milkshake

For this one, Mr. Tenorio challenged us to write a shorty in three paragraphs. Here's the prompt: an aging professor is recently denied his tenure in a small university in a small town, and the professor is now sitting in a bar, thinking about it. The first paragraph must have at least five sentences and must cover a maximum of ten minutes of his life, the second paragraph must not have more than five sentences and must cover a minimum of five years of his life, and the last paragraph must show him hailing a taxi to go home.

The idea is to stretch time like in Raymond Carver's short "The Cathedral".

***


Tom Willis fingered the rim of his glass. It was his third milkshake. His first one was chocolate. “I need the happiness,” he said to the bartender, “And nothing else gives me bliss like a healthy serving of chocolate.” The second one was strawberry. “Because pink is such a lovely color. Like my bedroom,” he said to a man who sat beside him. The man moved two bar stools away after an awkward silence. And now it was vanilla. “Like most aspects of my life.” Tom ran his right middle finger around the mouth of the tall glass, tracing it. With his right thumb and index finger, he held the white bendy straw that jutted out of the snowy top of the milkshake. Tom slowly pulled it out, concentrating on the lush squishing sounds that the straw made as it slid out of the calorie fountain. He had asked for whole milk. He needed to binge, at least tonight. Some of the vanilla goodness stuck to the straw. Tom put the straw near his lips and licked it clean, the sweetness transferred to his tongue. He grasped the cold, hard, clear acrylic glass and put its mouth to his and began to swallow the icy content. He needed to binge. At least tonight.

After twenty years of teaching, nay, dedicating his life to that dismal Liberal Arts College, in that dismal, provincial town, Tom’s tenure was denied. As soon as he got to his apartment he had been renting on a monthly basis, he packed his bags and took the first plane to Reno where his parents were. As the plane made a descent to Reno-Tahoe International Airport, he felt himself waking up from a nightmare. No more close-minded students, no more pesky colleagues, and no more board of ungrateful school directors smelling of cheap colognes. He smiled as he remembered his exact words to the members of that board when he announced his resignation.

Tom looked at his third glass of milkshake. It was half empty. He was smiling now but it was a different kind of smile from the one on the plane. That one had been a smile of small victory. This one was a smile of great defeat. Tom lifted his head and he caught the eyes of the bartender. The bartender couldn’t be more than thirty. He had red hair that matched his neatly trimmed beard and eyes that had that proverbial sparkle. But he was only a bartender, Tom thought. A bartender wouldn’t know Moby Dick if he sat on one. But he was so full of life, unlike Tom, who, by now, was wasted and drowning in unforgivably high amount of calories. But Tom couldn’t care less. Let those years of working out be damned. He would stop dying his hair to hide the silvering lines. The bartender was still smiling at Tom, but Tom couldn’t read his smile. Was it an ironic smile? Tom couldn’t tell. In a week, after daily visits to the bar, after sitting on the same place every time, the bartender would strike a conversation with Tom and Tom would learn that his name was Jerry and they would laugh, and that would be Tom’s first real laugh in six years. In a month, Jerry and Tom would kiss, and Jerry would tell Tom how he had fallen in love with a sad-looking man who looked like Ernest Hemingway and had three milkshakes in a row and Tom would cry on Jerry’s chest and they would talk about The Old Man and the Sea. But for now, Tom only smiled back at the bartender, finished his milkshake, paid the tab, and walked out of the bar to hail a cab that would take him back to his parents’ home.

***

tuxedo

For this assignment, we were challenged to write by borrowing a "template" in Sabrina Murray's short story "The Caprices". The elements that need to be there are: "This could be any...", "What you are witnessing here is...", and "It is a/an ... (time of the day) in ... (year)".

And here's what I came up with. 

***

This could be any concentration camp. The dank and dirty smell that fills any newcomers’ eyes with acrid water and grants the nose a sense of cherished numbness could be scented in any camp. The big door swings open and soon the inhabitants of the camp are roused from their meandering dreams and daydreams. One by one, their cell doors are opened and they are led outside. Some, the youths and the elderlies, are celebrating in their hearts, hoping for freedom, but others know better. Outside, a grave has been dug. This is the last time they are going to see the rays of the sun. Still, no one fights when they are placed inside a chamber, bones pressing against one another. They are too tired, too weak, too ready to give their last breaths away in exchange of a momentary release, for a little peace. Their rib and hip bones stick to their skin as if they were bosom buddies. The gas seeps in, an apparition that brings more than terror, but some of the prisoners don’t mind. Maybe at last this is their release, their little peace. 

What you are witnessing here is just a day on the job in a kill shelter. 

A gangly old man in a blue jumpsuit and a gas mask that hides his face opens the door of the metal chamber and shovels the bodies of the dogs inside a brown burlap bag. His assistant, a young man still in college, as lanky as the older man, has dug a big hole in the ground in the shelter’s vicinity. It is his first day there and he didn’t ask why. He just did what he was told to do and now he has a million feelings inside his head, and heart, and gut. The older man has been doing this for ten years and he can’t remember what he felt when he first assisted the execution. He remembers the thrills of chasing after strays, and this he tells his young colleague like a parent telling bed time stories to a child. 

He sees the young man’s knees shake but he doesn’t scoff. Instead, he puts a gloved hand on the assistant’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze, quietly acknowledging the uneasiness. We still have the other room to do, he says, but let me take a cigarette break first. 

It is an afternoon in 2012.   

The younger man nods as the senior hands him the burlap bag, heavy with bones and skins and blood, but devoid of life and emotions and breath. The older man opens his gas mask and his blond beard springs to life, catching the light as he walks outside. As soon as the older man turns the corner and vanishes out of sight, the younger man runs to the other room, the one next to the dogs’. 

It takes him a moment to open the door, a longer moment to process what he is looking at, and an even longer moment to know what he feels he has to do. Then he sees a little cage dead right in front of him, of a white cat nursing a black and white kitten. And he feels his feet move toward the cage. 

***

Moral of the story: Adopt, don't buy. Hopefully this photo of a caged dog will change your mind. 

nightmare

At 00:11 just now, I woke up from a nightmare.

Okay, here's a little disclaimer. I'm currently working on a horror story that takes place in Indonesia and I was watching Coraline before going to bed and feeling bloated after dinner. 

I am there with my friends and we're hanging out and I think we're in the studio during an open house and we have people coming in and trying a dance session. Then she comes in. There's something about her that's making me uneasy and right then and there I scream to my friends, telling them she's a specter, a ghost, a demon. No one believes me, but the woman seems to be offended and runs to where the elevators are (pretty impressive, huh? A dance studio in a fancy building with elevators! Yeah! But I digress), and stupidly enough, I run after her. 

Seriously, I don't know why I'm running after her, maybe it's to say I'm sorry? Maybe it's to shout and scream some more at her? I think it's the latter. Then she looks at me and I feel the strangest thing: I feel that I've seen her before and I feel that I've been in the situation before and in that previous situation, the spectress revealed her true face when her face was hovering just inches before mine and let's just say that it wasn't a very pretty face. Okay, I lied, it was a very evil and grotesque face with skewed yellow eyes and boy, I think I saw fangs too. 

And just like in the previous encounter, now she's looking at me and she seems to be flying (or probably taking a huge and graceful step towards me - that makes me wonder why I turned her away from the dance lesson. She would probably make a good dancer) and her face is hovering just inches from mine and, yes, sure enough, she reveals her true face to me.

Her eyes become askew and her irises turn yellow. Not yellow like fire, but like the mold, growing off of a dead thing and invading its surface. She opens her mouth and I can see perfectly lined fangs. Yes, the fangs are so perfectly lined that when I'm thinking about it now, they may look a lot prettier than my own teeth. In fact, the fangs are the same size. They're not huge like a T-rex's or a shark's, but they're there, menacingly perfect. Two rows of perfectly lined fangs. Then she arched her lips and grinned at me, baring those sharp fangs. There's something demeaning in that grin. Something that says she knows me and she has my soul. 

I don't know what's coming over me, but my left hand flies on her face and I attack her, clawing her face. But then I wake up as my nails hit the wall  and the Venetian blinds of my real bedroom. 

I open my eyes for five seconds but they feel so heavy, the kind of heaviness that one feels after an abrupt and involuntary awakening from a deep slumber (no matter how ghastly it is). So I close them back and I am  sucked into the nightmare again.

I wake up in my room and although it doesn't look like my room in Jakarta, I know that I'm at home. I quickly get out of bed and bang on the other doors next to my room. My mom and dad are there and also my sister, but my brother's room is empty. I remember feeling relieved that my brother isn't there. And there I am, screaming and shouting of my encounter with a ghost. My sister believes in what I say but my parents remain skeptical, but then something happens and I'm not sure what. I think I come back to my room and find a box, then there's a box of pictures, and every time I look at it, the spectress comes and it challenges me with her eyes and her fangs, but I want to defeat her because I've seen her once and she got away. I want her to stop bullying me. 

I run through the box of pictures. There's a picture with only a silhouette of a woman, there's another picture that I forgot. And every time I do that, the spectress comes back and haunts me and I scream (because I'm a chickenshit) and my mom comes into the room and I'm determined to show my mom that the demon does exist and that the demon follows me. 

And I don't know why, but somehow, mom and I are in the bathroom and I grab the shower hose and begin to spray water all over the room and there's a spot that no matter how strong the spray is, the water won't reach it, as if there's an invisible wall there, and then I know, and my mom also realizes, that it's the demon and that she exists. 

 Then suddenly I'm back inside the room but my mom isn't there anymore. I rummage through the box of pictures again and found a paper box. Inside it is a hair comb, the one that sticks on the hair as an accessory and as I reach to grab it, the whole room turns black. Pitch black. I can't turn the lights on and I can't find a single light spot to fix my eyes on. But I feel her, I feel that the demon is there, and yes she's there, I feel her as a giant, standing right there in front of me as a dark red fog but with sharp edges. She just stands there, glaring a ray of darkness (this may sound weird, but her glare, the dark redness that emanates from her presence doesn't reflect light, as opposed to what colors do. As far as I know, colors reflect light, that's why we can see them and differentiate which color is which, but that dark redness is there and it seems to stand starkly in the pitch blackness).

She's a giant now, and she just stands there and I'm sitting upright in bed, still trying to flick the bedside light on but it won't turn on. I feel she's feeling satisfied that I'm now so terrified that if I shat right then and there my poo would be pale and white with fright. I feel like I've done something bad, like I've wronged her and that she deserves to do that to me, but at the same time, I also know that I deserve to be free of this mortal fear. So I begin to confront her. I don't know what's coming over me but I begin screaming and shouting to her, "You are nothing to me. I am stronger than you are. I am bigger than you are. You are nothing and you don't scare me. You hear me? You are nothing!" Strangely enough, it works. I can feel her energy diminishing as she becomes smaller. Then she seems to disappear. 

As soon as I can't see her anymore (although I can still feel her presence), I try to turn the light on again by flicking it like a madman, but it still won't turn on and I panic again. Then in a split second, I realize that I'm dreaming and the only way to get out of this is to wake up, and so as the last resort, I jerk my head strongly to the right and there I am inside my room. My real room. The lights are turned off but the street lights seep through the blinds into the room and for a moment after the pitch blackness of my nightmare, my darkened room looks like it's filled with flood lights. 

Now I'm here, writing about it, ignoring the grammar and the structure and the cohesiveness (because it is a dream and I'm narrating it using present tense) and I'm just hoping that it's just a dream. 

I'm really hoping that it's just a dream. 

let them eat fruitcake: the confession

So, here is the second part of the Jennifer Egan-ish version of using time. Here's the link to the previous part.

Again, this is from Rosemary Graham's class when we were to write two episodes, each for one character and later reveal the relationship(s) between the two. I've written about the older character, and now here's the younger.

***

“Craig, I want you to meet someone,” Janice, my boss at De Young Museum said as I was just laying a piece of fabric on my work table.

“I’ve heard great things about you,” an older woman said, extending her right hand.

“Ms... Ms. Marshy,” I said, startled. “How do you do?” and we shook hands, I felt a firm grip for a woman of her age. I looked at Janice who smiled proudly at me.

Carolena Marshy was a legend. She had been the curator of the textile wing at the museum ever since it was opened and Janice was her protégé. I was told that she once gathered 25 fabric restorers, including Janice, to work day and night so De Young could present its vintage French lace and damask collection. The team pulled it off in just two weeks. The mere thought of seeing and basking in the luxurious views of endless rows of antique lace and burnt velvets made my heart flutter. Ms. Marshy was responsible to begin the heydays for fabric restorers. In a recent interview at a local paper, she said that nobody was taking the job seriously anymore and she felt concerned that it was going to be a lost art.

“He’s been working here for just four months and he’s done wonders in restoring the old Uzbekistan Saye Goshas,” Janice said.

“Yes. I saw his work last month when I visited the museum,” Ms. Marshy said, nodding her acknowledgement.

“Oh, God. I don’t know if I can accept that praise,” I said, ironically looking over at Kimberly and Miller, my two seniors who dumped everything on me. They were in it for the galas, free-flow booze, and mingling with the socialites, they said. I was tempted to tell them they should’ve become poets instead, because they would’ve gotten away with less work and more booze, but I just shut my mouth.

“And modest too,” Janice added. Ms. Marshy smiled. I cringed, worried they would sniff a layer of fakeness.

“Ah, Tulle bi Telli. You’re in for a treat!” Ms. Marshy exclaimed as she saw what I was about to work on: a half-century-old Egyptian tulle shawl with bits of silvery and golden metal pounded and woven into it in geometric shapes as well as figures of the sun, the palm trees, and the huts, making the wearer look as if she or he was draped in liquid silver or gold. These days, two yards of this thing could fetch up to two thousand dollars.

“Yes. This one is in pretty bad shape,” I said, pointing at the holes on the ecru colored fabric and some pieces of metals that were missing. “But still, she’s really pretty.” I must have said that sheepishly because Janice and Ms. Marshy chuckled. I could feel the warmth of her eyes behind those thick lenses. The wrinkles around her lips deepened as she smiled.

“He’s restored three so far,” Janice said.

“That’s seventeen more to go,” I sighed. “And we’re only given ten days.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can do it,” Ms. Marshy said. “Well, off you go, then. You need to get this thing finished before next week so we could preview it, yes?” There was benevolence in her firm, commanding voice.

I nodded. I saw Janice and Ms. Marshy walked around the room but didn’t bother to say hi to Kimberly and Miller who suddenly found something to work on to look busy. I smiled deeply at this, suddenly feeling that I had the best job and the boss in the world, even though I was sure I’d go blind in ten years. And this I confided in Ms. Marshy on the opening night twelve days later when De Young showcased its Egyptian Textile collection, including the twenty gleaming Tulle bi Telli. Ms. Marshy had the ecru with the heavy silvery metals draped around her as a shawl. And later, as we took our champagnes to a corner and let the guests mingle, I told her about how my fascination with fabrics actually began when a thirteen year-old Craig O’Reilly defied his father and bought his first Barbie doll with the money he had made from making pencil cases and tote bags from denim pants that no longer fit him.

***

let them eat fruitcake: closed door

My attempt to pull a Jennifer Egan's Visit from the Goon Squad. In the book, she plays with time to confuse the reader as to when and where the reader is. She does it so well, however.

For Rosemary Graham's class, we were to write two episodes, one for each character, and to reveal the connection(s), beginning with the older character.

***

Lilian sits at the dinner table. Across her is her husband, Duncan. Their two sons, Craig and Ben, are sitting on each side of the rectangle table. It’s a special night and they’re feasting, celebrating Lilian’s fortieth birthday and her and Duncan’s fourteenth anniversary.

She has cooked her famous Beggar Chicken, whole chicken stuffed with herbs and spices and wrapped inside thick layers of dough that preserves and simmers the aroma of the herbs and spices and forces them to blend and mix with the juices of the chicken. After an hour of roasting, when the loaf is sliced open, it reveals the naked skin of the chicken, glowing with a mouthwatering golden hue that first catches the eyes, then lets the nose agree, and finally makes the stomach demand.

The side dish is slices of Silk tofu with mushroom and thick vegetable broth. Lilian knows it’s Craig’s favorite dish. That’s why she made it. Craig first discovered it while they were at Uncle Tang’s. It was served under a different name, something that promises and celebrates good life with words as poetic as the ones written on the tiny paper inside the Fortune Cookie.

“Honey, this food is just… delicious,” Duncan says as he closes his eyes when the first forkful of chicken and herb and spices and warm white rice melts on his tongue. “Really. I’m at loss for words.”

“Don’t make that a habit. Or you lose in court and we go broke and can’t afford dinner,” Lilian answers with a grin. Duncan laughs so hard that his body shakes.

“I promise I won’t,” he says, and gazes lovingly into her eyes. “So, Craig, how’s school?” Duncan asks.

“Oh, not much. I’m… I’m joining the Sewing Circle,” Craig answers hesitantly. Lilian realizes that he hasn’t touched his tofu. He is just making circles around the broth, tracing the edges of the tofu with his chopsticks.

“Sewing?” Duncan asks, raising his left eyebrow. His smile faded. “For what?”

“Oh, I… I don’t know. Maybe I can patch the elbows of your jackets like the ones in the fancy catalogues, or make my own jacket, or make pencil cases and sell them at school,” Craig says. Lilian smiles softly at her elder son, ready to do business at such a young age, just like his mother.

“Why would you want to do that?” Duncan asks, interrogating Craig, like when he barrages questions into whoever is giving testimonies against his client in court.

“Oh, I don’t know. To make some money, I guess.”

“For what?” Duncan repeats. “So you can buy that Barbie doll? We’ve been through this and the answer is no. Not even with your own money!”

Suddenly, Lilian feels her face tensed and she looks at Craig. His head is bent down. He’s staring at the dish under his nose, still stirring it with detached intensity. She switches her gaze to Duncan. Her husband is still looking at their elder son. She can see rows of emotions flashing in Duncan’s eyes but she exhales her relief softly when she realizes no hatred is emanating from them. Just concern, confusion, and perhaps fear.

Craig sits there in silence.

“Stop playing with your food. Show your mother some respect and eat it. And Craig,” Duncan pauses, “Look at me.”

Lilian sees Craig lift his head and meet the gaze of his father.

“I never, ever want Roger to paint your nails again, do you hear?”

“But Dad, it’s clear polish!”

“Never again, Young Man, understood? It makes you look like a sissy,” Duncan hisses.

Craig nods, but stays silent. In fact, Craig stays silent the entire night, even as Ben exclaims that he was asked to join the Debate Club and Duncan slaps the table with a roaring and approving laughter, high-fiving his younger son who says he said yes. Craig stays silent even after he has finished his meal, even after he has finished helping Lilian wash the dishes. The silence follows him to his room and fades with him as he closes the door behind him.

That night, even through the thick wooden door and layers of blanket and pillow over Craig’s face, Lilian can hear his hiccupping sobs. And with great burden, she retreats her hand, cancelling the thought of knocking on the wood and taking her son in her arms and comforting him. And softly, she moves away from the door, letting Craig be with himself, as he has always been whenever he cries.

***

Second part will be published next week (it's written and scheduled!)

eulogy of sorts

"Are you happy now?" he asks.

"Why should I be happy? I just lost someone dear to me," I answer.

"Well, it's not like you did anything to help him. Financially, I mean."

"I was broke. I was piss poor. I was out of the country. What was I to do?"

"Liar. You were neither of those. You had spare money and you were back in Jakarta long enough to do something," he says. That shuts me up. That shuts me up as if someone had his fingers and palms around my neck and gripped it tightly, crushing the bones, sealing the air that fought its way in.

"Yes. So you're right. There. Are you happy now?" I ask him back.

"You know that I can never be happy. Unlike you."

"Damn it. Damn it. Damn it why did he have to die?"

"He had brain tumor. It's probably for the better," he replies as slews of profanities spew forth from my mouth like vomit.

"He was your first friend at junior high. He was your very first crush. He sat there in the library during the orientation, and he was the first person who extended his palm to you as he said his name and you accepted his hand and shyly told him yours," he says.

I nodded meekly.

"During all those hours of lectures and talks, you stared at his brown, sinewy thighs, amazed by the sight, by how strong they looked, how impressive they were, even without him trying to show them off," he says. "But you fell for another one."

"It wouldn't matter. He was straight. They both were. The other one is still straight. He got married a year ago," I balk.

"Yes. The other one. The short, yellow one, whose name echoes yours, who treated you like shit when he found out you liked him. But it didn't matter to you then to sleep with 'straight' people. And this one, your first friend at junior high, he never treated you badly. He always smiled to you, flashing his pearly whites to you."

"It won't matter anymore. He liked girls and he got one before he died. It can't matter anymore to him because now he's dead. It can't matter anymore to me because I have someone who loves me," I say, screaming.

"Are you sure?"

But silence swallows me once more and it looms over me, its dark presence hangs above me as layers of gray clouds copulate with one another in the morning skies of Berkeley.

***

RIP Temmy Haryono (23 October 1981 - 17 November 2011)

I'm sorry for being late

For not acknowledging the

Part that I needed you to know

For not wanting to let go

This blurry vividness

Like this half-eaten

Sandwich in front of me

Serves as a sliver of memory

If one sorry could take us back

To that day, that afternoon

I'd murmur ten thousand more

Until my lips and tongue went sore

White space and your

Grinning face

As we run and ride and race

let them eat fruitcake: setting sun (spin-off)

This is the spin-off / continuation of the Lady of Two Lands piece that I wrote for Ms. Graham's class. For this assignment, we're told to do yet another Point of View change, so I chose to write it from another time too so it can all make sense.

Please bear in mind that this is a work of fiction. The characters are (presumably) real, but the events depicted are (probably) fictitious.

***

I watched Amma from the door of the chamber that had been left ajar. She was being helped to lie on her bed after the maids had finished putting on her royal blue crown and scarab necklace. The bed was a gift from a Hittite King whose name I could never remember nor pronounce. It was made of fine fragrant wood, strong and sturdy and never gave signs of tear even after years of being jumped on by her seven daughters, including me. Then from the corner of her eye, she spotted me.

“Ankhsenpaaten,” she said, calling my name. A smile crescented on her full lips. She stretched her arms, calling me inside the room. I pushed the heavy wooden door and strode in. I was no longer a child, for I had been made a woman, a queen, ever since the ruling Pharaoh, my cousin, made me his Great Royal Wife. But then and there, as I half-hopped inside the room, I felt like a little girl. Amma patted the cushion next to her bed, signaling me to sit. I obliged.

“I never really like my new name, Amma,” I said, looking down at my fingers that interlaced on my lap. I felt her steady gaze on me, like Aten shining all over Kemet, our land.

“That is why, when we are alone, I always call you by your old name, not Ankhsenamun. You have always been a gift of Aten, not of Amun. Nevertheless, times have changed. The people have been trying to return to the olden ways, the ways of yesteryears. And your husband has been nothing but very supportive of destroying what Akhenaten, your father, our one true king, had established during his reign,” Amma said.

“I miss Abba,” I replied as I lift my head to meet Amma’s gaze. She smiled, her lips curving like the shape of the scimitar.

“I miss him too. But now I’m taking solace in the thought that we will soon be together again,” She replied.

A soft knock was heard from the door and we saw a hunched figure. It was Ife, our loyal maid. She was wrapped in white garment, her hair covered with white shawl. “It is time, N’abat Imet,” she addressed Amma in her usual greeting: Lady of Grace. Amma and I looked out the window and saw the sun setting.

“It is time,” Amma said, taking my hands and giving them a faint squeeze. I felt the squeeze right to my heart that pumped tears down my eyes. “Binti,” she called me. Daughter. “Mer itin, mer itin,” she repeated. You are beloved to me, you are beloved to me. And we choked in our tears.

“By Aten, we must not cry. Our eye paint is starting to run,” she said and laughed as she looked at my face. I laughed as I looked at her and Amma took a soft papyrus and with her frail, trembling fingers, dabbed at the runny blackness from under my eyes. I gently took the papyrus from her fingers and dabbed at her under eyes, erasing the traces of the manifestation of her sadness. “I’m sure that barbaric whore is laughing at my demise right now,” Amma chuckled, reminiscing of how she had banished Kiya, Abba’s other wife and Amma’s rival back to Mitanni where she came from. “I’m sure that she sent dark barbaric magic that brought me this disease.”

“Let’s not talk about her, Amma,” I sighed.

“My Queen,” Ife said, rushing us. Amma nodded. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. Then, unknown to me, she lifted her arms and placed them around me, drawing me closer to her, and we embraced. I felt our blood bonded, our hearts pulsing of anticipation and anxiety of the unknown future and fate that lied before us. Even when being faced by something so inevitable and so absolute, I knew that we both knew not of the certainty in it. I knew we both knew not if it was Aten, Amun, or Anubis who was guarding it. I knew that we both did not want to let go of our embrace. But I also knew that we had to. And so I let her go.

“Through whatever adversity, whatever clouded judgment the men of the house of Amarna have, remember that they always turn to us for advice, for support, for truly it has always been the matriarchs of this house that rule Kemet,” was the last thing she said to me.

At daybreak when I came to her chamber to mourn, she had disappeared. Nobody knew where her corpse was taken and laid by the few who were loyal to her. My husband became very busy giving orders to destroy all marks of my parents, even when I was sitting beside him, grieving like a cow mad from the rays of the desert sun. He could order the people of Kemet to destroy every statue, every cartouche, every hieroglyphic remnant of Akhenaten and Nefertiti and erase them from history, but he would never burn the temple that I had set up in my heart for Amma and Abba.

***

Also note that although I'm trying to find the exact words for "mother", "father", "daughter", and "I love you" in ancient Egyptian, I think I may have failed.

The photo shows Ankhsenamun (right) and her husband Tutankhamun.

let them eat fruitcake: n'abat t'awy (lady of two lands)

For this piece, we were to choose a historical figure (non-psychotic, so I couldn't use Elizabeth Bathory and Vlad the Impaler), research the figure to get as much detail as possible about his/her life, characteristics, etc, then to write a scene using the historical figure and the information we had acquired.

I decided to tie in my historical figure with my piece so far for Ms. Graham's class.

***

There is power.

Do you sense it?

There is power within every inch of this bronze skin. There is power on every end of these long fingers. There is power within the beckoning of your brown eyes. There is power.

Do you feel it?

There is power within every arch of your eyebrows. There is power within every strand of your eyelashes. There is power within every hair on your arms, or on the back of your neck.

You must use that power, exercise it beyond the ability of ordinary woman. You must harvest it, harness it, pull it close to your heart, claim it as your own, and share it among your people.

This power will be multiplied as paint and stones and textiles decorated and draped over your exterior.

Wadj. Green. Painted over your upper eyelids to represent the fertility that your reign will bring. Not just the fertility of the soil and land, but of women and men, to deliver boys and girls that will glorify the nation by being farmers, fishermen, warriors. Aten has spoken.

Shesep. White. Painted under your brow bone to show your omnipotence, over your people, and our enemies. Aten has spoken.

Kem. Black. Painted to frame your eyes to signify death. The death of your husband, your king, the king of your people. Aten has spoken.

Nebu. Gold. Dusted over your face and body, to ensure your people and warn your enemies that this woman is indestructible. Aten has spoken.

Hedj. White. The garment draped over your body to represent purity. For you shall rule with a pure heart of a mother, a daughter, and a queen. Aten has spoken.

Desher. Red. The color of life and victory. Intertwined with Mef’at, Turquoise, symbol of power of protection. Desher and Mef’at and nebu coiled around your neck. For you embody the three aspects. Aten has spoken.

Khepresh Irtiu. The blue cap crown. Placed over your head as a symbol of the righteousness of your title, the queen of Egypt by your own right, the successor of your husband, your king, the king of your people. Adorned by the serpent, Amduat, who swallows the sun and gives rise to night. The serpent ensures your people and warns your enemies that this woman rules night as well as day. Aten has spoken.

And finally, Kheper. The Scarab. On your chest. Your talisman. Your amulet. The symbol of resurrection of your husband, your king, the king of your people, within you, from you.

Now, open your eyes.

“Jesus Christ, Roger!” I screamed as I opened my eyes and took a look at the face in the mirror. I then looked at Roger who was standing beside my dressing table, grinning widely like a sexually-charged Cheshire Cat.

“Like it? I got the costume from a friend who worked at San Francisco Opera. None of that cheap, Halloween-store stuff. Nope. This is the haute-couture of stage costuming.” he said. “Don’t spill wine all over it.”

I didn’t know how to react. Late in August when I went to Roger’s office, he had put up pictures of Nefertiti, the Egyptian queen, on his door. The image of that woman, with her long neck, defined jaws and cheekbones, conjured a sense of otherworldly regality, and I told Roger that I wanted to be her for Halloween.

Then on Samhain eve, there he was on my door, begging me to come to a Halloween party at Limelight, the local gay bar we used to go to, thinking that it might cheer me up, telling me that he needed to get laid. I told him that I’d been cheered up from my recent trip to see my mother and brother. But Roger opened his bag and got out a flowing white toga and a blue tall cap adorned with golden snake ringlet. Then he proceeded to color my face as he told me the story of the great woman whose skin I would be wearing that night. I had become the Lady of Two Lands.

“Now, remember what Salt & Peppa said, ‘Carry yourself like a queen and you will attract a king,’” he winked.

“But I thought my king had died and Nefertiti had been banished,” I said in confusion.

“Well, there’s bound to be some half-naked hunk dressing up as an undead pharaoh,” he suggested. I wasn’t sure of the prospect or whether I would want to look for someone.

“What are you dressing up as anyway?” I asked. Roger took out a false beard and a papier-mache mask from his bag and held them up. I frowned.

“What? Craig, all the younger queens are probably going to dress up as Gaga or Minaj while the older hags will strut around as Barbra or Cher, or worse, Liza. No one will think of showing up as this guy.”

“I thought you said you wanted to get laid. How are you going to get a guy when you dress up as… him?” I asked as Roger proceeded nonchalantly to put on the mask and the beard and a cowboy hat.

“Darling, it’s either him or Gertrude Stein. I would have so much fun being original even if I didn’t get off, anyway. And besides, I’m trying to attract a more intelligent crowd,” he said. But I had a feeling he would get lucky that night. If Roger could find someone to hook up with at the funeral of his own grandmother, he could sure get someone at that cruisy, meat-market club. Even in that Walt Whitman get-up.

***

Just a little correction that I got from the class: it's actually not a cowboy hat that Walt Whitman wore. Probably a better term would be floppy hat.

By the way, Happy Samhain!

And yes, this guy here on the left is Walt Whitman.

And I believe part of this writing, at least the first italicized part, is inspired by Annie Lennox's "Why" music video. And no, I don't know if the coloring ritual of ancient Egypt is the way I described. I just took the elements of the colors of Nefertiti's make-up and jewelry and apparel.

the photograph: that day

Now this one is a challenging assignment. For Ms. Graham's class, we were to write (or rewrite) a scene from Penelope Lively's The Photograph using Kath's point of view (first person or third person). I chose the third person point of view to agree with the overall feeling of the book (it is a lovely, somewhat devastating book, though) and picked up the chapter "That Day" from the novel.

WARNING: THIS REWRITE-UP CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE MAJOR PLOT OF THE BOOK

***

The tides kept coming in, endlessly, like when Kath was a child, spinning in her full-circle ruched skirt. The pink ruffles flew around her, engulfing her as she spun and spun, faster and faster, then slower and slower, until she came to a complete stop and laughed as she tumbled down in her mother’s arms. It was a day in the field. Elaine was out there collecting flowers to take home to add in her catalogue of plants.

Her mother was long gone now and these weren’t those tides that took Kath to her happy place. These weren’t those tides.

The tides started in the morning. The first wave only brushed her toes and ankles. That was when Glyn woke up abruptly and complained why Kath hadn’t woken him up. The second one came when he refused to stay longer, just four minutes, for a boiled egg. It would only take her four minutes to gather her nerve to ask him the question and get his answer or tell him the statement and get his reply. The third wave came when they were at the door and, even after stalling him a bit, she still couldn’t conjure up her courage to say what she felt was needed to be said. She stopped short, suddenly wary of her insignificance but didn’t know how to assess nor confirm it, how to analyze it the way Glyn did. So she let him drive away.

The fourth wave came when she was washing the dishes. She dropped Glyn’s coffee mug and it fell into pieces. A ceramic shard cut her finger as she was picking up the debris. No, this can’t be happening to me. I can’t even do things right. Then she walked to a teak table, to a telephone that was on it, picked up the receiver and dialed a number. There was a pulsing tone on the other end.

Julia? Hi, this is Kath! Splendid! Listen, are you available to go to the pictures tonight? They’re showing something and the paper gives it rave reviews and… Oh? Oh, I’m sorry. I hope he gets better. Oh is that him crying? Alright, no, that’s fine, really. You take care and say hi to little Chris. Yes, ciao, darling!

And that was the fifth wave.

Kath put the receiver down. She had nothing to do. For the first time in her life, she really had nothing to do and no desire to fix the situation.

She went to the back porch and looked at the garden. The flowers, the plants, the landscape, they were all Elaine’s ideas. How Elaine had enthusiastically offered her help in designing Glyn and Kath’s square garden, and now, on the first autumn day, the bougainvillea was swathed in tiny pink blossoms, the red roses were swaying, dancing under the whispers and the blows of the cool wind, and the cherry tree Kath had planted earlier that year had grown. Elaine went berserk when she found out about the cherry tree. “It is out of place! It completely doesn’t match! The shades won’t give the roses enough sun they need when it grows tall!” she said, but Kath was determined and it was one of those rare moments when Elaine surrendered.

Kath sat there for hours. Looking at the garden. At the flowers. At the squirrels darting to and fro, collecting provisions for the upcoming winter. At the pigeons resting before flying to some place warmer. Then she went inside to the telephone. She knew she had to do it. If she couldn’t do it face to face, then she would do it using the phone. She would. She had to. So she dialed.

No answer, and the pulsing, promising tone gave way to busy. She dialed again, still the same. And again, and again, until…

Hello. Yes, this is Kath Peters, is Glyn there? No? Alright. No, that should be quite alright. In fact, no, could you just tell him that I called and if he could call back? Thank you. No, that’s it. Goodbye.

When she hung up, she felt the sixth wave coming in, this time sweeping up to her knees. Through the windows, she could see the short cherry tree. The tip of some leaves had started turning bright auburn, agreeing with the season. She dialed another number.

Hello, Sonia? Hi, this is Kath. Is Elaine there? Oh, when do you suppose she’ll return? Oh, alright. No. Sorry? Oh, no, just tell her I rang and if she could call back. Thank you. How are you? Oh, busy? I say. The garden is just lovely! Funny you should mention it. I was just looking at it and I thought I would give Elaine a call to say how it has turned out even lovelier than in summer. No, I can’t tell, but they look healthy. No, no hole in the leaves or anything, I suppose. Oh? Which one are those? Oh, the little colorful ones? That should be nice, I’ll look it up. Sorry? Oh, no, not at all. Well, thank you, Sonia. No, just tell her that. Yes. Alright. Goodbye.

The seventh wave reached up to her hips as Kath replaced the receiver.

She hung her head down and pressed her palms on the teak table. Then Kath turned her head towards another room, and walked to that room, toward a landing cupboard in the corner, the one stacked high with papers and what Glyn called low-use materials. She opened the cupboard, took a chair and placed it in front of the cupboard, and climbed on it, reached to the back of the top shelf. Her palm was slit repeatedly by the thin edge of the papers until she felt a folder. She pinched it between her index finger and her thumb and drew it out from its papery siblings.

Kath knew exactly what was inside the folder and so she didn’t open it. Instead, she took a pencil and with a few strokes, wrote a message in thin, capital letters on the front of the folder. Then she replaced it inside the shelf, safely hidden behind the papers, climbed down from the chair, and closed the cupboard. By this time, the eighth wave was already scooping in, covering her up to her stomach.

I can’t call Mary. I don’t need her affirmation. I know how she feels. Just like how Polly feels. But I need to know from Glyn. I need to know from Elaine.

Kath returned to the kitchen and saw the glass bowl stacked with fruit. Apples.

She recalled her conversation with Oliver that day as Polly was picking up windfall apples in Elaine’s garden. My heart is not broken. The thing is to move away. Before they change their minds. The ninth wave went up to her chest.

Apples.

When Kath was a child, her mother told her a story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. How Snow White ran away from her evil stepmother. How she ended up in the cabin that housed seven little people. How her evil stepmother, always hot on her trail, gave her a poisoned apple and eventually put her to sleep. How she was awakened by a prince, a passing prince who snobbishly and presumptuously roused her with true love’s kiss. Snow White had never known the prince and the prince had never known her. He was only attracted by her beauty. The prince had never known her, and therefore had never loved her. He was only attracted by her beauty. But Snow White loved him till the happy end.

That story did more to Kath than just refusing Jenny as her father’s new wife. Yet the deepest effect of that tale had been obscure to her, until this moment, when the tenth wave swallowed her up to her chin.

Kath stared at the red apples, stacked and piled one on top of the other. If only I could sleep.

She hadn’t eaten ever since breakfast but she didn’t feel hungry. She felt the emptiness inside her stomach, but not hunger, no, she felt barren. Snow White had the seven dwarves. Kath pressed her right palm on her stomach.

The autumn sun had set two hours ago and Kath was back in the bedroom. She was holding thin lozenges, as red as the apples, but smaller. She had given enough time for the two people to whom she had given everything, but the phone never rang back and Kath knew she had finally received their affirmation. Then, with a rare determination, she swallowed the apple-red tablets, one by one by one, and by the time Glyn came home twenty five minutes after that, Kath had long been swept into the sea.

***

let them eat fruitcake: then

This is another assignment from Ms. Graham's class. We were to use Switchback Time (a concept by Joan Silber of going forward and backward in time and isolating each section) in this writing.

To be honest, I've been using and abusing too much switchback that I find this particular piece a bit tedious and somewhat pedantic.

***

It didn’t take a long time for me to plan on going home after the strings of events that had managed to almost drain me. Even my new boss had offered me to take the weekend off on Columbus Day when the restaurant was normally crowded. I told her that I would somehow make it up to her, a promise I hoped I could keep.

I was still on the phone with Mama during my on-line search for an airplane ticket back to New York. I was able to keep her on the phone until I had entered my debit card number on the airline website and secured my round- trip tickets: the earliest flight to JFK on Friday and the last one back to SFO on Monday. Then I told her the exact dates I was going to come and there was an even bigger smile in her voice.

The week went by faster than I had expected and then Friday came. Through the bus ride and the BART, I was smiling to myself, feeling the familiar ache returning to my cheeks, replacing another ache that had been haunting my heart and mangling my mind. Then as the BART reached its final destination, I hauled my backpack and my sleepy body off my seat and hopped off the car onto the platform.

The first real pangs of yearning to go home began when, in the waiting area of the gate, in one of my rare moments of warm-heartedness towards children, I giggled silently to myself when I heard a mother attempting to tell a joke to her son and proceeded to tickling him when he didn’t laugh. He finally relented. My wandering thoughts were suddenly plucked and plunged into a cabinet full of memories, and I landed in a folder of that day in the car.

It was snowing outside. In the backseat, I saw Mama and a boy, he couldn’t be more than four years old. I didn’t know who the boy was at first, but then I noticed a scar on his right leg. I knew that scar. I still had it, though it had faded. I still remembered how I got it: a little prancing along the edge of a gutter and a little slip followed by a loud wailing and Mama came rushing out to rush me inside the house and put iodine and bandaged the wound.

“Mama, I’m bored!” the young boy said in that irritating whiny tone that all children make.

“Daddy will be out soon, sweetie,” she replied with a smile, then looked out of the window. I followed her gaze and saw a church. I remembered that church. It was where Dad and Mama got married, where Ben and I were baptized, and where Ben and I went for our confirmation. It was one of those Wednesdays when Dad gave his legal service for free at the church.

“I wish he’d come out sooner,” the boy replied, still whining. Yet Mama looked back at him with an even wider smile that slanted her eyes into short back lines.

“Would you like to play a game?” she asked.

“Would I?” the boy said. They giggled at his enthusiasm. Mama took a worn gray blanket from the back compartment.

“I’ll be the mother hen, and you’ll be the chick,” she spread the blanket on the boy, covering him from head to toe. “This is you inside the egg, what do you feel?”

“Warm!”

“What do you hear?”

“Your voice!”

“What do you see?”

“Nothing! It’s dark!” the boy replied.

“Would you like to see the light, then?” she asked.

“Yes, please!” the boy said.

“Alright, but you will need to let go off the warmth for a bit. Follow my voice and come out of the egg,” Mama replied. I could see the boy’s body wiggling underneath the blanket, and slowly his head came out, then his arms, then his body.

“Mama, it’s cold!” he protested.

“Then come here, come here under my wings!” she said, and the boy scrambled into her arms. “Oh, no! Look! There’s a nasty hawk up there!” Mama warned. The boy let out a muffled scream and ducked his head under her armpit. I giggled. “But you don’t have to worry, for you are safe with me,” she said.

“I know, Mama. I will never, ever leave you,” said the boy as he kissed her cheek.

The boarding announcement whisked me back to the waiting area of SFO. I got up and defeated the deadening burden of my backpack. Then I realized that in that car, in that moment, that young boy hadn’t had the slightest idea that he would’ve ended up thousands of miles away from the safety of her mother, ducking for cover every time hawks attacked him, over and over again.

Then, with a determined stride, I braced myself for the joys of budget flying: a six-hour flight in a cramped seat, hopefully next to someone not too obnoxious.

***

let them eat fruitcake: the pig

We're finally moving on to another book now, or rather, two books. We're reading The Photograph by Penelope Lively, which is an exciting leap from William Faulkner, yet as a classmate pointed out, "Anything is a leap from Faulkner." Another one is sort of a textbook about creating time in fiction, called (obviously) The Art of Time in Fiction by Joan Silber.

So, the assignment for Thursday, 6 October, was to create a two-ish page scene where a character discovers an artifact left behind by another character, like Lively's Glyn discovering a photograph with Kath in it and a revelation follows suit (I can't tell you what, you'll just have to read the book, but I love it as it rings close to my experience several years ago).

So, here it goes.

***

I wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror. The fog from it was the only thing that stood between me and my reflection. I felt the coldness of the steam changed to water as it clung to my palm and the underside of my fingers. I always tried to avoid looking directly at my face, afraid of seeing the familiar flaws, afraid of discovering new ones, afraid of the idea that I’d run out of clever lines to deceive myself into believing what I want to believe during the internal pep-talks.

So it was only natural that I let my gaze fall a few inches below my chin, and there it was, a cinnabar red pendant, square, with a hole on each side that was fastened to a strand of hemp string that met at the back of my neck. I touched it and felt its texture. In the mirror I saw my finger tracing the pendant, agreeing to every curve, every crevice. It was of a pig.

“You were born in the year of the boar,” my mother said two decades ago as she tied the pendant and the string around my neck. We were sitting in her room, and it was just the two of us with me in her lap. My father was out in the park with my brother Ben and our dog, Rosie. I looked in the big mirror in front of us, at my mother and the similar red pendant around her neck, and then at mine.

“What does it mean, Mama? Will I end up on the dinner table at Uncle Tang’s?” I asked with genuine fear, remembering the big feast at the restaurant we had with the Chinese community from church every Christmas. The suckling pig would be the main dish that everyone was waiting for. Uncle Tang’s was famous for it.

My mother smiled, her narrow eyes became even smaller and looked like two strokes of paintbrush dipped in charcoal black. She gently brushed my straight black hair with her palm. “No. That means you’re honest, patient, and tolerant,” she said. I smiled widely, and she, understanding my vanity, said, “But be careful, for Boars can be caught up in the past and lost in your dreams.” I stared at the eyes of my mother’s reflection, without the slightest understanding why being lost in dreams or in the past could be a bad thing, but the tone she used was so ominous that my grin disappeared instantly. The tone haunted me even after she kissed my head and took my hand downstairs. The tone haunted me even as we were preparing dinner for my father and Ben. The tone haunted me for years to come.

Still, I swore to guard the pendant with all my might, and this I did even after the strings gave way to age; this I did even after a white boy from school grabbed my necklace and tore it away from me as he screamed, “Fag!” and I received detention for punching him in the face and breaking his nose. My mother simply replaced the string with another, sturdier string. The pendant survived the swimming competitions, the college, the job hunts, the multiple boyfriends, the moving-outs, and even dying relatives. I wore it when we buried my father, the Caucasian American my mother married a few years after she arrived in California. No one would have thought that a budding young lawyer would fall in love with a young Asian immigrant who spoke little English and made a living by washing his clothes in a drycleaner near his apartment. I wore it when we attended Ben’s graduation day as he received his bachelor’s degree in biomechanical engineering from MIT, when I met one of his professors who became my first boyfriend who had the privilege of being the first man to break my heart.

Then I remembered that as the months became years, my relationship with Mama became distant. Her early bout with arthritis stopped me from climbing in her lap and sitting there, even way before I became too old and too heavy. Every year she became smaller, diminishing as I became taller. Then I moved out from city to city, promising to write to her as often as possible, but the Internet took over my generation and left hers behind. I always found excuses to not send her a mail, a birthday card, a Christmas greeting while she was never late in sending me checks. I always found excuses to not give her a call on Mother’s day or even to return her call when I found her number flashing on my cell phone screen and left registered as a missed call on my birthday.

How many Christmases have it been? I asked myself. I was still stroking the red pendant. I thought I had lost it several move-outs ago. Perhaps that was one of the reasons of my hesitating to visit Mama. Perhaps I was afraid that she would think I’d stopped loving her. Perhaps. I had found the pig pendant hidden in a paper bag a few months ago when I was rummaging through the boxes. I had been too preoccupied with my new job and new apartment that I only acknowledged it with a half-assed, “There you are!” and put it around my neck with no thought other than catching the bus and arriving on time for my first day on the job.

Is it fair to love someone but pretend you don’t? I thought. Then I cringed at it, realizing that I knew the answer very well.

I dared myself to look at my face. I was so caught up in the past that I loathed every sign of time passing. I was so lost in my dreams that I would forgive no one, not even myself, for not achieving them. My gaze traveled from my chin, to my lips, to my cheeks, to my nose, to my eyes, to my forehead, and to my hair and remembered my father’s sister, my aunt, telling me, “You are the split image of your beautiful mother.”

Then on impulse, on momentum, I threw myself out of the bathroom, grabbed my bag and cellphone to punch in the number that I had memorized by brain as well as by heart. I heard the pulse, the tone, then a familiar voice at the end of the line, and I said, “Ben? Hi, it’s me, Craig. Is Mama there?”

***

I had intended to create this from the perspective of Craig's mother, as she goes into his room (he's moved out from the house, obviously) to search for something (a sewing equipment, perhaps?) and then calling Craig where Craig will answer the phone, which is a strange thing to do. Then I thought against it because I had introduced another point of view (Tux's), and that will complicate things further.

This isn't really so much a Lively piece, because it came out more Faulknerian. It sounds almost identical to The Magpies.

Moral of the story that everyone agreed in class: Call your mom!

let them eat fruitcake: the white door

Taking a hint from William Faulkner's change of point of view, we were to write a companion piece to the characters we've written about so far, but we need to have it from another character's point of view.

***

“Hello? Anyone there?” I tried to shout, but my own voice sounded so strange and foreign that it startled me. “Hello?”

“Marigold Tuxedo Wigglebottom,” a booming voice said. “Welcome.”

“Oh, hello, but what do you mean?” I asked. I walked to the source of the voice, my paws almost gliding on the soft, cool surface. It was so bright yet I didn’t feel the need to slant my eyes.

“That is your name, is it not? Marigold Tuxedo Wigglebottom,” the voice repeated. “Or ‘Tux’ for short.”

“Yes. But where is this? Who are you?” I asked again.

“I am the one that breathes life into all living things,” it finally answered.

Then it was all clear to me. “I’m dead, aren’t I?” I asked, half rhetorically. “How did it happen?”

Images came flooding in. Every time Craig came home crying and hugging me all night, murmuring his usual strange gibberish, we would most likely move out soon after. And this time had been no different. I was sitting in front of our new apartment building, waiting for Craig to come home. My Elizabethan collar had been taken off and I felt energetic and ready to conquer all. Then I suddenly saw a squirrel darting pass me, and so without hesitation, I ran after it, across the small lawn, and into the busy street. “It was quick and painless,” the voice said.

“What about Craig? Will he be okay?”

The voice replied, “I know your bond with him was very strong, but Craig is no longer of your concern.”

“What should I do?” I asked. Then a door opened, leading to a field, green and grassy, with a big, tall tree in the center of it. I saw all sorts of animals there: cats, dogs, birds, squirrels, some are running around and playing, some are resting under the shades of the tree. I felt funny because I wasn’t afraid of the big dogs nor had the urge to chase the squirrels. “What is that?”

“This is the waiting place for companion animals,” answered the voice.

“Should I go in?” I asked. I lifted my chin and let the gentle breeze caress my fur. I smelt catnip!

“You have two options,” the voice said. “You could go in and wait for Craig, or, like some other companion animals, you could request to return.”

I saw a dog stopped playing and started running to a different direction. Then I saw a human appeared. The dog ran to the human and toppled the man over, giving him ample licks and slobbers. The man laughed and hugged the dog. Then they walked together and disappeared.

“How long do I have to wait?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”

“How can I go back to the land of the living? Can I return as a cat?”

“Your old body has been destroyed beyond repair. You had only used thirteen months and sixteen days of the age initially given to you, so yes, you can return as a cat, but a different fur color, different body shape and size,” the voice replied. “And you have to decide now.”

I sat there for a while, at the entrance of the field. Another gentle breeze caressed my face, leaving the sweet scent of catnip. Craig… or Catnip? I asked myself.

“Well?”

Catnip or Craig? “What if he doesn’t recognize me? Will he remember me?”

“Time is running out.”

Craig or Catnip? “Will I remember him? What if he doesn’t want me back?”

“I can’t answer your questions. You have to decide.”

I closed my eyes for a while, before finally saying, “Craig.”

“Very well,” the voice boomed. With that, the door was shut and the floor under me swung open and I floated down, way, way down into the dark. Then I felt myself going through another exit, into a cold and dark surrounding. I couldn’t see anything and was terrified, but a strangely familiar caress rubbed my face and body, urging me to come closer to the warmth, and I let my ancient instincts lead me to my new mother’s teat and drink her milk until sleep embraced me.

***

I had been thinking of writing something from Roger's POV, but it's probably going to be a dead giveaway for another plot I've been thinking about. In addition, many of my classmates really want Tux to go back, so this is it. Then again, I don't think this is one of my best writings, so it might not end up in the story after all.

let them eat fruitcake: magpies

Again, from Ms. Rosemary Graham's class. This time we were to write two paragraphs dealing with the movements of time, borrowing techniques from William Faulkner's The Bear (from Go Down, Moses). One paragraph covers minutes and another covers years (or vice versa). I noticed that Faulkner likes to have a certain object (a silver cup, a cabin, a house, or even an eye) to effectively move the time around as he pleases.

On the bus from school to the BART station, I was chatting with Daniel, my senior in Fiction Writing, that I think the way Faulkner did it was he placed an object around or among people, and that object stays put (in terms of placement - it stays where it is, or characteristics - it remains a silver cup in a burlap sack) while the people around or inside it change (grow up, get married, die, etc.). So the object serves as sort of nostalgic platform, if you will.

Anyway, this is the story.

***

I remember the first time I saw it. Roger had brought the thing to our junior high prom night. We were dateless, naturally, but Roger insisted that it wasn’t against our own accord. We were too exclusive, that’s how he put it. As for me, I was having a problem that millions of other teenagers faced: my looks. A beauty magazine that I read years later diagnosed my symptoms as a light case of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. “Here, hold this,” Roger said in the boy’s bathroom. “What’s that?” I asked, staring daftly at a transparent tube filled with some sort of sparkly, gold substance. “This is called glitter and that’s the universal short-cut to utter fabulousness,” he snapped his fingers. “Here, let me put some on you,” and so he did. Despite my frantic protest and giggling, he skillfully applied the sparkly thing on my cheekbones and under my eyes. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I almost cried. I’d never felt prettier. I turned back to look at him with a stupid grin and he said, “Wait till the spotlight hits us, then things are going to get seriously sparkly,” and I laughed, despite the tears that were welling up my eyes and choking my throat.

That was almost fifteen years ago and I still kept the gold MAC glitter, though it was almost empty now. From time to time, whenever my inferiority complex caved in, I’d open that tiny bottle of wonders and carefully applied the content onto my face, imitating Roger’s skilled fingers that night eons ago, then I’d feel as pretty as any Disney princess. For several years, Tux had been that glitter and I would turn to her during my times of sadness and self-loathing that mostly spawned from my failures and rejections by men. But then I lost her. So there I was, gently applying the last precious gold powder onto my puffy and swollen under eyes, and like another powder, white, duller, and deadly, it began to work its charm. Then as I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the edges of my lips starting to lift themselves up.

***

It's amazing that I can actually learn something from a writer like Faulkner (he's a great writer, I have to give him that, but he also can be too experimental for my taste).

let them eat fruitcake: white and black

This is another story from yesterday's assignment in Ms. Graham's class. We were to write a piece about a character coming home to the place he/she has shared with a recently deceased person. We were required to explore the connection of the characters with the objects and the space and the relationship of the two characters.

***

I couldn’t tell how many times the song had been playing. I had put it on auto repeat and I’d lost count ever since the first cycle was done. Whenever I felt I’d cried my last tears or used my energy to excrete them, the song started again and my tears and strength to cry would replenish. I was sitting at the edge of my bed, pressing down my soles and toes against the old carpet that came with the apartment, staring at the little cushion in front of me.

She was just there, I thought. I took my right hand from on top of my left kneecap and let the palm absentmindedly sweep over the blanket, then the sheets. She was just here. I placed my right hand on my left chest, as if doing so would numb down the pain that was pulsing inches beneath the surface.

“You’re not thinking of moving out again, are you?” Roger had asked when I was on the phone with him a few hours ago right after the accident. I was hysterical, so he took my ominous silence as a reply to his question. “Honey, don’t. You always do this every time something bad happens,” he responded.

“I can’t, Rodge. I’ll see her everywhere. I’ll see her lounging on that chair in the balcony or on my computer, I’ll think of trying not to kick her in bed while we’re sleeping and then I’ll realize that she’s no longer there,” I said in a burst of strength that allowed me to finish the sentence without a gulp of air, “And I’ll see that damned street every time I come home.”

Roger quickly snapped, “You’ll see her everywhere, and every time. You can move to West Virginia and still see the same road. You can move to Alaska and still see the same road. You can move to Nigeria and still see the same road. Everything everywhere will remind you of her, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but you’ll have to learn to live with it, to face it and to not run away again.”

The ceremony was swift. Tux’s broken body was wrapped in her blanket in a cardboard box and they were rolled into the incinerator. In a few minutes, all that was left of her was the ashes and the pink collar with the jingly bell. I had been holding the collar and the bell in my left hand ever since the veterinarian handed it to me while ensuring me that Tux’s death had been quick. How would you know? You weren’t there. I glared at him and he avoided my eyes. Then Roger came with a little box, “A jewelry box, with the Goddess Bast carving on it,” he said and gave it to the vet who then placed Tux’s cremated remains inside. I didn’t utter a word on the ride home, not even when Roger cursed the driver who did the hit-and-run. And when we arrived, I didn’t even say goodbye to him. I just carried the wooden box and the collar, up the stairs to my room, locked the door behind me and turned off my phone.

I had been sitting here for such a long time, in the same position, in the same hunched posture, staring at the blue pillow in the middle of the room that was traced with strands of white and black fur. Finally, after not being able to bear the sight of it any longer, I closed my eyes and let my body fall back against the mattress, with my head landing on my right hand and I heard the collar bell jingling on my left. Then I began to wail as Bernadette Peters started singing that Sondheim piece yet again.

***

I felt bad about killing Tux, but somebody had to die. At least for the assignment. However, there is a chance that I might not include this in my final paper for the class.

let them eat fruitcake: the pandora box

This is the second assignment for Ms. Graham's class. This time, we were to write how someone hides something in three paragraphs, going to one point to another point while revealing something about the character's relationship to the place, the hidden thing, and to those whose detection the character wishes to evade.

The assignment has to start with this: He/she knew exactly where he/she intended to go, even in the darkness. This is taken from Faulkner's Fire and the Hearth story in Go Down, Moses.

Again, I write about Roger and Craig, the characters from the first assignment. I'm planning to use these two characters throughout the entire semester for this class and expand them for my final exam project.

***

Roger knew where he intended to go, even in the darkness. His friends, his parents, even random strangers from the internet who stumbled upon his blog entry had tried to persuade him to relinquish and just bury the whole thing. “This has gotta stop. Remember the Ds and Fs we got from Mr. Donaldson?” I asked. “That bitch-bastard from hell,” Roger replied with such hatred in his eyes. I had been vaguely unaware of our high school chemistry teacher’s homophobia, but Roger remembered it so well when Mr. Donaldson made the whole class laugh by pointing at our limp wrists as if they were some hideous defects resulted from interbreeding. “Or your sequined bra you wore to our school costume party?” I said, switching to a more humorous memory, and he chuckled. “Your mom has never found the exam results or the bra. You’re good at hiding things. When you think of it, it’s just the same,” I suggested. Roger just nodded and closed his eyes.

It was pitch-black, yet he could see his way down the basement of his mind. He needed not fumble nor feel his way around, he simply closed his eyes and he was there; behind the drawers of dry wit, shelves of cynicism, and cabinets of cattiness, was the little box where he kept his fears and failures. Now he only had to open the box once again to put in another moment of his ever-growing collection of shortcomings. It had been three weeks since his boyfriend of ten years decided to leave him to marry his high-school sweetheart. “What is it about reproducing that makes men want to have heterosexual relationship?” Roger had asked in our frantic impromptu binge-night on the evening he broke up. We had burnt his ex’s photos and pawned whatever jewelry he had left and used the money so Roger could get that new Proenza Schouler bag, but the intangible – the memory and the trauma – still haunted him.

Nevertheless I realized no matter how hard Roger had tried hiding it, no matter how good he escaped the temptation of opening up the same conversation about his ex, dragging us closest to him to a state of boredom out of repetition of constantly urging the same thing to him (“Dust it off and move on”), with him constantly saying the same thing to us (“But I love him”) it could never be as easy as storing an unwanted Christmas present from a sweet but clueless relative far back in the basement. It wasn’t as easy as saying out of sight, out of mind, because it would always be in his mind, no matter how far back and deep it was pushed, it would always still be there, lingering, patiently waiting for the right time to surface and crack him apart time and again.

***

let them eat fruitcake: the new apartment

This is an assignment for Ms. Rosemary Graham's class: Craft of Fiction (English 261).

The task was to write, in three paragraphs, at least three characters moving around at least three rooms. So here it is, the first piece of writing at SMC.

***

“Girl, when you said you needed my help to redecorate your new apartment, I thought we were going to move some furniture around, not to plaster and paint the wall,” Roger said as he ever so daintily walked around the studio portion of my place that consisted of my bed and the kitchen. Even Tux, my black-and-white tabby with the Elizabethan collar around her neck trotted less delicately straight onto the pillow in the center of the main room, and she just got spayed. “Now how are you gonna cook when there’s no exhaust blower? You want your whole nook to smell like soy sauce?” he asked, his well-manicured fingers lightly touching and tracing the dints and nicks in the four walls that surrounded the main room. I just giggled gingerly and said, “I’ll buy a fan. Just wait till you see the bathroom,” I pointed at a door near the kitchen and with that, he closed his eyes and took an audible deep breath.

“Uh-uh, Craig, Honey, I am not going to set foot inside your… bathroom,” I glanced at Roger at just the right time to see him feigning a gag. Or so I thought. “I’ve cleaned it. It needs a bit more of an elbow grease to really get the mold off the tiles, but we can do it, right?” I retorted and before he could say anything, I grabbed his wrist and yanked it so we were crammed inside the tiny room, our knees brushing the tip of the bathtub and my right arm resting on the sink. We heard a meow and saw Tux standing in the doorway, curious with all the commotion; or probably telling us to shut up. She looked at us, then tilted her head upwards and wiggled her whiskers, smelling the air. As she merrily walked across the main room, Roger followed her out of the bathroom and I followed them.

“She’s right,” he said. I asked him who was right. “Your cat. This is the best place in the apartment, maybe even in the neighborhood.” We were on the balcony, on the top floor, where the skyline of the business district was visible, where synthetic features such as concrete and glass stood in front of the horizon. Tux was sitting on the rattan chair that came along with the studio, looking at the view Roger and I were looking at, savoring the breeze that had brought her, and us, there. “Well, if you want my help, I’m free this Friday and Saturday, but I might need a facial afterwards,” Roger gave in. “My treat. Full spa,” I said, smiling broadly as I looked at Tux and scratched her furry head. Despite the noise from down under and all around, I could hear her purr, and if a cat could settle in in this place, so could I.

***

the samsonite (the curse and the closure)

It is my duty and responsibility to myself that had advised me and somehow forced me to never contact you anymore.

As I neatly placed and stored all my worldly belongings in the borrowed drawer in the borrowed closet, I could feel your ugliness melting away.

This borrowed carpet might not be clean since I could see dust bunnies in the corners and the edges of this borrowed room, but as I was being a lotus in the middle of this chamber, I could swear I felt my memories being vacuumed and scrubbed and pampered, all in the process of forgetting you.

Then the fact of our relationship (or whatever we called it) woke me up from my daydream, as pungent as the smelling salt, as bitter as the icy water, all to awaken the drifters; and once more, I placed you on my pedestal. Probably not as number one, or two, or ten, but you were there.

It has been a week, and you are still there; slipping down steadily, but still there.

When I perish, and if the suitcase continues to serve its purpose, let it be a reminder of the ugliness of wound that it has inflicted upon me and upon those who purposely strayed.

Click here to read the first part.

the samsonite

I just sat there, among the boxes and the Samsonite. The big suitcase was lying on the floor, opened wide like a big wound, with all the ugliness coming out of its opening. The ugliness, as it turned out, was comprised of my belongings - the precious and private property that I had dragged along halfway across the world. Now they just lied there, in a puddle of mess. I kept postponing putting them properly inside the drawers: one for the socks and the briefs, one for the shirts and the jeans, and so on.

You'd have thought I'd been busy. I might need to use that excuse if someone entered my apartment and witnessed the condition I was living in. Probably saying that would give me some sort of leverage from being accused of being a slob.

Yet I was not busy. In fact, I had too much spare time on my hands that I didn't know what to do with it. So I opened my laptop, connected to the internet, and activated my Messenger. Then a familiar "beep" greeted me.

"You've been away for a long time. I missed our chats," he typed.

I stared at the Messenger window for a long time. Not knowing how to respond. We were never meant for each other - he had a partner and I... well, things were complicated. All I could type was a "Hey". Had it been an audio conversation, he would've noticed how meek it was. The meekness didn't stay too long, and as he sent me a cyber kiss (with that stupid little puckering emoticon), I blushed and swooned.

Then the conversation went flowing, as smooth as the bubbling chilled Perrier that went through my lips, soaked my teeth, my gums, my tongue and the ceiling of my mouth, and as it reached my throat, it let gravity took care of it and fell into the abyss where my intestines were waiting, ready to be showered by the liquid.

The moment he said he needed to go have some lunch marked the beginning of the longest, coldest, most awful one hour in my life. I huffed, puffed, and paced around the room, all the while checking my computer, waiting for him. As I was about to give up, I heard a soft "beep": he was back.

"Hi. Sorry for taking too long, I had lunch with my parents," he said.

"Wow, that's sweet! What did you guys talk about?" I asked with genuine curiosity.

"Oh, not much. Just ordinary things," he answered. I cringed at the thought of eating with my own parents and how the members of my family had drifted far apart from each other. A tinge of jealousy sparked in my heart.

"My boss is gone, and I have tons of things that I really need to work on before the day ends, but I'd rather be chatting with you," he confided.

I looked away from the monitor and my eye caught the sight of the open suitcase. Perhaps the sight was not less ugly than my own wound that this person had opened when he said he already had a partner. "Well, let's chat for a while," I suggested, lying to him and to myself. I wanted to chat with you forever.

The topics we chose ranged from the dying American Empire to thieving scumbags, but I wasn't prepared when he asked me what I wanted in a relationship. In a well-thought-of answer that was a strategy to make him feel sorry with his current status, I said, "I wish to settle down and have a long-term monogamous relationship."

He took the blow and I sensed his budding melancholy.

"I'm sorry I hadn't met you way before this," was his reply. I smiled, a triumphant smile, perhaps, but it felt more like losing than winning.

"It's late here. I need to sleep and you have to finish your work," I said, trying to put an end to this little moonlighting that would no doubt spark endless fantasies influenced by Disney and Lucas Entertainment movies.

"I know... Well, sleep tight, Princess..." he said.

"I can't believe you just called me that," I replied.

"It's because you're very precious to me, one in a billion."

I sensed my heart skipping a beat, and as he sent another kissy-face emoticon, I typed, "I'll see you, my Knight," and closed the lid of my laptop, putting it into hibernation mode. I shut my eyes and smiled, feeling way, way up in the sky. The first thing that I saw when I opened my eyes again was the Samsonite, lying there with my clothes and things inside it like a big puddle of mess.

Then I remembered the wound he had inflicted upon me and I came crashing down to the ground into a million of pieces.