a read of invisible cities

40,080

2005-12-01T16:48:00.000-06:00

update!!!

if i had made it on nov. 30,
i would have made

dun dun dun dun!!!

40,080 words

YAY!!!
;-D

but i didn't, and it's dec. 1
so i'm still a looser
i'm sad and i want to die.
:-(

23.

2005-12-01T07:04:00.000-06:00

i couldn't do it. i'm sorry.
this is me now, speaking.
imma loser. yes. ahahahaha.
as of nov. 22, i topped at 20,777 words.
i don't count words. i weigh them.
and then i count them. ahahahaha.
but i guess i should bring my girl home.

the girl closed her coke book and got up to leave. she didn't realize how late it had been. from the corner of her eye, she saw someone trying to undo the lock to her bike!

"hey!" she yelled.

the street urchin's head snapped up, and with eyes wide as saucers, he ran - with her bike key!

"that's my bike keeeeey!!!" she yelled, and, dropping the book next to her bike and grabbing her messenger bag, she ran after the thief. not ten seconds running away from the girl, the boy realized what he was doing, and dropped the damn key.

the girl skidded to a stop near the key and tripped. "bloody thief!!!" she yelled. she picked up a rock and threw it at the boy, which hit him on the shoulder.

"ow!" he yelled. "i'm sorry!"

but she nary had a chance to take in his shocked, bewildered expression for she hurriedly turned to run back to her bike because she feared its lock might have come undone. sure enough, it did! and an urchin accomplice was racing her to her bike!

"that's my bike! goodness! don't you guys have lives! get away from my bike!!!"

she bumped into another boy with a bike, and before she knew it, she was knocked off her feet, sprawled on the ground, coughing up balls of dust.

it was nollo! he was throwing rocks at the boys using his slingshot! he skidded to the right and raced after the thief.

the girl could do nothing. she walked to the corner where her coke book lay forgotten and dusty on the ground, sat down, and began to cry. at least i still have my messenger bag, she said.

it was getting dark and a little cold. her cell phone beeped.

i didn't know i had my celly with me, she thought, and jumped and checked her message.

get your butt to the harbor, i have your bike, nollo texted.

"yay!!!!" the girl yelled and thought, i don't need to run. i can walk. it's a nice afternoon, golden and the weather is incredible!

THANK YOU, she texted back. she tucked her coke book in her messenger and strolled down keeble street to the harbor.

THANK YOU, for reading. i'll finish this story, just not now.

22.

2005-12-01T06:20:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book.

thonda realized she fell asleep. she looked up and realized they had reached her station. the rowdy kids in the cabin next door laughingly exited, bumping their luggage along the way.

21.

2005-12-01T06:15:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book.

thonda looked up and realized that they hadn't yet reached her destination. she shrugged and listened a bit to the shrieks of joy at the next car.

"oh, but a picture!" a girlfriend said.

"i'll just go like this," a girl's voice said.

"you were just waiting for us to turn away," another voice said.

"and i was," said the second voice.

"silly girl. the sake flight at izumi is four different types, one warm, the other bitter, one smooth like green tea ice cream, the other... i didn't taste the other," said another voice.

"you didn't?"

"i couldn't. so i just watched while you guys argued amongst yourselves how it has to be consumed. you forgot your camera. it was her chance - ahaha, i watched her. she gulped the second flight all in one go." the voice stopped and came from another direction.

"down it went, savory and sweet, warm and coating your throat. before it hit your tummy, it hit you head. ahh," it joked.

"shut up. no one else is stressed enough to drink tonight. the sake was good, but i didn't want to be sport," said a girl's voice. "and i won't trade any drink for coffee. hehe. sorry."

"awwwwwwwwwwwwww" came the collective jeer.

thonda chuckeled and turned back to her book. i wonder if there's sake where my sister's at, and if she'll let me drink, ahaha.

this is a story from thonda's book.

armor

armor becomes my mother. she wears it proudly, like a shield. so well-polished, it attracts accomplished friends, both married and unmarried. she doesn't know it yet, but her shield is so well-crafted, it is impenetrable. she wields it so well, no one can come near her, unless she lowers it, and she times those chances well.

grief is my mother's armor. her most prized possession, she hugs it selfishly. she doesn't flash or call attention to it. but at well-timed instances, she draws strength from its unknowable depths. my mother strives to be a perfect product of her times. her every rebuke is skillful and quick, she doesn't think much before screaming it out.

but when she draws from her well of despair, a cover forms quickly around her, she retreats into that shell, and from there her every aim is effortlessly precise. she brandishes her grief about like an entitlement. it's hard to refute her accomplishments in light of her beginnings—teacher and nurse, the only of her female siblings to study in manila, the first to haul all three daughters to the united states, the only sibling to live with yearly snow, and drive through it. the first to be widowed. and now, the only one to build a house with a storefront in her hometown's plaza, funded entirely by money from america.

my siblings and i watch as she moves from project to project, paying a newcomer relative money for them to repair our house one slat of wood at a time: first tear out the basement carpet and replace with pine-shade hardwood floors. move from the basement to the laundry room, tear out the old vinyl wrap and install high-grade flesh tile. take leftover baby cribs stolen from the neighbors and build the dalmatian and german shepherd mix their own pen. take high-durable, chocolate-shade paint and dress the stairs to the kitchen. pull wires to place proper kitchen lighting. pour concrete and install screws so the basement pantry is useable and clean. the basement is now liveable space, not just a pet dog playground.

“do we really have to do all this now?” my sister complained, a trained financier and nurse, knowing how all the expenses will cost me numerous successive paychecks. she's still in school and can't afford to pay her own insurance, much less all this. when she insists on paying for movies or the pizza, i look her in the eye and say, “no.”

but our mother is even more relentless. it should be obvious what she's lacking, as this isn't how she imagined her 50s to be. but in front of us she's rebuked her husband's relatives and signed papers that all but completely cut us off from his world.

her's is a silence i can tolerate a little bit longer. we're not ready for that yet.

but the shield she sometimes asks me to carry is getting heavier and heavier, cumbersome and intrusive.

i'm unnerved that, without a word, i know she waits for me to develop one of my own, on my own. what tools should i use? what materials?

what a damn sad story, thonda said. i wish i hadn't read this. it's crazy and stupid! the writer must be really unhappy if she's that attuned to her mother, of all people. i would kill myself. i wonder how my parents are doing.

thonda looked up and realized they were passing by the mountains that made their town famous. it's uncovered by snow right now, she thought, all green and beautiful. you'll actually break a sweat trying to cross that mountain and ford that river, thonda thought. it would be nice to do it again, when we return, she thought.

and then she wondered if indeed she will still come back. her sister and their parents have been away from home several years. will they still come back? do they still want to come back?

but they might think it's so boring here already, thonda thought. our town is small and cozy. everything you could ever possibly want is within reach. a regular at my cafe says that he had a glimpse of the world at the end of this train station, and he didn't ever want to go any further.

"why not?" thonda had remembered asking.

"because it's beautiful out there. the station itself gave me a window into what the rest of the world was like, what that town itself was like. and if the station was already that organized, that sufficient, that clean and orderly, what more the rest of the world?" the regular had said.

"of course there's still slums everywhere," said another customer. he moved from the bar to the table where the regular sat, right next to the window, in the middle of the small cafe. it was clear he was a traveller and new to the town; he dressed differently and spoke with a twang. his liquid eyes crinkled from remembering. "your town, thonda, is actually a haven from all the madness out there. you won't want to stay out there for too long."

"i would like to visit my sister soon, though. i'm curious about what she's been up to, the things she's seen. i'm not content with postcards anymore," thonda said.

"trips are vastly different - there's the mojave desert we passed through last december, on the way to the grand canyon," said the stranger. he set his glass down and invited himself to the regular's table. the regular, not easily fazed, didn't say a word. he wanted to hear what the stranger had to say. it won't be likely the stranger will repeat what he's said, or stay long enough to tell anymore.

"the desert was clearly a place you just had to pass through and not stay; the same with the grand canyon. who would ever want to live in such cold and windy climes, not to mention how trecherous those cliffs were? but native americans have, for generations and generations. i forgot his name, but one native american we spoke with said that their tribe is still negotiating terms with the government on how to parcel that vast piece of land," the stranger said.

"where is this?" the regular asked.

"a day's flight away, and more. it's pretty easy to get there from here, if you take the train all the way to the next station, and from there, another train to the airport."

"the grand canyon?" thonda asked.

"yes, ma'am, the grand canyon is the widest expanse of gridless geography i have ever seen. it was beautiful, rough, and red; i had this delirious moment where i remembered my old books where sharp mountain ranges came off of their bases and flew to enemies and chopped them in half for intruding their peace. but i picked up a small, sharp red clay shard from the base of guano's peak on the canyon's west rim, and pocketed it. and then i slid down the side of the hill took more pictures.

"let me tell you this, thonda," the stranger said. "travelling means taking your heart and your packages and picking up souveniers along the way. it's not setting your heart down, like that native american guide did, when he talked about the land and their plans for it. he asked if the two other kids with me were my siblings and i grinned. he had that look on his face like he were being treated to some dolls or something, ahaha. he talked as if the land and his heart were one."

thonda nodded. she didn't know what to say. she's never been anywhere in her life but back and forth from her family's old house and vineyard, to town to run this cafe. a seed of wanderlust was planted in her heart, and she wanted to go to what the stranger called "the grand canyon."

"what a great story. i wish i could see it," she said.

"by all means, go, go," said the stranger. "but there's absolutely no place like home. you must always remember where your heart was once planted and the hole it's left when you took it with you. and no time like the present! when are you leaving?"

that was two months ago, thonda thought. the regular is still around. he had lifted a coffee cup to her then. the stranger joined him, but soon after that encounter, he had already left via the same train she was riding now.

thonda gathered glasses and wiped tables that night, like always. she thought of her sister's postcards and her parent's letters. i'm more than just curious, she admitted to herself. i want to get away.

i don't know if i'm more curious than restless, she said, stacking shotglasses and getting ready to lock up. but i've saved enough money and i've stayed around here long enough.

thonda purchased a ticket two days after that.

the train stalled for a moment affording her a great view of the valley. she remembered the stranger and the cafe regular. she smiled and hoped she made the right decision. she listened for more wine chatter and learned they were counting sweet drinks now.

"light and sweet sham-PAG-ney."
"lemon drops."
"red headed sluts."
"chocotini, but only the one mixed at zentra."

the train lurched forward. a giant pine tree blocked the valley's view from thonda.

20.

2005-12-01T05:59:00.000-06:00

this is a story from the girl's coke book.

this is a story from thonda's book.

the gardens at cuneo

i decided to take a break sunday night and hunted around for old pix to post online. i stumbled on my old pix of the cuneo gardens, which my family and i visited in 2002, in the fall. it is my fantasy of a magical autumn world come true, ahahaha.

the garden's centerpiece is a classic italian mansion we didn't enter - there is a small fee to enter, and we were already content with the grounds. the gardens are family-owned, with help from the chicago park district.

reality hits you when you approach a small lake - you can smell sewerage from the gazebo, about twenty feet from shore. it emanates primarily from a small waterfall on the side of a small, steep hill. there are also patches of ground obviously paved for stabler ground for receptions - the grass and leaves there look paler and remind me of pictures of rainforest quicksand.

scattered throughout the grounds were sculptures and greek pillars. at first, i was disappointed that all the sculptures in the garden had already been wrapped to prepare for winter. it was very chilly that autumn afternoon that we visited, even as the sun blazed overhead in the later afternoon. it was warm only in under the sun. in the shade, i complained it was ten degrees colder. i couldn't take my gloves off without freezing my fingers stiff. i considered if we could request the office to remove the wrappings temporarily. the statues looked warmer than we were.

two years later, looking at the photos again, the wrapped statues actually added an eeriness, nostalgia, a displaced hauntedness, that i don't think could be possible had the statues been revealed.

i wondered what the statues might look like. only my mother and youngest sister had been to italy, and i had only seen pictures in books. i wonder what expressions the statues would sport - pained, because of their bending, serene because of their observing, curious because of our probing, welcoming because of our visiting? would they be made of marble or granite? have they aged and crumbled, like that big concrete planter sculpted in the shape of a vase?

and all throughout the garden were leaves. leaves of maple, elm, leaves yellow, green, brown. there is one large shrub of red. there are patches of brown soil in the smaller, more manicured gardens, wind hadn't swept any leaves in there yet. there are thick walls of ivy, now bare for shedding leaves. there is a gate shaped as a belfry, its ringer silent and cold. the gate led into a smaller, more organized garden in rows of rectangle patches that looked like vegetable patches.

the open ground held layers and layers of leaves. they cushioned and crunched underfoot. groundskeepers hadn't swept any leaves yet. park caretakers were no where to be seen. we were the only visitors that cold autumn day, and had the garden to ourselves. the beautiful foilage was dustless and ankle-deep.

"what an eerie garden," thonda thought. her book was strange, it had the ability to show real life pictures as well as text. thonda simply had to flip pages like she was scrolling through a display of ancient texts at the university library. her book wasn't that old yet in that the pages "flickered" distractedly on her screen.

thonda looked at the pictures more closely. the treetops were beautiful, but the ground looks like it's ready to swallow you whole. but i'm curious as to what crunch those leaves made, thonda laughed. i wonder if my sister will take me to something like this garden.

19.

2005-11-22T04:01:00.000-06:00

thonda settled into her cabin and thought nothing of the kiss on her hand. she was actually rather hungry. a cart rolled by her and she bought sweetwheat and noncarbondated cola. she settled into her cabin to listen to the whistles and blares of the station. she watched the man's back get smaller and smaller in the distance as he exited the station.

she wondered what life will be like living with her sister for a short time. would she have changed so much? after all, she was never a homebody. she was always out and about doing something. i actually sometimes miss her, thonda thought. but she will be fun to be with. she had better have accomodations ready for me! i can't sleep outdoors like her.

"all aboooooooooooooooooooard!" yelled the conductor. the train blew the shillest, longest whistle thonda had ever heard, and they were off. the sweetwheat was chewy and she almost choked on it, so suddenly had the train lurched forward. her cola is safe in its bottle in the window's bottleholder. she sipped on the straw and bit into her bread.

she watched her hometown and realized this was the first time she was leaving it for a long period of time. she was going to have to get used to the thought. she saw the station slip past her window. the bakery's, where undoubtedbly this sweetwheat was baked this morning. past the brewery, where this cola was no doubt bottled and fermented. past the post office, where she mailed and received packages from her sister and their parents from time to time. past the bookstore, where she whiled away many wonderous moments reading about the places her family had written from. past the corner cafe, where she had some of the best coffee and conversation in town. past the schoolhouse, where she and her sister attended until they've finished all the grades and courses they could offer. past the tailor's, where the seamstresses were so nice to her and her sister when they needed new uniforms every two years, and later, wotk clothes for the vineyard, and later, evening clothes for various parties. past then also the cobbler's, who had provided their family with stilettoes, boots, parkas (for they also made raincoats if they didn't want to use umbrellas), walking shoes, rubber shoes. past the restaurant where the pasta, thonda is assured, is the best in the world. past the telephone booth where they used to pretend was a space ship that would take them to the moon. past the observatory, where the mad astrologer predicted she and her sister would someday leave town to explore new places. past the electronic shop, that had provided them with many an earphone replacement, and who had provided them with such gadgets such as the PC and the mac, and thonda preferred the PC over the strange mac, the mac that seemed too simple and trendy for her taste. past the music conservatory, where thonda's sister thought was strange to have been dubber a conservatory, as if music will die out anyday now. thonda had argued that the type of music they encourage would be similar to the ones sang in church, pieces by long-gone musicians whose hands expand more than two octaves that only the most gifted students could ever hope to follow. past the cathedral, where, suprisingly, the man was waiting, waving. this jolted her out of her reverie.

"why is he standing there looking at the train?" thonda wondered. but she knew it would be a long time before she would find out; she was going away for an indefinite amount of time. the man shrunk smaller and smaller until he was a mere speck. the train was now headed to the suburbs, the vicinity of the university that she and her sister would have attended had they chose to; they certainly had the money for it after the sale of their estate. but her parents and sister wanted to travel, and she knew well enough of everything that's needed to manage a cafe.

"maybe some day i will go to university. secondary school was very interesting," she mused to herself. the observatory in town has shrunk to a mere speck compared to the looming towers that approached her now. the train was rounding the bend to stop at the university station to pick up more passengers and students. thonda noticed the school's spires and thought how scary it must be to climb those stairs to ascend to your lessons. how many steps are those, i wonder?

the buildings were made of brown brick mixed with straw and hay from their village, thonda realized, because the building looked much like their house. a pang of homesickness hit thonda like a ton of bricks. the train was stopped. it would be so easy to exit and leave, she could still easily walk back to her apartment. her sister won't mind, of course. no one would know.

she ate her sweetwheat. she knew if she returned, she would never again leave. lost chances rarely return, and why would you want to let something go when it's in your grasp? thonda realized that just thinking of the prospect of a lost chance was killing her. she can't wake up tomorrow knowing that she had let this change pass her by. her sister won't be waiting for her at st. petersburg forever, and she didn't want to worry her or her parents. they might come back to awczine, and she would ruin everything!

she bit into her sweetwheat and sipped at her cola. chatty students took the cabin next to hers. her stomach knotted and relaxed. she had her book. she could listen in to their conversations, if she wanted to. more chatty students took the cabin behind her. resigned, she chewed the last of her sweetwheat and drank the last of her cola. she took out her book and her journal. both sets of students were chatting away. she shut the soundproof glass between their cabins, but their voices still sifted through. she hoped her one book would tide her the next four hours to the next train station, the one that will take her to st. petersburg and her sister.

18.

2005-11-08T05:25:00.000-06:00

the man is a well-travelled fellow, hailing, as we've mentioned before, from the far reaches of the continent, more genteel, more stringent in their manners and character. he conducts himself with an air of splendid waste, that is, he is rich beyond our imaginnings. most of us might rarely have a chance to even behold such nobility.

they typically keep to themselves and make sure they don't associate with too many people of varied pedigree. but this man chose to explore. they called it "gallivanting," in that he's whiling away time and playing with his money to see what else the world has to offer. if he leaves nothing is expected of him, if he comes back, since he is of the nobility, he does not need to answer to anyone about anything. his affairs are entirely his own. even after several years out of circulation, when he returns, he is still accepted into society, and he could take his pick of women and buddies and hobbies.

the man chose to leave the confines of his old home and explore the world. he was just too curious to leave it. he still intends to return, of course, but not just yet. not yet, until thonda is settled and ready.

the man isn't truly attracted to the girl whose house he almost stole. he's just curious and happy for her that she's finally decided what to do for at least the next few years of her life.

and then, after that? he wondered. she'll come back to this awczine and she might even settle here with someone she met outside. will her sister be with her?

the man was delighted to learn that she was looking for someone to lease her apartment indefinitely. she took her belongings and locked them in a closet in the apartment.

how long will you be gone, the man asked her.

i don't know, she said, i'm not sure how long leila would like me around. she said she wanted to see st. petersburg's castles and churches. and possibly riga, if it's possible at all. i also want to see moscow and vladivostok. possibly return to japan for a moment because i'd like to see my old haunts again.

thonda turned and gave him her apartment key. keep it safe, she said, and guard it well. i intend to return soon!

the man smiled and assured her and saw her out. they got on the carriage to take her to the train station. on the way thonda looked at her home's buildings, the mountains in the distance, the way shadows fall on cobblestoned and pebbled streets, how sweet the wind and how quiet the streets, she could hear the old cobbler's sign creek when they passed it, and she wondered if he'll ever put oil to its hinges as it's been creaking a racket for years now. she remembered how the rain would fall in rivulets outside her window and filter light enough that she thought it was evening outside when in fact it's simply midafternoon and the skies were overcast enough, still pregnant with rain. she remembered how rain would form small rivers down the side of alleys and fall like a small waterfall over the edge of a small cliff that led to a small part of the briny river. part of that river came from further up the city, to the suburbs, where her birth house still sits, waiting, now ready to receive youth her age and younger for activities.

of course the man read all this from her thoughtful face. the carriage bumped once and she was knocked out of reverie, smiled unabashedly, and looked outside again with intentions to find out how much further the train station they needed to drive. the man returned her smile and asked what she expects to see out there in the world.

she said she didn't know, but she hopes to be entertained by the churches she imagined would be as grand as the photos in her textbooks.

too soon they arrived at the train station. they disembarked. the man helped choose her a car and a coach. why, thank you, she said, this is very kind of you. how come you never stopped as often in the coffeeshops? thonda asked.

i'm not sure, the man said, i have business to attend to, plus there's the building of my house in part of the plot your parents left me. it's going to be three stories with a wine cellar. i'm quite pleased with it.

he stashed her suitcase in the top bunk. he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. it was the genteel thing to do, something a gentleman would have done to a lady in his own country, considered appropriate and affectionate, but if a man wanted to go further, he would have showed up a second time where the lady was, or found out where she was staying and make a point of visiting her there regularly.

the man straightened and bade her a safe journey, he said, tipped his hat, and left.

17.

2005-11-08T03:29:00.000-06:00

thonda decided not to go with her sister to see the world. "i've seen it enough. i've had a chance to go to japan, and i took it. i'll stay here and take your spot at the restaurant. they were going to let you manage it. i think i can help them fill your gap in the meantime," she said.

"oh, you'll be managing it soon enough," leila laughed, and she hugged her sister. the family won't be separating until leila's first voyage, a train ride to hungary. she begins her trek east, while her parents are heading west. they will all send thonda postcards, and they are not to leave their destinstions until they've heard back from thonda, via postcard as well, and if she decides to follow either of them, they will stay at that destination until thonda joins them. they will tour her in that city and then move on to the next, for thonda can't stay away from the cafe for very long.

one day, thonda decided to resign from the cafe. she had received a postcard from leila, currently in st. petersburg and its outskirts. "wait for me there!" she wrote back on a postcard. that morning she dropped the card in the mail and announced her retirement.

"ms. valpo, i would like to tend my resignation," she told the owner. she was going to promote thonda for her enormously good work, almost on a par with her sister. but she also knew about this strange agreement she had with her parents and her sister, for she receives her postcards at work. it is the first thing she looks for in the day - if there are any postcards from her family. it was wonderful to see her finally make up her mind on where to go.

"petersburg!" ms. valpo said, astonished. "how very so far away has your sister gone!"

"yes," thonda said, "and i do intend to visit with her even for a moment. she wants to explore riga and the other cities there next. i will travel with her until my money runs out," thonda excitedly said.

that morning she bought her travel soap, shampoo, conditioner, skinny gel conditioner, deoderant, tooth brush, tooth paste, travel towels, camera, notebook, and packed her things in a huge travel case. she remembered how much her sister wanted to travel, so she took out two extra jeans, fourteen shirts, and a fleece jacket other than the jean jacket she already wore, and considerably lightened her load. it hadn't occured to her how she needed to keep her suitcase light in case she wanted to stuff it with souveniers.

she sublet her apartment in town square indefinitely to the man, with who she kept in close contact with. she wondered at his antics the past few days when she announced that she was going to leave to travel for a while with her sister.

16.

2005-11-08T01:03:00.000-06:00

to continue the story that was in the girl's coke book:

"this man wants to buy our house?" leila and thonda's mother repeated. "but why?"

"why?" the man exclaimed. "because it's perfect! it sits on a hill just capturing the light just so. your land slopes just gently and directly into the briny stream just so. it's not too far from town, if i wanted to leave a party right away, i can just leave and then return at will! no one will notice!"

thonda and leila's parents lightened up. they were planning to retire in a few years so they can travel the world, and thonda wanted to go attend the convent and leila wanted to travel the world, and they've always wondered what to do about the house they'll leave behind. they can't simply lock it for fear of bandits. or the homeless who'll squat and then overtake their house from them. they've been hoping to leave it to the local church, who can then use it as a community center for youth and young adult programs.

it seems that their dream of donating their humble abode and its entire effects to charity might come true sooner than expected. but sarah's eyes bulged and she started to swoon.

"no! no! noooooooo! you can't take our home away from us!"

"honey," simeon turned to his wife. "baby, listen to me."

thonda and leila were flabbergasted and embarrassed beyond recognition at their father's words to their mother. no child should be allowed to witness sweetness between their parents in front of an audience. it's traumatizing.

"no!"

"babycakes, this is what we've always wanted."

"but not too soon! too soon! too soon! my girls need to grow up!"

leila and thonda' father turned to the man. "good sir. you hadn't made an offer of money, jewels, cattle or another dwelling for us, please return in five years' time, we had planned that the earliest we were going to retire is in that time, and then we might be able to make our decision then."

"very well. an indefinite answer. i might be able to find temporary dwellings in the meantime. the hotels downtown were quaint. i shall make myself comfortable there. farewell!"

and the man galloped away in his steed.

"we're doomed! what shall we do? where shall we turn to? who is our hope? we worked hard on this house! we built it with our own hands and feet! and we have five years left with it! oh, what shall we do! oh, unhappy day! we must find a new house to live!" sarah wailed.

"babycakes, don't worry. we'll travel the world, after!"

"father, i haven't saved enough money to travel the world yet!" leila clamored.

"father, i'm not ready for university yet!" thonda howled.

"well it is high time we prepared ourselves for the future!" simeon cried. "we've been comfortable in this house for eighteen years straight. eighteen years! leila, you were born here! thonda, there's the sharp, jutting rock you stumbled on when you were three and the smaller, daggered rock that almost stabbed your heart! mother! this is where you baked your best breads and pastries that fed us and nourtured us. and for that, we are all happy and healthy and wiser. it is time we move! we're more than equipped to rule the world!"

"we're not prepared to rule the world, darling," the woman said, "we're only prepared to traverse it."

"and that we shall! but we cannot do it when we maroon ourselves to this lovely suburb, a part only of the action! don't you want to taste it, like fruit! don't you want to live it, suck the life out of it, enjoy it while you can!"

"yes, but there is the matter of the house and the property - " sarah started -

"and this is our chance to find a caretaker! he will turn it into something else entirely, but at least this old house, full of memories, will be out of our hands!"

"would it benefit more if we donated it to a church now, the way you said we would in five years' time? wouldn't it be of better use if it benefitted a hundred children a year instead of as one pompous man's trinket! father?" leila offered.

donate the church now? simeon asked. he repeated himself: we've been comfortable in this house for eighteen years straight. eighteen years! leila, you were born here! thonda, there's the sharp, jutting rock you stumbled on when you were three and the smaller, daggered rock that almost stabbed your heart! mother! this is where you baked your best breads and pastries that fed us and nourtured us. and for that, we are all happy and healthy and wiser. it is time we move! we're more than equipped to rule the world!

"no," he said aloud, "we're not yet equipped to rule the world. we will need the man's money. but he wants the house. we can strike him a deal: we can sell him the house, on condition that he use the house itself for the community center, and the land on another house for himself. we can divide the land in two: he can half for a house and the other half will remain open for the community center. that way, he can still live in the area," he declared, proudly patting himself in the back for his brilliance.

"leila, bring me quill and ink and parchment. and a writing board," he ordered. "it is a beautifully sunny day and we shall tell the rich man our prospects under this wonderful sunlight."

the man, being very generous and opinionated but dim, agreed to the terms. he still had to wait five years so the girls can prepare themselves for the world. thonda finished secondary levels and prepared for university. leila completed university and went to work everyday at a downtown coffeeshop and submitted writings to every place that would take them and saved every dacut to use in her travells. their parents tilled the vineyard and grounds of their house to keep it sturdy and strong as a community center.

in their sixth year, contractors arrived on their grounds with plans to cut up their property.

"i do wish we didn't need to sell this house and land," sarah lamented, looking back into her yard, at the house, its ridiculous outdoor spiral staircase, its dark trim and cream paint, its round doors with the knob in the middle and its acres and acres of vinyard, wheat, corn and grounds. "this was our home," she said.

simeon looked up from his planning. the contractors paused as well.

"it's beautiful, isn't it?" simeon said, holding his wife. "but it's done. we'll return again."

"no," sarah said. "we can't return. once we leave, we can never return."

simeon paused, looked teasingly at his wife. "never?"

it was a look they shared that spoke wordless forevers and unsaid favors to be savored after. they had looked this way since they were children and decided that this plot of land was where they'll stake their lives for eternity... or at least, until retirement. they agreed they wanted to see the world, too. they must agree on something, their house has served its purpose for 18 years. they are to live for a hundred or so more days.

sarah is always the first to buckle. she just can't stand loosing, and worse, being shown to be loosing. "oh, all right," she gave in. "we'll come back when we get tired of paris."

"or venice."

"or vienna."

or berlin. antwerp. the vatican. manchester. edinburgh. lisbon. bilbao. algeria. egypt. turkey. and all the other nations that they want to see before they die.

15.

2005-11-06T05:26:00.000-06:00

the man left the room, and packing all his things and all his money that night, disappeared. he has written his home back only once, to tell them he was all right and that he knew what he was doing. but he didn't want them to go looking for him, so he merely signed his name. if they really wanted to, all they had to do was hire the police department to chase him. he took his steed and galloped away.

after nearly a month of wandering, he discovered the small town of awczine and was immediately taken by it. "i've wandered the whole of the world. i've gathered enough life experiences to fill a book, a bestselling book, at that. it's time i took a break from wandering, at least. what a quaint little town, tucked in the folds of mount severige and overlooking the sea! the winters here must be enormous and staggering. it looks perfect - lots for me to do in the off-months where people pay attention to not much else but the holidays. i shall be happy here," he said.

he tethered his horse onto a gate that said "embassy" and fell in line for a VISA. he was happy that his passport was immediately stamped "WELCOME" instead of "try again: try no. ____" he untethered his horse and went looking for a house ot stay.

the official who had stamped his passport didn't even bother to look at his credentials to see what sort of contributions he could make to awczine. "did you see that?" she gushed to another official. "isn't he cute?"

"he is," the official said, pouting and folding the envelopes of an applicant he rejected. the applicant had been homeless for a year now, hiding in awzine with friends and relatives and shuffling from job to job. this is his seventh application, and he was runnning out of money again. but the immigration officer denied him again because the only thing he's succeeded so far in awczine is a police record for speeding and crashing a car into a light post. the official stamped his envelope "try again: try no. seven," and put it away. "he sure is cute. i'll bet he's looking to settle. i wonder if he'll take me?"

the other official laughed, "you certainly can try," she said, knowing that he would anyways, at the next party they go to he will make sure to invite the new man on the block to get to know him better. it's his mission in life - to know as many people as possible and invite them over to his house on historic and trendy silverlane. his parties are always the talk of the town - he allows anything and everything to happen in his third story condo unit. he has a private access rooftop where a landscape artist currently works on projects. and everyone knows his projects aren't just on the official's rooftop garden. you weren't considered "in" unless you had gone to at least three of his parties. by then, you were on your way to a comfortable life and existence at awczine.

leila, because of her beauty, grace and simplicity, was invited to his party only once. thonda, never. neither of the girls were considered to be the official's taste, but leila was welcome to come anytime, if someone she knew was invited would take her.

the man exited the embassy, pleasantly recounting how easy it was to have gotten citizenship in this new country, and rode his steed throughout town. he didn't like the town's busy huffing and running. he didn't like its organized traffic and scheduled pickups and marked out traffic lanes. he thought the houses were rundown, the others pretentious and the decent ones mere boxes in the sky. so he spent the night at the drake hotel, the town's largest and most expensive, because he thought it looked decent and all right and clean compared to the park regency and the continental, whose shiny brass gates and bright lights looked gaudy next to the drake's marble floors, fresh flowers, chandeliers and mahogany furniture.

leila realized she hadn't been to town in a long time. "want to come with me? i'm going downtown," she said, putting on her boots and fixing her bag.

"no, thank you," thonda said, "but let's bake pie today!"

leila, bless her heart, didn't see why one should keep onesself cooped up indoors when the day is perfectly beautiful outside. one should take advantage of it while she still can. "no, thanks, thonda, but we really should go out today," she said.

thonda knew another invitation from her sister wasn't coming. she sighed, took her boots and changed her clothes. "all right. i haven't been to town in a while, either."

they walked and chatted animately about the weather, the old trees that drooped branches and made them laugh because someone else was at least more unhappier than they that morning.

the man had also risen from bed that morning and gone shopping for new clothes and other special effects. he tried on new boots for the winter, because he hadn't experienced a proper winter before.

"it was just a few drizzles here and there, nothing really spectacular. mostly rain. if it snowed it would be a feat, if it hailed it would be another. but i've only seen snow and hail once, and it was in the same day of the same year: new year's day. so there was snow and hail once in two years. it was cold and i would have liked to see it pile up long enough to pound into missiles to throw at each other, like war."

the cobbler looked at him, dumbfounded, smiled and continued measuring his foot and his leg for his new boot. suddenly, leila showed up at the cobbler's storefront window. thonda followed a few seconds later. the man had never seen anything like their beauty before.

"who are they?" he asked the cobbler. the girls laughed at a display and then started dancing as if in the shoes and then walked away. the man thought how talented they must be to imagine dancing in shoes clearly not meant for the dance they were trying to imitate.

"they? oh leila and thonda, girls who live in the suburbs of awczine. they're very sweet, but quite unpopular," the cobbler said, taking orange chalk and laying down his measurements on a piece of suede and drawing,

"unpopular? they're the sweetest girls i have come across in this town," the man said. "are they married?"

"married? goodness, no, haha," said the cobbler, chuckling and choking on his laughter. "they're as innocent as can be. been invited to roget's party only once, that older one. the younger one won't go anywhere without her older sister. they're only as happy as can be, the poor girls."

"happy as can be? why, that's a great prospect, that is! why shouldn't one be rewarded for already being happy as they are? why must it always be based on who you marry, or what wealth you've achieve, or what relatives you happen to be locked with? it's quite inconvenient, and that can't be helped," the man said. when the cobbler finished, the tailor arrived for his measuring; he needed new clothes. he raised his arms so his chest could be measured.

suddenly, the man had a thought as the tailor circled the tape measure around his chest and measured above his heart: the countryside. maybe there's a house i could purchase there. he thought he shouldn't waste any more time on things that shouldn't take too long to accomplish.

"tailor, are you done? i must go."

"there you go sir, all done. and in the shade of - ?"

"midnight, gentlemen. as blue as you can go with the jacket, as brown, almost black, as you can go with the boots. and i shall pick them up next week, yes. thank you, dear sirs."

14.

2005-11-06T05:15:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book:

sisters

leila is a typical girl of 12. she liked wandering the hills and meadows of her town, picking wildflowers and eating entire branches of blueberries. she would gather nuts and wash and salt them in the briny stream that branched from the sea nearby right almost into her back yard. in the morning, she would use her mother's old basin to catch water from the salty stream and lay it in the sun to dry. in the afternoon when she returned, there would be enough salt in the basin to crumble into her nuts. she would soak her almonds, peanuts, cashews, filberts, macadamias and walnuts in the salt and then snack on them the following day.

leila had a younger sister, thonda, but you would think they were twins. they were only three years apart, leila the older, and they shared many things. but unlike leila, thonda had a homebody disposition, and she liked sitting in their house and dusting it, washing potholders and rags, cooking, fixing the yard, fixing the roof, anything so long as it will allow her to stay inside the house. she always thought leila ventured outside often enough for the both of them.

the sisters were renowed in town for their loveliness and virtue - neither would be out too late in the dark with any of their friends, and they could always rely on either one of them to deliver messages to their parents, or carry out town tasks such as going to the city to pay taxes. they were never idle and always occupied themselves with some sort of task, wether it be gathering more fruit for jams or grinding rice for cakes or pulverizing nuts to paste.

their town was in a high hillside between the mountain's summit and the sea. the high church tower also served as lookout point for storms and incoming ships. a spyglass inside the tower allowed spies to detect whether enemy ships were coming. accurate identification through the generations had allowed this small town of awczine to flee in time before the arrival of vikings, the christians, the government and later the tourists, and survive as a coastal town.

one sleepy early morning in the first weekend of the third month of fall, a man arrived at the village. he had earned his fortunes in the war and was seeking a quiet place to settle down. he cannot stand his own hometown where his mother and his sisters and his father and his friends kept on asking him what his plans are for his life. they were inherently wealthy, so the talk revolved around marriage or career or both.

"i want to see the world," he told them.

they mocked him, "see it, yes, but with the way you are moping around waiting for something to happen in you life, you'll never leave even mere footprints of it," they said.

"i will leave footprints," he said, "and you will follow my lead."

his mother just then came along, "yes, but before anyone follows anyone's footsteps or even starts creating them, there's the washing, cleaning and dressing up to do; mary shallow's party is tonight and we mustn't be late. who knows, maybe he'll find his wife in the gala tonight," his mother laughed to her friends just as they were able to leave after a day's gossiping.

13.

2005-11-05T02:13:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book:

the glacier

he always like to take pictures. so they took their snowmobiles further and further up the mountain for more views, and so they could say they've actually circled the mountain, and what's more have finished it. glacier is normally blue, but this one is emerald green. chip some of it away, and risk crumbling the whole mountain.

it didn't occur to sean just how far they've trekked. they stopped their bikes in the middle of a crest of a peak and decided to inspect the terrain. in a land everchanging, where the pathways change by the hour, you can't always follow the previous snowmobile's treks. lauren trotted ahead and left sean to his camera.

sean caught a gleam of ice on the peak and stepped forward - and fell.

lauren was too far ahead to hear.

ice cold air escaped from the crevasse. his camera's strap dangled on the edge of the precipie, swinging in the new air. he felt the air suck him into the crevasse, deeper and deeper until the sky was reduced to a shard of blue. and all this while, he screamed with intentions of ripping his lungs out, and he clawed the sides of the crevasse, chipping out ice emerald left and right, raining them all over him, letting the precious fall faster into the murky depths below.

the sky was reduced to a shard of blue.

then finally, JZUG! his left side hit a ledge. his right clawed ice again and he was able to get a handhold using a jut in the ice. there was more ledge left, and he scrambled as fast and as carefully as he could. he lay on the ice feeling his racing heart and exploding lungs and ragged breath.

his asthma flared and he couldn't breathe. he struggled to a sitting position and tried to calm himself. he remembered to pad his side, and took several big puffs of his inhaler. he realized he wasn't on just any small ledge - he was on land, and the land led to a cave yawning in the short distance.

sean's curiosity got the better of him. he got to his feet and took an ungainly step forward. exactly where he sat, his camera in its protective rubber case landed. he bent down and retrieved it, pivoted and hobbled forward. there might be a way back to the surface through the cave!

he switched his camera on to provide light, accidentally pressing the flash button.

"gaaah!" cried a voice from inside the cave. sean froze. he aimed his camera where he last heard the sound.

"gaaah!" cried the voice again. he heard clawed little feet scamper further from him. excited whispers hissed from his left and he aimed the camera there. one of them gave a little yelp. he heard small feet run away.

"hello?" he called. he aimed the camera to his left, swung it forward when he heard a little thud ahead of him. he snapped a photo.

"gaaah!" yelled two voices, and away they scampered again.

sean stopped and scrolled his camera's digital index to view his pix. he say nothing but blobs of circle in the dark. he switched to nightvision. he aimed his camera right and snapped a photo.

"gaaah!"

what his lens captured almost made him laugh. "but you all look like that character in toy story," he said. he heard hissing and chuckling further into the cave, a heavy sort of breathing, and he aimed his camera there. he pressed his focus lens lightly to focus his camera, and aim a soft green light into the cave.

in the distance huddled thousands and thousands of round little balls with one eye each and webbed feet and arms that sagged to the ground. they blinked several times at the light and looked fearfully at him. they pressed each other more, the ones in front trying to get away from the light. some of them gave up and ran to the sides, the feet padding and shuffling and clawing the ice to get a foothold.

"sean! sean!" lauren called from above.

"i'm here, honey," sean said, hobbling a little back to the mouth of the cave, but he didn't want to hobble too far ahead because he didn't want to take his eyes off the little creatures, they might all suddenly collectively decide to disappear, the way they adeptly do so, for millennia, the technique passed on from offspring to offspring.

"thank god! are you all right? where does it hurt? where's your radio? i radioed when i couldn't find you!"

"you gotta come down here and see this!"

"what? i have to call for help! let me call for help! sean! catch this! to keep you warm. i'll call for park service."

"not now, honey - " but lauren had tossed down a blanket weighed down by its own because lauren had tied it into a bundle. it thudded into the ledge, bounced twice and rolled toward the edge. sean scrambled to catch it. he slipped but was able to stop his falling over the edge by digging the toe of his boot into the ice. he unravelled the blanket and threw it around him, grabbed his camera, and entered back into the cave.

"hi there," he said, calling to the creatures, but this time, they weren't afraid of him. in fact, he was suprised to enter a cave full of glowing, red pairs of ovals. pairs and pairs of the ovals stretched infinitely into the cave. they climbed sharply on precipies or sloped gently to the ceiling. so dense were the eyes that there were occasional pairs of eyes even on the ceiling. they were all unmoving, except for a faint grinding of ice and claw.

"ngrrrrr," they hummed.

one of them stepped forward. sean froze. he smelled a musk they produced when it is time to feed. sean recognized it, even as he didn't know what it was for. he spun around with intentions to run. but the creatures had somehow used his camera and produced a light so bright that he thought his back was still the cave entrance.

in fact, it was a wall of the green creatures, completely blocking the entrance. they had used a technique to pile one on top of the other so that they could form an impenetrable wall. some were holding his camera aloft.

with his thick fleece blanket he whipped at the creatures, but it was folly to turn one's back to the creatures. they know when to attack. they've practiced for millennia. they sprang like little gremlins from the cave floor to sean's back, legs, arms. he swatted them away, but with asthma and fractured bones and little food since this morning, they were feeble attempts. he was able to dislodge rocks and throw them at the creatures.

"gaaaah!" they screamed when they were hurt. "gaaaah!" they screamed when they were squashed by the rocks.

sean clawed his way about the circle, until he was overrun. fleece repells them, his final thought was. i should have kept it on.

seven days later, on the floor of the cave, a gremlin opened his eyes for the first time, and noticed yellow pairs of slits stretching for miles and miles around. they stretched in every direction, from the floors to the ledges to the ceilings, where there's a clawhold to be found.

"haaaaa," they greeted him. "haaaaa," they welcomed him.

he tried to stand, and found that his legs were sturdy. he stretched his body, and learned his arms where sinewy. he blinked. he breathed. his asthma was gone.

"gaaaah!" the newborn creature cried. "gaaaah!" he can't believe what just happened. "gaaaah!" he tried to run away.

but the creatures knew just what was happening, and they blocked the cave entrance again. they used his camera's last remaining batteries to illuminate the newborn's eyes.

little did they know, each time they did that, they were taking pictures. they snapped photos as the newborn bounced against the walls, the rocks, the sharp edges of the protuding ledges and tried to hurt himself, escape, scrape off his new fur and his change his yellow vision of endless slits of light.

"gaaaah!" he screamed. "gaaaah!" and the others let him. little did the newborn know that each time he did that, a piece of his past was being erased. that's just how the minds of these minions work. soon enough, they will love the dark and learn to feed on lichen and crisp underground glacier runoff. they will learn to procreate and turn more rats and men into furry round creatures such as they.

a fleece blanket lay on an ancient ledge jutting out toward the middle of a deep, deep crevasse at the heart of the mountain. lauren was so distressed by throwing it that she thought sean ran for it, hobbling, slipped and fell, fell, fell. experts say the crevasse was the deepest one yet they've found on the mountain.

it was so deep, it opened into an underground water system that emptied out into the sea. sean's waterproof camera, having no use on that ledge, found its way in the hands of a gremlin who thought little of something that cannot be eaten and no longer produced blinding, beautiful, warm light. they needed all the space they can get on that ledge for future visitors. so the gremlin sent the camera on its way, travelling down, down, down the endless crevasse and into the water that emptied out into the sea. someone did find it, eventually.

12.

2005-11-04T03:24:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book:

domes of the saints peter and paul

as the domes of the church of saints peter and paul loomed larger, fr. rodrigo thought, one of these days i'm going to sail to the church harbor. i'm almost finished with my boat. it will sail smoothly upriver to the domes. it will take half as long, and i won't have to keep on purchasing new boots every year.

the church is built of wood and mortar. no nails. they fitted the wood so that it expanded and contracted comfortably in the winter and summer. it was extremely pleasant that summer.

rodrigo lived in the other side of the country - vladivostok, a good half day away by train, and sometimes just as long by plane. it's even wonderous why in the world he would venture west, so far away that his mornings were evening in his household, and his evenings were filled with activity, reaching back to his family in east.

rodrigo thought of the life he traded in vladivostok for the one he's living right now. he arrived at a crest in the land that allowed him a grand vista of the river to his right and the wooden church to his left. sometimes, he said to himself, there are just some journeys you have to traverse, otherwise without them, you risk turning yourself into wood. dead, dry, cold wood, useless for burning even because you're so wet with your own tears.

sometimes, the gleam of sun in a body of water could only be harnessed in this particular body of water, and no where else. elsewhere it will just be secondary, and you'd have wasted your time trying to make that image fit into your imaginings.

sometimes, there are exact moments in time that you were simply meant to travel and experience that moment in time, otherwise, you risk loosing a key ingredient that makes your life sparkle and complete. you risk turning into lesser than ash, your remains mix with the soil and then you truly disintegrate into nothing.

when you travel, you must learn to cook. you cannot always rely on others for your meal. you cannot always be in cities and the well-trodden paths, full of the lives of other people. you cannot always be the center of the story, the center of the party. sometimes, you have to step away from the limelight and venture the backroads and unknowns, places where no one else wants to go, places where your so-called heroes, the people you thought you looked up on, dare not travel even if their lives depended on it.

those instances should be your cue: go there. may you find something that will put even your own pride and resentment against them to shame. if life is a game, then that is the only way you would have won over them.

fr. rodrigo chuckled at the glittering seinae river. it was midafternoon, the sun above and quite hot. in this high valley, the wind is always crisp, but the sun always warm. he rubbed his palms together and breathed the sweet air.

the girl remembered to eat, and grabbed the last of the sweetwheat and pesto cheese, finishing them in two bites. her bike was still securely tied. the children were nowhere to be found.

he fitted his hands in the pockets of his robes and continued his uphill climb to the church of saints peter and paul. there's quite a bit still to do to help out the cardinal before mass.

fr. rodrigo was a mere sakristan in these parts. the town of seinae is a city of churches and parish priests. there is a school and seminary further inland. there is a town at the foot of the mountain. it takes a half day to ascend to the church and school complex. but rodrigo made sure each of his college-age pupils made it to class on time, everyday -

the girl looked up with a start. no one will know about it if i climbed table mount today, she thought. nollo had better not find out!

for nollo had acquired this strange sense of knowing where she is without truly considering very hard. as fast as his legs could take him, he was biking to malay right now, with every intentions of warning her about his dream, the one that came to him in the middle of the day, in the deepest of his sleep.

11.

2005-11-04T02:44:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book:

rheese

he liked to dress all in black and remain anonymous. but he needed to keep his phone on for entire lengths of time because he was waiting for a phone call.

rheese and i share a secret. a photograph of ours has us laughing as if there was something only he and i know. when in fact, it is a secret that everyone else who was dear to him knew.

the dance was only beginning. rheese would have wanted to take me out dancing, but he kept on getting sidetracked by his bosses - there was so much to do and they had to put their name out there. somehow this busyness is good for rheese, actually, so he can forget about his phone and concentrate on his life here, the now. rheese moved a box of supplies to the left and arranged copies of his newspaper atop it.

dinner began. i didn't have a ticket and it seemed as if i were destined to starve for the rest of the night, but somehow rheese magically produced a ticket for me, and i forgot to tell him i already have one. he called my phone five times, and stood outside the ballroom waiting for me to approach.

"did you find a ticket for me?" i asked him, looking in his face. he smiled shyly and shuffled a bit, but was clearly happy all my attention was to him.

"well... ya," he said, "because there were several extras alloted to pinoy monthly, and i, well," rheese said, making the paper swoop and turn and land into his pocket.

"ah, no, let me have that," i insisted, "this is souvenir," i said, and i really was pleased and speechless that i was just saying anything. it has been years since someone did something like that to me. i introduced him to my two friends, marissa and ryan.

and he said, "i know ryan," he said, and clearly he wanted to stand there for as long as he could and attempt to glean from ryan all that he could.

ryan fixed his eyes on rheese, in his relaxed all good stance that screamed to me, "someone to help out and bring out." but like always, nonthreatening.

when ryan was 22 and i was 21, the girls dressed me up to meet ryan for the first time. i had the longest, most confusing crush on ryan. it didn't work out, of course. and i didn't understand what the two boys talked about, but i'm sure it had something to do with this friday.

rheese was sitting with his colleagues, and i sat with my friends. we parted with the promise of seeing each other again sometime soon, but in whatever context or circumstance, i'm not sure yet.

but i know i will have many questions for rheese and less for ryan. ryan i can't help but hold as a brother.

rheese is someone else entirely. especially when he, while we watched the dancers dance to a swing tune, offered his arms to me so we can dance. we twirled the floor like fools and geeks, in tune to the familiar music hailing from a land far away, but so right here. i warned him about my stepping on his feet and he said, it's all right, he doesn't know what he's doing, either. finally it happened, but he just laughed even though he was disappointed and thought, "typical."

the song ended all too soon. everyone saw us, including the founder and director. i wonder if he also could tell what i already know. i was secretly celebrating that rheese's phone didn't ring at all while we danced.

10.

2005-11-04T01:57:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book:

spin the bottle

they fished a dirty coke bottle from the depths of the ship. they washed it with the yellow water in the communal baths and it gleamed bluish-brown-green in the sunrise. they were going to play a game.

they picked a spot near the boat's edge, in its topmost decks, right under one of the steamer masts. they made sure their spot was always sunlit and out of the way of smoke they made sure it had the least grime and rainwater, and that the surface was flat, so the bottle can spin properly. seven friends, one with a baby, sat in a circle and the tallest of them spun first.

"truth or consequence," he grinned, in his adult voice, even though he was just 13. the meltdown did that to all of them. they were all around that age. they made sure to exclude everyone else. he took the rolling bottle and stood it.

"truth," the girl said, engross in the story. she didn't notice a small band of younger kids had already gathered near her bike, intending to steal it. she saw a rustle to her side and sharply looked up. the small bandits scrambled, screaming, away. the girl made sure they were tiny specks in the marketplace of cadiz in the neighboring town before she returned to her ship.

"truth," a girl said, apprehensive but eager to play this game. it's her first time playing it, and knowing her parents, it will probably be the last time she'll play any sort of game until they reach land. she is the oldest of seven children. she has to take care of all of them.

"have you licked the sides of your mealcan before?"

since the meltdown only three years ago, food had become impossible to farm and canned goods became the only available food source. these meats had cooked themselves in their containers. food then had become abundant with mercury and other poisons, but people had no choice but to eat them if they wanted to live longer.

people still remember the days when abundance is taken for granted. they were throwing away semirotten romaine lettuce in waste sinks when you could pour semiradial salt on them and they could perfectly sustain you. licking the sides of a can is shameful, but accepted - by just the adults. kids would rather focus intently on their cans and make their spoons scrape every last but of meat and fat and artifically-rendered, flour-filled sauce from their cooked cans. they would rather admit that they know the taste of dirt before admitting that once they were so hungry, they licked the sides of their can.

she's licked her can. several times. in front of her little siblings, even. they've even taken to her because they think it's all right.

"no, of course not!" she yelled.

"lair! i saw you."

"no!"

a younger girl gasped. "you know the punishment for lying, nasha," she whispered.

"i have never licked the inside of my mealcan in my life!"

"then why are you denying it? you did it! you're guilty!"

"guilty!"

"shut up! i didn't do it! i didn't do it!"

"i saw you!"

they all chased her to the side of the boat. the water gleamed its usual green, but it's a dead sea now - after the meltdown, the rudders of seafaring vessels have been sharpened sharper than butcher knives to cut through the vast oceans of rotting sealife that have floated to the surface. the meltdown has turned the water into a soft acid that will liquidate flesh in 24 hours. it is unwashable because clean water is ineffective and precious. a person who falls into the sea is left to scream themselves hoarse in the middle of the sea until finally the acid claims them. it is most merciful to run from the flailing body as quickly as one can.

nasha was being chased to the edges of the boat.

"go away! what're you doing? go away! go away! i still want to play!"

"ok, stop that!" the leader said, holding the old coke bottle between his left middle and tall fingers. "let's just play. nasha licked her mealcan, we call do, we're just that hungry. c'mon."

they had all been at sea for six months now. food is dwindling. land is elusive. the captain thinks their ship is circling a small part of the pacific, close to chile. they cannot land in chile because the people there have contracted an illness that reduces them into no greater than carnivorous hyenas of the south americas. the captain thinks they're circling the pacific because they've encountered three unhabitable islands in three different directions that have turned into metal isles - two repelled the boat the way north repels north, and they dare not get close to the third, thankfully comfortably too far in the south, because if you dock at a magnetic island, electronic synapses in your brain collide and crash and you walk as though a zombie, neither eating nor sleeping nor making love or dreaming, at all.

9.

2005-11-03T22:28:00.000-06:00

these are the stories in the girl's coke book:

sharp corn stalks

there is a highway along rockford whose name i can't recall. we are speeding alongside it until the wall of golden corn stalks to the right of me ended abruptly into green weeds. we stop the car. you let me run in between the stalks, i had always dreamed of doing this, but i've never been given the chance because we live in the middle of the jungle city.

i choose stalks at the crest of a slight rise and stretch my arms and run. and run and run and run. run, until i felt my asthma. my lungs constricted and my throat protested. but i run. i run i run i run. suddenly a corn stalk's root long watching me decided to take pity on me for testing myself. she stuck out a root and down i fell.

corn reminds me a lot of bamboo, in that their leaves consist of straight, parallel veins instead of webbed viens like the oak. corn and the bamboo's leaves are long and slender, their veins like thread spaced at regular intervals. but while the bamboo decided to reach as far as he could with his stalks and his leaves and branches, contesting with other brothers and clustering together to see who could reach the farthest, the corn decided to be content with growing just so she could produce hair, cob, kernels, and secure her ear to her as long as she could. she liked to wave her son in the wind and bathe him in the sunlight. she held him aloft for everyone to see, and didn't mind sharing him.

soon others would come along and decide that a cluster of corn was very good compared to just a stalk by herself. so they gathered a hundred thousand, a hundred hundred thousand cobs like hers and decide to organize them into rows, so that it would be easy to pick their yield, and not miss one in the process. the lady corn was pleased.

but the bamboo and the corn remained friends. sometimes in rare instances, he would visit her and leave his seed. but his seed, planted in the country of corn, with different nutrients in sweeter-blander soil in colder climes and with a softer sun, acquired different qualities, so that often he isn't recognized as the son of bamboo anymore. talahib, or cogon grass, the infant was called. he grew strong and stubborn and sharp and survived the colder climes and showed the world he was more like his father than they all thought he was.

he relished his ability to grow lush and quickly and strongly. soon, he was wild and unstoppable. like his mother, to be healthy, he had to be trimmed to the roots every so often. but unlike his mother, and more like his father, he left behind hardened roots, and sharp, thick stalks, and the only way to trim cogon grass was to slash it at an angle, so a daggerlike stalk-root was left protruding from the ground. and then the only way to completely remove cogon grass was to uproot it, stalk, root, seed and all. it must be ploughed to the ground as deep as six feet.

so elusive and clever had cogon become that he threatens the life of her mother. the soil can only sustain one life at a time, and as all mothers learn, they all eventually yeild to their children. like parasites sapping a host's strength, children are destined to grow stronger and stronger in the same speed that their parents wither and wither. cogon is tenfold stronger than his mother. he will sup on nutrients faster than the earth absorbs rainwater. the mother has no choice but to die.

but then sometimes there are mothers who have grown so attached to their sons that they do everything they could to sustain their children and keep them alive. they will murder other mothers in order to feed her young. she will hide him from sunlight, from moonlight, keep him as a stalk even, so long as he is kept alive and living beneath her. for this is how she would like her strapping young man to be - as a parasite, sustaining her from below. sometimes they even join, producing hardened cobs fit only to be tossed to the pigs as their sustenance.

but mothers will remain mothers. they often do things they instinctively know is good for you. so when she lifted her root to stop me, the force i hit the ground with could have stopped a train in its tracks. my heart pierced the freshly chopped stalk of her son, who whispered to me that had been waiting for me all along. my blood watered us both so that i struggled loose but only ended embedded deeper into soft earth, cold and comforting at once. it is only sunset, the day golden and warm and welcoming.

i screamed incohate and hoarse, but you didn't come. you waited in your car for me to come back. you waited until evening. you watched the sunset serenely, your breathing even, your hands warm in your pockets. you cocked your head to the side. nodded in acquiescence. got up from leaning on the passenger side of the hood, half-hoping i would outsmart destiny and return to you. you strolled to the driver's seat and took the wheel, as if you've been expecting this all along.

as you lifted the curb you didn't see my frantic stumbling onto the pavement, covered in soil and corn and cogon from head to toe. i had been stripped of my voice and my feeling. my heart lay in a bloody mass in my right hand. come back here, fool, and reinstall it again in my chest, where it belongs. then i begin my walk toward you.

8.

2005-11-03T21:43:00.000-06:00

the girl looked for a quiet corner to start reading her book. on top of running up and down table mountain and joining nollo in his adventures, she had somehow already finished 11 assigned books in their 12-week break from school. she needed one more book to complete her reports, and then she was free. hopefully, she said to herself, by the time i finish this last book, my parents would have calmed down and they'd have returned to normal and i can ascend table mountain again.

she biked to the nearby neighborhood of malay, home of the five pillar faith. she's only been to this town three times in her life and only with her parents and nollo. it was always clean and bright in this town. there was no littering, and the fountains were clean and full of wishful coins. the fountains were not clogged with debris of any kind. the houses were row upon row of white cubes in varying height and size, some taller than others, others a perfect square. the windows looked like dark eyes peering from a square face. some houses had second floors and a second pair of windows on that floor, always nonaligned with the bottom windows.

the municipal buildings had more floors, and the windows are always nonaligned with the lower floor's windows. this practice of nonaligning windows with the bottom floor gave the city's tallest buildings a spiral design, copied by everywhere around cape town. like capiz, malay liked fountains. malay is known for its open-spaced buildings, kept clean and inviting for visitors like the girl.

the buildings are made of white granite, limestone or marble. the girl chose to sit at the steps of khronae temple. the temple stood out because its floors were obsidian, shiny, a fountain flows through beneath the glass floor, and spills into the side of the building's second floor, creating a curtain. she rounded the buildings back, tied her bike to a pink marble pillar, took out "the coke bottle," sat down and began to read.

7.

2005-11-03T03:55:00.000-06:00

among the books the girl remembers purchasing involved a book of short stories about island nations in the more peaceful waters of the world. after her meal, she only had so much money, so she started walking with her bike to secondhand bookstores.

she opened the first book whose cheery cover greeted her: "short stories, circa 19th," said the title. not really the era she was hoping to study. "parables and legends," said the next, with a cover of a pegasus and a unicorn overlooking a serene pool in the heart of the forest. this interested her, and she picked it up. she might read this in the off chance her parents' massive library failed to produce a book to entertain her. she needed a more sombre kind of collection for school.

"my coke bottle," said another title, alluding to an old brand of drink that had long since fallen out of favor. quirky, shiny red cover with what looked like illustrations of glass. not too long, too, only 300 pages or so. she picked it up and turned to the first story:

my coke bottle

when i return from the philippines i'll bring with me a glass coke bottle. before i left they offered it to me as a parting gift because i would never drink coke, bottled or in a can, because i said it was too sweet, i opt for water instead. in its heat, in manila, you'd want to drink nothing but water because you'd be sweating it off anyway.

their coke bottle was filled with pebbled glass - stone glass. volcanic glass. i don't know where they got those stones, or how. i've never seen so many tiny pebbles of glass inside a coke bottle before. they filled the bottle with the pebbles and in between the pebbles light escaped, it looked like a cheap chandelier from one of the marcos mansions.

they prolly chose it to remind me of my incessant comments when we visited the coconut mansion of the marcoses, now a museum of that administration's foolishness. they say the marcoses squandered the nation's money on palaces like coconut. there is a wooden ceiling that greeted the visitor at the outset, carved in the plantation motif of the palm. that's where it got its name. it must also have been financed by such plantations, i griped, and couldn't stop griping, awed as i was by the mansion's beauty.

what made my visit with friends worse was that i didn't stop complaining about money management once we got to marikina and viewed some of the former first lady's shoes. marikina, the place where the sturdiest shoes are made, they said. i have never been there before - or i have and my parents and cousins and relatives just never told me. marikina was always a passing-through place to farther away from metro manila, or it was this just beyond place you never really need to visit. even though they said the shopping is amazing, even more so now when the museum of imelda's shoes opened.

silettoes, sandals, pumps, rhinestones, suede, all types of shoes fit for a queen of a tropical nation. or so she wanted to be queen, the nation just couldn't afford it. right now there's subpoenas against the marcoses in hawaii, in california, trying to get them to pay up. a lone filipino lawyer and a sympathetic judge are calling attention to this scandal, especially when bongbong marcos wanted to visit. he landed in hawaii, received his cronies' accolades, and fled once he got word of the lawyer's coming. the gala that night ended awkwardly.

"and how do you do know all this?" they asked me.

"i was there," i said earnestly.

they awarded me the coke bottle for excellence in see-through clarity and breakable myths. i wonder if they mean to say that one pebble in the coke bottle equals one story i told them. i wonder if the stones in the bottle are just broken glass. they don't look sharp to me. they're formed like jewels, but i dare not ask.

the girl dropped the book whose cover consisted of a unicorn and a pegasus and a still pond of glittering water, and along with another that featured a castle in the distance with fairies and butterflies and snails crawling out of its blue cover with silver trim, immediately purchased her books.

6.

2005-11-03T01:11:00.000-06:00

the girl didn't want to think of the boy ghost. who was he? why was he there? what happened to him? she looked over the town and wondered at the sunset.

where was nollo?

she slowly descended the steps to her bike. she looked longingly at table mountain and knew that if she skirted her parent's many spies, she could still find her way to her secret steps and ascend the mountain, explore a bit, and climb back down in time for dinner.

cape town is a strange place. classes happen by quarter and they start in the middle of winter, one week after the yearly holidays at the end of the year. it is reward for to the young to start a new year: new year, new school year. classes start in the first month and continue until the ninth, and let out for the tenth, eleventh, and the twelfth. ancestors say this is laid down centuries ago when cape town was fueled by wheat and farming to trade to overseas, so that children will help in the harvest. it was retained for convenience.

the girl hadn't made a dent in her studies all fall. she might as well browse the market at the foot of cadiz cathedral. just as nollo sank into a deep sleep, the girl awoke, her parents still fuming, and tip toed out of her house. she left them a note that she was headed for cadiz. she knew they could have their extensive network of friends check if they wanted.

the girl's parents were very low-key, but very well known in town. they taught at the university. whatever they wrote won accolades and medals in town, the country, and the world. they travelled extensively during the school year, but they would rather their students and colleagues willing to learn from them travel to cape town to learn from them.

"it is here where our lessons will root themselves in your hearts and coax a healthy, growing fruit-bearing plant," they said. so convincing were they in their craft that the world believed them. their house is small and betrayed no stature as to its dwellers. but every free space is filled with books, films, artwork, photographs, albums, clothes, gifts, plaques, awards, accolates, invitations, journals, papers and periodicals from all over the world, all in aide of their work.

as a result, the girl grew up very literate but also very bored with studying. her passion lies in discovering things on her own and being able to show them to others in her own terms. her room is filled with her own scrapbooks, clothes, accolades, photographs. she considers her own room her very own realm.

on first glance, her room appears disheveled and cluttered compared to nollo's. it is about the same size as nollo's. her third wall is covered with posters and awards and medals. her wall right next to her door, like nollo's, is a bookcase overflowing with scrapbooks, albums and books. she had her headboard removed so she can look up outside her window at nollo, if she wants, because she wanted to make sure she return every taunt and tease he threw down at her.

in this shelter of kingdoms and conquerors, of regimes and legends, of religions and crusades, of secrets and discoveries, sweetwheat by itself is rare. there is always an elaborate porridge or soup ready to eat with the bread. in their kitchen as well, her mother has stocked endless bottles of all sorts of sweetspreads, dressings, butters and spices. her father has barrels of smoked and cured meat in the same pantry. cooking is another passion they share.

there is never a shortage of comfort for this couple in their own house. the girl sometimes felt lost in this sea of riches. this is why the girl sometimes resolved to be out of their house as often as she can. forbidden to ascend table mount, she resorted to exploring the towns the comprise cape town.

in cadiz, the girl untethered her bike and rode a little forward. she got off her bike and walked it alongside her, shopping with her eyes. she chose not to bring any food from her house today. she passed by fruit stands offering cheese and berries. she tasted pesto cheese with spicy sausage at another stall. she was offered jam on sweetwheat, a sweetspread on coarsebitter, a sweet rice cake.

as the beneficiary of food enthusiasts, both edible and spiritually ingestible, she developed a taste for quality. she skipped meats for pesto cheese and a chewier sort of sweetwheat, sweet and salted berries, and a piece of rice cake. she drank strawberry champagne and promptly hated it - it was the cheap kind and she wished she bought the lemon drop instead. it was still a sweet drink.

she sat at a fountain's edge and finished her food. she kept the little tags of the pesto cheese and chewy sweetwheat. she'll show them to nollo, her only playmate in the street that she lived in. she stood up, took her bike and headed for the store stalls.

5.

2005-11-03T00:48:00.000-06:00

cape town looks beautiful in the sunrise, nollo thought. the town is in a curious location - at a point where one can see both daybreak and full morning all at once. nollo rowed reluctantly to shore. it wasn't that he didn't want to face his parents and tell them where he'd been. he more than wanted to see the girl again, but he knew she won't be at her house - her parents had forbidden her from table mountain, but they hadn't forbidden her from the rest of town. she would be in cadiz, exploring the church he mentioned yesterday. he would be the last in her mind.

knowing there was nothing onshore for him to look forward to, nollo decided to sail the length of the town. at times from the water you could see the goings-on of people on the shore. if you knew someone well enough, you could recognize as they ascended or descended the steps of cadiz cathedral. but it was too early, the girl won't be exploring the cathedral yet. she would be picking at every small curiosity in the streets.

nollo shrugged and rowed back to shore. he had been up for almost 24 hours now. the cantankerous waters approved and cooperated, almost ushered him, onto shore. he tied his boat right next to his father's and wondered about his parents. before he jumped to shore, he washed his boots and his whip in the water. he burnt the remaining sweetwheat - the only part that was eaten was a chunk he tore off and gave to the girl the previous day - because the bread also served as an excellent incense. he burned away the smell of kentro, the crabs, the bitter melon acid, the burnt beef, the coconut palm. he burned away the smell and taste of dahlia. he was grateful for her generosity. after the last of the sweetwheat had burned, he felt his consciousness sterilized. he felt free.

nearby, fishermen wondered at his burning sweetwheat. but nollo didn't notice.

his tethered bike was still buried in thick rope. he dislodged it and rode into town. the sunrise cast the town in rich gold.

he turned to their street and saw that the girl's bike was still tied to the rack between their houses that they shared. her seat was cool. she hadn't been out at all last night. nollo breathed release.

"morning, nollo," the same fisherman greeted. he cast nollo a knowing look. he was riding his three-wheeled bike, his merchandise still fresh and without smell in the basket in back. nollo nearly jumped out of his skin.

"please," nollo said, not smiling. he rummaged for his house keys. "i am all right. thank you." he turned the key to his house and entered. he shut and locked the door as quietly as he could and walked past his parents' room to his. their door was slightly open. there is wine on the floor and two glasses. there are all the indications that they had also encountered each other in the midnight.

nollo erased that from his mind and turned to his room. he turned the lock and entered.

nollo was unlike many of the other boys in town. he actually cleaned and kept his room straight. each piece of clothing was neatly folded and placed in his closet, each shirt and tie for class neatly pressed and hung. his books immediately to his right upon entering his room were alphabetically arranged, so he can find knowledge immediately. his shelf lined the whole wall to his right. right next to it is his closet. his bed used the side of his closet as a headrest. his desk lined the bottom of his window, which faced west. across from his bed is a blank wall, with another bookcase that carried his stereo. the wall sported his posters. he noticed his room is due a dusting.

he shut his door, put down his things, and started undressing. he was too tired to pick up his laundry. he crawled into bed in just his underwear. he was too tired to don a shirt and pajamas. under the sheets, he could still smell dahlia. they said the strongest sense to recall memory is smell, and then touch, and then sight and then hearing. he remembered her softness as he tried to sleep.

if he drew his curtains, his room would directly overlook the girl's. nollo's house rested on a slightly higher hill than her house. they had played many games where the girl said the only advantage nollo had is that he lived on a slight rise than she did. if they both drew their curtains and she looked up from her bed, she could see nollo's face, sound asleep, looking over her on his high bed.

but he wanted privacy this early morning.

4.

2005-11-02T23:03:00.000-06:00

nollo waited until the girl's parents drove away from the harbor before turning his bike around and returning. "where are you going?" he father yelled.

"away for a moment," he reassured them, tying his bike to a post with abaca rope thick has his wrist. he untied his father's boat from his own and made sure his father's boat was secure. he took his provisions - sweetwheat, rice wine, tarp, tall plastic boots, clothing, blankets. the season has turned to colder, when the days quicken their task of lengthening shadows. it was not a very good idea to set out for sea in the hours nearing dusk. that was what the girl did the night before.

"i'm not like her, father," nollo said, "i know my way around." and before they could retort, he rowed as quick as he can away from the harbor. his parents, used to this burst of anger, watched him row further and further out into sea. finally they turned back when nollo was a half hour from shore.

this is what nollo did as the girl rested peacefully in her bed that night, dreaming of the golden cathedral of cadiz.

there is an island a good six hours' rowing away from the mainland called kentro. it is still inhabited by the native population. each year at the threshold of fall the women gather for a celebration to honor the past year's bounty and to pray for fertility in the next. nollo had seen this festival before, even participated in it.

he wondered why he needed to return to the place where his entire being on all sides was taxed - he disappeared for two days before finally rowing back to the mainland. but he managed to perfect the islanders' secret, that he is forbidden from discussing his tour of the island with anyone, except for one he will choose. the ordeal had turned him into a man - and the girl was too busy with herself to notice, nollo thought ruefully. and i am exhausted already, he thought.

nollo isn't the only youth to know about this secret yearly ritual offered only to invited boys. he was meeting his friends there. nollo was excited. but the truth is that he was divided on what he really wanted - he didn't want to return, but he knew that if he didn't he will forever regret it. his curiosity will stew in his mind. it would be meaningless if he returned at any other time.

the waters surrounding cape town normally cooperated with sailors - in fact, they were among the easiest to navigate. except when the storms carressed table mount. except when girls get lost out to sea. the sea doesn't appreciate neglectful best friends, especially if they consider that best friend's destiny. the waves chopped at his little boat, the boat the girl took out the previous night, and the waves knew its wood. they beat on the boat. both occupants for two days straight were at fault - the girl shouldn't have taken it out to sea in the first place, the boy shouldn't have taken this route to the island tonight. or ever. in fact, he shouldn't be returning to the island ever at all, anymore.

there is destiny set aside for everyone. the boy stubbornly ignored his.

and who wouldn't be tempted by the island? if it weren't so cursed by legend, cape town would have capitalized on its sunny shores and natural harbors and rich resources a millennia ago. but the island remained lush and young because of its secret: a tribe of mostly women practicing their distinct witchcraft.

the island was also overrun by poisonous crabs. at the same time the women gather for their rituals, they crabs emerge from the sea to cross the island for their mating grounds on the other side. a sea of crabs, several feet deep, always gathered at stumbling blocks - in the crooks of tree roots, in the shades of immovable boulders, underground nooks deserted by snakes and rats for fear of the snapping red mass. by themselves the crabs are only three inches across, but en mass they form a formidable force. ten stings will paralyze an adult male for a day, long enough for them to gather your flesh and eat it.

nollo rowed closer to a harbor, an outcropping of rock. there are twenty boats already tethered to shore. he put on his boots and took his whip. he jumped to the rocks to find an outcrop to tie his boat to. the rocks were sharp and loose. mangroove trees provided anchor for some of the boats, and the nearest one looked like it was about to be uprooted - five boats tethered themselves to her.

"sorry girl. but i need to trust you. please keep my boat safe," nollo whispered, securing his knots in place. the red crabs also ate abaca. but nollo didn't intend to stay for very long on the island, the abaca will hold.

he walked the length of the harbor to land. the crabs made an assuring crunching sound under his feet. sunset was approaching. in the distance, he could see cape town gleam in the dimness.

he bruried crabs when he reached sand. he could smell sweet coconut palm, wooden fires, and burnt flesh. he walked a half hour further inland into the jungle. it was difficult to walk the jungle in increasing dimness, killing and swatting crabs along the way. soon, he saw fires and heard music. he turned slightly west and encountered the clearing. everyone else was already there. he was required to jump into the festivities.

the clearing was protected by the crabs by a circular system of small ditches with palm acid lit and burning inside them. the lit acid formed a blue ring around the fire. bitter melon was added to the fire, creating a sweet smell for humans but toxic for crabs. the ones that clung to nollo's boots frantically chewed its rubber to no avail, and almost immediately died at a whiff of sweet palm. the others that fell into the small ditch disintergrated on contact. if the sweet acid contacted human flesh, it would leave a painful, but shallow, burn mark.

trees towered around the clearing. no crabs climbed these trees because of the bitter melon added to the fire, clining to the smoke, rising to the sky. taisers, parrots, wild pigs, musangs, pythons looked on, waiting for a piece of meat roasting in the fire. they will have to wait for a long time.

a woman immediately claimed nollo for her own. she invited him to dance around the fire. traditionally, the woman would have a harem prepared for him, but this woman would have none of that. she was the third in a row of a harem that entertained nollo the last time, and all accounts said she took with him the longest. the night of their first encounter, nollo was rendered feverish, his mind in a cloud of heroin and ice. she took him again after he finished with the last woman in his prepared harem, and awoke with him the following morning. tonight, she offered him heroin as they danced.

nollo learned much about himself in this ancient, optional ritual in an obscure and avoided part of cape town. and first and foremost in his mind since this morning, is her. he accepted the heroin and wasted no time.

he kept his head in the tent. "what?" she asked.

"i have finished here," he told her, "i no longer need to return."

"you're still young, you've only been here once - "

"i no longer need it." he can't help but be seduced by her scent, only a fool would dare refuse her. there are several more of her own countrymen who want her. it's been known that they've killed each other over a glance from her. they've fought to coax her smile. and she's only accepted harem status only after seeing nollo for the first time - a good three seconds out of twenty men who visited that night of their first encounter.

"please do not loose heart. it's beneath you," nollo pleaded. she had turned to stone. nollo drew a pendant from his pocket.

men of cape town only offer jewelry to women out of the sincerest faith. he offered her the purest diamond pendant he could find. but a pendant from a would-be lover is deemed worthless next to a ring. she shifted eyes from the pendant to his face.

"my name is dahlia," she whispered.

only the sincerest, most wounded women would offer their names to nonlovers. on the mainland, a woman's virtue and her name are to be guarded with life and limb. on this island, it is just her name. it is a last act to keep him remaining on the island.

nollo crumbled. with shaking hands he clasped the pendant around her neck and breathed her desperate sobs. he softened her incessant beating. he released her braided hair. he smoothed her tresses around her. he found the bed and enveloped his arms beneath her. he coaxed her to open. he relented only at daybreak. for several instances that felt like eternity, she thought he would actually change his mind. she worked so that he would. she hoped so that he would. but it only served to remind him of her hardenedness.

during the festival special roofless huts are always built in case a couple or a harem desires privacy. nollo would look up and see stars, reminding him what cape town looks like in the midnight from the bay. he scratched and whispered and tasted and molded her every surface with the intentions of abstaining from the island forever.

it was the last night she would ever feel joy ever again.

3.

2005-11-02T04:33:00.000-06:00

first, incense greeted her nostrils. a heavy scent of candles followed. and then warmth from a hundred-hundred candles lined to her right, and a hundred-hundred more lined to her left, a terrace of candles circling the nave. a face of a saint loomed above her, unsmiling yet not unwelcoming either. she stepped forward and the face shifted, as if its eyes followed her. one hand of the saint's hand is raised, as if in semi-hello. shadows crawled across the statue's marble as the girl walked past her into the large church.

the church was deathly quiet, cold, as if the world terminated at this point of space. the roof soared as far as she could find it, and the windows of the dome twinkled above her like her stars over table mount. they fixed themselves in a geometry she doesn't recognize.

to her sides are stained glass windows, the sunlight from outside filtered through to show reds, roses, blues, azues, greens and sages. yellows oscillated gold or white, when she moved they changed color and she can't tell which. knights pointed swords at grotesques and saints raised chalises to the sky. she doesn't recognize st. michael or st. aquinas. there were stained-glass illustrations of rows of rows of knights in chainmail and flowing dress, their robes stained with red crosses. there panels of two men in brown robes surrounding a table looking to a third, but the third's back faced the viewer, so there isn't a record of this third man's face. he raised a loaf of brown - and the girl recognized the only thing in the church, sweetwheat.

she is in the middle of the cathedral now. she looked back and greeted her is the largest, most intricate window she's ever seen, with petals branching in all directions and glass catching all colors all at once. the rosetta reminded her of a kaledioscope nollo showed her once, when they were still little, and suddenly, she realized she wasn't supposed to be there. she started walking back outside.

but suddenly from the rosetta emerged a soft male voice singing in latin. one voice, sustained for an eternity. it succeeded in capturing the girl and she stood rooted to the spot.

o lord almighty
take of us today

all our might
to remove our vanity,

all our bodies
to remove our lust,

all our souls
to save us from damnation,

all our sight
to remove our jealousy,

all our strength
to remove our distractions,

all our riches
to remove our temptations,

o lord almighty
mold us unto thy image

amen.

in such vast quarters with nothing but darkness around her, nothing but twinklings of light at best and images of besotted suiters attuned not to her, singing softly of things she cannot see, things she has not yet learned to consider, she felt the safest and the most alive. she was almost convinced they were singing her soul, bringing it out, and molding it into song.

so fixed were her eyes on the rosetta - it was not blinding - she didn't hear someone approach from behind. he tapped her. serenely, like she expected him, she turned around. "come with me," he said.

he was a boy only six years old, but with eyes that have seen more. he was not smiling. if this expression were laid on an adult, one would say he was there to scold her. but the boy trotted several feet toward the central altar before turning back, "come with me," he said.

to the girl's both sides there are several smaller churches placed at equal distance and right across from each other. the chapels are large enough to hold smaller services. the cathedral, in the custom of the century it was first built, was made to hold several services simultaneously. one can imagine a service concluding in one chapel, while one is just about to begin, while another has just dismissed, as another waits to begin, filled with people, another empty but for the holy host in a monstrance, receiving poius silently reciting the rosary on their knees as they approach, another filled with revelers chanting loudly to exorcise demons out of young women fallen to swoon, another empty but for the small boys employed as sakristan to help clean. each chapel with her own priest, choir, serviceboys, benches, candles, tapestries, monstrances, donation boxes, bibles, curtains and stained glass windows to filter sunlight into their images of saints battling satans and angels revelring in the newborn king.

the boy led her straight to the front of the altar. the most gigantic cross loomed ahead of her. the marble cross gleamed an eerie brown-gold in the dim light. it clearly cannot be seen without the hundreds of candles in tiny holders tracing the cross outline. braided carving traced the cross' inside. roses and trellises outlined the cross. more angels and demons waged holy wars around the cross, their battles forever carved in stone.

the boy ascended one hundred steps to the foot of the ornate cross, headed for the right side, ducked and opened a tiny door large enough only for him to fit. "come with me," he whispered. his voice carried down the one hundred steps and stabbed the girl's heart.

"i can't," she said. "i don't want to."

the boy hestitated. he nodded. "i'll wait for you," he said. the boy opened the door, ducked, and entered. upon closing, the door creeked louder and louder, and louder until it slammed shut. the girl jumped. it had suddenly grown cold, like winter, like ice, like death's fingers' invitation. the gregorian chant ascended to a cry. "forgive us our trespasses! take us unto thee!" she swirled and swooned and swiveled to keep her balance, and ran a good entire minute down the cathedral's center aisle, burst through the nave, and into the sunlight. shadows cast on the cold, stone greeter shifted so that it looked like she waved her farewell, eyes crinkling and laughing.

2.

2005-11-01T19:23:00.000-06:00

westernmost of their country is a city named cadiz, named after the spanish city. at its highest point is the the cathedral of the sunset, in honor of the three saints that chose to settle in that country and forge a nation out of a handful of residents. they chose to leave their country to practice a new religion.

they capitalized on their religion. to earn their keep, they copied volumes and volumes of manuscripts, galileo, the great book, the classics, the theologies. they illustrated retellings of folklores and invented myths and legends. eventually, they saved enough to import rose marble and limestone and gold to build the cathedral.

one day the girl visited this church because she tired of the mountain. after nollo fished her out of the sea overnight, her parents forbid her from stealing away from the town for any more than two hours. so she biked the length of the town, waiting for her parents' anger to simmer down. this afternoon, she reached cadiz just as the sun set. she brought with her shells and pumice to grind and offer.

pink shells she fished from the beaches with nollo, who never said a word about her ordeal last night. last night, she rowed close enough to land so that her anchor snagged heavy sand and sank there. she caught rainwater to drink and huddled in the boat's tiny storage compartment. she slept to choppy waves threatening the boat's body, it could have given away at any moment.

at daybreak with nollo's voice, hysterically screaming, alternating between joy and anger and malice and frustration, she awoke and grinned. she told him what a night she had. how purple was the sky when the lightning struck table mount. how fat lightning looked - and if they could harvest that energy, they could have lights up in table mount, too. and then they could live there forever.

nollo rowed his boat and tied it to hers, and ordered her to eat the sweetwheat bread he brought. it's the same bread that's given every weekend during mass at cadiz. she wondered out loud.

"the priests gave it to me, at cadiz" nollo said, untangling her sails so that it caught wind. he uncoiled her ropes as he brought in her anchor. "you're very brave and very stupid," he said, her back to her as he secured their boats. she didn't know where cadiz was.

"it's the westernmost town in our city," nollo said, "come on." he jumped back into his boat and rowed away. she swallowed the last of the sweetwheat and took her place, and rowed away. the water was still sharp and choppy and teased them while they rowed against it.

in the distance on the harbor she could see four adults anxiously waiting. she said she wanted to go for a swim. nollo said no, but she took off her outer garment and shoes and jumped in anyways.

nollo heard her splash, but didn't look back and continued rowing. she was a strong swimmer and swam alongside him, almost overtaking him. she laughed.

"ya, but you don't have two ships in tow," he finally yelled back.

just before the water turned a tinge gray-blue, she jumped back into her boat, shivering. it was already almost autumn. she used her dress to wipe her body clean. just as she finished using her dress as a towel to dry her hair, nollo sharply turned his boat, almost knocking hers.

she fell to the floor, yelping. nollo hadn't laughed so hard in so long. she yelled him to stop, but he continued to laugh. it isn't funny, she said, it's not funny, haha, but it's good to see you laughing again.

it's good to see you laughing again.

"why, i hadn't noticed i stopped laughing," nollo called back. they were still too far from the harbor for anyone else to hear. she was pulling her dress over her shoulders and gathering her hair to squeeze seawater from it. you have, she said, behind a curtain of hair and dress. she straightened up and hobbled to her seat and took up the oars.

nollo stayed quiet. they were almost at the harbor.

her parents told her to wear this coat, and why did you jump in the water? you're incorrigible. the girl laughed, she liked teasing her family. but she's a lot like nollo when they're struck by brooding. nollo broods right now, and the girl laughs. he stalks off just as she was about to address how she woke up to his screams and how table mountain's sky turned purple in the mix of lightning and midnight. sans rain.

nollo stalks away from the harbor and rides his bike away. the girl walks home with his parents and her parents. her parents scold her.

where were you last night?
why did you take nollo's boat? that's not your boat!
we had to loan him your father's little boat.
he looked for you everywhere. even right atop table mount!
you should have told us where you were.
it was late last night!
he didn't sleep last night looking for you as well.
he went as far as cadiz to look for you, even though he knew you won't be there.
you're not allowed to go to table mount ever again?
do you hear me, young woman?
don't give your father that look!
there is nothing atop table mount!
snakes and scorpions!
flesh-eating flytraps! lions!
poison ivy and dandelion hash!
you are to stay indoors until we tell you to.
you are to stay within cape town. forever.
you are not to venture out your room unless it is nollo who asks for you.
you're not even to see nollo after dark!
where were you last night?
why do you leave the house without telling us where you are?
why did you take nollo's boat without telling him?
he puts up with you, you ungrateful child!

the girl cannot scramble away, even though she knows the way back to her house. she broods in the back of their car. brooding, the same time nollo broods.

later that night across the fence, she asked him where did he go to look for her.

"cadiz," he said. and left it at that. he shut the back door behind him and never looked up from his book. she could see his room from her back yard. as could he of hers. she wondered why was it that they remained the only two young people on their street in cape town. she turned then to the stars and started counting.

tomorrow, i'll visit cadiz.

the cathedral gleamed golden in the sunset when she finally arrived on its steps. well, she can't help it if she skips dinner again and comes home late. she leaned her bike on the side of a concrete set of steps and slowly climbed the stairs.

why was she here? she's never been to a church before. she's never needed to. nollo was here. and she thought, so?

she removed her sandals and climbed the marble barefoot. the stone was cold, but with the shining, golden sun, not uncomfortable. one hundred twenty-four steps, she whispered. only 124. save for the middle set, the doors of the church were closed. it was pitch black inside. she entered.

1.

2005-11-01T02:27:00.000-06:00

sailing at midnight is a bad idea. she pulls on the ropes and straightens the sails, in time to ligtning hitting atop table mount. cape town is within reach. if only she can make it! rain is coming very soon. she rows, careful not to exert any more effort than needed, occasionally standing and adjusting the sails so the wind pushes her to the harbor and not out to sea.

table mount gleams in the midnight.

but she knew there won't be another time for it. rarely does lightning visit cape town, south africa, and she wasn't going to miss it for the world. but she had ventured too early, at sunset, and foolishly thought she hadn't rowed far enough. she chose a spot and dropped anchor - and might as well have dropped it from a cliff on the side of table mount into air. too curious to stop, she rowed too far out to sea that, taut though the rope to her anchor was, her anchor clung to nothing.

and she was too enamored of the scenry to notice. she saw stormclouds several hours earlier, while playing on the plateau of table mount. she learned to recognize stormclouds from books and all the times she clambered up a secret, uneven staircase she discovered as a child, a steep natural staircase near the very east of table mount. it takes two hours to climb the staircase, and eight hours to roam the entire top of table mount. all that while, she would look eastward, watching the skies.

sometimes, she would spend days up in table mount. only her older brother knew where she was, and their parents would send him to find her. although he didn't mind climbing the mount, he didn't like sharing the space with his sister. but he was rarely resentful - life at cape town hadn't yet turned crowded and suffocating for the siblings that they remained to share table mount. he knew where to find her when she was gone for hours at a time. he knew, until, that is, she learned to recognize stormclouds.

while up on the plateau it wasn't just stormclouds she learned to recognize. when night catches her, she would spend it up there, on the pleateau's highest hill, a small jut of rock, earth and grass up a comfortable forty degrees to the east. she learned to read stars and constellations there. sometimes she left the rock, using it as reference point, and learned navigation by starlight when she roamed the plateau. sometimes, her brother would wake her, still resting on the rock, and deliver their parents' scolding. "how do you do it? your luck shields you from drug lords and bandits," he asked. she would clamber down the hill, down the side of the mountain, her older brother in pursuit.

they weren't really brother and sister. it's just that for the longest time their parents let them play together because at the time they were born, they were the only children on the street. at first nollo was pleased when she came along, and even more enamored when her parents presented her to him, and the first thing she did was bite his finger!

eventually her solitary nature led him to running farther and farther streets of cape town. it was she who discovered printer's row further inland. she discovered a fishing village an hour's walk from their house. when bicycles were introduced to them by nollo's father, she led him further east of town to the colorful houses that played host to tourists and visitors.

one day she left him waiting as daybreak came. this is how he learned to find her. she was only 16, and he was becoming increasingly persistent. he actually didn't want much, just more time away from their bikes and along the shores, talking. he wanted to know what she thought of the things he found by himself, as a result of her running off into where ever. he'd brought back some shells and stones from the coast when her mother asked her to look for the girl; she'd been missing all afternoon again.

and this is how he built a seat on his bike. at first he forced her to walk alongside him because he can't carry them both in his bike, and that if he lost her again, her mother would yell at him and it would take him hours to find her again. so the first time he lost her he found her exploring a crack on the side of the mountain, and that was how they found the natural staircase that led to the summit. they hid his bike in a small cave to the side, and no one was able to find their bikes there.

they climbed the staircase to the summit, and they found the stormclouds together.

"they look just like those in your books," he said.

"do they?" she asked, and as soon as she saw them, she wanted to run across the plateau - it was so flat! how could it be so flat? - she examine them further.

"no," he said, clapping hands with her and pulling her back. "your parents are looking for you." but he saw how curious she was, and he said, "we'll come back."

except that he rarely came back with her. it seemed like table mount had grown a barrier between the two friends, and the good thing is that they both rarely noticed. it was just as well, else he would not have found any more rocks and shells and a career as a coastline geologist. he liked sailing. however much she liked ascending table mount, and later the lesser mountains along cape town, was how much he liked sailing. this is how he took her down from the mountain.

but she hadn't learned as adeptly as he has navigating the seas, and as she learned how to navigate by starlight and to lithely hop from rock too rock, she learned she loved travel and learning itself, so she made him teach her how to drive his boat. nollo turned to be a gifted sailor, so his parents allowed him to have his own boat for just sailing and not fishing. and he rarely knows how to say no to her. and so he taught her, hoping she would learn.

she rows further into the harbor. she is fighting the impeding storm. she learned to love table mountain to the point of sailing as far as she could in the midnight so she can see what it looked like swatched in spidery lightning.

but it is far too late in the might and far too deep in the storm. the precious seconds she spent hauling in her anchor brought her further into sea. as soon as she could, she quickly, haphazardly, with enough ropes on the boat floor to trip her, dropped the fat ropes on the floor and lounged for her seat to take the oars. she trips. she falls into a stupor. white lightning illuminated a purple sky swathed over a giant table mount, looming farther and farther in the distance.