Wave. Smile. Repeat.

Right there, that table sheltered by the shade of the trees—that’s where she sits everyday with her friends. Just every day, like it was required of her to come home to her table. She has lunch there, and studies there. When her friends come by, they’re a really noisy bunch, and when she’s alone, it’s just her and a book. She’d pop on some ear phones, and it sometimes feels like I can imagine the music play in the background, but only when I look at her.

This is what it feels like in campus every day; this is what feels normal. I guess I got really used to it, because this table across theirs is like home to me now too. There’s an odd shift in the air whenever she isn’t around. The scene is incomplete when I glance up from my homework and she’s nowhere in the peripheral.

But today, the odd shift isn’t caused by her absence, but the presence of another person. I know this one: he comes around every day for a class in a nearby building, but he’s never talked to her. I didn’t really think he knew her. I didn’t know her; I just saw her every day, that’s all.

I get bored of my calculus exercises, like a healthy person should, and end up watching him try to borrow her laptop and surf the internet. But the odd thing is, he’s behind her, with his arms reaching out over her shoulders. Her friends are there, watching, and they giggle. I can hear one say something like a taunt, and the girl just put a finger to her lips, shushed them with a smile she can’t push back. But the guy was uncomfortable, and it seems like she is too. I don’t think anyone else noticed, but she was about to lift her hands to take his arms and ask him to hug her or something, but she didn’t.

The guy finally backs away, and thanks her, bids her goodbye with nervous laughter.

When he’s gone, her friends huddle up and discuss. She tries to ignore it with light laughter, and before she looks down at her laptop, our eyes meet.

I look away.

*

I never get used to it, when things change around here. I do my homework during my free time, and I see the same girl and the same set of friends when I look up. The guy came back again, and I’m certain he never passed by or visited in the past two weeks.

His visit today seems to be longer than the first time I saw him around. He has a pack of candy, and he offers it to the group; they naturally decline. He shakes the pack in front of her, her slight hesitation is overridden by a sense of politeness. She takes a piece.

She pats on a seat and invites him to join the table. He takes the seat, but he’s being ignored. The girl seems unusually animated, her conversation with her friends turn into a show, and the guy is reduced to an audience member. They sat next to each other, but he felt pretty distant, even at the points when he seemed to try to join in.

The next time I look at them, I see him stand up and awkwardly say goodbye.

The entire circle of friends immediately transform into a small council, advising her to stay away from the guy and not encourage anything.

I could get it, I guess, for friends to tell you to stay away from jerks and stuff, bad people who would hurt you and break your heart or whatever, but the guy seemed pretty decent to me. I mean, his glasses look pretty good on him.

I think I should take back what I said about the small council. Those are for kings. This is a democracy, and the sovereignty lies with the constituents—she isn’t getting advised; she’s trying to please her people.

*

It’s like she’s trying not to hug him or something. Maybe, I don’t know. This guy really distracts me. I can’t do homework when he’s around. She’s alone today, and she just put down a book when he came over. Now I’m pretty fixated on the pair of them, trying to see if she’ll be like how she was when her friends were around them both.

When he came by today, she just waved hello without looking up from her book. He took a seat and tried to make conversation. He even brought her something new to read. She lit up when she saw it, and started to make recommendations. Now they’re talking like normal.

But it’s still kind of odd, like, unnatural. Whenever there were dead bits of silence in their conversation, she would revert to her old ways of ignoring him, and just giving him a show—and this show is pretty boring because she’s just there, reading. But she doesn’t pop her ear phones back on, because, you know, he’s still there.

But he isn’t leaving, and she’s just waiting there. I don’t even think she’s really reading because she never got to flipping any pages anymore. He breaks the silence, but the new topic doesn’t succeed at provoking any comments. He gets up and says goodbye, and she puts down her book and gives him a smile and a wave.

There’s something almost political about the way she says goodbye.

*

Once a week is the most I see of this guy, and in the span of seven months, his awkward visits are kind of normal now, and I’ve grown pretty tired of watching them back-and-forth their attempts to sway each other towards something more favorable.

And I know I used to say that seeing him is weird, but today is really, really weird, because they’re next to each other and they’re holding hands.

I don’t know what happened.

*

I see him today, and she’s busy on her laptop. Must be some homework thing. He sits down next to her, but she ignores him, except for the trained hello-goodbye smile and wave combo. So I guess yesterday was a false alarm.

And yes, I said yesterday. I see him twice in a week—and two days in a row. What a record.

*

And then he’s gone again, for like, two days. He’s back now, and he’s kind of trying to be sweet, actually. He nudges her on the shoulder, and takes her by the wrist and asks her to go with him. The girl whines, wanting to stay. How territorial. But she pats on the seat next to hers, and gives a real smile this time. He looks around the table only for a second to see her friends pretending to ignore them both, and dismisses the idea with a nervous chuckle and turns around. She groans. “Okay fine,” she stands up. “Where are we eating?”

*

He wasn’t here yesterday, but he is now. And I think I’m watching a re-edited replay, because it’s all the same. Except when he turned around, he just left, and she just smiled and waved. That choreography must be by muscle memory. That lunch the other day must have went badly.

*

I thought I was finally going to have a month clear of this distracting drama. It’s almost pre-finals week, and I’ve got to study. And here he is again, few weeks after. How long have I been watching these two?

And that thing I said about her friends being a small council is kind of pretty true if you’re considering how well-dressed advisers to royalty should be.

I don’t think that she thinks he’s a loser.

But she’s ignoring him again, but let him sit next to her. It’s both obvious and confusing. He tries to say something with a smile, and she’s almost irritated about it. He pulls out a couple of tickets to something.

At first, her hand instantaneously comes up and she gently pushes away the tickets using the back of her hand. She says something quietly. His smile becomes unbearable to keep up. He tries to hold any expression on his face, and the best he could do is press his lips together.

“What don’t you get?!” She snaps, but her body is completely composed—or stiff, nervous. “Do I have to say it to your face?” Her brows are pushing together, and she’s trying to loosen her jaw as she waits for a response.

None.

“I’ve been trying to be nice to you. There’s nothing wrong with a girl just trying to make a decision about her life, right? I mean, I have a say in things—that I don’t have to force myself into something I don’t want?”

“Well, I’m sorry.” He gets up. “I’m sorry I just kept on trying.”

Her friends begin to leave the table, uneasy about the atmosphere. I would have done the same, but I’m locked on to them.

“You were always just there.”

“I’m sorry I kept on bothering you.” I don’t know if he was beating himself up about it, or if he was just trying to not be so angry.

“And you were so scared! Scared to say anything, to do anything—scared to make a mistake and you’d go missing for a long time until you try again. Just a scared little boy!”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t be a man.”

“And stop with your stupid apologies!”

“I’m sorry I fell in love with you, okay? Not like I could have done anything about it!”

“Oh please! You’d feel that way about any other girl who pays you a bit of attention.”

It shuts him up for a while, but he starts back up. “I was going to say that I’m sorry I seemed so pathetic to you, but I feel even sorrier for you. That you actually think someone would only want to be with you if you’re the last choice they had.”

He calmly walks away.

*

I never saw him around again, except for the times like right now when he needs to pass by to get to another building. He scans the environment, making sure she wasn’t there at the table.

But she never was.

She never came back home.

8/23/2010: World Contingencies

What is the probability that a person aged x will not die within the next t years?

What is the probability that a person aged x will survive up to age x+t but die within the following u years after?

If there’s anything that I’d know the probability of, that’d be that all men die. P[ X = die] = 1. No exceptions, no excuses.

Even my mother died when I was born. I lived on as Kately Barton, blind girl from birth. There was no excuse for it. She just died because she couldn’t live. That was the story.

A lot of people who see the things I study, about death and life contingencies, tell me that math is an inhumane and detached science, that it is a study that is completely objective if not oblivious to the world. We try to quantify life, death and all the variables and factors that affect them to try to predict how much a life is worth monetarily.

They feel threatened, as if math was a study of measuring the world in numbers.

And they call the study of arts and letters—of history and literature, of sociology and psychology—the humanities.

But you can’t really call math inhumane, in that sense, because all that arts and letters is trying to do is capture the world in a form of language, bounded by a system of logic. And math is a language and a system of logic. It’s a philosophy.

I was told once by a teacher in high school that math is a science of symbols and patterns. Not of numbers, but of their behaviors and their effects in systems of logic.

Math is a behavioral science.

Symbols. Patterns. Like languages, like literature—like history and politics, the world and the ways of thinking. Like people.

Like the people who call my situation inhumane: to be blind and incomplete and incapable of my maximum potential as a human being. But being blind, or being sick, or being incapable of something doesn’t hinder anyone at all from expressing or experiencing love or happiness, despair or sadness, and the range of other human emotions in between. In fact, I don’t think I’m sick or incapable—I feel fine, just different. I see the world differently. I’m like math. I’m human, but with a different language.

Statistics studies the behavior of things that happen and don’t happen, things that might happen and might not. Math studies the behavior of logic. It isn’t inhumane. In fact, it goes deeper into what the mind itself usually can’t grasp. It sees the world in different ways, like how I do.

And if math is inhumane, then every study of that tries to capture the world by some language or system of logic is inhumane too.

Fact of the matter is, the world can’t be captured at all.

ESC: 01 Our Time Now

The dim yellow lights hung low from the ceiling, some swinging over pool tables covered in scratched green velvet. The walls are lined with long, wooden tables, surrounded by drinkers—seated and chill, or up and chatty. Drink towers were filled with fizzy mixes of gin, Kool-Aid and Sprite. There were pitchers of rum, mint and lemon. Cups of glass or plastic sprouted up on every table while some ended up rolling on the cracked cement floor where empty bottles lay. The playlist for the night was an alternation of dance music and indie rock, and the occasional “ice!” or “another bottle over here!” chimes over the shuffling of cards.

 *

“Tom, you up, bro?” A fully dressed Ken shook him by the shoulders.

“Mmhm.” Tom rolled to his side, and consequently, into underneath the bed.

“TOM,” Ken pulled him by the collar revealing his head. “Drink or Drench?”

“I’ve had enough to drink, thanks.” He managed to mumble.

“I said, Drink or Drench?”

Tom forced a couple of blinks before he looked up to see that over his head was a cup of coffee. “Drink,” a groan. “Now get me out of here.”

Ken tries to pull him out by the collar, choking Tom momentarily before he motions for Ken to stop. Tom squirmed out, stood up and took the coffee from him. “Breakfast is?” He takes a sip; grimaces.

“Dried fish and tomatoes,” Ken says. “What’s wrong with you?”

“White sugar.”

“Coffee hipster,” Ken accused.

“There’s a difference when it’s brown.” Tom took a mug from the cupboard and poured a fresh cup. The sugared “contaminated” coffee, he poured back into the pot. “I’d rather take it straight.”

“You took a lot of things straight last night.” More accusations.

“And you took something straight home.” Backfire.

“I don’t even remember how that happened.”

“It always happens.”

“Exactly.”

*

Tom knew the protocol to these things. In the four years he’s been Ken’s most faithful roommate, he’s been dragged to every place where the night is alive with the scene of fresh, innocent trouble, just like this one. It was the last night of the summer—the last night of their last summer—before everyone who has not yet flunked will graduate from college and will be released unto the unforgiving hands of the real world. Tom didn’t really care, neither about the partying or the part about college. He just went there to make sure Ken didn’t bet his Xbox Kinect at poker.

And, as is per usual, the designated nanny Tom brought a book with him, kept in a Ziplock in his backpack in case the crowd decides to throw the nerd into the pool. He didn’t want any of his other books to suffer the same fate of a Tom Clancy novel he never managed to finish.

“My friends,” the host began, raising a beer while standing on top of his table. “Remember always that the real world is filled with shit. Tonight is a dream; don’t let it be contaminated.”

An enthusiastic friend climbed atop the table, his arm over the host’s shoulder, “So let’s contaminate the world! After this year, we’ll be out there!”

“The night is ours! It’s our time now!”

“There will be no rules tonight!”

“And if there were—“

“WE’D BREAK THEM!” The crowd chimed in, everyone raising a drink together.

He knew all the people, knew all their names and all their past hook-ups and throw-ups at all the parties they’ve mutually attended. Tom always knew about a lot of things he never really cared about. And tonight, like most others, he took a bottle to his corner, where at the same table, Ken and the others were playing a round of I’ve Never. A tower of Rum Cola was in the middle with a stack of plastic cups next to it, as well as a bucket of ice with a small pair of tongs. All over the table was an assortment of shot glasses, some with Bacardi, Tequila, Antonov, and then there were colorful mixed ones, perhaps for the girls or the ones who know they’ve had too much. But then, Tom learned that in these situations, there have been three wrong assumptions of life: (1) that girls are weaker drinkers, (2) that there’s ever such a thing as too much when in a party, and (3) that colored shots can’t be as hard.

The rules were simple: sip rum cola if you’ve done it, and no one has, the speaker has to take a shot. If everyone’s done it, everyone takes a shot.

“I DECLARE . . . I’VE NEVER!” Said the guy who’s always declared I’ve never. His audience howled and cheered. He raised his glass and the dozen or so seated members of the table suddenly got surrounded by a dozen and a half others standing around.

They knew to just leave Tom be, and so they did. The only time he lifted his nose from that book was when he had to fill his glass again. If not for that, he would to check on Ken, or just to observe other tables. He was watching this particular table where a classic game of truth or dare was being played. The person giving out dares was a hyperactive little thing, a girl shouting out “Take off your shirt and dance to the bartender!” but laugh with such bright and seemingly childlike eyes. She was wearing a loose, cream sheer blouse, collared and long-sleeved, but revealing the black lace brassiere she wore underneath, and the silhouette of her black bandage skirt. She had a pair of beige flats that she left on the floor when she stood up on her chair to give her next command. She seemed more like a child on a sugar rush than a drunken whore. He’s never seen her before, or at least he thinks he hasn’t. He continued to wrack through his mind for possible memories.

“I’ve never,” started one of the girls. “Had my face near pubic hair.”

“NO SHIT BRO!” “AH FUCK.” “I’M INNOCENT!” Live, full volume commentary went on. Secrets were being exposed, and on rare occasions, friendships could have been broken. At some point, someone would say, “I’ve never slept with <insert promiscuous person here>” and a number of surprised people will all sip together.

The girl saw Tom staring right at her, but wasn’t offended in the slightest. She gave him a smile and a nod as she raised her bottle of vodka cruiser to him, the neck of the bottle held in the same way as a glass of wine. He took it as a sort of toast.

“I’ve never,” it was Ken’s turn. “Had sex with a guy.”

Tom raised his glass to her and sipped.

Everyone at the table turned to Tom.

It was a rare occasion that Tom would participate in any drinking game, but if he did, he’d raise his drink to them first, and sip with them.

Once Tom understood what just happened, he said dryly, “Yeah. Ken was horrible. Had to fake it.” And as everyone laughed at his response, he stood up from the table and moved to another where they were pouring out the drama of their lives into glasses of orange gin. The girl he was watching had finally fallen victim to the spinning bottle. “DARE!” She exclaimed, raising her hand like a student. It was revenge from the table—everyone took the dare queen and pulled her towards a guy, to which she resisted. As she struggled, Tom had the urge to help her, but only did as much as get off of his seat, when she finally yelled out, “STOP!” And she suggested something else, and the judges of the table approvingly nodded.

She walked all too shyly towards Tom, something that seemed befitting her but was supposed to be out of character based on her earlier behavior. She reached out to his face on that high 6’3” frame of his, and she even had to tip toe for it, before Tom bowed lower to her.

And she kissed him.

Just short, and perhaps too boring for the rest of the table, as they demanded “MORE!” while she walked towards a small, empty table in the corner and sat on her own. She looked back only once, lips pursed. She didn’t move or say anything, so Tom stopped himself from going to her. Instead, he sat with this other guy alone with some cards who asked him if he’d like to play a few rounds of bullshit.

“There’s kind of just two of us, bro.”

“Hasn’t it been done before?”

“It has, it has.”

And one by one, they stacked the cards in pairs or more, faced down, naming them. “Bullshit,” they’d accuse each other. And if it was bullshit, then the liar had to take the pile, and it just went on and on to the point where Tom just wanted it to end and neither of them bothered to catch each other’s lies.

“Bullshit!” The girl had walked up to them and caught Tom lying about having four Queens, when all four queens have previously been laid down.

Tom didn’t really know what to say. The guy rounded up the cards and shuffled. “Take a seat, miss. You can pick the game.”

“Hmm,” her fingers lightly tapped on her lips as she decided. “You boys know Game of Thrones?” She lit up.

“Well yeah,” Tom answered. “But that’s not a card game.”

“Tyrion had a drinking game.” She suggested.

“Alrighty kids,” the card guy said, annoyed by the nonsense. He knew that game anyway, just as he knew almost any possible drinking or card game there was to know. “We take turns trying to find out each other’s mysteries of life. Drink if you got it right, drink if you were caught.”

“But that’s boring!” She complained.

“You suggested it,” Tom was getting rather confused.

“But I also suggest that three drinks in a row is a strike, and a strike entails the removal of one article of clothing.” Her lips were in a mocking pout.

“It’s settled then!” Cards guy looked at Tom. “Tall kid, you first.”

“Alright.” He looked at her, “don’t I get to know your name first?”

“Game now, name later.” She demanded.

“Right. This is the first time we’ve been in a party together.”

“Drink.”

Tom took a sip. “Your mother,” he hesitated. “No, uhm. You are an underage drinking.”

“Drink.” She smiled. He took more like a gulp than a sip. “Last one.”

“Alright,” he rubbed his hands together. “You’ve read American Gods.”

“Drink. Undershirt, give it here.” She laughed as she opened her palm to him. As he unbuttoned his shirt and shimmied off the sleeves, she said, “I read Stardust, Sandman and Coraline.”

“Girl choices.” He said, handing the undershirt to her and putting back the red shirt on. He left it unbuttoned, revealing a tattoo of Aperture Science logo where his heart was supposed to go.

“Nerd choices.” She pointed at it, and noticed that the back of his left arm and shoulder was covered in alchemic symbols, all permanent.

“I was seventeen.”

“I’m seventeen now.”

“Give me back my shirt, then—“ But instead, she very quickly took it and ran to the fire exit.

She was fast on her feet, playing a staircase game of King of the Shirt. But before she could go down, she realized he was gone. She stopped, checking if he wasn’t hiding somewhere along the stairs. And then she laughed, thinking he must have been so easily pissed off. Her laugh was light, and sweet, caught by the shortness of her breath, until—“Now give me my shirt.” He was holding her by the waist from behind her with the left hand, locking her wrists in his grip, lifting her from the ground a few inches. She couldn’t help herself but giggle. “Hey, hey, okay, no. I’m actually from Ken’s block. I’m twenty.” She tried to stop her laughing, and the entire staircase was filled only with the hushed sounds of two people trying to catch their breaths.

Tired, she leaned her forehead against the cold, hard wall. It was as if Tom was still uncertain whether her being a friend of Ken’s a lie or the truth, and still wouldn’t let go of her waist and wrists. His face was buried in her hair, the messy bun beforehand now collapsed into a flowing river of black. He moved his nose down to the side of her left jaw, his lips on her neck. His breath lined her skin, still low and irregular, his heat rolled off of hers. He loosened his grip on her wrist. Her fingers caught his, and she lay her hand on top of his, slowly guiding it down to the hem of her skirt. The moment his fingers touched her skin, there was no more need for guidance. He started kissing her, from jaw, to neck. His right hand unbuttoned her blouse, and he slid the sheer, cream cloth off her shoulders. He left light, slow kisses on her neck, then she turned her face to meet his. She took off his glasses and tossed them to the ground. Her arm reached back to his neck, her fingers buried in his hair, as they started to exchange breaths. His left hand slid up underneath her skirt, his right caressed the soft curvatures on her side. He slid up inside her, and there was a gap in her breath before they made their way to a quick, irregular breath. The air was sharp with coldness of the stairwell, and they radiated with heat.

He suddenly pulled off the sheer blouse that hung on her arms, and kissed her down her spine. He went on his knees, his hands at her waist, and guided her to turn towards him. He pulled down the black lace from underneath her skirt. His fingers trembled but her grip on his collar pulled him back up, as she unzipped his jeans while kissing his bare chest. He took her by the waist and raised her to his level, their lips meeting. His tongue in her mouth, her fragrance in his breath. Her legs wrapped around his hips, his hand on the small of her back. Her fingers were lost in his hair, the other hand traced his spine upwards. She was pushing unto him, until he pushed her up against the wall. She screamed, her nails scratched on the skin of his back. He pushed into her, and her arms went up in surrender. He held them against the wall, keeping her there as they both went faster, and faster, and faster up against the cold wall. She held back a scream, and bit instead into his right shoulder. He moaned in pain and pleasure. The sound of the dense air in the stair case bounced down into an endless spiral.

*

“Where did you run off to, by the way?” Ken said, grabbing a towel, “The game was nothing without your ghostly parenting at the table.”

Tom stepped out of the shower and dried his hair. “Your turn.”

“The girls said they found you puking in the ladies’ room.” He stepped into the shower.

Tom, still wrapped in a towel, started to brush his teeth by the sink. Ken’s voice still trying to reach out through the water.

“No seriously, why were you just sleeping outside the hallway?”

Spit, rinse, repeat. “You really don’t remember?”

“Enlighten me, Father Tom.”

*

The staircase was calm and silent, filled only with occasional giggling from them both. He picked up her blouse and opened it to her, as a gentleman would offer a coat. She put her arms into the sleeves, and Tom buttoned her up with nervous hands and an anxious smile. Then her small hands slid over his bare chest, and kissed it before she took the shirt to button it up for him. When she was done, Tom kissed her and she couldn’t keep back a smile.

“Now could you tell me your name?” He began.

“Yours first.” They still haven’t moved away their faces from each other.

“So many distractions.”

“Please?” A kiss.

“Tom.”

“I know that, full one.”

“Uhm, Thomas Hardy.” He was at her neck when she laughed and pushed him off to take his face in her small hands.

“Seriously.” No one can deny that smile anything.

“Fine. It’s Thomas Jameson.”

“Ah, Thomas. Son of James.” She was just an expert at making herself laugh.

“Now, yours.” That laughter was contagious.

“Delilah.” She started walking up the stairs.

“Delilah?” He followed.

“Silas. Delilah Silas.”

“Should I call you Adele or something?”

“No,” she took a last look back at him, her hand on the door. She pushed it open and the light came flooding in. “Just Li. Spelled L-I, like Pi.”

“Alright, Delilah-Li like Pi.” And they walked out together into the crowd of music and smoke.

*

“You got into a drunk fight,” Tom said, buttoning up a fresh shirt.

“Really?” Ken was putting on a belt into the loops of black jeans.

“No. Someone was about to give you head in the ladies bathroom when you peed on her face, then you puked into the toilet. Had to clean you off and drag your ass back out, sat you down with the boys. I left you there to get you some lemonade or whatever, when I got back, there was this girl sleeping on the floor next to you. You were using her as a footrest before you laughed so hard you rolled down next to her.”

“You’re kidding.” Ken looked up, then he searched for his memories of the night before. The color drained from his face, “no you’re not.”

“No. I’m not.”

“I’m sorry, I have to—“ Tom said, dragging Ken out of the bathroom.

“No, it’s okay. I always see you do this. It’s sweet.”

“Maybe I’ll—“

“Maybe you won’t.” A sorry kind of smile was on her face, as she nodded to him before she turned and walked away into the busier parts of the party.

“Heyyyyyyy,” Ken managed. “Do I know her?”

“You know everyone.” He wiped a bit of vomit and spittle from the corner of Ken’s mouth.

*

“But how’d we get to the bed, who was she and how’d you end up outside?” Ken tried to check his phone for any pictures as they waited for the elevator.

“I helped you walk to the car, I carried the girl. You were both in the back seat. It was a bad idea.” Tom wiped the sleep off the corner of his eye with his wrist.

“So we locked you out?”

“You’re a good friend like that.”

They walked to campus. There are first-first days when you’re a freshmen, then the first day of not being a freshmen. But third and fourth year first-days feel like protocol. The last-first day feels different, like the air of possibilities and the fear of them, a certain air that only the seniors communally breathe.

“It’s our time now, bro.” Ken said, before they were to attend to their different schedules.

“And if there are no rules to break, we’d make them.”

ESC: 00 Plain White

The heat of the summer morning crept into the room through the slits of the plastic beige blinds covering the windows. The sunshine pierced through the cold air of the air conditioned condominium unit. White sheets were scattered off the floor. Ken was kicking off the sheets from the bed.

“What is this evil rising ball of light,” he whined, covering his head with a pillow.

“Excuse me?” A lady with her shoulders bare from what remains of the sheets that wrapped her body took the pillow. “My head was on that.”

He was asleep again, snoring, even. She didn’t really want to go back to bed anymore, at least, not with him. She stood up, blanket robed, and tried to walk to the shower when—“Hey!” Half of the blanket was tucked underneath the man that was snoring in bed. “The sheet! Get up, you lazy slob.” She continued to struggle with the blanket, tugging at it to get him to at least roll off of it.

He didn’t budge. A few more tugs, she grew tired. She walked back to the bed and tried to slide the blanket from underneath him. She slid her hand underneath the side of his body, and took a hold of the blanket. But before she could pull, he took her by the wrist. He wasn’t asleep after all. A smirk, “what’s the point of doing that?” He grabbed at the blanket wrapped around her and pulled her back unto the bed, on top of him. “I’ve already seen all of it.” The taste of his smile brushed lightly unto her lips. His right hand slid down from her side to the small of her back, his left brushed her hair away from her face. Kisses, light and few, were exchanged. He moved to her neck.

“I can’t do this right now,” she said, trying to hold back her laughter. “Sweetie,” she tried to get him to stop. “I have to get into campus in twenty.”

“Oy,” he pulled his head back and landed unto a pillow. “Damn class starting too early, ruining everything.”

“Yes, the big bad educators have come to take me away.” She said mockingly. She left a light kiss on his right chest, gave him a light pat on the cheek, and stood up, leaving behind the blanket.

“There we go.” He watched her curves rise up from the sea of white.

“Wh—where are my clothes?” She started to look frantically through the pile of unfolded pants and boxers. She checked underneath an inside-out button-down shirt that was hanging precariously over the flat screen TV. It was annoying to her that when she looked back at him, he was just watching her with a smile.

“You’re asking me that after what happened last night?”

“Do you have anything I can borrow?”

He pointed at the flat screen.

“Anything clean.”

“That is clean.”

“And unused.”

“Fine,” he pointed towards the closet.

“Thanks.” She went in, looked through some big shirts, and picked out a huge white button-up , put it on and rolled the sleeves a fourth of the way up. She went out of the closet, wrapping a thin braided belt around her waist—she didn’t know where it came from. “I’m taking this,” she said almost begrudgingly, more like an inquisition.

He was looking at the belt, trying to remember which one left it there on which night from whose party. “I—uhm, yeah sure okay.”

Her high-heeled black suede ankle boots were dumped atop a scatter of Vans and Keds. She grabbed them and put them on quickly. Thank god, she thought. At least my shoes survived that wreck.

She went for the door—a thud—“OH GOD.” She tried to open it slower, allowing his head to bend naturally with the motion, “THERE IS A PERSON.”

“Mmhm,” in his agreement. He was like this whenever he was being woken up. The question Are you awake? was always greeted with this and only this, so he could be left in peace to go back to sleep.

Tom was a tall mess sleeping in the hallway, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods was his only available pillow. His red button-down was open halfway, exposing his chest with some three or four different hickies, marked by smudges of lipstick. A small patch of crusting dried vomit made a home on his uncuffed sleeve. His dark jeans seemed to be in order, but only his left foot was wearing a grey sock–only the right wore a grey boat shoe. His silver rimmed rectangular glasses hung only unto his left ear, the right eyeglass fogged up in wake of a quiet yawn.

“Heyyyy, buddy.” Ken managed to get into a pair of boxers before he walked to the entryway. “Go to class, I’ll take care of this.” He kissed her goodbye and she took a last worried glance at the boys before she walked off to the elevator. “Agh, now that was a party.” He patted the mess of hair on Tom’s head, as if though a dog’s, then proceeded to dragging him into the room by the armpits.

“NEIL!” He woke up, his arms outstretched towards the doorway.

“I’ll get that,”—(“Ow!”)—Ken let go of him and took the book left from the hall, placed it safely next to the flat screen.

Tom propped himself up on his left elbow and his free right hand nurtured the bump on his head. “Thanks?”

“Why back so early, Tiger? Unsuccessful night?” Ken went on ahead with turning on the coffee maker. Seemed like a much needed remedy.

Tom had already pulled the sheets down to the floor and scrunched them into a makeshift pillow. “Mmhm,” and he went back to bed.

08/19/2010

I live in a world that proves to be highly ideal. For one, I may have been born blind, but I had people to do things for me. Daddy made sure of it. And I had a friend who did everything with me, went to school with me and be everything I couldn’t be for me. Secondly, if I needed or wanted anything, I could just ask, and it’d be more or less there if it were possible: reprinted versions of books in braille, audiobooks of all sorts, any and all the music I wanted, tickets to any live concert. But I didn’t like to ask Daddy for plenty of things, because I knew he’d give all of them anyway. I’ve met people who have been “bratty” or “spoiled”. I’ve listened to them demand things from their parents and complain about the earth and say that everything is inadequate and there is just so much more, more, more. So they go out and ask for more, search for more, demand for more and complain more often. And I think they’re pretty happy with themselves. But I think there is no pleasure in that when you know you can have anything you asked for, anyway. There is nothing in the world that I want, and all that I want are things nobody can get a hold of, no amount of money could reach to it. The only things worth touching are things that are sacred, Dorian. Henry Wotton said that. I think that’s how it was read, I remember it was that way. But I think what’s important to know is that the only things worth wanting are the things that cannot be had. So there’s nothing I want.

When I woke up this morning, Daddy had bought me a new piece of software where I could just talk to the computer as much as I’d want, and it would type down things for me so Aya didn’t have to.

I really like talking; talking is what I mostly do.

Talking is how I fill up a vastly dark, empty world with things I like to create on my own. Things in the dark. Things that are mine.

To be honest, the world isn’t really dark. And the world isn’t empty at all. I just feel alone but I’m not, and I don’t need to see things to know that they’re there.

I don’t get why people think I see the world in black. I don’t know what black is and I don’t see it. They tried to explain that black is the color that determines the absence of light. And since I can’t detect light with my eyes, then it means I can only see in black.

But I don’t see in black.

Because light isn’t absent. Barely ever. Just because my eyes don’t work at all, ever, mean that light will ever be absent, right? There are more ways to feel the sun and the wind and fire and the rain and all of the world, there are more ways to see them than with sight. If the world was black then there would be nothing. And just because I’m blind doesn’t mean that the world is in black at all. Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean that nothing else exists, and it’s all empty. And it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t exist anymore.

Even though sometimes, that’s what it feels like.

And that’s why I talk.

I used to never like talking. I liked things to be quiet, or at least, I was okay with everything else making sounds. But all I ever wanted to do was keep quiet and listen to everything and feel everything around me. To see without eyes. I wanted to be able to see the map of the world around me without ever having to use my eyes. I never wanted to feel what darkness feels, or what black feels; I will feel color if I had to feel color, and my blindness will not hinder that.

So I liked being as still and as soundless as I could.

When I sit in the middle of the quiet—and don’t ever tell me that quiet has no middle; there is a middle in the quiet and I have been there and I have seen it; it’s there—it feels like everything exists except me. I can feel the world, my fingertips can see the grain of the wooden desk and the quiet slate of floor polish. When I touch anything, my fingers grow roots, and they branch deeper into the things I touch. I can feel their insides. I can feel the rest of the world from miles away, and the longer I stay still and in contact with everything, the farther the roots reach out. They fill up everything that’s already filled up, things like cork or the insides of paper, or the bodies of stones, or the juice inside a fruit. It feels like there are roots growing out of me, wherever there is skin, and I grow on everything.

You’re like a potato, Aya said when I told her this years back.

Mother! Kately feels like a potato!

What? She asked.

Kately feels like a potato!

But potatoes are mushy and eatable, I said. I don’t think I’d like to be eaten.

Or mushy, Aya added.

Or mushy, I agreed.

Kately, those are mashed potatoes. Her mother corrected, Real potatoes are the lumpy root crops in the farm.

When potatoes are mashed, do they stop being real?

I think they stop being potatoes, Aya said.

Why would they stop being potatoes?

Because things are themselves by what they are, because of what they are. If potatoes don’t do potato-ly things, then they aren’t potatoes.

But potatoes don’t do anything!

They grow roots on their skin and they branch out to everything they touch. Like you.

So okay, whatever. Since then I didn’t argue with Aya about being a potato. Apparently, I do potato-ly things, therefore, I am a potato. I am a potato, growing eyes out of my skin, and my eyes grow roots deep into all the things they touch, and I can see the world with my eyes. As far as I’m concerned, if I can grow eyes and branch out to the world and see everything I touch, then I’ll happily be a potato.

And right then, and every whenever I sit in the middle of all the quiet, I can grow my eyes around into the things that can be seen. I fill the small empty spaces, the gaps of the insides of things, the emptiness in between things that touch, and I fill them with my eyes. And that’s the way I see through and inside everything.

Then I listen to the wind. And I listen to the distance. And I listen to the music of noise and the music of quiet. I listen to the light, and I listen to the paint, and the wood, and the still air. There is so much musical noise in the middle of the quiet. I don’t think anyone has ever been in right in the middle of the quiet, like I have. And I know this because I’ve been there. And no-one else has ever been exactly right in the middle of the quiet, even when I’ve tried to place them there. The music of the sunlight will tell you where the middle of the quiet is. And when you’ve visited it, I hope you could tell me so I’d know that I’m not alone there.

You have to listen to the music. The music of everything. It didn’t have to be from musicians, although I loved them very much. I like Tchaikovsky because his music is like the sound of movement before your feet even touch the ground when you jump. I like David Osborne the pianist, because his music was the sound of your heart in the middle of each beat. I liked the music in coffee houses, and I think they were chosen to be played especially in coffee houses because they effectively capture and replay the music of the steam you blow across a cup of coffee. I think when they play piano in coffee houses, it’s the sound of blowing the steam across a cup of tea. And I think when singers sing slowly in coffee houses, it’s the music of people sitting on chairs before they even touch the cushion. And I think when they play piano in the lobby of hospitals, it’s the sound of a patient laying his head down on a pillow before it even touches. And music is just the sound of everything that happens before things touch.

Noise is the music of things when they collide very softly.

Loud is the music of the things that touch very rapidly and forcefully.

And all music is to be loved and to be liked, no matter who or what plays this music or sings it, because you have to listen to how it wraps you in strings of unwound notes. And everything that is hit by the music is wrapped in wires of things your ears can see. And all sound eventually covers the earth in a massive embrace of vines you can feel with the eyes in your roots.

And this is how I see around everything.

I can see in everything, and see around everything, every time I am in the very middle of the quiet. I just feel a map of roots and vines and I know that everything is just there.

Like a universal network of potatoes and vines mapping out the world with their eyes.

I’m not very good with words.

But I like talking.

I like talking because I can feel everything around me. I can see inside and through everything, I can see around everything. I can feel them with the eyes of my fingers, and I can hear them with the eyes of the sounds. I knew what the things in my room were, and I knew exactly where they are. But I can’t feel me. I can feel around me, but I can’t feel inside me. I can’t grow roots into myself.

I tried to touch my skin, and I tried to feel my cheekbones, and the empty spaces on my scalp wherever there wasn’t hair. I tried to feel my lips, and I tried to feel my arms with my lips. I tried to feel my lips with my arm. I tried to feel into my knee, I tried to hear into my palms.

I knew that around me was everything.

And I knew exactly where they were.

But I couldn’t find myself. I was lost in the middle of the quiet.

My fingers felt a body. My body felt a body. The floor must have felt a body, but I—I, the I as in me, not the I as in my body me, just the I—I couldn’t feel my body. I didn’t know where I was, even though I knew I was in the middle of the quiet. I was sure I was there. But where there? I didn’t know. I couldn’t feel myself. I couldn’t feel inside me. There was nothing in me, but everything else was around me.

There are senses in our body that are additional to the basic senses we commonly know of. Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste are too few to experience the world with. There is the sense of gravity, sense of where things are in relation to yourself, and, among other senses, the sense that you are there. It’s called proprioception, and it’s the sense that tells you exactly where your parts are, even when all the other senses fail you. You can touch your nose with your fingertip, even if you can’t see it. I certainly could. And I knew where my finger was, and I knew it was there. And I knew where my nose was. So like all the things I could feel around me that I knew was there, I knew where my parts were, and I knew I was there.

But there’s an occurrence called a ghost leg, when a man who has been amputated sometimes can still feel his leg there. He can feel it itch. He can feel himself wiggling his missing toes. He can feel the extra weight of leg on the socket of a knee. He can feel his ankles. He can feel something and the brain believes that it is there, even when it isn’t. Even when the brain can’t see it anymore, it thinks it’s still there. And it itches.

And I believed that I was born blind because mother didn’t want me to watch her die, or see sad people and sad things.

What if I were blind because I was never even there? What if my brain just believes that I still have fingertips, that I still have a nose to touch, or ears to hear vines with? What if my brain just believes that my body is there, even when it isn’t? What if my brain just believes that it’s a brain and it can think? What if my brain just believes?

What if I was a potato that believed to have a brain?

Maybe I can’t see things because I can’t.

Maybe I can’t see things because I wasn’t anywhere at all. Maybe I wasn’t in the middle of the quiet, and maybe I wasn’t inside of me.

So I tried finding what was inside me, and where I was inside of my body. I scratched through my skin and tried to look for myself, and I tried to scratch into my chest. I tried to peel off the skin. I tried to dig into myself, and when I couldn’t anymore, I tried to squeeze myself out. I tried to squeeze myself in a tight hug; I tried to squeeze myself out from my throat. There was nothing. And there wasn’t even a black hole inside to eat me up. There was just nothing in me. I couldn’t find myself, and I thought that maybe there was nothing. Maybe I wasn’t there. Maybe everything is around me except me.

I knew where the walls were, and I tried to make the walls feel me. I tried to make my desk feel me. I tried to make the slate of thin floor polish feel that I’m there. I tried to get things to cover me in their roots, and see me. But nothing could see me, and I was nowhere in the middle of everything. And everything was in the middle of the quiet.

You are alone when there is only you, and nothing else around you.

You are lonely, when there is everything around you, but you aren’t there.

And that is why I like to talk.

Because as soon as I’d stopped moving and fidgeting and scratching, and trying to get the walls to feel that I am there, when all was still, I suddenly felt the sharp pain of citrus fire running up and down my arms and legs, where I had scratched myself. I didn’t cry. I screamed.

It was a scream that was full and the sound killed all the vines around me. It was a sound that traveled through me, inside me, around me, and burned me in the cold of my own sound. It was me, and I had found myself within my body.

And the moment I could feel myself, I could never let go of who or where I am ever again.

I could never stop talking.

I like talking, even when I’m all alone.

I talk so I don’t feel so lonely.

All I ever really wanted to have in this world was a fully empty blank space occupied only with everything. And I don’t think anyone could give that to me. So while I can’t have it, I will enjoy the pleasure of not having it. And if I will never be able to have it, then I would be happy that I have always wanted it. Because it is the only thing I could want.

I want something to want. I think the world is fairly ideal.

Seventeenth of August, Year Two Thousand and Ten.

My name is Robert.

Or, hi. I’m Rob.

Actually, I don’t know how to start this thing. Words were never exactly my strength. And speaking isn’t something I do often, or at all. Don’t get me wrong. I think words are beautiful things. And I always want to say about half a thousand things. And there are just so many things, you know? So many beautiful things that I just have to say. But I can never say them. But I think words are beautiful. Do you see the curves of the letters, the spaces in between them? Sometimes, a word doesn’t have to mean anything good, or mean anything at all to be beautiful. It just needs to be a word.

I’m not making sense.

What I mean to say is that we always seem to be filled up with things to say. No one can make the world shut up, ever. There will always be words, no matter what we do. The cafeterias in every school will always be filled with chatter. I’d like to think that the purpose of human existence is to express everything, to get everything you want to let out get out of you. Expression is the most basic form of contribution to society, and man was built for other people. Life is about saying things. And the way you say them is your contribution. Some people say, “I want to reach the sky!” by learning physics and building the biggest, tallest buildings as engineers. Other people say, “I want you to understand something beautiful” and they become teachers and educators. Then there are people who say, “I want to find out things about the world we didn’t know before!” and they go on to become scientists.

But me and my people, if they could ever be my people—I like the concept of “owning” people, that certain bodies and personalities are “yours” by association—want to say, “life is everything; death is everything; everything is everything” by doing everything to show what everything means. We paint, we draw, we sculpt, we dance, we take pictures, we compose and create music, we write. They also sing and act, but I can’t because I don’t have the words.

Well, I have the words. But I can’t give them out to the world in all the ways that most people do, and I couldn’t contribute them to society or let them get out to the world like most people do, because I can’t.

I am mute.

Not by choice. I’m just really born this way. And they said that when I was born, they worried because they heard no cries. But I was moving, then they saw my tears, and heard the way I cried, which was like choking and coughing, or getting lots of air out through your throat, but without the razor thin sound of a pressured voice. And I know this sound, because I have tried to cry very loudly once before in my life. Only once. And that was the sound that I heard, so I’m guessing that was the sound they heard when they realized I was alive.

I wonder why babies don’t laugh instead when they get out of their mothers’ wombs. Everyone in the delivery room is always happy to hear a baby cry, and they’re worried if it doesn’t because it means it’s dead. Shouldn’t you be more worried to hear someone cry? And wouldn’t a baby want to laugh and be happy that hey! I’m finally out of that cramped old place. I’m tired of drinking your nutritious body juices, ma! I want to taste milk, then mushed apples until I can chew my way to the cookie jar! And these colors are pretty, and hahaha, you guys are looking at me all stupid. Hey dad, stop crying, you big softy! I’m alive! Be happy with me. Come on, laugh!

And I just really think babies should laugh instead of cry.

But of course, when you grow up, you realize that pain and tears and all that wailing are the sounds of life. Sometimes you need to feel the pain of life to know that it’s still there. Pinch yourself to know you’re not dreaming. So maybe it’s happier when we die, and laughter is the sound of a true death, because it pushes back the pain, thereby denying the proof of your existence.

But I’ve always laughed, and I loved laughing, and smiling, and showing the rest of the world that life is everything, and that everything is everything. I’ve only ever really cried once in my life, and that was the day that I knew that I wanted to become an artist.

I was five back then, and I was alone, like I usually am. I had playmates, but only for things like when we played tag out on the street. But I was mostly alone, not because I liked it, but because I couldn’t talk to kids. Some of them get used to me being quiet, but it’s difficult to just be there around people and not tell them anything. I could write things down, but in the middle of games, they’d take time. And a lot of kids can’t read very fast or all too well at age five. Because. It was age five. I can’t signal much of anything because not all kids can understand sign language, especially when their vocabulary hasn’t fully developed yet. It’s hard trying to grasp one language and learn your words, and harder to learn what they mean in another language being in a country like ours. But to learn words by the way someone moves their hands would be an additional difficulty. I couldn’t talk to other kids simply because nobody understood me. So if not for running around playing games, I’d be alone. Like I usually am.

My mother taught me to write at a very early age. She knew that I’d need them more than most people do, because most people don’t have the difficulty of expressing things like I do. She told me that while I couldn’t understand words yet, she prepared to teach me by taking sign language classes. By the time I was two, she suddenly sat me down and gave me a fat crayon. And I looked at her in inquisition.

“Mama. M-A-M-A. Mama.” She pointed at herself.

I looked at her rather weirdly, because it was weird to talk that way to your kid. And maybe I thought to myself back then that should I ever need to teach my kids how to use words, I wouldn’t do it in the same way.

“Em. MMMM.” She wrote the letter. Then she did the same for the letter A. Then she wrote them together and pronounced, “MA.” Then she wrote out MAMA and pronounced everything slowly.

And I just looked at her. What the hell are you trying to do, ma? Maybe that’s what I’d say.

And then she put a crayon in my hand, and repeated the demonstration, except with her trying to get me to write it. Then there was DAD. And after Mama and Dad, that was the time when I learned the alphabet. And on every day, she’d try to get me to write something. I’d learn a new word, I write it down with her. And if I wanted something, I had to learn the word for it and write it down. I had a lot of story books with big, colorful pictures and simple words and short sentences. We would read together, and she’d ask me to copy some of the things written down. At first, I didn’t understand what we were reading or what I was writing. But I did grow to understand them, until the books and the words became my friends. If I wanted something and I still didn’t know how to write it down, I’d look for a book that either had that word or picture, and show it to someone to get the point across.

So on this particular day when I was alone, like I usually am, I was seated with a box of crayons and a coloring book where I was coloring in a flower. I hated coloring books. I couldn’t stay in the damn lines.

I think I was trying to describe the flower I saw. I think I said it was pink, or that it had five petals, or it was pretty. But I knew those words weren’t enough. I don’t know what I wanted to say about the flower. I think I wanted to say about a billion things. Maybe more. Maybe I wanted to say that the flower was lonely, because it was too beautiful and it was very sad to be incomparably high standard from everything else. Maybe I wanted to say that the ruffled petals remind me of the edges of cabbages, and the shade of pink was like a sunset in a meadow with plenty of clouds. But I didn’t know the words. Better to say that I didn’t have the words at all.

There were no words.

“No words.” I tried to mouth them out, but like usual, there were no sounds, except the sound of breath trying to escape, and the click of the tongue when it finishes. I tried to shout it out, but nothing. I tried to describe the shape of the petals by making sounds with my fingers rubbing on the coloring book paper. Round and round, rough but soft. I tried to describe skin by the sound of skin, and rubbed my lap, then my arms. I wanted to say that the wall was big and hard. I wanted to describe the wall, so I ran up to it, and tried to scream the words big, hard wall, and to substitute for the sounds my voice couldn’t make, I banged on the wall with my fists, or my palms. I ran up against it and kept on hitting the wall with my shoulders. I wanted to describe what glass was like. I had learned the word glass only a few days before then. And I couldn’t say out loud that it was see through. I couldn’t say it was fragile because I haven’t even learned that word yet that time. But I wanted to say that it was easy to break, and that glass can cry—glass can cry but I can’t, because I can’t make the sound of crying. And I wanted to make the glass cry because that’s what it was, and that what it does, so I took the glass where my big sister’s milk had been, the one with cookie crumbs still sitting at the bottom of it—we always so easily forgot to take the dishes and the cups back to the kitchen—and I threw it to the hard wall and watched the glass shatter into tears.

There were so many sounds. So many things I wanted to say that words couldn’t keep up with me anymore.

So I kicked and flailed my arms, trying to describe what kicking is by trying to make it sound like anything. I wanted to describe air. But at age five, you only know the word “air”. And you know that it’s the thing that comes out when you stand in front of a fan. But you don’t know how to say that it was quiet or whispering or transparent or wavy or ominous or everywhere. You don’t know what to say, and I definitely didn’t back then. So I wanted to describe the air by seeing what it would do, or what sounds it would make, if I kept hitting the air. Or if I kept throwing things at it.

My sister was nine back then. She came running back to my room with a half-eaten cookie in her hand. She dropped it, and it crumbled down on the toys and other things I threw on the floor. She ran for me, took me by the wrists. I struggled, and tried to keep screaming without sound. My silent shouts turned into chokes and coughs and the sound of tears rolling down a cheek. I tried to keep kicking. I wanted to describe my sister by hitting her. I wanted to say that I wanted her to let go of me. I also wanted to say that I needed someone to hold me close. I wanted to say that the world fell apart. I wanted to say what a world falling apart would be like if it were real.

“Mom! Quickly! Get  up here!” She called out.

And mom ran over and picked me up and carried me away. For the woman to teach me words, she didn’t use them very often, and was quite soft-spoken and gentle. And she was quiet. I could watch her quietly cook or clean around the house. And she never scolded. If not for her musical laughter, you’d possibly think that she’s mute too and all of this is a genetic disorder.

But it isn’t. She used her words when they were needed.

She had me sit down at the kitchen table, where there was a colander filled with wet vegetables. Mom tried to rub my back or pat my head. She gave me a cup of water, still with the sip-lid on, and tried to calm me down. She wiped my tears. And when they didn’t come anymore, she kissed my hair and went back to peeling the strings off of the celery. She never said anything, not a “there, there” or a scolding. Maybe she knew that my pain came from the silence. Maybe she wanted to tell me that sometimes, silence is a good thing. It certainly felt that way.

I stayed by her side and watched her peel. But I kept on looking at the colander of vegetables. I wanted to say things like, green, water, leaf, crunch. I wanted to describe them further but couldn’t. Again, there were no words. And I started to cry, but now with sniffles, and a lot less violently.

She got up and carried me with her to my sister’s room.

“Vanessa sweetie, could we borrow your box of crayons, please?”

“But Robby broke his crayons!”

“And some of your drawing paper. Bring them to the kitchen for me, thank you.”

“But mom!”

But mom already turned around and walked down the stairs, still carrying me. “Thank you!” was her reply.

She sat me back down, and I waited in the sweet silence of my mother’s breath and the sound of the zip, zip, zipping celery, until I heard my sister’s footsteps add into the orchestra as she came down with her crayons and some paper.

“If you break my stuff, I will eat all your cookies!” She looked at me, put down the crayons, and walked away.

“Thank you!” Mom said, in the same comical tone she had earlier.

She didn’t tell me what to do with the crayons, so I thought I was practicing the alphabet again. I wrote down the letter A over and over again. Then again in lower case. And then at the back of the page, I didn’t know what to do, so I wrote down SORRY and showed it to my mother.

She kissed me on the forehead, and said, “Is that how you really feel?”

I nodded in reply, and looked at her quizzically. But then I looked at the paper again. And maybe, no, that wasn’t what I was trying to say. So I took a different crayon. I took a black one, and I started to draw messy circles on the page. Then I took a blue one, and scribbled waves through the thick, messy round holes. That must be what I felt like, like black holes trying to calm down with soft waves. And then I showed her.

“I forgive you. It’s going to be okay.” She gave me that reassuring smile, and I thought I’d like to see more of it. “Why were you throwing your things? How were you feeling?”

I’m feeling as if these words are inadequate, and my body is too small to contain the things I want to express. I’m feeling helpless. I want to speak! I want to say things! I want to eat a dictionary and spit out the meaning of everything! I FEEL LIKE THERE AREN’T ENOUGH COLORS IN THIS BOX. MY BOX HAD ONLY EIGHT CRAYONS. MY SISTER’S WAS TWENTY-FOUR, BUT THEY WEREN’T EVEN ENOUGH. THESE CRAYONS CAN’T SAY HOW I FEEL. I NEED MORE CRAYONS.

And when I realized what I was doing, I was already smashing all the crayons into the paper, and my mother was trying to hold me back.

And my sister just came down to get a juice box from the fridge. And then she saw me ruin her crayons.

Needless to say, nobody had a cookie that entire month. Punishment. When that month ended, it was already my sixth birthday, and my sister gave me a jar of cookies she and mom baked. And I was so happy about the cookies that I had to draw something just to say how sweet they were and how much I missed the taste. Okay, when you’re six, all you think about is, “I’m happy, thank you for the cookies. I missed eating them.” But you get what I mean.

And all the drawings, we kept on the fridge with magnets. And when the fridge was full, my bedroom wall. And when my wall was full, we took them down and kept them in books. I didn’t stop learning about words, though. I had to write every day, and learn more. And I wanted to learn more that time. So my mother bought me more books, and she bought me more crayons. And she bought me different kinds of paint. And pencils of different colors. And charcoal and ink pens and everything.

Now, I’m kind of where I want to be. I’m in art school, and I’m with people who talk a lot but get what I’m trying to say even when I don’t. It’s a nice feeling to be surrounded by people who think like me, but don’t think like me, or like anyone at all. It’s nice to be in a place where my people—people I am associated with—are not limited to words when we try to express that life is everything, death is everything and everything is everything.

So in the long and short of it all, what I really wanted to say was:

Hi, my name is Rob. I am mute. Everything is everything.

Victims of the System

Well I see you’ve come to haunt my conscience, Santiago Nasar. But you are unwelcome here.

 

Don’t be difficult. You know the truth. I have nothing to apologize for. You took my virginity. You had to die. That is my story. Dead men tell no tales. And we all know that stories untold are secrets well kept. I was only looking out for myself. It’s survival, self-preservation. You knew that well enough, didn’t you? You spent your entire life in caution, separating the ammunition from your revolver, always going through the back door. This was simply me, going through the back door, like you.

 

Don’t even try to get me to apologize, Santiago Nasar. I have paid my debt. I may have taken your life, but I paid for it. Twenty-seven long years of loneliness, paid for. Fair and square. Yours, at least, ended a long time ago—all your vanities, all your troubles. Gone. Mine magnified and continued on for what seemed an eternity.  You have me to thank for. I have relieved you from all the chains that have bound you. The same chains that bound me.

 

Oh you know we were both victims in this, Santiago Nasar. Don’t play around; don’t act like you were the only one who suffered. I have nothing to apologize for. You knew perfectly well what I had to go through. You had it easier. I was born and raised to be a bride. You know what it felt like to be me? I felt like a pig, fattened up to be slaughtered. I was meant to do one thing. And the only thing that could ever be worse than having a pre-defined purpose is not being able to fulfill it. My life means nothing now. Yours and mine never did, because people always told us what we should be. Did you really want to be with Flora Miguel? I didn’t think so.

 

Haven’t I paid enough, Santiago? Haven’t I given enough? I’m used up, and there’s nothing left of me. They’ve taken everything. You know how I feel, don’t you, Santiago?  Or perhaps, no one ever would.

 

You’re dead now, Santiago. I killed you.

 

Angela Vicario

 

This was an interesting bit to our literature class, after having read Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. We had to write and deliver a monologue, embodying the characters from the novel. The entire issue we had to address in this monologue?

What if Santiago Nasar came back to life?

And you had a chance to talk to him again.

Everything had already happened.

What would you say?

Well, then.

We were required to have someone embody Angela Vicario in each group, and I was the unlucky one to take the role.

The challenge around Angela Vicario was that if you make her innocent, and say that it really was Santiago who took her virginity, then you’re protagonizing her. But, if you make her apologize to Santiago’s ghost, then you’re basically saying that Santiago never had to die. Which was wrong in both cases, because that’s literary butchery altogether.

So what I tried to do was show that Angela and Santiago were the same. They were all on the same level.

I’ve had this theory that in life, everyone receives the same amount of good fortune and misfortune, only in different intervals of time. These may be random, or in some calculated pattern which we do not know of. It’s irrelevant. What matters is that everyone has the same amount of joy and suffering. Some experience it longer, shorter, now, later, tomorrow, two years from now, you get the picture. It’s a system of balance.

And I also believe that acting rudely towards others is simply a reaction to pain. There’s no such thing as a bad person. But there is such a thing as a jealous wife intent on murder because she’s been cheated on. There’s also such a thing as a young thief stealing bread from a store because he’s been hungry, because the government’s feeding program is total bollocks. There’s such a thing as a rebellious teenager because she feels like her potential is being undermined, or her worth as a daughter was under-appreciated and unrecognized.

Combine those two together, and I’m basically saying that everyone is a victim of the system. And that is exactly what Angela Vicario was. She was like an animal, like cattle, raised to bear children and produce milk. Santiago was but a pig, fattened up to be slaughtered one day–raised to be rich, a man of power, so he could be of use. They were both strangled by the same system, and if anything, Santiago should be able to understand Angela for what she had to do. Angela didn’t find the need to apologize for his death.

She didn’t mean to. She was a victim of the system too.

Amaranth

A Maze-ing

She was dressed in amaranth.

The sky was cloaked in aubergine.

It had been the night when her fate was to be sealed in black ink and  sweaty handshakes. She imagined it all in her head: the crowd of people in dark suits, a sea of expecting smiles of the friendly, kind men who will stop at nothing to tear her down. On their arms are women of words but no minds, women with some words and some thoughts, women with few words and plenty of questions, and a few women with no words at all, but certainly have a pot of dark schemes and diabolical intentions all on their own.

It is almost more pleasant to be around the horribly chatty women. They don’t seem to go beyond stories and opinionated outbursts. They don’t seem to be capable of anything else but speak–they might have dedicated their entire lifetime on gossip. And no, there just simply isn’t enough time to develop your talents when you have such an obligation to your neighbor to share with them the latest tidbit of pseudo-information from town.

But for the women who speak only in the language of bashful greetings and warm affirmations, for those that only the clinking of their jewelry and the clacking of their seven-inch stiletto heels on the hard floor could be heard, for those who were trained to not give away secrets–they are the ones who truly have something to keep.

She remembered these. Lessons from fathers are to be treasured.

She had been in the car during her contemplation. Her chauffeur, usually cheerful, with an almost fatherly face, a brotherly tone of voice and a tasteful skill for well-mannered conversation, looked onwards, drove along, and said nothing the entire time. His face was as grave as the deep bluish gray suit he had to wore that night. His usual youthfully optimistic ideas were dashed by the fact that he could do nothing to change the situation. He could no longer look at her, not even from the rear-view mirror. Not even a glimpse of the trailing of the saturated pink blossoms along her dress. He thought it too depressing a night for such a color.

He advised her once to wear something bright, but deep in color, like perhaps a hot pink like those of amaranth blossoms. “We all appreciate how mature you are and how responsible you have grown to be,” he said before, looking at her from the rear-view, in her gray suit-dress, which perfectly fit her eighteen-year-old structure. “But it is how you radiate in youthful beauty that you captivated us all.”

“Likewise, certainly.” She flashed him a grin and a nod.

“Perhaps. Thank you.” It took a few seconds. “Amaranth?”

“What?”

“Amaranth.”

“The grain?”

“Their blossoms.” He looked back at her when he had parked the car. “That color. Something like it. It’d be pleasant to see you in such a shade.”

“Perhaps. Thank you.” Right before he left the car to open her door for her.

That was all he could remember. That was all he could think of. And though admittedly, he was right–she was lovely–his stomach churned at the very sight. He tried to fight back the thoughts of turning the car around. But they have already arrived. The jet black coat of the vehicle let on for the reflection of camera flashes, and all the lights from the venue. He pulled over.

She attempted to recollect everything she’s learned thus far. This might be the last time she would be able to.

He looked back at her. Please don’t do this. ”You will be brilliant.”

“Perhaps.” It took her a few seconds. I can’t do this. Was there anything else she should say? Anything else she still could say? A few blinks escaped her eyes, and her gaze hurriedly traveled around the car, searching for words. Her thick eyelashes would hint of even the slightest movement. “Thank you.”

He tried to calmly reassure her with a smile. But her sight still seemed to be absent. “Goodbye,” a final word escaped her lips. He left the car, and on the other side, opened the door for her, presenting her to the public.

The lights shone upon her figure as she entered Casa Ricaforte,with all its ivory pillars overlooking her, as she walked through the garden path where some of her visitors had waited. They were served with champagne and brandy with apple slices in the glass, and hors d’oevres of different sorts. The women were talking, talking, talking, about her gown, her long, dark auburn hair, her skin, her situation. The maids were too busy serving to say anything–and they knew better than talk. They were quiet and efficient.

A tall, young gentleman in faded gray led her by the hand up to the back entrance, and down the grand staircase in the view of men in dark suits, and women with glistening jewelry. She met her future constituents with a pearl-embedded smile and with eyes of glassy molten amber. And for a moment, the sea of stares hushed, in admiration for her ivory complexion, complimented by the amaranth silk that ran down her sides and overflowed with a trailing of blossoms. The only people who did not take even a second to stand still in awe of her presence were the servers, who bowed their heads, avoided eye contact, and continued their work, walking around the tables, preparing the food and drink. But they made no sound. Along with the quietness of the crowd, they too did not speak. No words escaped their mouths. Their footsteps were too light to hear. And there was nothing, not even so much as a clink from the silverware.

She reached the bottom of the staircase.Then, like a drizzle of rain, as expected, whispers, smirks and odd looks were overpowered only by a thunder of applause.

They parted as she walked past, still with smiles and praises singing through the air like love songs sung by adulteresses and cheaters.

She spoke fluently in a language of smiles and greetings, and said nothing more. Certainly, the man in light gray spoke this language too. After all, he had been raised in the same manner.

She walked up an elevated platform, where a long table of dark cherry had been set up with two seats upholstered with dark red satin down at the middle, facing the audience. He pulled up the chair for her, and she sat down, guiding the amaranth trailing with her long, delicate fingers. To her right, he sat down. His eyes of jade glistened in the spotlight.

At a podium, stationed at the far right of the stage, their lawyer stood. “Tonight,” he announced. “We bequeath the Ricaforte heiress with such a great responsibility: the duty of maintaining all of the Ricaforte fortune, all estates, all businesses. It is my honor to present you to her tonight in place of her father.” His arm stretched out unto their direction. The man to her right looked at her; she nodded at the lawyer. An applause. “And with that, we now present her the deed, to this palace, and to many others, and to all the establishments she shall own, the entire fortune summing up to thirty billion dollars.”

Through the music of the orchestra, the gasps of amazement and other inquisitive voices could be heard. The women were talking. How could a woman handle such a responsibility on her own? Oh, she looks so much like Master Ricaforte. Is she not unmarried? Was she really the one named to inherit this entire thing? If only her brother had not died. There were no other possible heirs. The men were calculating, conjuring plans, how to get through to her, whose son should be best for her, and ridiculing how she could be able to handle this alone.

Once again, the waiters only made sounds when pouring the wine.

The lawyer walked over to their table, an entire stack of papers with him. She had signed them before, save for the final page, which was the main show of the night. The young man presented her a black pen in a silver white gold case. Ricaforte, it said on the pen. The only other markings on the pen were smudged fingerprints of those who once used it. “I’m sorry,” a whisper escaped under her breath. He nodded. She took the pen, and in the heat of flashing lights, signed the final sheet.

It was done.

And applause, once more. She stood up, bowed to her people, and smiled at them as she raised her head. She put her hand on the young man’s shoulder, nodding at him. He smiled and left her side.

She headed out to the ocean of congratulatory remarks, sharing handshakes and kisses on the cheek with all the people who will work for her and with her.

And long after the music has faded, the hall has been emptied out and all the lights have been dimmed down, she finally found herself brushing her long, auburn hair in front of a mirror in her bedroom, dressed in a cream nightgown. She paused, looking at herself in the mirror, observing the color of her eyes.

She stood up and wrapped herself in a jade, silken robe, and walked down the dark hallway until she found light streaming through the crack of a door left ajar. She entered the private study. And the only thing she saw left her in tears.

Seated was a man of ivory complexion, with auburn hair. In his left hand was a glass with a bitten slice of apple soaked in what remains of the brandy. His light gray suit lay on the desk. His jade eyes could no longer meet hers the same way they did before.

She was dressed in jade; the sky, still aubergine.

Mmmerche!

Merche Tolentino is one of the most creative, open, patient, loving, and truly beatiful people out there.

She also kind of reminds me of a Lady Gaga-Anna Wentour hybrid. Combo bonus!

She is a history major, who is truly, truly talented in illustration and graphic arts. Her style is a mix of surrealism with the influence of idealistic beauty. She’s also really good with Anime/Manga styled drawings, among others. Tool of the trade? Wacom Bamboo Pen+Touch. She keeps her art stuff in a tumblr account under the name ‘mmmerche’.

She’s recently started on blogging, after this day (October 6, 2011) when I took note of her  outfit in one of our classes together. She had expressed an interest in writing about fashion, arts and history. Now, she has a WordPress under the same name as her tumblr. Thaaaat’s right. Click the link.

If this doesn’t define quirky, creative and adorable, I don’t know what would.

Her current header for her WordPress inspired me to create this in my free time:

It’s just a photograph. I’d have to scan this in sometime.

Don’t you just love meeting inspiring people?

Awakened

I could not keep myself away from her.

The light was pouring out of her eyes, like a waterfall of sunshine crisply grasping on the air that enveloped her every breath, every blink. Every time she pursed her lips, I wait for her to speak. The subtle message her thin, shapely fingers sent to me was nothing short of a pleased but uncertain hello. A welcoming, I took it as such. And I had made barely half advancement when she took two steps back. Her eyes were wide with anticipating fear, but her lips were curled into a small grin she tried to fight back. I froze, uncertain with what I must do next. But the very slight of her wrist as she pushed her soft, golden hair behind her left ear encouraged me to continue.

Eye by Zacharka via deviantART

A dance, much like it. She slowly shifted her weight forward onto her right foot, but paused as if awaiting my response. I reached out to her, and as I did, her eyes followed with every movement my right arm took towards her. I stopped. Her teasing grin disappeared. I put my hand into my pocket, in regret and guilt for such an impulsive act. How foolish. But as I contemplated on my next approach, I had noticed her expecting eyes burning through my chest. But she averted her gaze, and though avoiding mine, continued to search for different, non-existent things surrounding her. Specks of dust, water vapor. Perhaps she searched for them, for she could no longer keep focused on a fixed point. This, I knew of, the look of disappointment. The wandering stare, the unfixed gaze. Confusion, denial, regret, threaded into a mesh of unachieved expectations.

She breathed in, slowly closing her eyes. Then she held her breath and her fingers twitched once as, so I had hoped, she felt the heat of my palm on her shoulder. Her lips quivered as she took half a step backward. And at the very moment those same lips gave way, I leaned in and breathed in all that she had to breathe out as I tasted her dynamically soft, forcefully meek kiss. She shifted her weight backwards, but her hands reached towards my collar. I bathed in the warm glow of her tenderness. I tasted the syrup of her vulnerable calm. And though she remained, the nighttime clothed her in a suffocating embrace. And all I could feel was the pang of the growingly bitter aftertaste of her tears.

But I could not pull away.