…in haste I decide, in haste, too, I undecide

I THOUGHT THE BETTER OF IT. I WAS RUSHING AN ENTRY FOR THE 3RD PHIL. GRAPHIC FICTION AWARDS & HERE’S MY MENTAL POO FROM THAT AMBITIOUS SPLURGE. I CAN’T BEAT THE DEADLINE AND I DON’T THINK IT’S FUCKIN’ GOOD ENOUGH.

The last few chapters…

Quills

            With steady hands she held the quill upon the paper, and in a few strokes, a name not yet visible is written. She lit the candle and kept the paper a safe distance from the dancing fire. The heat was enough to let the letters appear in burnt brown upon the cream parchment.

            The familiar voice came from behind her.

            “I was afraid of this…”

            “Of what, William?”

            He sighed, walking towards Faye. “La Rochefoucauld is not on the list.”

            “Oh shoot. That’s too bad ‘cause I just don’t have anyone else in mind.” Faye answered casually. “If I can’t have him, then I refuse.”

            William stood in great stupor. “No one has ever declined!”

            “So there had been others before me?” She mocked.

            “Others far more sensible than yourself, you fledgling!” He was angry now, where Faye stood calm as the night air. William leapt and in no time he was in flight, his truculence sieved out all humanity, or the mockery of it, from him. He was poised to land a strike on Faye.

            His smile fades into disappointment. There is a fortress—unseen but steadfast, around the girl—a fortress he could not breach.

            “They’ve gotten to you,” he said in resignation, the hemline of his coat touched the earth once again.

            “Before you assume a mortal skin, give my warmest regards to Lucy,” and she held out her hands where halves of the quill rested on each palm.

*   *   *

            Gabriel was saying, “Your grandmother took your mother here as a child, of course, conscious of the phases of Luna.”

            Faye was following him through a narrow footpath; around them were graves and mausoleums. “Yes, I remember my mother telling me about it. “

            They came to a halt. Gabriel produced a candle and lighted it upon a tombstone. The embossed name was visible now under the weak glow of the candle, they were kneeling before an epitaph of Faye’s great grandmother:

                                    In life, she met the boy Niño

                                                and unto Him she has succumbed.

            Gabriel was in a moment praying solemnly. Unsure of what her duty was on these rituals; Faye just knelt there with her eyes fixed on the gleam of the candlelight.

            By and by, black ants—large but swift in their movements—crawled upon the tombstone until they’ve covered it up in the glossy ebony of their bodies. They moved in one mass, with the same divination guiding a volery of birds to fly as one in the sky. Faye held her gaze as the tombstone became page after page of a primer…to what? And as Gabriel breathed the last word, all the ants receded like waves from a shore.

            “Remember, Faye, that free will is yours.”

            “I understand.” Perfectly.

*   *   *

            The same mechanism upon which those jeepney dogs in eternal head-bobbing, perhaps, is at work on Dr. Nilo. Thirty minutes into the session, he had been feigning curiosity and so disinterest was evident on his tone when he asked Faye,

            “And what was the message of the black ants?”

            Calmly, she spoke, throwing a stare seemingly on the carpeted floor but it rested midway—on a lost atom of air or dust, “Once a mortal is able to rise above vanity, and refuses the devil’s offer…the tenth circle of hell ceases rotation and crashes. No muses of the dark craft will be able to cross the vortex to Middle Earth…the passage has been ‘tolerated ‘ for the balance of good and evil, but the past hundred mortals conceded to becoming a vessel of the dark craft of masked intentions…”

            “But, I believe there are only nine circles of hell, according to Dante?” Dr. Nilo asked with a condescending smile. And to this, her patient responded with a summoning spell:

                        Gabriel, I summon Thee

                        Clip thy wings but fly to me…

                        Epiphany for a mortal soul

                        I beckon thee to aide this goal.

            And by the speed of an echo, Gabriel stood by Faye, much to the doctor’s bewilderment which in no time morphed into fear.

            “Although I’ve never been there,” started Gabriel, a grin on his formidable face, “There are, in fact, ten circles down there (we’re not allowed to say the h-word); and the last has just frozen over—Faye didn’t need to fill you in on that. The gatekeeper failed.”

            And Faye stood from the couch, “Let me know when your book will be out, William. My kitchen table has uneven legs.”

            The Archangel then clasped Faye and before they could exit through the astral avenues, a shout came from Dr. Nilo, releasing the pugnacity he’s been holding back:  “The gatekeeper didn’t fail! I didn’t fail!”

            The twice fallen demon chanted and chanted this until he found that words without truth were fugacious—as trivial as his mortal existence for seven full lifetimes.

        *   *   *

AND JUST NOW, I SAW THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN MOVED TO 11/03. HMMM… I MIGHT HAVE TO REDO EVERYTHING. EVERY THING.

season 5 snippets

Thirteen: This is doctor House, he is too brilliant for introductions.”
–Episode 1, Season 5 — HOUSE.

 

too humble for a literary genius

     What if, in this phase of my life, I write because of you? For you? What you think is important to me. It won’t be contrived, it’s far from improper that you critique, professionally, some one else’s work. You’re a bilingual writer twice awarded the greatest literary prestige in the country. How amusing, the humility which resides in you in such stature. Nevertheless, I respect your declining my offer. I am still a disciple.
     Yesterday the adhesive decided not to serve its purpose on a print-out of your poem “Silence” which found abode on my wall by my bed. Only proper, I suppose.

time travel, tear ducts, & whatever else

              

Didn’t realize it has been that long. Cowboy Bebop aired in 1998 & was made into a Hollywood flick [animated] in 2002, AND, dig this, there’s talk of adapting it into a real movie with Keanu Reeves donning the Spike Spiegl hair, attitude & the entire enchalada. This weekend found me doing loads of laundry & catching the first few episodes of CB. I got it on DVD; and through the 6th episode the darn disc refused to play so I went on to the next natural course of my domesticity menu on Mondays which is to iron my workclothes. Hopefully, the dvd player & the tv will be in a good mood next time. The hideous crt which our housemate bought second-hand from the Pier has dead receptors, we can no longer catch local tv. And it doesn’t stop there, the color is in high contrast, red & orange became predominant–thereby leaving you with zero local tv & bad quality movie-watching. To pair-off with the boob-tube is another dysfunctional appliance which is the closest thing we have to entertainment in that bleak apartment: the dvd player. It takes a long while to read the disc & decides to not play. After several tries it works. Which reminds me of a conversation w/ a friend last Saturday: He was so surprised to know that I didn’t have a washing machine, nor a fridge. Well get this, as a result of my dire straits, I contribute less to pollution.

you cannot retrieve something you purposedly lost on a steadfast decision

In my almost-some kind of-lovelife, there exists a pattern: a wicked one. My exes, my sort-of-exes, will only discover how much they lost 10 odd years or 24 months after the sort-of break-up. One day after leaving me [geographically, or for someone else], they’ll text me and at the end of the conversation, I’m the enemy.  I end up as the villain, I’m the wrong one, for turning them down. It’s a mystery how a bunch of shitheads can turn things around and put the friggin’ blood in my hands.

You’re not the victim here, I am. You pulled the trigger, I took the bullet. My guts are on the floor. And yet, this. This.

Just fuck off.

the boy Edgar

If I can put down wrath in print like this, as effective as this, I can die the next day.

…And you Daniel, chasing your pathetic demons, you will disappear up your own asshole. And to cover the time from then, I am writing you out of my mind. You no longer exist.



From `The Book of Daniel, E.L. Doctorow