There was fire.
It lived and breathed and ate everything in its path.
There was a loud thumping noise and a shadow. Lond-eared.
He was falling -
-
and-
falling,
He jolted, woken by an impossible fall and an even more impossible flight. A giant bunny in red tights had come to save him from the fires of hell.
No worries there, he thought, scratching his head. I was meant to burn, anyway.
Looking at the clock on his bedside table, he saw it still had twenty minutes before the alarm was supposed to wake him up.
I could have used twenty more minutes of sleep.
Or a month.
Yeah, give me a month.
He turned on his back, putting his left arm behind his head.
The afternoon sun gave off an alien-like orange, vibrant through the blue gauze curtains that hid him from the world. His bare skin glowed under its light, his white boxers almost yellow.
Outside seeped into the quiet room in a continuous grumble; overlapping orchestras of angry drivers trapped in the after-five traffic, young 'uns speaking incorrigible street lingo into insanely priced mobile phones, street vendors shouting their remaining, unsold goods, and the latest Pinoypop music blasting from jeepneys - the lyrics, melody and dance moves all capable of making him cringe as the vivid photos of the exposed internals of last night's slasher murder victim in the news.
Inside, however, was a settled kind of noise, a chaos that clung silently onto every ordered space, every meticulously thought-of arranging and re-arranging.
A mini-kitchen, blue plates, green tumblers, flea market silverware. Copper-framed snapshots scattered and hung. These jut out from the entire room like marbles in sand, each smiling couplet stranger than the next. A lemony-detergent-cigarette-hangover-leftover lunch-smelling bathroom. Vinyl-covered main table with three wooden chairs and a steel one.
Everywhere he looked, he saw layers upon layers.
There was passion, heaps of it now buried so deep it's a wonder one can sense it at all. A layer of blame. A layer of lies. A layer of regrets. A later of hate. A layer of forgiveness. And a thick, almost suffocating layer of silence.
They stayed there like dirt, they attached themselves so strong and stubborn even if one were to scrub at them from morn til night, a skin will remain. They are our unpaying tenants, coinhabitants of a world built by two people who have lived together too long that it seems neither one knows anymorewhat keeps them together still, aside from a blanket of comfort and an idealized and falsified sense of commitment.
This place has a life. We bred in it a breath of deep and steadily growing indifference.
Nowhere more so than in this very bed.
He looked at the sheets, crumpled and undone. They are white, blinding witnesses to the facade that we live, and spiteful reminders of where we are.
What am i doing? he asked himself, for what seemed to be the millionth time. The millionth, for today, at least. Everyday, every simple, freakin' day, I wake up to an empty, stifling hot room, wait until i have to go to work, work nocturnal hours for measly pay, and hours later, go home to a lover rushing off to workall our couple-y actions automatic and pressured, wait again until sleep comes, cycle after cycle, day after day.
Does any part of my life make sense? Is it even a life?
Have to call home, he reminded himself. It's Tuesday and i have to call home.
He sighed. I WILL call home. After all, it's Tuesday.
The alarm went off. Every inch, every corner of the apartment stopped and listened as it screeched and waited for the inevitable. They know the routine. They know what will happen. They await his bustle, his hurrying into his semi-conscious existence.
Instead he closed his eyes.
He did not sleep.
He did not stir.
He just laid there, heart beating and blood pumping.
Half-alive. Half-dead.
--
------------------------------------------
OUtside, a little boy hears an alarm beeping, the sound getting louder and louder, more insistent.
The boy wonders why no one turns it off.
It lived and breathed and ate everything in its path.
There was a loud thumping noise and a shadow. Lond-eared.
He was falling -
-
and-
falling,
He jolted, woken by an impossible fall and an even more impossible flight. A giant bunny in red tights had come to save him from the fires of hell.
No worries there, he thought, scratching his head. I was meant to burn, anyway.
Looking at the clock on his bedside table, he saw it still had twenty minutes before the alarm was supposed to wake him up.
I could have used twenty more minutes of sleep.
Or a month.
Yeah, give me a month.
He turned on his back, putting his left arm behind his head.
The afternoon sun gave off an alien-like orange, vibrant through the blue gauze curtains that hid him from the world. His bare skin glowed under its light, his white boxers almost yellow.
Outside seeped into the quiet room in a continuous grumble; overlapping orchestras of angry drivers trapped in the after-five traffic, young 'uns speaking incorrigible street lingo into insanely priced mobile phones, street vendors shouting their remaining, unsold goods, and the latest Pinoypop music blasting from jeepneys - the lyrics, melody and dance moves all capable of making him cringe as the vivid photos of the exposed internals of last night's slasher murder victim in the news.
Inside, however, was a settled kind of noise, a chaos that clung silently onto every ordered space, every meticulously thought-of arranging and re-arranging.
A mini-kitchen, blue plates, green tumblers, flea market silverware. Copper-framed snapshots scattered and hung. These jut out from the entire room like marbles in sand, each smiling couplet stranger than the next. A lemony-detergent-cigarette-hangover-leftover lunch-smelling bathroom. Vinyl-covered main table with three wooden chairs and a steel one.
Everywhere he looked, he saw layers upon layers.
There was passion, heaps of it now buried so deep it's a wonder one can sense it at all. A layer of blame. A layer of lies. A layer of regrets. A later of hate. A layer of forgiveness. And a thick, almost suffocating layer of silence.
They stayed there like dirt, they attached themselves so strong and stubborn even if one were to scrub at them from morn til night, a skin will remain. They are our unpaying tenants, coinhabitants of a world built by two people who have lived together too long that it seems neither one knows anymorewhat keeps them together still, aside from a blanket of comfort and an idealized and falsified sense of commitment.
This place has a life. We bred in it a breath of deep and steadily growing indifference.
Nowhere more so than in this very bed.
He looked at the sheets, crumpled and undone. They are white, blinding witnesses to the facade that we live, and spiteful reminders of where we are.
What am i doing? he asked himself, for what seemed to be the millionth time. The millionth, for today, at least. Everyday, every simple, freakin' day, I wake up to an empty, stifling hot room, wait until i have to go to work, work nocturnal hours for measly pay, and hours later, go home to a lover rushing off to workall our couple-y actions automatic and pressured, wait again until sleep comes, cycle after cycle, day after day.
Does any part of my life make sense? Is it even a life?
Have to call home, he reminded himself. It's Tuesday and i have to call home.
He sighed. I WILL call home. After all, it's Tuesday.
The alarm went off. Every inch, every corner of the apartment stopped and listened as it screeched and waited for the inevitable. They know the routine. They know what will happen. They await his bustle, his hurrying into his semi-conscious existence.
Instead he closed his eyes.
He did not sleep.
He did not stir.
He just laid there, heart beating and blood pumping.
Half-alive. Half-dead.
--
------------------------------------------
OUtside, a little boy hears an alarm beeping, the sound getting louder and louder, more insistent.
The boy wonders why no one turns it off.
written.
cris garing
(image by Anthony Gayton)
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