Of Fading and Abrupt Blacks

Celebrate.

We always celebrate starts, why don't we celebrate ends? Doesn't one entail the other in an endless cycle? Is an end always so wrong that we seem to think that after it no starts come?

We have grown in such a society that an end is a loss - and dead ends, a surrender. We are further simplified into a cycle of despair at the face of this end that would even have it's own end in Acceptance. And if we see it in omniscience, we just see our lives like two wires connected to a loop of sadness that until we find in ourselves a feeling of succumbing to what will become of us, we will never reach that other wire. If that is the case, we are then electrons running our lives through every metal atom until this loop and we forever fall into nothingness.

But that is what we are made to see.

Human life is not just some metaphor of wires and story of electrons that we come to waste everyday for light and pleasure. Think of life as something we do no want to waste but wastes either way, but in waste, we benefit until we are left as shells - remembrances of what we have done and what we used to be. And even in our calcified ends we still become a start for another generation. 

Have you ever wondered why the Oblation is that way? In everyday we just see its form, we never come to actually realize its function. Man, maybe in his 20s or 30s, naked, standing rain or shine, looking above with arms open wide. We never see his face. I never saw his face for he lost all sense of looking down, upon me, us, the people, for he concentrated in his work - his work that is sacrifice. Oblation, from the Latin Oblatio, means offering, a losing of oneself for a cause, a means that any human's shell is never forgotten, a sense of giving up, an acceptance of a dead end that no one else would want to take for another. Oblation is in flight, arms to the sky - to God - him calling out and willing. And now I see his face.

So, what end would we partake? What first-worldly-minuscule problem should we give up so that a community could be happier? I would first give up the hatred on an end, the seeking for a beginning that already happened after the ever afters, to make people feel the sense that lingers when the show goes black: something that causes the end of me to be the celebration of theirs. I want a sense in my life before I end.

Celebrate.

Broken Biscuit wants to fix himself again. Made some dough and glued himself. Got baked and burned and lost himself. And the glue was someone else.

(December 24, 2011)

Snowflake

(This is a story accompanying Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I made this for my HUM I class) 

"The salvation of man is through and in love."

   I am Tilly, Tilly Grosser, and I survived the Jewish torment. Before being held captive, I was a nurse in the same hospital Viktor was working as a neurosurgeon. And back then, I have hated him dearly, for the petty reason of dumping my best friend for no reason, something that was pretty preposterous since she was pretty. But then everything changed for me on our first date, which was the best chance I got to get back at him, but only to find his honesty, of every single event with him and my best friend. And because of that, I was pleased with his character. 

   It is true, what they say, that in every single day of being in love, everything goes vivid, light, and sweet. Even for the traces of the Nazi terror, I have found the skies bluer, the sun brighter, and life livelier. And even after the dates, I have found myself knees deep in love with him, without a care even if my socks get wet, and shoes ruined. I was happy in the carnage that I thought would never get any worse.

   And like any other love that was perfect, we got married. It was for some reason of his that I can't remember but what I can tell you is this: he has always said that he knew I would never leave him. And I didn't. We went through every obstacle together everything with much patience necessary. The patience to walk to church to get wed (we were not allowed to ride a carriage or a cab), the patience to not have a child (for others were forced to abort them and to lose a child would have haunted me for the rest of my life), and the impatience to wait for him to come back when he got deported which would leave me behind. And so I left the factory to join him on the train to prison. I grew freighted every minute and I held onto him and he wrapped himself around me and we stayed that way throughout the journey.

   The next was just a blur. People barged in, spoke simultaneously in different languages, looked nothing like I ever imagined. They looked...fine. They seemed unharmed and I somehow felt the reassured that everything will be fine. Fell in line, divided by sex, checked, stripped off our possessions. It was then that my senses grew sharper, seeing my left hand, with only just the tan line of a wedding band. And then I remembered our conversation before we walked out of the train. "Leave your wedding band. Do anything just to keep yourself alive," he said. I never replied. I nodded, and kissed goodbye. I wish I told him I understood, but then I knew he knew. And even without telling me I would have given my body and my fidelity just to see him again after all this is over. Ah, yes, when everything was over.

   I am afraid I could no longer stand to tell you the pain that I have went through in those three concentration camps, but I shall talk about my freedom thereafter. I wish you could understand, that I am typical and no matter how much "truth" would set me free, it would only work when it would kill me to keep it from all of you, not when it will kill me by telling it to all of you. The horrors that I have faced are for no weak woman. And I was nearly strong, for you see I have been free twice: the white flag of my captors and the white flag of my physical self.

   Leaving my body on the cold snow, I found myself staring blankly at my corpse, withered and thin, with my open eyes which still showed the glimmer of hope of living through this catastrophe. I felt nothing for a moment. But with each passing snowflake, I felt warmer. I saw from beyond the dull camp, the sunrise, the pail purple mountains, and the light. I felt the glow come back to myself once more, I became who I used to be without the therapy necessary for my incapable body. I was ready.

   I was ready no to go further, but to go back and reach out to my husband in some way I could, now that I am liberated. I stepped forward. I felt the cold snow on my naked feet, but they didn't burn. The cold was bitter no more. I stepped again, no footprints. I stepped again. I was in front of him.

   He seemed blank. He was as thin as I was. He was cold as I was. He has the glimmer of hope like my body was. I held his hand through a small snowflake, he did not flinch. I kissed his cheek with a gust of wind, he did not move. I hugged him tight with the cold, he did not shudder. He was lost. He was the same man I met years ago, only buried beneath the cruel snow of a thousand torments. He is the man I love, but I have a mission, to unravel the thick fabric of the Nazi nightmare that covered him preventing me from ever feeling him, seeing him, holding him. And I knew just the thing.

   He loved Psychology. And he didn't know that even in his ways, he has brushed on me a few of his. I understood him and took him for a learned man. A Classic. And through deep things, I could touch his heart. I wanted him to see what I see now. I wanted him to embrace the cold as something good, and notice the beauty within the smallest of things. I tried to paint with life, make him feel things out of the contrast, the repetition, the motion, the stillness, the darkness, the blankness. I wanted him to feel human by feeling, and searching deep within himself a reason, even for his existence. I would have made Rembrandt proud of all my subtleties. A sunset against the cool white mountains, a lit house in the vast dark night, a delicate field in the soft sunlight. And there I felt like woman, making him feel like a human. 

   Then one day, I stood next to him as we stared at the break of dawn. He spoke...to me. And I was there to listen. I cried hot tears as he spilled his heart of how he missed me. He thought of me every single day, and I thought I lost him. I hugged him again like I hugged him back when we were on the train. I listened further to his voice, which grew raspier because of the unforgiving cold. He said he looked forward to seeing me again. I cried harder. I cried so hard that I lost what he said next, because I knew that if he would, he would have to give up this fight right there and then. And I let a snowflake touch his forehead. He closed his eyes.

   I could say that I never left him. Even until he was free, literally, I mean. He was saved by some troops and was given food, shelter, and a trip back home. I was there when he rewrote his lost article, when he saw my pendant again, when he learned of my death, when he secluded from the world in utter despair, and when he got through it. But I wasn't there when he got married again, for I knew it would happen someday. That one day that he'd be survived by a wife and a kid, a child we never risked to try having. And I knew somehow that I would be less needed, more forgotten, but when I see his face now, see the man I love before, today and forever. Yes it's worth it. I have been saved. So was he.

The Gift of Inspiration

Well, This MIGHT be awkward but I'm surely thanking this guy right here this way. Hi! Thank you so much. Listening to Sia, then seeing STORIES: All-New Tales Edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantino is something so feelgood. So I feel so grateful, for inspiration as a gift, because without it, progression is not possible. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I couldn't express it enough.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Heaven

Heaven

Natalia Kills

Perfectionist

Happy Birthday, Daddy. Wishing you the happiest of birthdays, I hope you're happy somehow. Hoping this song sums up what we all feel.

Zer0

Fairytale Choices. A Twitter conversation I had with a friend.

As an awakening from a friend's tweet, I wrote this essay.

What is it to be lacking? What is it to be outshone, thus to lack colors to refract?

But, in all of these, what for is asking for things that you have, even in the slightest degree? Why do people see what's lacking, when they could focus on what's there? And why do I bother asking questions, when I do not need your answer, but need you to see what you think of when I ask them?

We are of human character and we strive to be complete. Yes, I do understand perfectionism, for I am one in some aspects in my own life. But can't we complete with being incomplete, like being perfect though we bathe in our own imperfections? Yes? Then let us think that what we are is complete in our incompleteness.

We do not need to be all-out, when what we are isn't. We do not need to be perfect, when who we are isn't. To strive for that whole that we cannot actually reach isn't going to be something fulfilling if it is not truly what we are. If a man makes himself fully emo, when he is just emotional, would drive him into the insanity of wearing Kohl and Razors to prove to himself he is truly emo. It would kill him just to achieve a wrongfully set Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Or the same would go for a woman who is just picky, but is called an all-out bitch, it would delude her into thinking that she is mean and would only turn her into a monster that she is not at all. To live completely by the names that society or ourselves put on us is insane, and we let ourselves get drunk on this  labeling insanity.

Then there are people who think that what they are isn't enough. That a certain thing amiss is like losing everything altogether. Grey isn't darkness, it's not given enough light, but it still is good. Like people overshadowed by greater powers: Sidekicks and Heroes, Editors and Writers, Indie and Mainstream. Colorblind is not truly colorblind. Have you ever thought of that? And when all we see are grey-scale, aren't you glad there is something intermediate between the harsh duality of White and Black? And when a relationship is gone, or is never there to start with, it does not mean that love does not exist in our hearts, for love is always there as a reason when we smile, cry, get broken, get healed, and face a new day. When something is amiss, we always have something we can hold on to, a ground that we can stand on or anything we are still thankful for.

When they take the physical, we have the metaphysical, the spiritual, the plane where other mean people cannot touch. Something we lock deep within ourselves that they can't take away from us. We always have something no matter what we lack, so we are never truly lacking. We are never Zero.

So when I think what it would be: To pay the wrath of hell by being the nemesis? Or to stay happy and proud in a condition where dimness is at my point beside who has the show? Tempting as the dark side may sound, I prefer to live what I live by and be happy with what I am now.

But when the nemesis is right all along with what he believes in, I'd go with be him.

The Wind envied Helen of Troy, for she moved more ships than She. So when Helen was at the cliff to see the sunset, the Wind made sure She'd move her.

December 15, 2011

Achromatic Thematic

Verisimilitude that is a Party. Louie and Me with my surprise stuff, all planned out by Reah.

It's really such a nice feeling to have parties, not only because of the food, which in my case is the only thing that keeps a party alive, but also the people and the friends who you celebrate with. THIS IS A REASON TO PARTY. The endless joy of being very funny people on one of your most special dates. Too bad my parents could enjoy this, but my friends were enough to make this day special.

What I thought would just be a plain food gathering turned out to be an all-out surprise! It even made me so happy to see the achromatic scheme of the balloons which came in shapes of molecular orbitals and geometries, which is basic in Chemistry, a subject that I adore most.

Left and Lower Left: Friends at a friend's condo. The names I would not specify for their safety. But nonetheless, you could see the cramped bodies and freakish smiles.

This is long overdue! ( This happened last November, 2011)

Well, besides eating, we watched videos, not to mention the cyst extraction video where the yellow substance really looks like the mashed potato that day. Not much touched the thing that day. I'm sorry, Charca, it still tastes good though.

Then there were happy birthday songs and Christmas songs. YAY. Not to mention the freaky low budget MC music video. We had a laugh fit over it. 

By the way, I'd like to mention a friend of mine who ordered cake online right in front of me while his laptop was connected to the big LCD TV. One saying, "Mahal yan (It's expensive)." Then he says, "Ok lang yan. Si Dondie naman (It's ok. It's for Dondie." Thank you so much!

Then, I would like to thank Reah, my super super awesome party planner. I didn't have much of a fret when you helped me plan this whole fiasco. I love you to bits. The balloons were perfect. The huge-ass card embedded with a multitude of post its were tear-inducing (but i did not cry), that my mom praised it. The CD is even played until now, but in moderation because I pity my Standard version my Aunt bought for me. Thank you so much. You rock! Lunch again?

AAAAAAAAAAAAND the day won't end with me having a picture to savor these moments, actually with that much pictures, I had enough to actually end the day in just a minute. So here are some of MY photos. I would want to put you guys. I want to keep all of you safe ;) 

The Best for Last:

(c) All Photos from Louie's Camera Shot by nearly everyone there who touched the camera

Jo

I started staring at the wall of my room for nearly an hour. It seems more exciting than any other shit that my friends and family have planned for the day. I hate them troubling me with their nonsense and crying over with their petty things and getting all fuelled up for the corniest of things. I hate them. They were just there for me. Not me for them, them for me. So I had to please them in somehow to maintain the connection, making sure that when I need them, I was there.

I shut the blinds. The sun stinks. My room was painted black, like most of the things I own. My nails chipped, but still black. My hair, black as I have remembered. Even my books were black even in the inside. Sometimes, I’d char my Barbie dolls to make them black, not in the ethnical way though. Just black. That dark feeling of greatness and power.

It was already 8 in the morning. Damn the blinding light. I had to go to school, and do shit. To please my parents and even my snotty friends. I know I was late. But, hey, better late than never, right? So I stopped staring at that amazing wall and got up so that I could “get a life”, well, that’s what they say. I had already bathed yesterday, so what was left was a shower. I undressed and just let the cold water just flow against my body. Yes. The cold. It just feels so good. I got out of the shower, dried and proceeded to my closet. Black top, black skirt, fishnet stockings, since I’m feeling hardcore, black peep-toe shoes. Boudoir time. Eyeliner on my whole eyelid, my undereyes. Mascara. Wait, is that a pimple? Concealer. I hate being a girl. I forgot my deo. Deo done. Out of the room I go, for breakfast, some scolding and even meeting up with them shitheads.

Back from school. Flung my bag to the floor, nearly broke my mirror. Oh well. Still safe. I went directly to the bed. I sat there and instantly stared at the wall again. I just can’t help fascinating it. It was blank. It was black. It was perfect. And I found something new every single day I stared. Yesterday, there was a red bug crawling from corner to corner, I wanted to kill it, but I was too bored. The day before, I found a row of ants. I confused their paths by smudging on them. The day before that, more light shined on it, and I quickly shut the blinds. But today was different. There was a chip off the paint. It was weird yet thrilling, sucky yet curiosity-inducing. So I peeled it. It was too blind to see the color behind the rich blackness of new coat under that few lighting. So I dared to open the blinds, and nearly got blinded. Well, that stinks. But then I fancied the weirdness of that small chip to even get bothered by it. So I went back to that chip on the wall and started peeling further. It showed an ugly shade of red. It was too faded to even deserve the name Red. It was ugly. But I still peeled off the new paint off the wall, because I had nothing else to do. Well, nothing else important to do. Ughh. All right. Nothing else to do that was not even the least bit boring. Even in the face of boredom, the ugliest of things get amusing. And that shade of red was surely too amusing. I peeled too much that I conjured up the weirdest and nerdiest of thoughts – something I hated to do most of all. Sometimes, I even forget why I do that nearly every time. But even still, I was not fazed with the least bit of worry of turning to the things I fear most: Goody-Two-Shoed-Nerds. I kept on. Wow. America. A molecule of benzene. An illustration of a cross section of an Amphioxus. Shit. I got to stop thinking this crap.

Mom called me to dinner. I shouted “I’m busy, Mom. Get lost!” She’s really annoying. I never even planned eating dinner at all today. Sometimes, she even makes the crappiest noises at night in her room. I can’t even sleep or stare well with all that racket. Now that dinner has been cancelled, I kept on peeling my worries away with this nearly ugly wall. Yuck. It’s soooo…light red. It’s disgusting. And it’s creeping me out. It was half past 7 and I turned around. All that chips of paint felt good. I wanted more, and what I saw, was more, much much more. And I started to work, quickly. With all thingamajigs I can find. Nearly rusty nails to impale the black paint, my ID for a scraper, and my arms for the pulling. Sometimes, I get enough paint to fully cover my notebooks. I would’ve but I was to immersed with this paint. I had gone used to the dullness of the color underneath. It reminded me of stuffed animals, the cute ones – not the ones I normally hold, the ones drenched in formalin – but the type you pull their heads off. It sucked. But the action was so cool.

I could not remember much of what I did when I woke up. It was already a quarter to one. I fell asleep just in time when I was done with the last piece off my wall. So I quickly got up, shook off the chips on nearly everything in my body. And stared at the mess I made.

I was at a loss. I could no longer distinguish my room. The only reminders were the patches of black on a lightest pink wall. It was filthy. It was nice. It was shitty. It was comforting. What the hell is happening to me? What is this? How do I feel foreign and at the same time at home in this cell that bore no resemblance to who I am? I tried to brace the wall. Felt it. It’s color’s name at the tip of my tongue. It was…still disgusting, yet I felt myself in it. I tried to throw the paint chips on the floor to the wall, hoping that it would stick. Nothing worked. I didn’t feel any good in this. I felt as if I had lived here before but I did not. I wasn’t this. I looked at my hands, my nails were chipped because of all this chipping paint. I rushed to my bathroom, even my hair wasn’t that black. My roots were showing. I had brown hair. I was a brunette. I was pulling my hair all of a sudden to really check if it was mine. My hand accidentally swooped to my face, smudging my makeup. I saw my fair lids. I saw my amber eyes. I saw my pinkish face, beneath all the light shaded concealers. And I even saw that I was crying, mudded rivers through my face, ruining my mascara. I was a woman. And I felt emotions.

Looking like a mess, I went back to my bed, pushed it away in all my agony and I wept further on the floor. I just let myself go and lay suddenly, hoping that a bump in the head would save me from this insanity and loss. And I did bump into something. It was a notebook.

It was no mere notebook. It was a diary of some kid named Jo. I must have stolen it some time ago. I looked through her stuff and saw notes and pictures. It was strange. She was just like me. She had a pink room. Pink. So that was the name of that shade. Pink. And I like it. Then I came across this.

Dear Jo,
About to have a brain surgery today. Doctor’s say that it’s scary and all, but I will take it, to spend more time with mom. If I die now, who would take care of her? I would rather take the risk to be with her. Her smile, her laugh, her voice, her cooking. I love her so much, Jo. And I’d like to wake up tomorrow morning to see her smiling and holding my hand, and hugging me, and taking me home waiting for me to get even better. Remember all the fun you had together, studying. She was patient with you. She took time in waiting for you to get it right. She waited everyday at the door getting worried you won’t come back. She cooked vegetables every day, even though you hated it because she wants you to be healthy. She worked hard, Jo. For you. Because she loves you. Remember this after the surgery. It’s all going to be ok.
Lovelots,
Jo

I was dumbstricken. I didn’t know. It was as if I had been living a lie the past five years. And I heard that sound again. It was wailing. It was such a sad sound. It was off key and muffled by all the tears. It was Mom. So I got up and went to her room, hugged her and said…

“I love you, Mom. I remember.”

Everything changed after that.

Over My Dead Body. One day he asked, "Can I love you?" I said "Over my dead body." And so he did it. Over My dead body.

(November 7, 2011)

Losing Faith and Finding It Again

(November 20, 2011, 8:45 PM, On a busride home)

Losing faith and finding it again,

Through wake-up calls and loud sirens,

Unheard by the body, recognized by the soul,

Winning me back was His greatest goal

I for so long questioned who He was,

What plans and roads for me He has

And all these detours that would lead me astray,

Hating the hard steep paths He wanted me to stay

And when I got to where my detours have lead,

What I saw was darkness and emptiness ahead

I have been tricked, been fooled

By the material, the physical and indigent world

Walking backwards, taking back words,

What tomfoolery a fool has been lured

Finding that corner of magnificent light,

Marrying the day, divorcing the night

Erratum is human, those who know are blessed,

Makes us more sincere than those who couldn’t care less

It has been so long, I have forgotten when,

Losing faith and finding it again