A text message prone to misinterpretation was sent to a prospective lab rat I could trick into believing that I am loveable. I am forever doomed if he mistakes the phrase “ka-cute oi” for what it literally means…which is most likely the case.
Afternoon, the other day. My phone toot-tooted for attention, and revealed that he had sent me a riddle. After having failed to figure it out in the middle of rush hour in the jeep, I told him half of the answer. And then I suddenly figured it out, but could not send my reply, as I did not anymore have enough financial resources to feed the evil telecommunications company that incessantly and unfairly eats up more of the balance credits for text messages than what I use up of it. Anyhow, he told me he’d give me a day, but oh what the heck, little missy here, busy with excitement for gigs and the finish line of the exasperating UP enrolment race, eventually forgot about the answer that was “Felix”. The next day, at the same time he sent the riddle, he asked me if I had the answer. My first reaction was amusement; I imagined him reveling in the role of Sphinx-with-the-unanswerable-riddle. And so I texted: hahahaha ka-cute oi, nakahinumdum. Gahapon ra ko naa’y tubag, karon r ko ka-load. Felix.
There you have it. I have just subjected myself to disgrace and unthinkingly degraded myself. I am, beyond controversy, married to humiliation these days.
Yes, married. You want another tale of the same genre?
Just last month the world was less noisy, as this excessively loquacious brat miraculously lost her voice for wanting to fold up and die for one whole day in Bohol and could not stand to stare at the Chocolate Hills because she knew exactly how it had tasted that morning.
After fulfilling the advise of the fortune-teller we consulted for guidance, (after ages, I went to mass), Yen was to drive us two by two back to her house on her black motorcycle. I volunteered to review the driving lessons she had taught me the previous week. She told me to turn it to the opposite direction; I refused at first, telling her I still have not acquired the proper skills to turn the thing, but she insisted. And so, I realized I earned her trust (or so I thought), and I tried my best to fulfill the task. But I overdid my grip on the handle, and in panic, lost my brains and forgot the presence of the brake. The wretched thing revved up and flew. I thought I was going to see St. Peter at the light at the end of a dark tunnel (I’m sure it would have been St. Peter because we just got off from Sunday mass and my chances of having evil minions lurking at the end of that famous tunnel had therefore been minimized). But no, the last thing I had to see was a freaking Gmelina tree, and then alternating sky and ground, while my mouth scooped up soil like a bulldozer (God knows what disgusting things were there) and then I landed with a thud, flat on my butt like an abandoned rag doll (disheveled hair, clothes that look like they’ve been unwashed and worn for weeks, patches of dirt on the face like some mother had forgotten she had a kid). Then everything just froze. I couldn’t hear my friends screaming like hell. And then a mouthful of dirt, saliva and blood showered out of my mouth. And then I laughed… but really I wanted to fold up and die. An hour later, at Yen’s house, Liyo witnessed the crying fit of a bruised rag doll with a swollen lower lip. I was a sight to behold. I bet my friends didn’t know whether to still fear the end of me, or to laugh, for even Liyo lost all reserve and sang Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” in my face. Thank you. Earth, open up and swallow me whole, quickly!
Going back to the Gmelina tree, I realized I must thank its presence in my path; had it not been there, I would have been hideously dismembered amongst the logs and branches that would have caught my body up ahead. Seriously, I might have really met St. Peter. “Another One Bites The Dust” isn’t so bad after all.
During the whole trip to Chocolate Hills I feared for my spine and I had lost every word I learned since I was a kid. I couldn’t look at motorcycles and Gmelina trees and soil without cringing.
I incurred a bruise on the arm in the shape of a guitar, and another in the leg shaped like a heart, and a scar above my mouth that looks like a moustache (I’m a female, damnit, and it has to look like a moustache! Makes me look like a fucking hermaphrodite.)
Having told all this, I suddenly want to fold up and die.
(Mutter, mutter, mutter…) Yes, yes, laughety laugh laugh, all of you. I wish you crashed into a Gmelina tree too, see if you’d do as well as I did. (Mutter, mutter, mutter…)
