia and you have always been the best of friends,” Juan replied in a manner of suggesting what the discussion was to be about, “And yet, even if you two seemed to be far closer than most would expect between a ghost and one of the living, I don’t recall you ever clarifying what this relationship you two shared was all about.”

“I- I did not know either,” Carlo again admitted.

Juan motioned for his brother to come sit closer to his side. By the open window, Carlo finally found the long locked emotions finding a slow gradual release. He felt his chest heave with the deep breathing demanded by tears. And though ethereal in nature, he felt his eyes begin to weep as the truth came rising to the surface.

“She was special. She always was. And she always will be, Juan. But I will admit to you that I never knew what she was to me until today. I never realized how much she meant to me until I learned she had plans of no longer coming back,” came Carlo’s words, honest and pained. Juan wrapped one arm around his shoulder and tried to console him. Tried to remind him things work out in the end. But some how, Juan was not sure himself if he was just lying.

“Did you love her?” Juan asked Carlo directly.

Their eyes staring into one another, Carlo realized this was it. The moment when the truth was to come out. The final line that will determine what in the world was really going on all those years.

“Did you?” Juan asked again.

Carlo bowed his head and shrugged.

“What does it matter now, Juan,” Carlo stared into the deepening night sky, “She’s gone. For good.”

Word Count = 1,291
Previous Count = 28,583
Total Count = 29,874 of 50,000

2005-11-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

Gerald was uncertain how to carry himself for the rest of the day.

It was as if he had witnessed a miracle. It was as if he had been given the chance to be part of a scientific breakthrough that would change the world overnight, then told to pretend it never happened. Though it wasn’t anything like that at all either. Describing the experience was almost impossible for Gerald. And when he tried to explain things to his officemates, they all simply stared at him and blinked as if he had tried to converse with them in a different language.

“You should have seen the looks on those kids’ faces. My God, they were ecstatic! They were just overwhelmed with so much happiness!” Gerald excitedly related the events at the Metro Rail Station to a few officemates.

Blink. Blink.
(Is he speaking in Sudanese?)

“And the people… oh wow! You should have seen it! No one planned it out. No one decided to start doing it. It just happened. People were suddenly all giving something for these three poor kids!”

Blink. Blink. Blink.
(Wait, was that something in German?)

Gerald only realized that relating the events to those he worked with was an attempt that was doomed to fail when one of the two people he was relating with interrupted his excited narrative with an announcement of his own.

“And they were singing! My god, it was embarrassing! It was fun! They were singing the theme song to this old local children’s show called-“

“Guys, before I forget, and pardon me for interrupting you Gerald; I will be having a small get-together after work tonight at the pub across the street. Finally celebrating my thirty-sixth birthday and I was thinking what the hey, let’s have some beers!”

The office was suddenly filled with people cheering and tossing congratulatory remarks towards the birthday celebrator, Jay, who began waving his hand like some strange overweight beauty pageant contestant. Gerald could imagine him too easily wiping way fake tears as he beamed out his perfectly fake smile. For all intents and purposes, Gerald decided that moment to give up trying to reach out to these people who seemed far too obsessed with buying the latest cellular phone model, or spending their money on the nth ipod or palm pilot, and would speak in frightened fear-filled tones when talking about how wifi was still not commonly available in Manila or how a certain new type of Nokia would not be shipped into the country. Gerald decided that there just happened to be different types of people; some who actually lived lives and tried to be more than just an ordinary person. And some who simply knew from the start that they weren’t really people so they spend their lives buying expensive decorations to distract others from seeing that fact.

But if there was one other person at the place where Gerald worked who actually noticed him and gave a damn about what he had to share, that would have to be his boss. Her name was Lilbeth and she was one of the few people whom Gerald truly enjoyed working for. She was a practicing Buddhist and would spend at least two hours each day meditating in one corner of her office. She was not bald, nor did she work in a monk’s robe or walk around with her hands clasped as if in prayer at her chest the whole time. Instead, she had purple dyed hair, loved wearing jeans with practically anything and was a living example of the motto, “Live life to the fullest.”

When Gerald first met her, she was actively training for a cross-country run. She would spend two straight hours in the company gym running on the treadmill and follow it up with a third hour doing crunches. By the fifth month of Gerald’s time at the office, Lilbeth had decided she had enough of running (she had after all ran three marathons, one of which she finished third out of nearly a thousand experienced runners) and had taken a new sport to heart: wall-climbing. Gerald recalled easily those days she’d bid everyone a good bye as she left the office, straps and harness already in place over her jeans and blouse. Today, Gerald sensed she had embraced an entirely new sport, having seen her step out of her office in black long sleeved mini dress – an elegant macramé lace with satin-lined bodice- over a pair of dark blue jeans. Her shoes made interesting clackety sounds as she walked towards him.

“Lilbeth,” Gerald smiled, “What’s this?”

“Hi Gerald,” she smiled, looked him over like a parent checking if a child had done something wrong, then smiled when she found nothing that should have caught her eye, “What’s going on here? Jay having another drinking party?”

“You said it,” Gerald admitted, “And of course the whole room rejoices,” the sarcasm was evidently thick in his voice, “Do you plan to go, Lil?”

“Of course not,” she shook her head so quick that nothing but her head bobbed that moment, “Me be part of a drinking party? That would be something new.”

“True,” he grinned, “Don’t you Buddhists practice some form of abstinence?”

“All do,” she shrugged, “I mean some call it diet. Some call it self-control. Some call it sin. I just happen to be someone who calls it what it really is.”

The two watched as Jay walked to the next row of cubicles and repeated his announcement. More applause and cheering broke the silence that had just started to grow.

“I’ve always wondered how he pays for all that,” Gerald admitted, “I mean, I thought the company was having financial woes?”

“Well,” Lilbeth sat down on the nearest table and brought her finger up against one another as if she needed them to focus. “Is Jay having a company party or a personal one?”

“A personal one-“

“Then would Jay be using company funds or personal funds?”

”Personal-“

“And there you have it, the reason why he can do this even if the company is reputedly in dire straits. Of course, if what you were thinking of was more under the lines of why wouldn’t the company just slash the salaries of some of the terribly over-paid under worked people in this building, sadly that’s where the labor laws would stand against you,” Lilbeth clapped her fingers against her palm, “One hand clapping,” she muttered suddenly more amused with her little discovery.

“What?” Gerald asked aloud, suddenly lost in the conversation.

“One hand clapping. Remember the koan. The riddle? About whether or not a tree makes a sound if there is no one there to hear it? Or the one about the sound of one hand clapping? Well, I think we’ve just answered one of the two,” Lilbeth looked at Gerald, relishing his even more confused expression. She walked up to him and hugged his face with her hands, “Gerald, you are starting to think too much again. Life’s far too complicated to set down in rules, in what should be and isn’t being done, and in little notations that declare whether or not you’re making things worse than they already are. Stop thinking too much. Stop worrying. Stop over analyzing.”

“Okay, I am duly impressed,” Gerald scoffed, “You have just transformed my search for reasons I hate working here into another discussion about living life to the fullest. Yay Nike! Just do it and all that jazz!”

Lilbeth raised both of her empty hands in mock surrender and headed back to her office. Just before closing the door, she gave Gerald one last piece of advice. “Look at it this way; if you want to try to fix the world and make it a better place, decide first what makes you someone who can decide what makes it better. On the other hand, you can let the world be the world and focus more on living your life. Frankly, I know that some people out there truly believe they have a responsibility to make the world a better place. And I say more power to them. Now if you want to try being one of them, go for it! But let’s be honest, moping about how other people who are paid more than you even if you work your ass more than them… that’s not going to save the hungry children in whatever Unicef sponsored movement you want to help.”

“Lilbeth, did anyone ever tell you how sexy you are when you’re that assertive?” Gerald called out before she closed her door. Though Gerald didn’t really mean it, he knew Lilbeth liked the intention of giving a compliment. “Rare as real reality television shows, she says.”

* *

Across the street, Patricia busily looked through the eight page e-mail which the client sent as a list of revisions on the logo she was working on for the old spinster named Miss Glenda Lee. Her two rascal children, Jeriel and Hamz, were busying themselves with the playstation 2 that Glenda Lee had recently purchased for them. Amidst the mechanically replicated sounds of punching and kicking, Patricia’s eyes glanced back towards the playstation and took note of something she had suspected; the playstation 2 was a new purchase, considering the price tag was still stuck to the box of the machine. And the box was still under the playstation as a makeshift table.

This revelation annoyed Patricia. She had been waiting for weeks for her latest paycheck, a check which Glenda Lee claimed would be delayed due to the client having failed to have the money sent in time. Somehow, Patricia suspected the reasons were far more… commercial in nature.

Glenda Lee walked back into the room with a metal tray in hand; a glass of orange juice and a plate with a few biscuits were on the tray. Patricia kept herself from looking up as she perused the printed e-mail message and carefully considered her choice of words. The e-mail was asking for a total rehash of the logo design. And this was a decision they decided upon after the seventh revision on the existing design.

”It just wasn’t working out, they said,” Glenda Lee spoke up, perhaps sensing what Patricia was already tossing back and forth in her head, “I know that last week they were just finalizing the colors, but now they realize that they wanted something much more artistic and stylized.”

“I don’t get it,” Patricia sighed audibly and allowed her hair to cover her face, “How could they suddenly change their mind about this? I thought we finally found what they wanted.”

“Maybe they realized they wanted something else. You know these clients. They can be very fickle. You’re mad, aren’t you?”

“Die! Die! Die! I’m gonna kill you!” Jeriel screamed as he mashed on the controller so hard, he started to stand on his knees and grit his teeth.

“Understatement of the century,” Patricia offered Glenda Lee a smile even if deep down she had half the mind to scream, to kick and to call out many four-letter and five letter words that the two children would probably best never learn to say.

“Fuck it, Moooom!” Hamz complained as Jeriel began blocking Hamz line of sight by placing his buttocks in between his sister and the television set.

“Hamz, don’t curse,” Glenda Lee called back without even turning to face them. Patricia felt cheated. Maybe she should have started yelling her own cuss words.

“But mooooom!” Hamz called out again, “Jeriel is standing in front of the teevee!”

Glenda Lee closed her eyes in frustration and motioned to Patricia to wait. Patricia, hiding her smile under a façade of continued frustration, nodded and focused on the printed letter instead. Patricia could hear the two children breaking into an argument as children were wont to be. Spoiled children all the more.

“But Mommy, Kuya is being unfair!”

“I am not being unfair! It is not my fault I am better than you!”

“You are not!”

“Are too!”

“Kids, enough! Can’t you see your mommy is having a meeting right now?”

“Aww… he started it!”

”Mommy, you know she did! Hamz always starts the fights just because she is older than me!”

“Stop fighting with your brother, Hamz!”

Hamz squealed in anger for having been pinpointed as the cause of the trouble. Patricia saw earlier how Jeriel was actually the one at fault, annoying his older sister by blocking her line of sight when she started playing good enough to beat him at the computer game they were playing. She felt the urge to step in. To tell Glenda Lee what she knew was the truth. But she wasn’t sure if it was her place to interfere with a family argument. She wasn’t even a relative of theirs.

Jeriel was making a fuss, kicking and grunting while he continued to play with the computer. Hamz was being forced to stand up by her mother, an act which she obviously did not want to do. Jeriel snuck a peek and slipped out a self-satisfied grin as Glenda Lee spanked Hamz in the buttocks for misbehaving. When Hamz protested, Glenda Lee struck her a second time.

“Miss Glenda Lee,” Patricia called out, wanting to distract her somehow and save Hamz for more undeserved punishment, “I was thinking, maybe we can show them the whole thread of messages about how far we’ve gotten on the logo design?”

“Patricia,” Glenda Lee called out from the other room with a weeping Hamz being dragged behind her, “Can you give me a minute… ”

“Maybe we can forward to them a reminder about how we stipulated in the contract that unfinished projects would still require them to pay the minimum amount-“

“Mommy, I did not start the fight!” Hamz pleaded but Glenda Lee would hear none of it. She spanked her again but this time her hand slipped and struck instead Hamz’ left thigh. Hamz yelped out in pain, her thigh not having the same fatty cushioning that her buttocks had. Jeriel began to snicker mischievously as he continued to play with the playstation 2. Patricia felt her own rage beginning to rise. It was not fair. It was not right.

“What if I just-“ Patricia was running out of things to say. In hopes of finding an idea or a tidbit of information to use and grab Glenda Lee’s attention, she sat down beside the computer and turned on the software Glenda Lee used for sending e-mails. A soft chime sounded as Patricia clicked on the Inbox button. Glenda Lee suddenly gasped in the distance and from the sound of things, struggled to make her way to the computer as fast as possible. The screen flickered to life faster than Glenda Lee could move and what Patricia saw on the screen was something she was thankful but very very unhappy to have seen.

The screen showed a logo design very much like what Patricia had made, only the colors were different and the background was given a much more detailed finish. The e-mail subject heading read: Finished Logo design. Patricia was able to read part of the first paragraph before Glenda Lee landed beside her and flipped the monitor off.

“I regret to inform you that miss Patrica… that I quit?” Patricia stared at Glenda Lee with a renewed sense of anger rising inside her chest. She was still more shocked and in a state of disbelief however that someone whom she trusted to work with without any paper work or contract would do this to her. In front of her two kids, nonetheless. She felt her pulse begin to race. Her hands shook with contained anger. She wanted to ask Glenda Lee what had happened. What this was all about. But the only words she could form in her lips that moment were:

”Quit?!?!”

“I… I can explain,” Glenda Lee quickly muttered beneath a struggling smile, “This is not what it looks like, I promise you. This is just some kind of misunderstanding!”

“One between them and you, it seems,” Patricia stared at Glenda Lee with a dagger-sharp gaze. If looks could kill, Glenda Lee would already be dead. Thankfully, even for someone as psychic as Patricia, merely looking was not enough to do that.

Wishing for it, on the other hand, might be!

Word Count = 2,735
Previous Count = 25,848
Total Count = 28,583 of 50,000

2005-11-24T17:43:00.000-08:00

“Patricia?” Gerald called out, deciding the only way to know if it was her was to try. Never mind if it was more likely that she wasn’t Patricia and that he was embarrassing himself by calling out to a total stranger. The risk was worth the humiliation. The gamble was worth the prize. “Particia?”

The school girls turned to look at Gerald and giggled in unison. Two of the three school girls quickly and animatedly began whispering to one another. The third on the other hand turned to look at the direction where Gerald was facing.

Patricia still did not respond. Her mind was far away, back at Kantong Kuba where she replayed the conversation she had with Carlo. How could she have been so blind to his attractions to him. Were all women prone to such blindness?

“Patricia?” Gerald called out a third time, his heart slowly sinking on the depths of giving up. He was starting to feel the urge to give up and accept it was someone one else when one of the girls waved her hand at him to catch his attention. Turning to look at them instead, he noticed the three school girls were giggling. And one of them was whispering to the muscular dark-skinned man nearby. The man cocked an eyebrow, stared at Gerald, and broke into a smile.

“What?” Gerald asked aloud, his voice sounding a tad more irritated than he really was.

“Yes, it is him!” the dark-skinned man grinned and the three girls exchanged a few hand claps and dance steps. The dark-skinned man gave Gerald a toothy grin and offered one hand for a handshake. Gerald reluctantly took it and forced a smile to fill his face.

“Yes?” he asked, wondering what was going on.

“You’re him, right?” one school girl asked, blushing as she did so. The two others were digging their hands into their things, pulling out small notebooks from their evidently packed bags.

“Him?”

“The man on television,” the dark-skinned man replied and began singing, though most of the words were hummed since he seemed to forget the lyrics, “… ng mata… ang nakita…”

The three girls and the man broke into a song in unison, “Sa Batibot! Sa Batibot!”

Gerald tried to say something but felt his voice stuck somewhere in his throat. It was like he had swallowed a golf ball. And he had no water to help him drink it down. “Oh god please no,” Gerald could only gasp.

The others in the train began to look their way. The dark-skinned man, perhaps in a misguided attempt to be helpful, turned to the closest person who looked at them and explained, “It is him! It’s Kuya Bodjie!”

The three girls continued to sing the show’s theme song, dancing as they did so. Other people in the train began to hum along, or bob their heads with the melody. Two actually gave Gerald a handshake. One asked if he could pose for a picture beside him.

“Sa Batibot! Sa Batibot!”

Patricia “woke” from the din of singing voices and gave a half-interested glance towards the source of it all. With the people gathering at the side of the train just a few feet from where she was, Patricia realized she wasn’t feeling that interested with showbiz personalities and decided to make for the more spacious opposite end of the train. Excusing herself, she slowly began to slip between bodies and singing commuters to move to the more distant side where people seemed to be more content to stare in curious contained interest. She did not notice Gerald cringing and covering his face with both of his hands as the three schoolgirls ran up to him and hugged him in unison, squealing about how much they always had a crush on him.

“What’s happening there?” a commuter asked her as she finally reached the opposite side of the train. Patricia shrugged and leaned against the glass wall as she crossed her arms over herself, “I have no idea. Kids.”

* *

The train came to a stop at Quezon avenue station.

Like the floodgates of a damn breaking, people surged out the train’s left side as the doors slid open to allow the commuters to step down. Amidst the racket of the security announcing safety precautions and the throngs of people either rushing to leave or making calls as they walked, Patricia made her way through the long lines and quickly arrived at the turnstile to slide her card inside. Somewhere behind her, she could still hear the cheering and laughter of people who were singing the theme song to an old children’s show called Batibot. She found herself musing that one of the show’s stars was probably there, but then realized she never was a fan and decided to move on ahead.

She pushed past the turnstile and noticed three street kids who were sleeping at the steps that lead out of the metro rail station. Approaching one, she dug out a few coins and slipped it into the boy’s cup.

Her heart yearned out towards the children. Poverty was rampant in the country. And all the money seemed to keep flowing towards the rich. It was a fact of life. A painful one that she had to live with. Some things, it seemed, were too great to be fixed by one person alone.

When the calls for Kuya Bodjie became more audible, Patricia realized the crowd was looming closer. Not wanting to find herself swept away with them, like a pitiful buoy amidst a terrible typhoon, Patricia began leaping down the steps, covering three to four steps at a time.

* *

“Kuya Bodjie!” the voices were rising and the crowd was growing. Now, even the security guards and the three women who were behind the counter selling the tickets for the rail transit were stepping out of their booths and waving at Gerald. Unable to convince them he wasn’t who they thought he was, the crowd had begun singing the theme song of the show he was mistakenly believed to host over and over again. Cellular phone cameras clicked and took his picture. Some shook his hand. A few even gave him a salute. It was a bizarre moment of mistaken popularity. And it was not even one Gerald wanted to have.

“I’m not, please… you have to hear me,” Gerald pleaded but the crowd simply laughed, taking his admission more as an inside joke than a truth. The three street kids woke up and began looking around excitedly as they heard the people cheering and laughing. They began jumping about, singing along and waving at Gerald. One kid ran up to Gerald and leapt to him, hugging him with all his might that the crowd fell silent. Gerald looked down to the kid and noticed tears streaming down his face. A plastic cup in his hands was crushed by the hug, and upon tearing upon, a few coins fell down to the ground with a tinkle announcing their escape.

Gerald bend down to pick the coins up and looked at the teary-eyed young boy. He smiled as Gerald handed the coins back, eyes wide open in surprise.

“Where did those coins come from!” he asked aloud and Gerald looked at him not knowing what to say. “Those weren’t there earlier!”

Before Gerald could offer the many possible sources the coins could have come from, the boy hugged him again. The boy began to cry, his eyes pouring out tears that seemed to carry with them the weight of the many burdens the child has to bear. Gerald heard him softly whisper, “Thank you Kuya Bodjie,” and found himself suddenly unable to find it in his heart to correct the boy.

The crowd was moved by the scene. And like some strange moment of synchronicity, people began moving closer towards the two. The three school girls, being closest to Gerald and the boy, pulled out their tiny purses and offered the boy a few handfuls of loose change. More people in the crowd began pulling out their wallets and coin purses. Money began to pile around Gerald and the boy. It started as small change, but it began to grow very quickly.

The boy pulled away from Gerald, looked around, and began crying with a smile on his face. The two other kids began laughing too. And the crowd continued to sing the theme song louder and louder. Gerald, speechless, could only smile.

Word Count = 1,420
Previous Count = 24,428
Total Count = 25,848 of 50,000

2005-11-24T16:39:00.000-08:00

Night came with the cold soft winds carried across the sea. The stars had difficulty coming out that night with a cloudy sky greeting the arrival of the moon. Gerald, in his still slightly confused paranoid state, and Patricia, in her now blessed by the presence of things beyond death state of mind, we on another collision course even if neither of them knew it.

And this time the setting of their drama was to be the Metro Rail Transit.

Much like the subways of New York City and Hong Kong, the Metro Rail Transit or MRT as it is more popularly known to be called is a mass public transport system built above street level that allows a much easier commute between numerous major stops and cities for a quite affordable bargain. Which is why, as it should have been more anticipated, the transit suffers from a despicable over-crowding problem with far too many people struggling against one another to ride the thing each journey a train makes.

Every few minutes, a train arrives to see throngs of people already waiting at the deck with impatience marring their typically good natured personalities. Converging like hungry cats upon a single bowl of milk, the crowds would then jam themselves into the opened trains more often than not even before those who had hoped to alight have already exited the vehicle. Once inside, practically everybody suddenly embraces the far annoying habit of simply stopping at the first seemingly comfortable point in the train rather than walking all the way in to allow more space for the passengers to follow to get inside. And lastly, this is the point where certain far more annoying individuals would see the bars and handles meant for everyone’s use as a means to maintain their balance in the ride and lean on such things instead the way a man does upon a wall, believing no one is ever adversely affected by their selfish ways.

It was like having an argument with your parents while roaring drunk.

There was simply no way you’d make any sense or win if you were to complain.

And so it was, fifteen minutes past the hour of eight, that Gerald woke up from his strange dreams and realized he had definitely overslept a good part of the day itself and hoped for another miracle (perhaps like one of time suddenly standing still for an hour or two, or perhaps a more sudden yet over-all affecting event like say some government official being assassinated along a major thorough-way) to grant him the excuse for his tardiness. But alas, though it seemed like the Gods have been kindly watching over him and throwing interesting moments his way, sparing him the salary deductions for arriving late was not among the list of things to bless Gerald with within the next few days.

Gerald worked late night shifts as a graphics artist for a major commercial network. The company currently had a team of seven artists, not including Gerald himself, but managed the needs of over seventeen various international branches of the company and as expected tended to find itself still in a rut as far as manpower was concerned. Projects would flow into the office in droves, with requests for designs for calendars, calling cards, brochures, fliers and even stationary coming each day. And mind you, such projects tended to have numerous nit-picked details to be followed; ranging from a Middle Eastern branch requesting for a Christmas themed calendar which must have not a single icon, symbol, image or statement which was religious in nature (Do correct me if I am wrong but is not Christmas a religious event in itself? Were they expecting a belen with the spot for the child Jesus empty? Or a Christmas tree of nothing but bells and balls to stay on the safe side. Let’s not even try to have a parol as part of the design considering how parols tended to reflect the supposed north star that lead the three wise men to the Child Jesus…) to projects like a bill board design which meant a graphic file that took perhaps ten to fifteen minutes to load up in one’s computer, practically the whole day to lay-out and tweak, and around twenty to thirty minutes to save. Add to those a tendency for those who approved the projects to suddenly become fickle minded and very unattentive to the very corrections they have asked for in the past (“Try approaching this background with a bit more reddish blue hues, I don’t think the green hues work.” “But it was green when I first showed it to you! You’re the one who asked me to try something more red and blue!”) and you have the recipe for disaster ready to explode in your arms.

Still, Gerald loved working there because of the people he worked with. Well, not all of them for there always will be the rotten apples in a basket of good pickings. But generally, the people whom he worked with did not happen to be total idiots. A good number of them were relatively normal kind and open-minded individuals who loved to share a good story, a hearty meal and a laugh. But the rest. Oh to suffer the indignities of having to be associated with the rest, Gerald could only wish that the world would be kind to him and somehow rid itself of such individuals. From the woman who seemingly had an understanding of how time was read which contradicted with everyone else’s understanding of it… and mind you, she believed she was the one who was right. To the man who loved to make every possible pathetic excuse in the world to find ways around actually doing an ounce of true work just so that he had time to use the office hours to yak away on the phone with whoever it was he had wooed with his claims of band fandom or to practice playing the very songs he plays every weekend nights when his band actually comes to existence. And though in all honesty the band did have talent and merit, the fact his working ethics functioned in such a manner simply destroyed any credibility that he may have had. And let’s not forget the supervisor who loved use five to eight syllable words to express his capacity to declare that he shall accomplish tasks at deadlines which he himself sets but never meets.

It used to be a privately shared joke for Gerald to call working with these people early Holy Week reenactments of the Passion.

But work was work and one should never truly complain about a job that actually allowed you to still have the semblance of a life outside work and paid you honest money. At least that’s what Gerald always convinced himself to believe.

After taking the good amount of an hour struggling to reach his trapped cellular phone (it rang seven times too, Palchelbel’s canon filling the air with its repetitive sequence of notes, during the amount of time it took for Gerald to realize it would have been far simpler and more effective to have attempted to fish out the cellular phone with a ruler than to find some impossible way to redistribute his arm’s mass to the rest of his body) and the better part of half an hour to get a shower and dressed for work before he was able to leave. Inwardly cursing himself for being unfocused and for failing to use his brain in recovering his phone, Gerald squinted his eyes and rubbed them twice in disbelief upon realizing that deep within the confines of the moving train, trapped amongst the teeming sweaty mass of people, was someone who looked exactly like Patricia.

Patricia, on the other hand, was on the train for three reasons.

The first was out of necessity. Patricia had to travel from Taft avenue all the way to Quezon City to pass by the house of some crone whom she had accepted a quick job from. During her free time, Patricia too was a graphic designer, though her work tended to lean more towards magazine lay-outs, posters and logo designs than the variety that Gerald worked on. Having taken the offer of an old spinster who raised her two bratty children by her lonesome, Patricia was enroute to deliver the final logo design and collect her humblely priced fee.

The second reason was out of economic honesty. Patricia did not own a car. Nor did she have the money to afford her own. Considering flight and teleportation were not among her many gifts, Patricia was then left with one alternative in mind: Commuting. And so, like every other underpaid and overworked regular cogs in the great economic machine of the City, she commuted.

And the last was out of Lola Jocelyn’s advice.

Patricia wasn’t sure how to react to the fact that a house filled with the spirits of people from various homes, timelines and backgrounds would be unanimous in supporting her interest for some guy she had met just a night ago. It seemed surreal in many ways. Even more surreal than the fact she talked with dead people. But in some ways, Patricia felt a bit guilty. For there was one spirit among the eighteen who was not too keen with the idea of Patricia risking the possibility of getting hurt to some stranger she just met.

“You do not even know him,” Carlo complained though he faced the wall and spoke to no one in particular. Patricia was at the foot of the stairs, looking for him, when his outburst reached her ears. Downstairs, the rest of the spirits were singing and laughing and dancing. But Patricia had noticed that her best friend among the spirits, Carlo, was not among them. So she decided to head upstairs to check if he was there.

To see a spirit on the verge of tears was something no one can every get used to. The guilt carried by the sight of seeing someone who has already suffered the trauma of having died and existed on to perceive that death was something a remote few would ever truly understand. What more to see the same person go through another heart-wrenching moment such as this? And to know you were the cause of it all?

“I know he’s funny. I know he makes me smile. I know we have things in common,” Patricia wanted to explain, but somehow she could not understand why it felt so shallow. So hollow. Was it guilt? Was it because her reasons really were shallow and hollow? Or was it because she knew no logical explanation would compensate for the pain she was causing.

“You like him, don’t you,” Carlo asked her and she found herself nodding even before she considered thinking of what to say. Carlo was always the older brother Patricia never had. The older sibling who watched over her, acted as the devil’s advocate in any decisions she made, and reminded her to be careful and to take care of herself whenever she was leaving the house. She never knew how much Carlo truly wanted to care for her. Or how much he hated the fact his influence was limited only to the confines of the old Spanish Castillo. It reminded him he was trapped. It reminded him he was dead.

And that she was not.

And so, in the Metro Rail Transit, Patricia was oblivious to the world with her thoughts heavily brooding over the conversation she had with Carlo. She did not notice Gerald standing directly in front of her barely fifteen feet away.

Gerald shook his head, doubt starting to convince him that it was not Patricia who was standing just a few feet from him. Perhaps it was someone who happened to look like her. Or maybe even a sister. A cousin? But considering the only people in between him and her were three short and pudgy school girls who mistakenly believed anyone in a school girl’s uniform immediately became attractive in men’s eyes and a hulking muscular man in a grey sando and jeans who seemed to have muscles on his muscles and a skin tone that suggested he always worked under the sun, it was terribly doubtful that she would not notice him if it was her. So Gerald turned away and began to hum to himself, suddenly aware that embarrassingly, he missed her. He wanted to see her. And that he was smiling just thinking of her.

Word Count = 2,104
Previous Count = 22,324
Total Count = 24,428 of 50,000

2005-11-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

Chapter Two - Unplanned

While Gerald struggled with his dreams and his need to get his cellular phone from beneath the refrigerator, someone else was juggling matters of expectation and responsibility in another part of town. Deep within the less popular south-western side of town lay a location that most residents spoke only of in hushed whispers. Shrouded in shadows born from the thick sinuous branches of towering trees, the place was rumored by many others to be enchanted by duwendes and diwatas, if not haunted by strange eerie spirits. The place was called Kantong Kuba, which when translated meant “The Hunchbacked Corner”; a nickname most likely born from the fact the streets were no longer even, broken by a patch of ground at the very corner that rose higher than the rest of the street. Cats loved the place and sadly the prevalence of such feral guests simply lent more mystique and suspicion to the place. Over-grown hedges and lawns as well as the numerous patches of mushrooms and weeds gave the place an even more abandoned quality to its ambiance. And lastly there were the cobwebs, gigantic nets that seemed large enough to capture passing cars, that hung from second-storey windows and broken front doors, or clung from garage openings like semi-invisible threads that hoped to capture any unsuspecting victims. Almost three square blocks of abandoned homes and small commercial plots, very few people ever came to visit Kantong Kuba.

Many would have expected that an abandoned area such as Kantong Kuba would have its population of transients or even squatters. With numerous buildings that still stood and possible remained, perhaps for those not too picky or choosy, livable, it would not be beyond one’s expectations that others would come to make use of the empty rooms and still roofed portions of the place. But surprisingly, none ever did. Though at the outer most buildings within Kantong Kuba, one would notice the occasional presence of gang graffiti or more commonly lurid sexual art pieces done by evidently expressive vandals, none of the buildings showed any signs of human waste left splattered about or odorously growing in strength. The place, as abandoned as it was, was truly empty. And clean.

And perhaps the reasons for such laid upon the fact that as empty as Kantong Kuba was, it did have one single tenant who resided in its lifeless halls. One single living tenant, that is. The remaining eighteen others were long past life, yet in no ways lacking of luster and animation.

Kantong Kuba was indeed haunted.

And one single living soul was permitted to remain within its boundaries.

“Patricia,” a voice in the darkness of one of the buildings announced. A large husky figure stood at the edge of the room with his face towards the window. Glowing a sickly green, a shade that would have reminded one more of radioactive mucus, the ghost watched as Patricia turned the corner into Kantong Kuba and made her way towards the house. Patricia was oblivious to the fact the ghost was talking about her. “Patricia has been helping us for so many years now,” the ghost continued and turned to face its other ethereal companions, “Perhaps it is time to allow her a life outside these halls?”

“You talk of her as if she were some prisoner.” a second ghost retorted. She was shorter than the male, though seemed to carry herself with a much more regal posture. Her hair was tied into a tight bun and her neck was adorned with gigantic pearls. A delicate looking terno pushed further her air of formality, “Patricia takes care of us because she knows it is what she should do.”

“’Nay,” the man spoke up but the matron hushed him with an open hand raised to his face. With her other hand fondling the pearls that adorned her neck, the spirit hovered towards the nearby couch and made a move to sit. Two other spirits, both male, emerged from the shadows to help her sit.

“Don’t think that just because we are dead you can tell me what to do, Carlito,” the matron angrily scolded the ghost.

“’Nay,” the ghost rolled his translucent eyes in their sockets, “Carlo. I only liked being called Carlito when I was still young.” And alive, he mentally added but decided that might simply add fuel to the fire of his late mother’s anger. He gave out a sigh, which he realized the last thing he should have done the very moment he did it.

“Carlito,” he heard her voice rise as she prepared to reprimand him for his display of insolence but her anger and rage never found its release. Patricia had stepped into the house that moment and announced her presence to the spirits that haunted the house.

Now, it must be understood that the relationship between the spirits of the house and Patricia was a relationship of mutual respect and assumed responsibility. Patricia, unlike most people in this mundane world, was gifted with very many gifts among least of which was the ability to perceive and communicate with the dearly departed. Though there were many in the world that would claim to have such arcane oracular ability, few truly had the ability to the degree which Patricia did. To her, the spirits were as tangible as anyone else. They had the appearance and solidity as anyone else as far as her senses were concerned. While the ghosts had to struggle and plead and cajole their very essences in order to emit something as feeble as a whisper of sound to gain the notice of one of the living, there was no such extraneous need in order to gain Patricia’s attention and notice. And this was an occurrence so rare that none of the ghosts wanted to risk losing having such a presence among them. Through her, many loved ones, forgotten old flames and remembered strangers were thankfully reachable once again.

But as it were, such favors were all permissible so long as Patricia herself was willing to accomplish them for them. It didn’t matter if the grandmother saw herself as the matron and senior voice among the spooks of the haunted block, if Patricia chose to ignore her she could; in many ways this ability to selectively remove the other from her perceptions reminded the ghosts to treat Patricia with much honesty and kindness. After all, nothing truly forced her to make her visits to Kantong Kuba.

But at the same time, Patricia learned that while the rest of the world faced the presence of her numerous impossible gifts with doubt, disbelief and in many cases ridicule, the ghosts were always supportive and very much willing to help her hone if not control them. For example, for many years prior to visiting Kantong Kuba, Patricia would unknowingly afflict herself with the illnesses and ailments of other people. Counted among her many gifts was a touch-based form of empathetic connection that allowed her to ease the ills of others by sharing in the discomfort and pain they felt.

Patricia finally freed herself from having to be the world’s mother martyr by visting the spooks of Kantong Kuba for a few months and learning from them how to better control her ability. “It was all in the essence,” Carlo explained to her back then, “It was all about knowing how to focus inward or outward your essence.”

”You mean like, the Force?” Patricia would tease and Carlo would struggle to understand the joke.

And thus, their friendship thrived for many years with no one save themselves ever knowing about its existence.

“Lola?” Patricia called out aloud and stepped into the living room of the long abandoned house. Though the floors were dusty and in dire need of a good sweeping, Patricia felt a small sense of awe as she looked around. Many of the houses in Kantong Kuba were built during the Spanish Occupation of Manila. And such houses housed more than just ghosts; they housed beautiful architecture and wonderful antique décor.

“Ineng,” the grandmother called out as she descended the central staircase that lead to the living room. Beside her, assisting her with each step was Carlo and his brother Juan. Carlo had died after hiting a ripe age of fifty-six. His heart failed to catch up with his alcohol and his tendancy to devour huge quantities of lechon. Juan, on the other hand, died when he was sixteen. He had befallen an accident on his way home one late evening. The criminal who took his wallet and left him for dead with a knife wound in his gut was never caught.

“Lola Jocelyn,” Patricia respectfully bowed her head and waited for the ghostly matron to reach the bottom of the stairs. Taking the old woman’s luminous mint green hand, Patricia smiled and gently kissed it. Lola Jocelyn slid her hand up Patricia’s cheek, allowing the seemingly adopted psychic permission to look at her directly.

“There is something different about you. Something different,” she observed as she held her hand towards Patricia’s cheek. Carlo stepped down the staircase and stopped a few feet away from Patricia. It was evident he was concerned about her, but still tried to hide it by never smiling at her directly.

“Lola, maybe its just because I haven’t been here for quite some time,” Patricia suggested but the old matron was not convinced. Juan seemed bored and sat on the staircase, fiddling with his ethereal nose for snot that no longer existed. “Or maybe its late and you need your rest,” Patricia tried again.

“Oh don’t start with me,” she retorted and walked to Patricia and held her hands. Patricia smiled and tried to look calm but her curiosity was too noticeable in her eyes. Carlo gave Patricia a knowing look, one which Patricia chose to ignore. Perhaps in some ways she felt nervous that he’d be jealous.

“What’s his name?” Lola Jocelyn asked and Patricia felt her cheeks blush. There was no hiding secrets from the departed, that much was true. Lies were after all discordant notes in the harmony that is a person’s soul. To lie was to make all these weird noises that were evident against one’s typically melodious soul. And Patricia knew Lola Jocelyn was an expert in reading such things having been practicing for what was pretty much another life worth of time. “His name,” Lola Jocelyn repeated, “This man who makes you sing deep inside.”

“Gerald po,” Patricia replied and saw Carlo and Juan visibly scowl. The name wasn’t that dignified for them. It was funny how dead people tended to be much more racist than they realized. But then again, maybe when you’re dead, such things matter more.

“Gerald?” Lola Jocelyn repeated the name as if to test the roll of it on her tongue. She brought one hand to her lip and bit on the nail, “Gerald Gerald Gerald…” she repeated the name as she gnawed on the nail, much to Carlo’s disconcertment.

“Lola stop that,” Carlo began only to have Lola Jocelyn wave him away. She continued to pace around, repeating the name over and over like a record player that had hit a back scratch. She repeated his name with a certain cadence to it. It was almost as if she was about to burst into song with the name as the introductory lines.

“I know that name from somewhere,” Lola Jocelyn finally admitted.

“Maybe it’s from some illegitimate child of yours,” Juan teased only to receive a quick punch from Carlo. Juan opened his eyes to complain but Carlo clamped both hands on his shoulders and shook his head as one final warning. Juan remained silent.

“Gerald what?”

“Grandmother?” Patricia asked aloud, not having caught what she asked.

“His name. His family name. His last name as you kids call it nowadays. What was Gerald’s last name?”

“Oh,” Patricia smiled, “Mapagtapat.”

“Mapagtapat,” Lola Jocelyn repeated and allowed the name to roll in her tongue once more. Carlo shook his head and began to make his way up the stairs. The other spirits began to make their way down. Aling Jacqueline was there with her glowing basket of fruits. As was Manong Aldwin who still carried with him his broken sombrero and old rusty bolo. Even the strange foreign spook Isami was there, peering from behind the much taller Filipino ghosts with his Japanese helmet still covering his head. All the ghosts save Carlo seemed suddenly possessed with the urge to find out what was going on. Patricia could almost swear they were on the verge of breaking into song about how love was this or that; perhaps even transforming the run down house into some strange multi-scenic set for a long song and dance sequence that perhaps ended with Patricia admitting that she liked him.

“So does he reside in your heart?” Lola Jocelyn asked and Patricia found herself realizing that he had forgotten how vulnerable and transparent she was to the spirit. She raised both eyebrows and slowly began to nod her head. Yes, she wanted to say, Yes I do think I have found myself falling for him. Yes, I do think he’s quite interesting and cute. But how does one really admit such things to someone older without sounding like some immature love struck fool?

“I’m not quite sure,” Patricia admitted and realized that deep down in her heart that’s how she really felt about these things. Love was in many ways an odd and strange emotion that she was not that well accustomed to. And though she thought she knew where she already stood as far as matters of the heart were concerned, she could not deny the fact that deep within her she felt the presence of doubt. Like a rude stain upon her convictions, she realized that she was feeling many things which sadly did not quite easily fall into place. What if her supposed feelings were more just curiosity than love? What if she actually just really liked Gerald to be her friend? What if someone else came along and only then did she realize who she really wanted? So many uncertainties. So many questions.

“You are honest to admit that,” Lola Jocelyn smiled at Patricia and slid both hands to cup her chin. Patricia felt a bit akward. A bit vulnerable. And though she felt the urge to shy away and move some distance from Lola Jocelyn, she realized she did not want to do that. She did not want to give the impression she wasn’t giving her words weight. “This world we live in, far too many people embrace the idea of love and romance as if it was something so easy and so simple and so perfect. They believe they fall in love and the next thing you know, they insist that love should be enough for everything. It is a sad, sad way to view love. To place upon it far more than it can really carry. To demand of it everything else that you should have the responsibility of taking care of then expecting it to still work after breaking it apart and making it handle what it does not.”

Patrica smiled and gave Lola Jocelyn a hug. The spirit, touched by Patricia’s sudden action, could only hug back in return. But somewhere the floors above, beyond the sight of any of them, Carlo stared out the same window he was looking out earlier and pondered on what was to come.

Word Count = 2,590
Previous Count = 19,734
Total Count = 22,324 of 50,000

2005-11-23T17:13:00.000-08:00

Fruit. Faggot. Queer. Gay. Freak. Fudge-packer. Flower boy. The list went on and on. It took Gerald a moment to realize that his dear neighbor John had actually increased his vocabulary of gender biased slurs within the last few weeks pretty well. And that, in its own was, was an achievement, considering who John was. John was never the bookish type of guy, limiting his reading attempts between glossy men’s magazines like FHM to more intellectually (and sexually) stimulating readables such as Playboy and Penthouse. And yet here he was, testing the limits of creative labeling and hoping some how, someone would come forward and save him from all this.

The botox woman, Elaine, offered a smile as she stirred her coffee in a slow circular motion. Blinking her carefully retouched mascara eyes, she gave Gerald another frozen smile as she asked, “So?”

“So?” Gerald replied, uncertain of where Elaine wanted the conversation to head.

“So so… boobs! He’s looking at your breasts again, Laine,” Seth’s cantankerous voice and indecent announcement brought John into a laughing fit. Gerald felt his cheeks blush, frustrated at how this man could still make him the target of all these jokes. Elaine didn’t seem to get the joke. Seth struggled to catch his breath. John stood up and continued laughing as he made his way to the kitchen. Gerald felt like he was tied up, painted with a bull’s-eye target and prepped for target practice. John, Seth and Elaine were mapping out their positions, preparing their arrows for the volley of insults that was to be unleashed.

“I’m not looking at her breasts,” Gerald finally responded, sighing audibly as he covered his face with both hands.

“You’re not?” Seth sneered.

“No!”

“And what’s so wrong about my breasts that you won’t even look at them?” Elaine teased back and the room was again filled with laughter. Gerald tossed a glance at John who returned with a few steaming mugs of coffee. He placed a mug before each guest and offered one to Gerald. Gerald took it and cradled it in his hands.

“This is a no-win situation,” Gerald admitted, “I’m not playing.”

“Aw, you’re no fun!” Seth gasped.

“Okay, okay,” Elaine took a sip of the still steaming coffee before continuing, “This is good John. Going back, uh.. Gerry was it?”

“Gerald,” he replied.

“Gerald,” Elaine smiled, “We’re just making jokes here. Don’t worry. Yesterday, Seth and I noticed you staring at that gal-”

“Patricia,” Gerald offered, not knowing why he even bothered to.

“Yes, Patricia-“ Elaine continued.

“Nice name,” Seth admitted. John returned with his own mug of coffee and a small tray with still warm pandesal and a slad of butter. Seth helped himself to the tray and began making a sandwich.

“We saw you staring at her for like… five.. ten minutes. And then realized you were the guy whom my cousin John here told me about. His eccentric roommate,” Elaine explained.

”Eccentric?” John asked aloud, in mock surprise.

“That’s what you said,” Elaine shrugged.

“That’s what I called him?” John asked again in false shock.

“Among many other things,” Seth teased but before anyone could ask, Elaine continued the conversation, “Anyway, since we recognized you as the geek next door to John, we thought no harm in having some fun. Especially since we knew John would introduce you to us later on.”

Gerald focused his gaze on John who was taking another long drink of the coffee he had prepared. “So,” Gerald asked, “John basically gave you guys the idea that I wouldn’t mind being the butt of someone’s practical joke. Is that it?”

Elaine and Seth were about to answer yes when they noticed Gerald’s face didn’t seem to be too amused. Both turned to John who looked up from the mug and looked back at Seth and Elaine. Seeing them both nervous, John rolled his eyes up and mumbled, “Damn, he got you quick.”

Gerald burst out laughing and brought his mug towards John for a mock toast. The two porcelain mugs clinked as John and Gerald grinned at Seth and Elaine. Seth realized they’ve been had by the two and gave his attentions instead on the buttered bread that he began stuffing into his mouth. Elaine spanked John’s arm in a playful show of irritation and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s not fair!”

“We’re even,” Gerald called out and took a sip from the mug. The ambiance in the room had quickly changed into a more comfortable one, now that Gerald knew the “misunderstanding” had finally been clarified. He rested his head back against the couch more and unconsciously stirred his coffee. “So, you guys know Patricia?”

“No,” Seth replied between bites, “What gave you that idea?”

Gerald sat upright in confused surprise. “But I thought you said you did the practical joke because you knew her?”

“Knew you,” Elaine reminded him, “We recognized YOU. We didn’t even know who Patricia was until you started saying his name over and over in your apartment.”

“In my-“ Gerald paused, realizing something, “Wait a minute. Are the walls of my apartment THAT thin?” John grinned in response and simply set his now empty coffee mug on the table. “Oh heavens no,” Gerald groaned in frustration and stood up.

“Where you going?” Elaine asked as Gerald made his way towards the door.

“I need to get some sleep,” Gerald admitted though in truth the reasons he had for leaving were something else entirely. John and Elaine stood up to follow him to the door. Seth busied himself with preparing another sandwich. Gerald found himself for a moment thinking maybe all football jocks were like that; very selective in perceiving the world.

“Catch you around sometime?” Elaine smiled her botox-frozen smile and waved a goodbye. John stepped through the door way and patted Gerald’s shoulder, “Listen, you don’t have to be so tightly strung all the time. Try to relax a bit or something. Do you realize how wound up you are right now?”

“John, I just don’t really-“

“Listen. I know I pick on you a lot. But that’s really just because I know you won’t take it personally. You’re my buddy and frankly, you’re probably the only other person on this floor who’s sane. So take a break, calm down, and relax okay?” John turned back towards his apartment. Gerald did not know how to respond. He felt the shattered shards of his ego suddenly glued back together. He felt the broken self-esteem suddenly fixed all along. Smoke and mirrors, it was. Just illusions that he was having it so hard.

“Hey John,” Gerald called out from his own apartment door, “Thanks!”

”Don’t mention it fruitcake. Just keep in mind, we’re sick and tired of Palchelbel’s canon,” John called out, in reference to Gerald’s ringtone. The phone probably had been ringing while he was out. And if the thin walls were true, John probably had to endure hearing the same song over and over and over.

Gotcha,” Gerald replied before closing the door before him. He found himself staring at the closed door and knocking his head against the wood a few times after realizing it was true. The walls were very thin.

* *

It was later in the morning that Gerald found the urge to sleep beyond his ability to resist. Eyelids heavy as lead weights, Gerald slid off his shirt and jeans and crumpled onto his bed with the intentions of getting some sleep. Absent-mindedly, he groped the headboards for his cellular phone with the intentions of setting the alarm clock on but then realized that the phone was still somewhere beneath the refrigerator. Something to work on, he told himself, before allowing the need to rest to take over.

And in his sleep, Gerald found himself once more dreaming.

Red curtains swayed with the motions of an unseen wind as the smell of candle wax slowly filled the room. Gerald turned his head, unawares of the dream having begun, to see two bodies gyrating on the space of the bed next to him. Jenna lifted herself from the sheets and giggled, a mischievous one that seemed thick with unspoken intentions, then bit on her lower lip as she stared at her partner. Gerald’s eyes shot open to realize there was someone beside him and looked up at Jenna with utter shock paralyzing his ability to speak.

“Oh don’t make a fuss,” Jenna hushed Gerald and slid back down amidst the sheets to give her partner a few kisses down the length of her arm, “We just wanted to show you that I’m okay with it. Really.”

“Okay with it?” Gerald gasped out and grabbed the blankets closer to him. Unveiled, Maui rolled to her side and watched as Gerald fell off the bed and onto the floor with a muffled gasp of surprise.

“He’s cute,” Maui turned to Jenna, amused at her girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s antics. Jenna wrapped her arms around Maui from behind and rested her chin against her partner’s shoulder. “I’m surprised you two broke up,” she continued and both watched as Gerald rose back to his feet and realized something else.

“My clothes,” Gerald gasped aloud and saw his jeans and shirt were on the floor. “I’m… naked.”

“You normally strip your pants off when you sleep,” Jenna reminded him.

“No.. I’m naked naked. Where’s my…”

“This?” Maui asked as she stood on her knees and ran her hands across the waist band of Gerald’s boxer shorts. She was wearing them.

“Gah!” Gerald pulled away, visibly shocked, “You’re wearing them!?!”

Jenna chuckled as Gerald stared at Maui, then looked down the sheets as if to double check if he was really naked. Maui planted both hands on her waist and pouted, “What’s wrong? They don’t look good on me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Gerald shook his head, “This is… this is some kind of wet dream isn’t it?”

“If you want it to be,” Maui teased. Jenna, shaking her head, forced Maui on her back and began tickling her. “Want it to be?” Jenna raised her eyebrows as she tickled Maui’s sides, “Oh and what if I don’t want it to be one?”

“Listen,” Gerald shook his hands as if in surrender, “I’m going to step out of the room, okay. So you two can have some privacy.”

As the two girls broke into yelps and contained laughter, Gerald slid back into the living room and shut the door behind him. It felt cold. Painfully cold. And Gerald tip-toed his way towards the window where the brilliant golden ray of warm sunlight was cast upon the floor. He could almost imagine the comfortable warmth that was to kiss his feet when the lights in the living room suddenly switched on. Turning towards the couch, he found three other guests in his living room. The surprise nearly knocked Gerald off his feet. And out of the sheets.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he cried out towards John who was currently getting a back rub from Elaine. It took Gerald a moment to realize both were naked. Behind them both, doing what Gerald could only imagine to be squatting crunches, was Seth. He too was naked save for a small towel that hung on his shoulder. “And where the hell are your clothes?!?!”

“Oh hello,” Elaine smiled, “Want a backrub?”

Gerald shook his head as he spoke, “Why on earth are you people naked in my apartment?”

“What’s a matter? One would have thought you’d enjoy the show, fruit cake,” John teased though his own bits and pieces were hidden thanks to the fact he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Actually, you’re the one dreaming all this. So maybe there’s something you should explain.”

“Me?”

“Yes you,” Seth muttered back. He did another squat and grunted as he flexed every muscle he could, “After all, its not like we’re the one dreaming everyone else here being naked.”

“Why would I even be dreaming of you people?” Gerald whined.

“Aw just admit it fruit cake, you wanted some of this ever since you met us!” John teased and Elaine found a sore spot in John’s back. John gave a loud yelp of pain as Elaine kneaded his shoulder with her hands. Seth rose from his squat and shrugged, “No pain no gain, so they say.”

“This is one fucked up dream,” Gerald mumbled to himself as he continued to the window and clamped both feet on the warm sunlit floor. He rubbed his hands on his face and slapped his cheeks a few times. “A dream. This is just a dream.”

“It better be,” a new voice replied and Gerald found himself staring at the source. Just outside the window, standing under the sun, was his mother. She was tall for a woman of her generation with hair that remained black and wavy for someone of her age. Wearing a red bathrobe, Gerald’s mother stood outside by the sidewalk with her hands on her waist. Gerald quickly unlatched the window and slid the glass panel back.

“Mom?” Gerald asked aloud, suddenly very conscious of the fact there were three naked people in his living room, “What are you doing here?”

“What, can’t a mother visit her own son nowadays?” Gerald’s mother complained and reached into the window to give Gerald a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Gerald felt panic rise when he heard John’s voice issue from inside the living room.

”Good morning missus Mapagtapat,” John greeted Gerald’s mother as he and Elained waved a hello. Seth was too busy squatting to do the same.

“Oh hello John,” the mother replied and turned to her son, “I like you’re friend John. He’s always so genial and respectful.”

“Mom,” Gerald groaned, “Don’t you even realize he’s naked? With two other naked friends? In my house?”

“Of course I do honey,” she replied ever so calmly, “But I don’t think it’s my place to complain. You kids nowadays, so different from how we used to be.”

Gerald found himself blinking a few times. Dream or not, there was no denying that this reality seemed far more appealing and interesting than anything else he had encountered before. And the fact that he was certain this was more likely to be a dream in some ways saddened him. It frustrated him to realize that such an open-minded and generally friendly world would only be something remotely permissible in a dream. And only in a dream.

“Freud,” Gerald mumbled to himself, “This is a Freudian thing isn’t it,” he asked his mother and she could only smile in response. A smile formed on his face. Gerald clapped his hands together as he began to nod out in realization, “I get it. I get it now. This is all some subconscious thing. Naked people in a dream means seeing people in their most vulnerable. In their most honest state. And sex is a signifier of accepting another person. So this dream is some unconscious message telling myself am okay with you guys. That I’m more accepting of who you guys are.”

“Could be,” Gerald’s mother replied as she clamped her hand on his cheek. Smiling, she patted the cheek twice before stepping back into the street. Gerald watched as his mother walked away with a cheerful gait in each step.

“Could also be you’re just horny for us, buddy,” John teased.

But now Gerald realized for the first time in his life he was actually happy. And content. He actually knew where he stood and what he had to gain. He knew what life had to offer and what he had to simply offer in return.

The clarity of his current state in life was overwhelmingly simple. And to Gerald, it was in some ways disturbing. Not accustomed to this feeling of clear comprehension of what direction his life was taking, Gerald felt a sense of anxiety growing in the fringes of his awareness. It was like a sense of paranoia. Or a hint of worry. After all, Gerald realized that with the rate things had been going, it was only a matter of time that something would come into view and mess things up. It was the second act cliché, you see. The fact that something would always have to complicate things that were already moving in a desired direction.

And for Gerald the second act cliché came with the coming of noon. While Gerald slept and dreamed of naked friends and his mother, John found himself answering the door to find a delivery boy searching for a Mr. Mapagtapat. Accepting the delivered folder for Gerald, John noticed the front face of the brown envelop and read what was written on it. It was a letter from some university in the United States. Somehow, John suspected, it was announcement that Gerald got in.

John wasn’t sure how to break to Gerald the news. It was after all what Gerald really wanted, right?

* *

It was a few minutes past the hour of seven when Gerald finally realized he was more hungry than sleepy. Stomach grumbling in agreement, Gerald sat up from his bed and gave his back a good stretch before searching his vicinity for his shirt. It was dark and having forgotten to leave a light on, Gerald had to feel his way towards the wall and find the switch through touch. The remnants of his dream no longer remembered, Gerald made his way to the bathroom, shut the door behind him even if he was alone, and began washing his face to help wake up faster.

Word Count = 2,945
Previous Count = 16,789
Total Count = 19,734 of 50,000

2005-11-18T20:08:00.000-08:00

Gerald arrived at his apartment in such a gleeful mood that he was literally singing and dancing as he made his journey from the bakery to his apartment; his jovial mood was infectious, bringing the mail man to singing along with him and the next door neighbor to dance a few steps amusedly as he walked passed them.

“What’s with the good mood today, Gerald?” they would ask and Gerald would dance circles around them with a huge grin on his face. “What’s the good news?”

Gerald would give no reply. None verbally other than lines from a song or a few shakes of a dance step. And the others would simply wonder as he walked on. Was it winning some lottery? Was it taking a trip to some vacation paradise? Was it finally being able to afford a bigger apartment?

The questions would dance in their minds just as Gerald would twist and shake his buttocks at them. He would reach out to Mrs. Majo’s wiry arm and boogie with her down the apartment hallway a few steps before giving her a cheerful spin and moving on down the long corridor. “Did you by any chance find a few million pesos on the floor or something, Gerald? Why are you so happy?”

But he would give no answer.

Gerald would instead continue humming the song he was singing, giving words to the lyrics only when they were lines he was certain were right. “I got you… under my skin,” he would call out, “I got you… deep in the heart of me… “ then slip back into humming and side stepping as he approached his apartment door at last and saw his next door neighbor, the cynical and sarcastic John leaning outside the door and enjoying a cigarette. John, wearing his usual sly smirk, leaned out towards Gerald and sung along, “Don’t you know, little fool… you never could win…” before flicking the cigarette towards Gerald’s feet, “I know why you’re all so happy dappy, fruitcake. You’re mother superior is in your apartment waiting for you. Excited to take another generous helping of whippin’ aren’t you?”

“Mother superior-“ Gerald’s voice faded far slower than his enthusiasm did.

“Your girlfriend,” John clarified and walked up to Gerald, stomped a foot down on the still burning cigarette, and gave his foot a twist, “Oh, don’t tell me you were all hopping and dancing over someone else? We’re you?”

Gerald stared at his apartment door. Closed as it was, he could already visualize the interior of his apartment. The red couch. The white walls. The stacks of DVDs that occupied one corner. The bookshelf filled with VCDs and books in the other. And somewhere amidst the collection of knick knacks, personal stuff and public entertainment, Jenna Garbino with her long relaxed hair and her far too perfectly made up face would be most likely standing with her arms crossed before her chest. She would have an expression of contained rage and irritation, having most likely used the duplicate key of Gerald’s apartment to gain access inside, only to find him missing and his cellular phone answering to her calls from somewhere underneath the refrigerator.

The image of Jenna was a sudden splash of dream-slaying water upon Gerald’s excited happiness. It was a cold shower upon his growing enthusiasm.

“Oh fuck no, it was someone else,” John muttered the very moment the door to Gerald’s apartment slid open and revealed the face of Jenna herself, her expression locked in the very irritated and angry scowl that Gerald had just imagined she would be wearing. And any pretense of having hoped she did not hear John’s words flew out the apartment faster than a rumor could spread as Jenna’s face, and yes it actually was possible, assumed an even more irritated and angry. John turned to see Jenna’s face and slid an arm around Gerald’s shoulders. Tapping Gerald supportively in the back, John whispered a quirk message of support before giving Jenna a half-forced smile. “You’ll survive this, buddy. If not, well, I can’t wait to watch the episode inspired by you on CSI.”

Gerald wanted to say something. His mind raced at the many possible things to say. He thought of the dozens of excuses he could give. He considered explaining how John was just really out to get him into trouble whenever it were humanly possible to do so. But ultimately, he realized in many ways John wasn’t even lying. And in some strange unexplainable way, Gerald felt relieved that this was happening as it was this very moment. Perhaps because it allowed him to talk about something he knew Jenna would have to know about soon enough.

And for some things, there was no day but today.

“Gerald,” Jenna started and the break in the silence gave Gerald the strength to say it. “Jenna I’m terribly terribly so-“

“Shut up,” Jenna interrupted her with such cold vengeance that the rest of the corridor quietly yet hastily excused themselves to hide behind locked doors and strain their ears to listen for what was to come. Somehow, Gerald could even imagine some sending each other short text messages through their cellular phones, placing bets on how the confrontation was to come down. “Step inside, we have to talk,” came Jenna’s command. Gerald blinked a few times and watched in disbelief as Jenna walked into the apartment and waited for him by the red couch. No screaming. No yelling. No shrieking. A quick thought had Gerald thinking Jenna was somewhere in some alien unidentified flying object while this clone of hers was trying to pass off as the real thing.

“What?” Jenna asked aloud and looked at Gerald just as Gerald realized he was thinking aloud that moment, “Clone?”

“Nothing,” Gerald muttered and slid into the room. He quickly glanced around and noticed everything was as it was. No shattered mugs. No scattered books. No torn pages or thrown about pillows. Just Jenna Garbino sitting on his red couch with her hands covering her face; She was crying. Gerald closed the door behind him, much to the collective disappointment of a neighborhood used to seeing him whipped and treated like a dog, and walked up to his girlfriend with an honest concern in his heart. It was a sensation that he had not felt in a very long time.

“What’s… what happened?” Gerald asked, honestly concerned for his girlfriend’s welfare.

Jenna gave no answer which, for Gerald, was definitely a bad sign. He slid down to the couch, sitting beside her and wrapped one arm protectively around her shoulder. He saw she was very struggling to contain her feelings, trembling with a locked in emotional burden that seemed to cause her even more pain. “Talk to me,” Gerald offered and Jenna finally broke down, tears flowing down her cheeks as she gripped his shoulders tightly and gasped for air between heartfelt sobs. Gerald remained firm, giving her the shoulder she could hold on fast to for support. He slid his face against her hair and kissed her forehead, not feeling it was right to kiss her anywhere else after all that had happened the night before.

“Gerald, I’m so sorry…” she gasped and struggled with her seemingly useless fingers to bring out her hanky. Gerald noticed her frantic attempts and pulled out his handkerchief instead. “Here, use this.”

“I’m so terrible…” Jenna gasped aloud, eyes reddening with each passing second.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I know I’m so terrible. God, I hate myself.”

Gerald could not believe himself. Jenna, the woman who would never admit she committed any mistake, was now beside him and guiltily bearing her soul before him. Gerald hugged her closer, wanting to somehow alleviate her burdened heart. He wanted to help her feel better, but he had no idea how.

“Don’t say things like that,” was all Gerald could muster.

“Its true. Don’t you see it’s true,” Jenna gasped and blew a loud noseful of mucus onto the handkerchief. Gerald stroked his fingers through Jenna’s long straight hair and hushed her gently to stop weeping and relax. “There’s nothing to feel bad about,” he whispered to her, “It’s okay… I never resented you for being such a terrible girlfriend.”

Gerald found the courage to finally admit his disappointment and dishonest contentment for how their relationship had been all those years. Was it karmic balance or divine retribution that allowed this moment to happen?

“I could understand how you’ve never really had anyone so willing to devote his time and happiness to you, and that can scare a person. I guess in many ways, I too was at fault for being too willing to spoil you and make you happy. Perhaps I tried to please you too much that when it came to the honest truth that I didn’t like doing those things, and yet you were too blind and self-focused to realize that was the case, I-”

Or was it just another horrific case of Gerald misunderstanding.

“Gerald,” Jenna’s voice came, strong and focused, and Gerald found her pulling away from him and rising to her full height as she stood up from the red couch. “What are you talking about?”

Gerald could imagine John at the room next door, having overheard everything that just happened, now calling the other neighbors to collect his winnings.

“I thought-“

“You were never happy?!?!” Jenna nearly yelled at him. Gerald scratched his nape and let his face remain obscured as he hung his head low. “I,” Jenna began, her voice rich with a new-found rage, “I should…” a rage that quickly faded into the quilt-ridden quivering voice she was speaking with earlier, “… should… Oh Gerald!”

Jenna gasped and moved forwards again, hugging a now very confused Gerald who had been bracing himself for her wrath. Peeking at her, Gerald noticed she was once again swimming in her regret. “What is going on?” Gerald finally found the courage to ask.

“I was… I’m…” Jenna muttered, perhaps still not ready to admit the truth.

Pregnant? Leaving you? No longer in love with you? Joining the missions? Gerald rattled off any possible reason in his head. Anything that could help make this moment have more sense and reason than it already lacked.

“I’m in love,” Jenna sobbingly admitted and Gerald felt the beginnings of a smile emerge on his face, “You’re in love with someone?”

“I’ve been such a fool, treating you this way for so long,” she admitted.

“And now you realize you love someone and no longer want to be stuck with me. Oh I completely understand,” he genuinely replied in a supportive manner, “Jenna, if it makes you happy, then we’ll end this. We’ll end us. Now.”

“You mean it?” Jenna looked at him, her face showing the initial signs of relief. Gerald could not believe his luck. “You don’t hold it against me? Hold all that has happened against me?”

Gerald gave her a supportive hug and kissed her on the forehead a second time.

“Absolutely not. We got into something we didn’t understand,” he explained, “And now we’re both starting to see where we fit in better.”

Jenna smiled now, wiping her tears away with his handkerchief, and gave out a heavy yet more peace-filled sigh. Gerald stood up and walked to his refrigerator, pausing for a moment as he remembered his cellular phone still being stuck under it, then opened the refrigerator to grab a jug of cold water.

“Drink? It will help you feel better,” he offered.

“Thanks,” she smiled and rose from her couch, walking towards him with a much more emotionally-balanced gait, “You… I fell like I should say something. About us. About how we used to be.”

“Don’t,” Gerald admitted, “If we’re over, then that’s that. We had our good times. And we had our not so good times. No use comparing notes or grading performance, right?”

“I still want to say you actually did make me happy,” Jenna admitted, “And I guess I should apologize for being so tough on you.”

“It wasn’t like you intended to-“ Gerald began but noticed her biting her lower lip as he spoke. “Oh,” he realized, “It was.”

“Yeah,” Jenna admitted, “I was kind of having fun making your life a living hell. You used to find it endearing.”

“Jenna,” Gerald sneered, “There was a time even Barney was endearing. Now anyone who sees that purple freak feels the urge to wring his neck.”

“Point made,” Jenna shrugged and accepted the glass filled with cold water which Gerald had poured out for her. The room suddenly seemed to be much brighter as clouds that obscured the sun parted and let the sunlight through. “What about you?” she asked, “John said-”

“John says a lot of things,” Gerald grunted.

“Like how John used to tease that you were into the Spice Girls?”

“Hey, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want!”

Both shared an honest laugh, perhaps the first they ever shared in the many months they have been together. It felt slightly unusual yet very right. While Jenna took a deep drink of water from the glass, Gerald found himself staring at her and seeing what made him fall in love with her in the first place. He saw her as who he knew she was; disarmed and slightly quirky with a naïve view of the world. He reached up and brushed her hair away from her face and smiled as she looked up at him.

”What?” she asked and Gerald sighed, “We had our times, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Jenna admitted and set the glass down on the counter. She reached into him and they shared a tight warm hug. Gerald felt the tears gathering at his eyes and fought against the urge to cry. Jenna openly wept and kissed Gerald one last time on the cheek.

“I’m sorry again,” she admitted and he shook his head, “We tried to force it… that’s basically what was wrong about it from the start. We tried to force it.”

Jenna nodded and finally stepped back. She wiped her tears away and this time, shied away from Gerald when he tried to help. “Its okay, I’m okay,” she replied and dried her eyes with her own hanky this time, “You’ll be okay… right?”

“I will,” Gerald nodded, partly feeling the urge to share that he too found someone, but decided that today would be best left as Jenna’s day of finding her true happiness. “Know that you’re still my friend and I wouldn’t mind if you come by every now and then.”

“I do have to get some of my stuff that I’ve left here,” she admitted, “Toothbrush, some clothes…”

“No rush,” Gerald smiled, “Why don’t you go on now and visit your honey dovey,” he mimicked the way she’d give herself a baby talk voice the way she used to when she’d cuddle up to him “Stop that,” she interrupted him, “I only did that cause I thought you liked it. Ugh, Baby talk. I hate baby talk.”

“Oh,” Gerald felt sheepishly embarrassed. Somehow, things were still the same.

“Anyway, I better go. Thanks so much for not making this harder than I thought it would be. I do feel better now.”

“No problem,” Gerald smiled and tossed an imaginary punch to the sky, “That’s me. Mister Make You Feel Better.”

“Cute,” Jenna told him and made her way for the door. Her stride was confident now and as she made her way to leave the apartment, Gerald caught up with her at the door and called out, “Maybe sometime we can even go out? You know? You, me and him?”

“Her!” Jenna called back as she walked towards the stairs leading out, “Her name is Maui!”

“Dang!” Gerald turned to see John also at his door, “You’re Jenna’s now part of the pink patrol? Dude, you have to ask her to let us watch!” Gerald walked back into his apartment and slammed the door behind him closed.

“What did I say?” John asked out loud.

* *

Gerald could not believe his luck.

The world had seemingly turned around overnight and transformed into a place much more interesting and wonderful. What was once a horrible example of a romantic comedy gone bad had suddenly become something that showed promise.

“Patricia,” Gerald muttered her name out loud and found himself smiling again. It was strange, how something as simple as a name could suddenly seemingly feel so right. How the sequence of letters forming the name would suddenly be like some magic spell that unlocked a powerful sense of belonging. Of fitting in. Of being just right.

Gerald began to remember the little things about her that made her even more beautiful in his eyes. How her cheeks would blush a slight red as she laughed. How her eyes would squint into narrow slits when she smiled. How she had this little pout that seemed to show itself whenever she let her mind wander.

He remembered how she carried herself with no false pretenses of how beautiful she looked. She barely wore make-up, which for Gerald meant she was comfortable with who she was. He always felt a little bit sad for women who felt the only time they could look beautiful was when they would conceal their faces with cake and powder. Patricia wasn’t one of those, and for that Gerald couldn’t help but admire her even more.

He laughed to himself as he recalled how much she smelled of powdery musk and hints of flowers. Jasmine. Lily. Rose. She had the scent of someone who had just woken from a silken bed that had been covered with flower petals and the soft shower of rainfall.

Gerald was so focused on how happy he was about the day that he had totally forgotten to lock the door behind him. John slid into the room, watching as Gerald stood by the window with his face against the sunlight. Gerald’s eyes were closed as he smiled and realized he could still smell her perfume in his hands. It wasn’t Jenna, who loved wearing layers of strange strong perfumes which reminded Gerald more of his grandmother.

“Please don’t tell me you’re turning gay,” John hissed at Gerald as John watched him slowly run his open palm against his own nose. Gerald’s eyes popped open as he heard John’s voice.

“John, what are you doing here?”

“I’m doing you a favor, being the best friend you can rant on,” John offered as he maneuvered himself to the red couch and leapt upon it, hands behind his head as he laid back to listen to what he expected was a long drawl of tears and regret. “So, she laid you off at last, fruitcake?”

“Don’t call me that,” Gerald muttered back, “First of all, I don’t recall asking you to come over here. Secondly, you have it wrong, she was the one whom I broke up with. And thirdly, I am not a fruit.”

“I know,” John sneered, “but its fun to call you that, peaches.”

Gerald sighed audibly, “Why are you here?”

“Like I said,” John sat up, “I’m here to offer you some manly advice. I know you’ve just broken up with your dominatrix Jenna, oh she had breasts on her, I’d tell you that. But life goes on, man. There are lots of fishes in the sea! Cucumbers too, if you’re into that.”

“John,” Gerald frustratedly exclaimed, “I am not gay!”

“Then why are you getting so riled up over it?” John shook his head, “Anyway, so tell me. Who was the other chick?”

“I don’t know,” Gerald shook his head, “Jenna didn’t say. Probably someone from that theater thing Jenna has been managing. Maybe one of the dancers. How should I know?”

”Dude,” John smiled as he walked up to Gerald and patted him on the shoulders, “I meant your gal. But then again, I wouldn’t mind talking about Jenna and her muff-muffin!” Gerald tossed John a not entirely playful punch which John easily dodged. “Hey, no need to be violent man! If you don’t like sharing yet, then I won’t insist.”

“Thanks,” Gerald pointed towards the door, “Maybe you can show yourself out too or do I have to insist on that?”

“Okay okay… I’m going,” John smiled and stepped out the door way. But just before Gerald could slam it shut, John added, “We can talk about Patricia next time?”

Gerald froze as he stared at the door he had flung slam shut between them. Rushing forwards, he pushed it back open, stepped outside and saw John about to close the door to the his own apartment closed behind him. Gerald literally leapt to the door, kicked his foot forwards to block it from closing, and reached for John’s shoulder.

“John, you have to explain-“ Gerald stopped midsentence. John turned to face Gerald as Gerald realized that John’s apartment wasn’t unoccupied. Staring at the two other guests, Gerald backed away and covered his face in shame. “Oh god no,” was all he could muster.

“Hey, you’re here. Here I thought you didn’t feel like chatting,” John smiled and stepped back to give his guests a good view of Gerald. Gerald cringed and wished he could shrink away and vanish. “Gerald, this is my friend Seth,” John remarked and Gerald stared in horror as John introduced the last man Gerald wanted to bump into again. Ever. In his entire life.

Ape-man smiled and gave Gerald an affirming nod, “We’ve met.”

“God no,” Gerald frowned and turned to John. John smiled and continued, “While this vivacious beautiful lady here-”

“Oh Johnny boy, stop that!” she slapped Ape-man Seth’s arm playfully.

“-is my cousin, Elaine.”

Gerald could hear the psycho trumpets blaring. He forced himself to smile, gave them all a quick hello, and ducked back into his apartment. John turned to Seth and Elaine and shrugged, “A fruit, what can I say?”

Word Count = 3677
Previous Count = 13,112
Total Count = 16,789 of 50,000

2005-11-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

They talked for hours. For many hours. And it took a waiter to come to them and point out the brightening sky for them to realize how much time had passed since they started talking. Though most of the other shops and houses were now shrouded in darkness and closed blinds, two had done the complete opposite and turned on their lights to welcome the coming morning.

“How many hours were we in there?” Gerald asked aloud as he helped Patricia step onto the side walk and avoid a deep puddle that hugged the curb. Neither felt any hint of exhaustion or sleepiness as they bid the café farewell and decided to take a quiet walk down the street. The sky was becoming a carefully cultivated hue of purple and orange. Clouds mixed in the palette of the sky like a great work of some unseen artist. The air was cold with the damp dew of morning and the streets shone with the wet light shower that fell while most of the city was still asleep. “Six? Seven? Isn’t it strange and yet… amazing how there’s just so much things to talk about?”

“I know,” Patricia smiled as she spoke, “Its strange. Its different.”

“It’s cold,” Gerald observed as Patricia gave a soft shudder before hugging herself to warm her arms. Gerald slid his hands to his waist and hoped to find a jacket tied around it. Unfortunately, he realized he had left it back at the apartment. Patricia tried to convince him it was okay, raising one hand towards him as if to motion him to let things be. He, however, caught her once again shivering against the cold winds and decided she had best find some place to keep herself warm.

“This early in the morning? Where exactly do you have in mind-“ Patricia began only to see Gerald already nodding and reaching out for her hands. ”Come on,” he suggested and only added, “I know just the place.”

The two walked down the empty streets. It was far too early in the morning for anyone, be it a business man or bum, to be up and about. It was not, however for them. The very people who would wake up this early, if not earlier each morning, to prepare the dough, to slice the bread, and to bake it in the over for the hungry stomachs to feed upon soon enough.

It was a bakery. And it’s name was Dough Not Worry. The delightful aroma of freshly baked bread danced in the air, teasing them both with memories of home. Past the glass walls, Gerald and Patricia could see the three bakers already engrossed in their work. One man was kneading the dough with his bare hands. Like a potter, he massaged the clay-like dough and rolled it up again, repeating the process until it began to have a much more cooperative consistency. The second man was currently distributing already softened dough onto a greased tray, folding the palm-sized mounds into tiny hills, and twisting their tops onto themselves. Once he’d fill a tray with twelve such mounds, he’d carry it to the third man who would receive the tray and slide it into the orange-hot interior of the oven. There the dough would miraculously and scientifically transform into delectable freshly baked bread, which the third man would then take from the tray and place into a special multi-tiered rack, to allow the bread to cool.

Gerald smiled and walked towards the door, turning to face Patricia just before opening it. She raised both eyebrows in a curious yet amused way when she noticed he had not moved to let her in. “What?” she asked while she ran her hands over her arms in an attempt to build some body heat from the friction.

He could not reply. For he had suddenly realized he was staring at her and caught her in The moment. Gerald, you see, had a belief in something called The moment. It was something that everyone would actually go through during a day without ever realizing it. Literally, it was a moment during the day when everything around you worked in a perfectly choreographed instant to give you the most flattering look during that day. It was like a miniscule miracle that occurred once a day for every single person in the world and almost always lost to the casual observer.

And Gerald caught her going through her moment for the day.

As she completed that last step towards the door behind him, Gerald turned and saw her face suddenly lit by the bakery’s display window that was framed by uncovered incandescent bulbs. Behind Patricia, a van had just drove past, swamping the area behind her into a blur of dark blue and streaks of gold and red. And finally, the wind had blown that precise instance, softly combing her hair back to reveal her face.

Gerald gasped aloud.

Patricia thought he was making fun of her, poked him just below his right rib, and stepped into the bakery. Gerald, shocked from her sudden poke, blinked a few times to clear his mind before following inside behind her with a smile betraying his mock anger.

”What was that for?”

“You were staring at me,” Patricia accused him as she felt the warmth of the ovens comfortably spread over her body and bring her shivering down to a much more manageable level. “You were making fun of me.”

“I was not!” Gerald exclaimed, “I was…”

“What?” Patricia inquired, her arms crossing over her chest, “You were what exactly?”

And Gerald could only smile in response. Whether it was merely now being in a warmer place or Patricia realizing what Gerald had not said, Patricia blushed as she turned to focus instead on the busy bakers. Gerald raised both arms over his head, crossing his palms over in a strange position of lazy relaxation.

“Hungry?” Gerald asked and Patricia seemed to watch, mesmerized by the cooperative ballet the three men shared. “We can order some pandesal I guess. Peanut butter. Maybe ask if they have coffee. Or hot chocolate.”

“Oh no,” Patricia realized something as her gaze drifted to the wall calendar just behind the baker kneading the dough. Gerald traced her gaze and saw that she was staring at the dates. “It’s a Sunday today… “

“Yeah,” Gerald smiled, “We sort of chatted through Saturday night.”

“I have to go,” Patricia replied and suddenly everything felt cold and silent. Gerald felt his enthusiasm suddenly die a sudden death. He suddenly couldn’t smell the freshly baked bread anymore. Or feel the comforting warmth of the ovens. Or even the excitement of sitting down with Patricia again to start another round of stories to be shared. “Oh,” was all he found he could muster in reply.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered as she made for the door. Gerald sprung to her side and held it open for her. She turned towards him and offered a smile, “I really had a lot of fun today, Gerald. I did. I just have to go. I promised-”

“You don’t have to explain anything,” Gerald weakly smiled, “There’s always other days eh?”

Patricia smiled and agreed as she stepped through the door, “There is. I’m really sorry. I just have something I have to-”

“Tomorrow?” Gerald asked and it took him a beat to realized he had just asked her out without going through the whole struggle of fighting against his paranoia and forcing himself to find courage through all the many ego-shattering rejections of the past. Somehow, impossibly, he had simply come up and found the words to ask her without spinning in his mind all the possible things to ask instead of sounding like some clichéd schmuck. He asked her out, and though he knew he could be wrong and find himself as he usually was, rejected and humiliatingly given some inane reason once again to why he should give up, he realized that at that very moment, being seen as a fool might not be that bad. Not when it meant possibly seeing Patricia again. “Are you free tomorrow?”

”Monday?” she asked, “I have classes-“

“Right,” Gerald remembered she told him she was taking Fine Arts as a second degree. They were joking about how it was a perfect way to be free from one’s parents yet safe from the bigger demands of having to pay for all the bills that come with being free from one’s parents. “Lunch? I can drop by for lunch.”

“Lunch would be great,” Patricia smiled and stepped outside. She walked a few steps into the now sunlit street, then turned to give Gerald a wave goodbye. Gerald smiled, opened the door and stood at its threshold, and waved back. “Tomorrow then!”

Tomorrow, it seemed, was going to be a great day.

Word Count = 1479
Previous Count = 11,633
Total Count = 13,112 of 50,000

2005-11-13T05:38:00.000-08:00

The night felt less colder than Gerald had expected. Though the winds carried the cooled gusts than had crossed over the sea, Gerald found himself not having any problems with the temperature that night. It felt, in lack of any better word to describe it, comfortable.

There was that time when Gerald visited the city of Baguio with some friends and not a single day passed with him not making some fuss over how his toes felt numb, or how his face felt chaffed or how his lips were cracking from being so dry in the cold biting air. His friends eventually gave up on him, opting to cut the trip short with the secretly shared promise to never again invite him to join them on any trek back to the mountains up north. And it was a promise they had kept since then.

“So,” Gerald inhaled sharply as he finished the word and turned to face Patricia, “Let’s begin?”

“What do you mean ‘Let’s begin?’” Patricia asked him back with one of her eyebrows raised in suspicious amusement. Gerald realized how his statement could suddenly be misconstrued in so many ways and felt a slight panic rise to the fore. But the shock of panic faded away with Patricia’s laugh, “You’re trying to break the ice. That’s cute.”

“What can I say? I’m not really good at this sort of thing,” Gerald admitted and some how he found telling her one of his biggest embarrassing truths didn’t feel difficult or too revealing at all. “It is not like I haven’t met other women in the past, or tried breaking the ice and starting conversations with people I didn’t know before. I just never really found myself comfortably doing that.”

“Quantity and Quality,” Patricia offered.

“Yeah,” Gerald grinned, happy she understood, “I guess its all partly connected to my dislike for the dating game. The ligaw stage that tends to happen. All this courting rituals that just scream hypocrisy and lies to me. You know how so many people try to set their best foot forwards the moment they meet someone… or even worse, present a façade of who they are totally different from who they truly are when no one is the target of their attempts to impress?”

Patricia stared at him, smiling but somehow, Gerald sensed something was in her head.

“What?” he asked, prodding her to talk.

“What what?” she replied and smiled back, obviously teasing him.

“You were thinking of something,” Gerald went for the attack, “Say it.”

“Say what?” she dodged, still smiling.

“Say what you were thinking before I asked you ‘What?’”

“Well, I was just amused you were suddenly thinking about how men try to impress women. The dating game. I have no idea why on earth you’d suddenly be thinking about that among all other things,” Patricia replied without any hint of sarcasm or insult in her tone, “Do you think we’re dating?”

Gerald felt his face flush red. He probably would have shrunk to the height of a mouse had he had the power to do so. It was one of those questions that seemed impossible to answer correctly. A yes would have been presumptuous. A no, on the other hand, would raise the question “Why not?” and suggest the woman did not seem attractive enough to be worth dating.

Feeling like a young boy caught trying to escape detention, Gerald tried to delay responding by suddenly motioning towards a café across the street. Patricia looked at the coffee place Gerald suggested and offered a quick nod of her head to say yes. The two crossed the empty street and walked beneath the glow of early hung Christmas lights as they made their way to the café’s entrance.

”I do not think we’re dating,” Gerald realized he was over-thinking things. He was falling into the dating trap. He was trying to be impressive. Grabbing every instinct to think of something witty and throwing it out of his head along with the image of himself staring at incoming headlights, Gerald reminded himself that he wanted her to know who he was and decided to do just that. “In fact, I have to admit, I don’t do dates. I really feel dating and dates are strange unnecessary rituals cloaked with hidden innuendos and attempts to impress. If I had my choice, I’d rather spend some time with someone I found interesting in what ever ways appealed to me and that particular person. Why limit yourselves to sitting in some restaurant, ordering horribly expensive food that the same two people later on as a married couple might never be able to afford eating at again? Why waste money on renting a fancy car or on suddenly upgrading one’s wardrobe with signature apparel and more expensive smelling perfumes when in the long run the same man would not want to wear such things except for the occasional wedding or funeral.”

Patricia stared at him as he make his little monologue. The café was open and a waiter ushered them both to one of the tables just outside the door. Patricia reached for a chair and found Gerald pulling it back for her even as he continued speaking.

“Why not just go out and do things you find fun? Like climbing trees or visiting strange corners of a mall that neither have checked out before? Or just hanging in some park and chatting about things that the other doesn’t know about yet. Personally, I’d pick meeting up to just talk about anything more appealing than going to some fancy restaurant where I don’t think I’d enjoy the food or the expense, but I know will impress my date-”

“-Or her parents?” Patricia offered and the two broke into a shared honest laugh which was definitely a sign that if there were any ice left to break, they were definitely too small to even matter.

Gerald received the menu and scanned it for anything that was to his liking. Patricia chose a cup of cold chocolate and returned the menu back to the waiter. Gerald noticed the café had raspberry flavored drinks and opted to try one.

“We haven’t met before have we?” Gerald asked Patricia after returning his menu to the waiter, “I mean… its strange but I feel pretty comfortable right now. I’m not usually that good with meeting people.”

“Or opening a conversation with rants about how the whole dating practice invalidates any possibility of a real conversation taking place?” Patricia teased.

“That too,” Gerald grinned back and shrugged, “Sad how pretty much the rest of the world doesn’t realize it. Hence the huge percentage of divorces occurring all over the world.”

“My parents got divorced,” Patricia replied and instantly Gerald blinked and felt he had committed some faux pass. He bit on his lower lip and whispered, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

”Actually I’ve gotten used to the idea,” Patricia admits, “After all it happened back when I was seven. My dad and my mom met during their college years. He was your typical Elvis wannabe who liked trying to impress girls while she was the last kind of woman you’d think someone like my dad would be interested in checking out.”

“Uh, a nun?” Gerald offered.

“You kidding me, most guys are fascinated by nuns! She was in a band. They called themselves the Boneheads. She played bass guitar.” Gerald laughed out loud and Patricia stressed the point. “She was one of those girls who loved her music more than the idea of meeting other people. So in many ways, she was an introvert who preferred to just be part of the music when playing in front of a crowd. She would close her eyes during concerts and from what she told me she wouldn’t even open them until she realized someone from her band was tugging at her arm to walk with them off the stage.”

Gerald found himself impressed, “You’re mom was an artist!”

“She claims she was just shy. But I think she is one too. I never learned to play any musical instrument. Never had the talent to do it. Although I always wanted to learn,” Patricia shared before asking, “You?”

“Played the piano. Well, tried to learn to play it,” Gerald admitted, showing a mock sad face, “My parents were insistent that one of their children become a musical genius. And since my older brother already covered for the math and technical drawing side of genius, I had to cover for the musical side. Had around five teachers in a span of less than two years. All quit on me eventually, finding me difficult and unwilling to learn, which I will admit was how I really was back then. Of the five, I heard three actually quit teaching music altogether! Guess I was that horrible a problem child then. The irony of it all though is by the time I hit high school, I discovered the music of Tori Amos and realized how much I wished I knew how to play the piano.”

“Did you learn anything? Any songs you can play?”

“Just one. On Top of Old Smokey. Embarassing ain’t it?” Gerald admitted.

And the drinks arrived.

Word Count = 1541
Previous Count = 10,092
Total Count = 11,633 of 50,000

2005-11-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

They were kissing beneath a canopy of stars and moonlight. Cold mist hung like a semi-translucent curtain that gave the whole park a mysterious ambiance, transforming the normally sinister location into a venue most appropriate for a fairy tale romance. And such, it seemed, this one turned out to be.

The soft strings of music crept into the scene from a far distant source, trickling moments of horns and guitar strings plucked to the tune of an unplanned melody. It sounded strangely familiar, yet discerning what song it was became the furthest objective in Gerald’s mind. Gerald smiled at the sight of silhouettes in the distance, moving along in their tepid lives unaware of this momentary presence of paradise within the very throng of the city. It was quiet. It was perfect. It was good.

“Funny how things turn out,” Gerald joked out aloud as he laid back and stretched his arms in front of him. Like a director preparing to shoot a scene, he framed the sky with his two hands and peered between the gap his fingers and palms made. Squinting one eye, he focused on the moon and had it remain half-hidden against the edge of his right hand. “I was never a believer of these romantic notions. Seriously. After all those years of seeing movies like Sleepless in Seattle, As Good As It Gets, My Sassy Girl… one begins to think ‘Sure, that happens. But only in the movies. After all, in the movies a heartbreak scene that happens for two months can appear to last only two minutes before the two finally realize they do love each other at exactly the same time and only then.. mind you, only then do they actually bump into each other again.’ That’s what romance movies teach us. They make us believe in a love that will never truly be defeated. Love conquers all. Love is eternal. Love and truth prevails. But do we ever see if they really work it out in the end? No. And that’s what makes movie love always work. They end the moment they are happily still in love. Jack and Rose for instance. Titanic. We never get to see if they could have really worked out in the end because they wouldn’t have. Seriously.”

“Don’t be mean,” another voice replied as Gerald paused in his rant against Hollywood’s romantic notions on what love was supposed to be, “People who watch movies know such things aren’t real. They know they’re just stories.”

“That’s not true,” Gerald pouted, “And you know it. You got all these teens. These kids. And you got these adults who still believe in such notions about love. You got people who still believe that-“ Gerald paused that moment, considering which movie to dissect, and settled on what he began earlier, “Jack and Rose… let’s go back to them. Jack, poor yet artistic Jack who has the body of a Greek statue and the face of an angel and terribly pampered and rich Rose… let’s just say they actually escaped the sinking of the Titanic and make their way back to the shores of America. They finally are together. In love. Free of the world’s pressures. Or are they? Day one, Rose discovers that neither of them have any money. Where do they sleep?”

“Oh you’re ruining it,” the woman’s voice replied.

“No, I’m just giving it a shot of realism. All the love and romance in the world suddenly falls apart as the two discover they are penniless and in terrible need of money and a place to stay in before the winter cold of New York comes to freeze them to death. Suddenly, it turns into a local telenovela. With Jack probably choosing to become some macho dancer in some club to help them earn their keep. And Rose becoming the most attractive and made up palengkera who get’s targeted by others’ rudeness and anger plain and simply due to her fantastic Hollywood looks. All you need now is some third person, maybe some other rich chick or guy who’ll try to rip them apart.”

“Seriously,” the woman shrugged, “You are ruining the notion of a love that works happily ever after using a movie where it didn’t even get to happily ever after. Gerald, you’re intentionally being mean.”

Gerald grinned and sat up, looking at the woman from the café who was resting on her side while running her fingers through the inch tall damp grass. He watched as she giggled at him and crossed her eyes in mocking agreement. “You realize you’re starting to sound like Ewan McGregor’s father in Moulin Rouge.”

Both spoke in unison, “This ridiculous obsession with love!”

Laughter came and the two shared it fully. Neither sought to hide the joy in the shared joke, heaving with each laugh as they both struggled for air. Gerald turned around to rest on his stomach as he crawled on all fours to get closer to her. “You are truly amazing.”

“And you are mushy,” she teased, “Way too mushy.”

He pouted. “It could be worse,” he mused as she slid her free arm around his waist, “I mean, I could be horribly pathetically and embarrassingly in love.” She raised an eyebrow in mock surprise, “You mean you aren’t at this point?” Gerald grinned and looked around for a moment before returning his gaze to her with a mischievous smirk on his face. Not wanting to let him have the last laugh, the woman let go of her hug upon his waist and rolled away from him. She rose to her knees between laughing spasms and made for the closest tree. Ducking beneath a low hanging branch, she hid behind its truck and playfully peered back at him from the shadows.

“Oh come now,” he struggled to say between laughs, “You’re not making me run after you again?”

“Again?”

“Like before,” he explained.

“Before?”

“Like back when we first met,” he tried to convince her, intoning a pleading nature to his voice. But she saw through his façade far too easily and remained where she was. It was a game they loved to play; the one where he’d play the longing blind fool while she was the fickle and joyful panda bear. She called herself that – a panda bear. And he found it most endearing.

“You haven’t tried to chase after me yet,” she teased from the shadows and sprinted away from the tree to hide at another one much further from him. He saw her run, but felt it was not the time yet to chase after her. Felt he could still win the game by luring her to come back near. A harmless game, it was. Unlike other lovers who played cat and mouse games in order to find reasons to argue with one another, or accuse each other of no longer caring.

“Only because I know you’re eventually coming back,” he admitted.

“What if I don’t?” she teased him again, peering at him with only her face revealed.

“Then I will die, happily. I will die with a smile upon my cold dead body, knowing that though I have left the world and begun my journey upon the sunless seas, I had at least the incomparable pleasure to knowing you and having been part of your life even for but a short moment in time.”

She stepped out from behind the tree, eyes brimming with tears. “Not fair,” she called back as she smiled at him even as her tears began to fall, “Not fair.. you’re making me cry.”

“Tears of joy?” he asked, suddenly partly afraid.

“No,” she pouted even if it was obvious the answer was yes. And Gerald rose then, walked towards her and stopped barely a foot from where she was. He brought his hands up, the left to brush her hair back and allow him to see her face better while the right offered a handkerchief to wipe away the tears. “Here,” he mumbled, suddenly worried he played the game wrong.

“Got you,” she triumphantly whispered and hugged him. He held her tight and smiled as he realized she had lured him to come to her. She had beaten him in his own game. And it didn’t feel like losing at all. “I know,” he mumbled as he breathed the scent of her. He kissed her cheek, then her neck, then moved his head and kissed the bare hollow of her throat, “and I am glad.”

“At least one of us is,” the voice came abruptly from the other set of shadows in the park. Gerald’s eyes widened even more as he realized he knew who it was. Almost forgetting to pull back from the kiss first, he spun to see Jenna watching the two of them from the shadow of one of the trees. Jenna had her arms crossed over her chest in an obvious non-verbal show of disapproval. Her eyes were narrowed slits that would have caused deadly wounds had they were any more edged than they already were. “I see you’ve been… preoccupied,” she hissed, “To answer my call.”

“Your call?” the woman with Gerald asked aloud.

”Your ca-“ Gerald repeated only to realize the musicians playing in the background; Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, “Oh my God! Your call!” Gerald bolted straight up and found himself amidst the darkness of his apartment. He realized he had fallen asleep on the very kitchen floor. The cellular phone, still trapped beneath the immovable refrigerator, was the feeble source of light in the kitchen save the moonlight and street lights that found their way through the parts of the kitchen window that the Venetian blinds failed to block. The remnants of the dream still in his head, Gerald rose to his feet and struggled to feel his way to the light switch. Clicking the fluorescent light on, he scanned the kitchen for his wallet and keys, stuffed both into his pockets and made his way quickly to the sink.

“She said to meet at the café,” Gerald mumbled aloud, even if there was no one else to hear him save himself. It was a habit he had long told himself to stop practicing. A habit that was born from watching a tad too many romantic and comic movies back when he was still young. “She said to meet there… maybe she still is there,” he exclaimed excitedly as he ducked out of the apartment and locked the door behind him.

His cellular phone only stopped playing the classical piece after it hit its second repeat of the main refrain.

*

Gerald knew how to drive a car. Well, to say the least, he knew the basics. When he was young, his father and older brother used to drag him with them and teach him how to work the stick. They would demonstrate for him the purpose of each pedal, carefully explain to him the delicate balance that the clutch and the gas pedals had to practice, and even show him the reasons why certain gears were best for certain types of terrain to travel over. So as far as the basics of understanding how to drive was concerned, Gerald knew what to do.

They had also gotten him to practice with him during his young adult years. Forward, reverse, making turns. They even got him to practice during the evening a few times. Once, they got him to handle driving to a nearby store to buy some groceries while it was raining.

And Gerald’s love for books had him reading through the manuals on what makes what happen on a car’s dashboard. As well as how to understand and read the gauges for fuel, oil, temperature and the like. Gerald learned about what the basic traffic laws were, for both this country and those practiced in other countries. He also learned through friends how to change a tire. Or how to handle an overheated vehicle. Or siphon gasoline from one car to share it to another car with only a rubber hose to use. And last but not the least, Gerald even knew how to set the car radio and clocks… two of the most commonly least understood things that people who could drive knew how to handle.

So it would probably come to a surprise to most people to know that Gerald actually did not have a driver’s license at all. He never had one and he did not have any plans to have one. Some thought it was because he loved commuting. Some who asked him even were told about how he loved the freedom commuting gave. When the traffic on the street was far too heavy, Gerald reasoned, he loved to have the freedom to simply step down from the bus, walk to the nearest mall or bookstore and spend some time doing something else other than wasting his time waiting for the car in front of him to move. Some thought maybe Gerald was afraid to take the test. Afraid of the supposed difficulty it was reputed to have. Or maybe, a few suggested based on what they knew of him, Gerald simply wanted to avoid becoming the “driver” of the family. As anyone who had learned to drive while they were a young adult would know, the very moment one has the badge to drive, they become the first person to be remembered by a parent who wants something from a store or grocery nearby. “Buy this,” the parents would say and at first it would be more like a fun game to the child. It was a chance to legally show-off they could drive. And the child would go buy the thing with gusto and pride. “Buy that,” another day would come and another thing would be needed. “Buy this and that,” on yet another day. “But more of this,” it would continue on and on and the child would begin to realize that it was no longer a chance to show-off anything. It was merely now being a legal target to command if anything not found in the house was needed.

But in truth, it was something more personal.

Gerald was a Taurean. And in as much as horoscopes tend to be fictional collections of open to interpretation blanket statements written by a bunch of writers who like hiding their names under various colorful nom de plume, Gerald discovered that if ever there were two things that they say about Taureans that were true, one of them would be the presence of a bull-headed temper. (The other, Gerald would often love to claim, would be their amazing stamina and performance in bed. Of course, such a claim would best be something left for the individual partner to decide for herself.) And Gerald knew having such a temper would never be a safe thing if one were to command a fast moving bulk of metal. Already, as a back seat driver, Gerald was well aware of how vocal he could be about his anger towards people who drove and yet seemed to have less understanding of the rules than he did. The last thing he wanted to do was have a legal document allowing him to be behind the wheel.

But now, standing at the gloomy street corner deep within the depths of night, Gerald found himself wishing he knew how to drive and had a car. There were no taxi cabs within sight. He was tempted to reach into his pocket to check the time on his cellular phone but thought best not to risk getting held up if he showed any possible unscrupulous individuals watching him that he had a phone. That, and of course, the fact he realized his phone was still stuck under the refrigerator.

“Please let her still be there… please let her still be there,” Gerald repeated over and over the words in his head, like a mantra that he homed to come true. He strained his eyesight to look for any hints of headlights in the streets and hoped some taxi would come into view soon enough. He was not sure how to face the prospect of arriving there only to learn the woman who called him had already left.

The woman who called him.

Gerald found himself suddenly uncertain. Was the woman who called him the same woman at the café? After all, he had not gotten her name. What if the called was silicone-boobs herself? What if it was someone else entirely?

And how did she, who ever it was, get his name and phone number?

As a pair of headlights came into view, Gerald suddenly was filled with apprehension. With the caller’s identity was much less clear to him, he found himself thinking twice as to whether or not to hail down the cab. He tried to recall any possible ways that his name came up in the café, or for his number to be known when he realized there was something else missing.

“My bag,” he yelled out loud and raised his hand to stop the cab. The taxi cab driver, who earlier was peering at Gerald to see if he was being hailed down, nearly missed Gerald’s sudden change of mind and stomped down on the brakes. Rushing to the cab’s side, Gerald opened the door, slid inside, snapped on the seatbelt and asked the driver, “Coffebar Café, please hurry.”

The cab driver clicked the meter on and drove down the road. Looking tired and a tad overweight, the cab driver wiped a meaty hand against his chest and reached for a half-eaten sandwich that was on the dashboard. Gerald’s eyes widened as he stared at the half-eaten soggy sandwich with ham, tomato slices and cheese trapped between two thick crumbling slices of bread.

“Want some?” the driver offered.

”Uh.. no,” Gerald muttered in reply as his eyes followed the sandwiches journey from dashboard to the can driver’s lips. Tomato juices trickled down the corner of the cab driver’s mouth. A meaty tongue emerged from his clamped lips to lick the fluids back into his mouth. “Uh.. are you sure you can drive while eating that?”

“What?”

”Drive,” Gerald repeated, noticing how the sandwich was not too gently returned to the dashboard with a soft and wet splat sound announcing its landing. “I mean, faster.”

“You think I’m driving slowly?” the cab driver asked aloud.

”Uh – “ Gerald tried to find something to answer when the cab driver cut him off, “You do realize how hard it is to be a cab driver? I have this boundary to reach, you realize? I have to earn around a thousand five hundred a day to give to the owner of this cab. Plus gas. I need to fill this cab back to full tank before I return it. That’s another thousand and five. So until I earn more than three thousand in a single day, I get nothing. Do you realize that? And you want me to stop eating. I haven’t even had lunch today! This is my dinner. My dinner and my lunch! I have to eat while driving and you want to complain about that as well?!”

“Sorry I didn’t-“

“Obviously you’ve never had it hard on you in your entire life,” the cab driver shook his head, the frustrations of life evidently now bursting out of him like ammunition to use against Gerald. “Probably never went hungry a single day of your life.”

“Now that’s unfair-“

“Is it?” Gerald heard the driver reply with such spite he suddenly felt a bit nervous for his personal safety, “I have four kids. My wife works near the wet market down Elizade street? The one with the red roofs? She goes there every day selling these pirated DVDs at the corner hoping to help make ends meet. When the police come to raid, she runs, at times leaving all her wares on the floor. On those times, she loses everything. If she’s not lucky, she gets caught, they burn or throw away her stuff after choosing which ones to keep, then require her to pay a three hundred fifty peso fine. If she can’t pay, they take what ever amount she does have. Two of my kids are selling sampaguitas near the church where my wife works. Of the flowers they sell, they earn around twenty to thirty pesos a day, depending on how many they actually get rid off. My other kid is too sick and stays at home. Doctor says its in the blood. The last kid is gay and hangs out at our neighbor’s parlor everyday. Punyeta, he probably will make more money than most of us in the family. Probably have some older baklas pay him for sex.”

Gerald remained quiet, not wanting to antagonize the man further.

“So don’t tell me you’re having a hard time,” the man muttered to Gerald and stopped the car at a red light. Gerald fought the urge to step out of the cab and run. He closed his eyes and intoned a prayer, then turned his head to face the cab driver. The cab driver was busy resting his eyes with one hand rubbing the skin of his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Gerald found the courage to speak up.

”What?” the cab driver turned, surprised to hear Gerald say something.

“I’m sorry that you’re having a tough time,” Gerald said and then turned to face the road and bowed his head as he sighed heavily.

“Yeah,” the driver remarked, “Well, its not really your fault so its okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let it out on you. Its.. just been tough. You know. Gas prices and all that.”

“Yeah,” Gerald nodded, realizing how the man was right.

“Just don’t make the same mistakes I did,” the cab driver told Gerald. Gerald turned to face him again, a bit confused. The cab driver noticed Gerald’s facial expression and added as if to explain, “Pregnant.”

“Oh,” Gerald felt his cheeks burn. He felt a tad ashamed.

“She was sixteen. I was eighteen. I was actually still going to school back then.”

“Why’d you stop?” Gerald asked.

”Parents. They were ashamed.”

The car arrived at the street leading to the café. Gerald wanted to say something. Anything. He wanted to offer help but admittedly, he was afraid that if he extended any personal help to this guy, the guy and his family might conceivably abuse the help. Or need more than he could give. It was hard to tell. And it was a hard world to live in, to be honest. He wanted to give something. To share some of the load. But he didn’t know how. The car came to a stop and the driver actually shut the meter and waited for Gerald to pay up. Gerald stared at the meter and unconsciously reached for his wallet. The meter showed eighty-four pesos. Gerald pulled out two hundred.

“Here,” he told the driver as he paid him, and unclasped the seat belt.

”What?” the driver looked, caught off-guard, then shook his head, “No no.. you only have to pay-“

“Don’t argue,” Gerald muttered, “Its not out of pity. Its for good service.”

The driver smiled. And nodded. “Okay,” he tucked the money into his pocket, “Good service.”

“Heh,” Gerald offered a smile, “Wish more cab drivers were like you. Honest. Just try to be a bit more… clean?”

The cab driver smiled and closed the door. Then drove off. Somehow, guiltily, Gerald realized he still was worried if he had been swindled. And he hated the fact he still wondered about that. Maybe the world had changed people more than they realized it had. Maybe the world was no longer really a place for happy endings. For happily ever afters.

Or maybe, more often than not, some people are just damn unlucky.

Gerald walked into the café but he did not look around. He had one place to look in mind, and the moment he saw the seat was empty, Gerald felt the anticipation and excitement to get here fade away. There was no sign of the woman with the cardigan jacket who wore an olive green long-sleeved shirt under a white short sleeved tee. No, the girl in his (very recent) dream was not there.

“Can I help you with something?” a voice asked and Gerald yanked his head to the direction of its source. A bespectacled effeminate bald man wearing an “Ai-Ai shall never be ZsaZsa Zaturnnah” t-shirt peered from behind the counter. Though rather good-looking and well-defined, his obvious leanings towards flamboyance was certain to remind women where his interests lay. “Or were you just looking for someone in particular?”

“Yes,” Gerald coughed out as he tried to stop thinking of Queer Eye jokes, “Um.. there was a woman. Here. Earlier.”

“Uh hmmm,” the guy at the counter mumbled, “Presumably. This is a public café.”

“Hey,” Gerald replied a tad irked, “None of the sass, please. Don’t.”

“Fiesty,” the man replied, unconvinced.

“Okay… let’s start this over,” Gerald tried to appease things. He walked over to the counter and reached out his hand, “I’m-“

”Gerald Magpagtapat, and you were here earlier in the day when some sweet and lovely lady in an olive green and white wrapping realized you existed too. She noticed you storm out of the café after confronting your ex-girlfriend and her new Arnold dumberoo boyfriend about not being into women’s titties,” the gay guy interrupted Gerald and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Wow,” Gerald gasped in honest amazement, “You psychic?”

“No,” the gay guy giggled, “Heard all about it from the girl stationed here earlier today.” Gerald felt his face flush, another spasm of embarrassment hitting him hard. Maybe it was the café. Or maybe it was his unlucky day. One thing for certain, things were not working well for him today.

“On the other hand, she is,” the gay guy motioned with his pouted lips towards Gerald’s back and Gerald turned to see the woman who was in his dreams standing just outside the bathroom door. She had his bag, a small white and black backpack, slung over her shoulder.

“Hi,” she smiled at him.

”Hi,” he replied automatically, “I’m-“

“She knows your name is Gerald,” the gay guy muttered aloud, but Gerald ignored him.

“-Sorry,” he continued. Gerald wasn’t sure where the courage to say his words were coming from, but he’d be damned to let his paranoia get in the way again. “I thought the muscle jerk was with you.”

“You mean the guy claiming you were staring at his girlfriend’s tits?” the gay guy offered.

“Do you mind?” Gerald hissed at him and he raised both hands in surrender.

“You do like staring at tits?” she asked Gerald, catching him off-guard again. She grinned and walked up to him, slid the back off her shoulders and handed it to his still frozen hand. “Here, I think this belongs to you.”

“I do… I mean, yes it does. And yes, I do. But not yours. I mean, I do like staring but I wasn’t staring at yours. Not that they’re not.. nice… I mean,” Gerald rattled off feeling his cheeks flush for the third time. Tongue-tied, he stopped and closed his eyes and tried to focus. He knew he had to say it. It was now or never. After all, how much more could he possibly embarrass himself before her.

He remembered the dream he had. He remembered the cellular phone slipping down under the fridge. He remembered her calling and realized now that she never said anything about going to wait for him here. He realized how everything seemed to be falling into place. Everything seemed to make sense.

“Would you like to go out with me?” Gerald finally blurted out, finding all the reasons to take the gamble and finding none of the reasons to hide the truth. “Cause I really find you interesting and I would love to get to know you more.”

“Sure, sweetheart,” Gerald heard the gay guy reply, “And my name’s Kimberly. Now, if you meant Patricia, she’s sadly not in front of you.”

Gerald’s eyes popped open to see the empty café before him. He turned to see Kimberly, the gay guy at the counter, smiling a very amused smile. He tried to ask what had happened but felt again his tongue-tied down even more by embarrassment and humiliation. “She’s gone outside, and if you’re hoping she heard you am afraid you have to go after her and say it again.”

“Patricia,” Gerald smiled, liking the sound of her name. “Thanks Kimberly,” he muttered as he grabbed his bag and made for the door. Shoving past it, he stepped out into the night and found her standing by the sidewalk, waiting for a cab. He quickly stopped himself, slowed down to a walk as to not look too eager, and came up to her side. She noticed him, smiled, then focused her gaze on the road.

“Trouble?” she asked him, “If you’re wondering if I took anything from your bag-“

”Oh no.. no..” he replied and realized he was gasping between words. The sudden bolt to run and force the excitement down to walk was still struggling in his system. “I… you look like the trust-worthy type. I’m sure I can trust you, Patricia.”

She turned to face him. Eyebrows were raised. “You know my name?”

“You knew mine,” he replied back.

“That’s different, I’m psychic.”

There was no way to reply to that and still sound witty. Gerald saw Patricia giggle and realized that she probably realized why he was quiet. She turned away for a moment, looking down the sidewalk, then returned her gaze to him. “Hey, you want to come?”

“Where?” he innocently asked, though deep down he knew he’d say yes immediately if he had the guts.

“Walk,” she answered.

For a moment, Gerald found himself remembering the tunes of a beautiful song. Each note was distinct in his head. D major (tonic), A major (dominant), B minor (tonic parallel), F# minor (dominant parallel) G major (subdominant), D major (tonic), G major (subdominant), A major (dominant). He tried to blank it out but it kept coming back to him. Kept haunting him.

“Pachelbel?” Patricia asked him.

”What?” he replied, suddenly realizing what Kimberly said wasn’t an exaggeration.

“Canon. D major.”

“Oh wow,” he muttered, “You really are psychic.”

“Gerald,” she shook her head and smiled, “You were humming it aloud.”

If anything, Gerald was certain tonight was going to be a very interesting night.

Word Count = 5115
Previous Count = 4977
Total Count = 10,092 of 50,000

2005-11-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

Gerald returned home feeling horribly pathetic that evening.

The cat-faced clock above the kitchen sink meowed the hour the moment Gerald stepped into the house and locked the door behind him. Still feeling embarrassed by the events in the café, Gerald dropped his keys on the nearby table and headed straight to the refrigerator to find something to drink. Ignoring the paper carton of milk and the half-full jar of orange juice, Gerald took the recycled bottle filled with water and brought it to his lips. In a series of continuous gulps, he swallowed nearly half the contents before bringing it down to breathe. The cold water flushed down the bitter coffee after-taste that clung to his throat the same way his embarrassment still hung on his mind.

I’m never going back there, Gerald announced to himself while staring at the reflection of his own face cast upon the shiny surface of the table. Perhaps it was the embarrassment still rushing through him, or the sense of humiliation of having mouthed-off at the very woman he found interesting by mistake, something made everything that happened crystal clear in Gerald’s memory. His hands trembled in contained frustrated rage. He was always unlucky when it came to things like this. Well, when it came to women; and considering how rare it was that Gerald would actually have the guts to try and consider ways to actually gain the attention of a woman he found attractive, his batting average came to a pretty dismal total.

Gerald found himself reopening the refrigerator and searching for something to munch on before he realized that he had spend at least an hour not checking his cellular phone. And suddenly worried that Jenna had been sending him messages or even worse, calling, Gerald reached for his jeans pocket and fished out the phone. The small device, perhaps unwilling to be held by such a pathetic loser that Gerald felt he was, slipped from his fingers the moment he slid it from his pocket. It spun in the air like a cheerleader’s baton before striking Gerald’s own foot as it fell. Thinking the shoe had cushioned the cellular phone’s fall, Gerald was halfway sighing in relief when the phone that bounced off the shoe slid against the floor away from him until it noisily clanged against the bottom of the refrigerator.

”Oh come on,” Gerald exclaimed exasperatedly and quickly dropped to his knees to see if he could fish the thing out. But sadly, Gerald’s hand was a tad too chubby and his arms were not as limber as he hoped. He strained against the appliance, hoping somehow that some deific entity would suddenly zap him with some miraculous lighting bolt or envelope him in brilliant golden light and bestow upon him the strength of thirty men. Or even twenty. Ten. Just enough strength to lift the darn thing and reach the phone before it…

Rang.

The cellular phone rang and Gerald cursed fecal matter as holy, the cellular phone’s imaginary mother as a whore and the whole situation as something that was sexually active and vertically aimed. And he did that all in four seconds.

The fact that Johann Pachelbel’s canon in D major in midi format was playing underneath the refrigerator from Gerald’s phone meant one thing alone, Jenna was calling. And Gerald knew how much Jenna hated it when her calls were not answered, even if the answer was a hastily delivered, “Call you back later!” Inhaling deeply, Gerald somehow hoped that by holding one’s breath in one’s gut before reaching for a phone trapped in a space too narrow for one’s hand, the act would suddenly some how become possible. Grunting and almost straining his own hand in the repeated attempts to reach the device, Gerald nearly screamed out in despair when the phone stopped playing canon in D major and started again after barely two seconds had passed. It was most likely a sign that she was calling again. And it was pretty much certain, if it was Jenna, she was definitely pissed off.

Gerald slid himself off the floor and tried to find another way to reach the phone. Positioning himself at the side of the refrigerator, Gerald clamped his hands on the door and the back of the appliance and leaned his weight against it as he attempted to slide it to one side. Maybe, he reasoned, if he slid it to the side enough, there would be enough space to get the phone. But now, it seemed, Gerald’s act of purchasing a second-hand refrigerator which did NOT come with a mobile base was now slapping him back on the face. The phone fell silent for the second time and Gerald found himself finding prayer and hoping beyond hope that Jenna would opt to wait for him to call her ba-

Canon in D Major was playing a third time.

“This cannot be happening,” Gerald gasped to himself and shook his now sweat-dotted brow. He walked away from the refrigerator and leaned against the kitchen table, as if every iota of energy was fading from his body. He could already visualize what was to come; Jenna would be furious to the point the veins on her forehead would begin to show. Her sharp teeth which he, strangely, liked staring at (thinking they made her unique) frighteningly clamped and opened as he tried to back away. He could see her eyes; dark orbs that bore into her soul and demanded she answer why! Why her and not me?

Why?

The phone abruptly stopped ringing.

Just before the landline began to ring.

Gerald stared at the phone hanging on the wall near the microwave and shook his head as if trying to double check if he was having a bad dream. Was Jenna actually calling his land line now? She wasn’t the type to do that, finding landlines embarrassingly inept in their function. “Why would anyone still be interested in getting a land line when you can have a cellular phone which you could bring anywhere with you and use anytime you want to?” Gerald wanted to answer, but it was more appropriate to just remain silent that time.

Unlike now.

The third cycle of ringing snapped Gerald back to reality. With a huffed frustrated sigh, Gerald grabbed the wall-phone, slid it to the space between his ears and impatiently asked aloud, “What?”

If it was Jenna, Gerald reasoned, she was absolutely going to mouth-off the very moment she realized it was Gerald on the phone. So what’s the harm in doing something you’d get beat up for if the beating is absolutely coming. What’s the harm in jumping the gu-

“Hi, Can I speak with Gerald Mapagtap… Magap… darn it,” came the voice at the other end of the line.

Gerald blinked his eyes as he tried to place the voice. He knew it. Somewhere the dark caverns of his brain, he knew that voice. And he knew there was a reason he could place it. A reason of some sort.

“This is.. Gerald,” Gerald answered when the voice suddenly snapped into place in his head. And sadly, that pretty much reminded Gerald why he could not connect the voice with a name.

But he clearly could imagine her face.

“Hi! Uh I know this is probably going to sound strange but, by any chance were you at the Coffebar Café earlier today?” the partly amused voice asked from the other side. Gerald grinned, feeling a surge of warmth dance on his nape. Cold nervous trails, however, ran down his spine.

“Today?” he asked, “Why?”

“Oh its nothing. I mean, its not you right?” she inquired. Gerald could almost see her pouting slightly again.

“I don’t think so.. It depends really?” Gerald kicked his own leg and shook his head. What am I saying? Am I this unused to these things? Just tell her something to make her laugh. If she laughes, then she may be interested.

“Depends on what?” she asked and Gerald could imagine how her eyebrows would crumble towards the center. And oh how her lips would probably be pouting by now. “What sort of thing?”

“Um.. depends on why you want to know,” Gerald snickered to himself and slid one hand through his hair as if he was worried that she’d notice how unkempt it was. He noticed perhaps it wasn’t that late to go out one more time. “And possibly where you have in mind.”

Gerald bit his lower lip in anticipation. He could imagine her weighing her needs against her-

“I’ll just call back when you’re feeling much more civil rather than smug,” Gerald heard her reply before the dial tone snapped back into the receiver. Yelling out a no, Gerald realized his attempts to smooth his way into knowing who called have backfired big time. And suddenly, with the force of a hand slapping Gerald’s face, he realized that if it was her, this was the second time he absolutely made a fool of himself in trying to catch her attention.

The silence of the phone no longer ringing was like an omen. It had the emotional burden akin to that to the Grim Reaper’s visit. Or the sighting of a horrible bean sidhe. The silence carried a finality could have made Gerald realize how change was in the air. If his life seemed strangely content in a detached sort of way, the series of events that had transpired could have made him realize how things were on the verge of becoming far more interesting very quickly.

But Gerald was focused on something far more important than that. And when the Canon in D Major played for a third time, Gerald knew his worst fears were but on the horizon.

Or where they?

Jenna once told Gerald that if at any time she were to be forced to call him more than twice in a single night, she would do the unthinkable. Anyone who had the gall to ignore a lover’s call thrice in a single night deserved to be alone, she reasoned. And Gerald, being himself, did not argue. He nodded, took his cellular phone and promised her that he would never let that happen.

And now, as the song played for the third time, Gerald found himself smiling. Sure, he fouled up the possibility of getting to know the attractive gal he bumped into and mistakenly annoyed enough to drop the phone on him. Sure, he most likely will have to find some other means to get his cellular phone back, or worse even buy a new one when his budget permits him. But neither were bad enough to bring his anticipation down when he realized the woman who made him feel alive again might actually become someone viable for him to be seeing… especially with Jenna definitely breaking up with him very soon.

Very, very soon.

So Gerald laid back, suddenly remembering how much he loved Pachelbel’s song, and rested his head against the cupboard. He closed his eyes, hummed along with the ring tone, and allowed himself to smile. After so long, things were looking up again for him.

He never noticed himself fall asleep on the kitchen floor. He was too darn happy.

Word Count = 1883
Previous Count = 3094
Total Count = 4977 of 50,000

2005-11-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

Mind you, Gerald was never the kind of guy to believe in love at first sight. Or at aliens wanting to come to our planet to sexually assault its men. Or maybe even of the tooth fairy and Santa Clause since he could not fathom why anyone would want to spend the rest of their lives collecting teeth or giving away free gifts by the billions in a single night. There was a sense of logical purpose that was required for Gerald to accept something the way it was.

And yet, there he was, staring at her sitting at the seat just behind the one he was to return to. He was watching her slouch at her chair, holding the magazine that had earlier been the focus of their very brief non-conversation in her right hand, while her left hand lazily stirred her coffee. He only noticed her clothes at this point; a long sleeved olive green shirt that was worn beneath a short-sleeved white tee, dark blue (nearly black) jeans and a pair of olive green slip-ons. He noticed she had a small backpack on the seat just beside hers and noticed how thankfully there did not seem to be any hint or clue of her having a possible companion that moment.

All he needed to do was come to her, introduce himself, and ask if he could join her.

And as expected, to do so was an act of great self-esteem and ego, neither of which Gerald particularly kept much stock of. The numerous times of having been embarrassingly turned down flashed before his mind’s eye in an eye blink. There was the blonde exchange student from California who stared at her and asked, “This is a joke, right?” There was the shy writer from a book-launching he attended to shook her head to rapidly say no before darting away and vanishing into the crowd. There was even that time in the grocery when he noticed a particularly attractive woman unsuccessfully trying to lift a box of 1.5 liter soda into her cart. He came up to her, helped transfer the soda, and beamed his biggest smile in her direction as he tried to find the words to introduce himself. She smiled, shook his hand, then introduced her six foot four gym-loving boyfriend who was too busy finding the right protein shake to drink.

Gerald did not particularly think he had a bad string of luck when it came to love. Definitely not considering the fact that out there were Beavises and Buttheads who still think women find breast jokes appealing, or Johnny Bravos who think larger muscles was all that mattered. No, Gerald did not bury himself in that kind of self-destructive self-esteem. Rather, he believed that anything bad that happened was simply the world reminding you that there was someone one else out there. And if not, then at least they had their own versions of Jenna Garbino.

Jenna. He had almost forgotten about Jenna. Or even more honestly, he had only remembered Jenna was already part of his life that moment. Gerald struggled internally with his conscience, suddenly frightfully aware that he had just erased from his mind Jenna’s existence when he had met (well, not really met but) the magazine woman. Was it a sign, perhaps? A divinely delivered clue that stated he had finally found the person who was meant for him? Some kind of unspoken missive from his own beating heart that he had finally found the “someone” to whom he can allow himself to become vulnerable to and look like a fool with?

“Are you going to keep staring at her or what?”

Gerald jerked backwards in what was almost an attempt to run away and flee. He turned to the sound of the voice and found a rather ape-looking man grinning at him with a newspaper in his hand. He was taller than Gerald was, with a face that reminded Gerald of the upcoming King Kong movie Peter Jackson was directing. Realising the man had noticed him staring, Gerald felt a hint of embarrassed shame dance in his cheeks.

“What are you-” Gerald began.

“The sweetie,” the ape-man asked aloud as he tucked the newspaper he had gotten into his armpit, “You were staring at my sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry,” Gerald replied, suddenly having visions of him flying through the glass wall. Or him feeling one of the ape-man’s meaty fists landing on his cheek, popping a tooth as he tumbled onto the ground. “I wasn’t-“

“You were staring. What, you kids don’t get enough of breasts to look at online?”

“I wasn’t,” Gerald protested and quickly made his way back to his seat. He nervously shook his head and found the courage to look up as the ape-man walked passed him and gave an audible huff of disapproval.

Gerald heard the ape-man pull one of the chairs from the table behind him and sit down. The shock of realizing he actually heard the moment the ape-man sat down hit him a few seconds later. Conflicting urges struck Gerald as he raised his own cappuccino to his lips; should he run away? Head home? Escape before the ape-man decided to have a little bit more fun on his expense? Finally practice those karate moves he learned years ago when he was still in high school?

“The freak was looking at you,” the ape-man uttered and Gerald realized what was happening. He was telling her that he caught Gerald staring! He was breaking the unwritten rules and informing the target of a man’s attentions that she was being stared at! And even worse, she would most likely look back, see him, and recall how much a pathetic loser he was when he couldn’t even speak up against her to keep the magazine.

“He was staring at you, probably staring at your tits or something,” the ape-man continued his report; each word made Gerald cringe even more. Nearly spilling his coffee, Gerald set the cappuccino down and wiped his forehead which was slowly dotting with sweat. He glanced at the exit and mentally calculated the number of seconds it would take to walk to it and leave. Visions of the whole population of the café staring at him like some man adorned with the scarlet letter of staring came to mind. Or maybe it would be something more dramatic, like them all throwing at him used coffee grind and the woman suddenly rushing between them, demanding that he who is without the urge to stare at a woman’s bosom fling the first handful of used coffee. Followed by Gerald feeling the sharp earthly slap as one of the present gay metrosexuals throws that said handful with the accuracy of a military missle.

“He probably was gathering material for his spank bank or something,” ape-man amusedly contributed more to the accusation and Gerald felt the urge to defend himself rising to his chest. “Probably took a picture of you in his head, tits and all, so he can like imagine you having these pivot points like in them motion capture movies? You know, to animate you fucking in all these positions. Like on the table or in outer space or something,” the ape-man added and Gerald decided he had enough. It was one thing to be caught staring at another’s girl. It was another thing entirely to actually be accused of Industrial Light and Magic-ing another woman’s image for sexual release.

Gerald took a deep draught of coffee into his system, slammed the paper cup down on the table, rose from his seat and turned to magazine woman directly behind him as he exclaimed, “I was NOT looking at your tits!”

A silence grew into the café. Like an immaculate conception, the pause grew pregnant very quickly.

“Sorry?” the magazine woman looked up at Gerald with an innocent and confused smile, “I wasn’t… complaining?”

Gerald’s eyes trailed to the next table just past magazine-woman’s and saw ape-man sitting with his wavy haired, botoxed girlfriend who obviously had taken a visit to the famous Dr. Belo. Girlfriend’s amplified bosom shook on its own as its carried-woman craned her nearly wax-museum smooth skin covered neck to see him better.

“That’s him,” ape-man grinned and botox woman offered what in all senses looked like a very plastic smile.

Gerald felt like a balloon that was suddenly released from its string. With all the courage and readiness to argue escaping him in a single second, Gerald grabbed his paper cup of cappuccino, turned around, and made for the door. He felt their eyes watching him, perhaps even taunting him, as he walked out of the café and made for the relative privacy offered by the sea of strangers ignorant of his embarrassing escapade just seconds ago.

He felt humiliated. Angry. And Sad.

He never got to ask for her name.

Word Count = 1482
Previous Count = 1612
Total Count = 3094 of 50,000

2005-11-02T09:33:00.000-08:00

Chapter One - Unexpected

If there was one thing in the world that Gerald Mapagtapat ever believed in, it was that everything in the world happened for a reason. It was not because of Gerald’s Roman Catholic upbringing that gave him a sense of Faith that most men his age (or generation for that matter) sadly lacked. Nor was it in any way related to the fact that Gerald had actually been, at one point in his life, actively part of new-age spiritual/shamanistic practices and even realized he had the subtle gift to see and commune with the dearly departed. And even if the said strange occult-related gift had in many ways given Gerald a much broader and more open-minded view towards the world in general, Gerald’s absolute faith in the existence of a sense of reason and order governing the world was due to something he had gained somewhere else entirely:

He had fallen in love.

Once.

And the experience was absolutely the worse kind of experience he had ever thought he would have to go through. Though Gerald has been in relationships in the past, none of them would compare to the strange complexities and frightening moments of sheer idiocy that sprouted like overly-energetic fungi in his previous relationship with some woman named Jenna Garbino.

Jenna Garbino was the only daughter of a military man, who had long given up on ever truly making a difference in the country he served, and a housewife, who had long over-compensated for her inability to control Jenna by becoming plain and simple, a pain for everyone else concerned. Caught within a household where being cynically obsessively compulsive was the norm, Jenna easily found herself assimilating that manner of mindset much to Gerald’s disappointment. Bad enough as that was, Gerald had the even more rotten luck to only see Jenna’s inherited personality only after the third month of being together.

It was the little things that begun the most epic of arguments. Clothes that did not match when it came to the slightest of colors, would be one example. Gerald once visited Jenna wearing a predominantly white shirt that had three mint green strips of color at the right-hand side of the chest. His pants, unfortunately were a dark blue pair of jeans that happened to have a large vibrant green logo on the right-rear pocket. For Gerald, it was a shirt and a pair of jeans. For Jenna, however, it was a disaster of Odyssian proportions with two shades of green that would have counted, in her humble opinion mind you, as a reason for the Second Coming to demand the trumpets of Armageddon be blown. On another occasion, Gerald made “the mistake” of requesting for red wine while they feasted at a fine restaurant that served a delectable and highly recommended variant of one’s typical blue marlin dish. Never mix red spirits with the white meat of fish, Jenna argued, as if she spoke of some strange chemical danger had the two elements been allowed to combine. Never ever.

Jenna, unfortunately, also had the extremely frustrating habit of answering every question with another question. Gerald thought it was cute and endearing at first, hearing his lady love return any inquiries he made with a plea to hear his own opinion first. Until he realized that none of his opinions ever seemed to matter. Something as simple as deciding where to eat would be returned to Gerald in verbatim with a slight shift of accent from the word Where to the word You. And yes, no matter approach Gerald attempted to adapt in coming up with an answer, Jenna would always find some reason or personal preference that negated his contribution to the conversation and allowed Jenna to choose something else. One day, Gerald would find Jenna telling him that having pizza for dinner was an act of infernal treason against the Gods of dieting only to have her two weeks later contradict his suggestion to eat at an all-vegetable dish at another restaurant because she felt the day was a pizza day. And this was not something limited to eating choices mind you. Gerald toyed once with the idea of listing down each and every question in order to know what questions would permit his personal opinions to have any particular merit.

And yet, he loved her. So much. Beyond any hint of doubt. Beyond any touch of uncertainty. He loved her because she made him laugh when he needed to laugh. Because she knew exactly what he needed when he needed it. Because her absolute need to control and order her own surroundings to follow the unwritten rules of her preferences allowed Gerald to let go of his own need for personal wants and focus his own energies on other things.

And other things, by Gerald’s definition, sadly included other possible women.

It was not typical of him to be the manner of man who considered infidelity as an acceptable vice. Nor of his nature to consider the “other fishes in the sea” to be worth “watching and not touching”. But in some strange synchronistic twist of relationships, seeing what else the world offered gave Gerald a sense of defeatist acceptance of his imprisoned fate. After all, as any man with no true understanding of love can attest, there were indeed very many fish in the sea. And the very fact there were that many was due to the fact they were the unwanted and unaccepted majority.

In short, Gerald’s misguided tryst with what he thought was love transformed him into one of the biggest jerks to ever walk the Earth.

Such was the perilous history of Gerald Mapagtapat under the wing and shadow of Jenna Garbino. A history that he endured for three years before he one day finally realized he deserved someone better. He finally accepted the fact that as a human being, he deserved to have someone to take care of him. And finally, he realized how unfair it was to see nothing but the “unwanted majority” when he looked out into the world. Not when in truth, he himself was one of them, imprisoning himself in what he claimed was a content and volatile relationship rather than face the risk of being one of the people who had loneliness as a roommate again.

And so, it was an odd Tuesday morning when Gerald took a detour from his usual routinary heading home. On normal days, Gerald would have taken a cab the moment he stepped outside the confines of his office and would raise his left hand to signal one to come close. He would then take the cab back to his place, ignoring all the restaurants, net cafes, spas and the like, and eventually would drudgingly climb the steps leading to his apartment. (And upon arriving there, give Jenna a call, turn on his computer to check the e-mails Jenna sent him, answer each one and end each letter with “I love you so much that I can hardly breathe when I see you!” because she wanted a lover who ended each letter with that line, and finally, give her a call but only if it was past 9:45p.m. because to call earlier would be to interrupt her while she was watching her favorite reality show.)

Instead, he left the office twenty minutes early, walked past the parking lot of yellow cab where a co-worked often purchased his lunch. He stepped into the first coffee café he saw, ordered something sweet, tall and covered in whipped cream, then sat down at the nearest table to enjoy his drink. He began to hum some recurring melody that he overheard from some children at the street that was stuck in his head. He could barely recall the lyrics but the song was there, like some dark and vicious parasite, crooning about gigantic hotdogs and challenging women to handle such a mightily sized meal. And then decided to try to find something to read, stood up, walked to the newspaper and magazine rack beside the door to the restrooms and reached for the only magazine that had the words computer and games on the cover, only to bump his head painfully against someone else’s lowered head.

Gerald rose to standing, ready to argue and complain. Ready to unleash another long withheld torrent of Jenna tension onto an unsuspecting stranger. Ready to argue about how some people should learn to watch where they were going. And perhaps even demand an apology from the other.

But instead, Gerald stared back at the tall cheerful woman who carefully rubbed her head with the loose sleeve of her cardigan jacket. He stared at her half-closed eyes as she offered a friendly smile and bit her lower lip in embarrassed amusement. And found himself unable to keep from smiling himself as she ducked back down without warning, grabbed the magazine from the rack, and rose with a triumphant smirk.

“Sorry, I got it first. But you can read it after me.”

He watched her as she rolled the magazine into a small tube, and tucked it under her arm as she maneuvered past the other people who waited in line for the barista to take their orders. He followed her with his gaze as she reached her chair, the very seat behind his own, and sat down with a contented show of relief, shifted the magazine to the table and leafed through it with an almost childish hint of success.

So the last thing Gerald thought would happen that day was what did:

He fell in love for the second time in his life.

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