FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE AUTHOR
1. I’m the only person who laughs when I tickle myself.
2. You think I don’t really care about clothes? I take extreme measures to dress in such a way that you’d think I don’t really care about clothes. Just to fool everyone.
3. My current pasttime is to think of stories about ghosts, then write them down very quickly. They’re very good, on the levels of MAGNIFICENCE or SUPREMACY or QUE HORRORESQUE OF ALL, because I shiver uncontrollably in horror whenever I reread them for editing and think, “What devil, what spawn of Satan writes these horrible things… Was it me? Wha… hum, they’re actually quite good, when you read it twice or thrice.”
4. I am famous, or will be, very soon.
5. This is a pompous attempt to make you keep reading till the end of the page. I’m really quite a nice, pleasant girl once you get to know me.
Dragged my body into black clothes, held myself awkwardly. Holding a white rose in my hand. I don’t like flowers, although I think they’re trop trop trop gorgeous. But I just can’t stand the goddamed baby’s breath those florists always insist on sticking into the bouquets; without them flower arrangement would be exquisitely splendid. Baby’s breath that’s what they call em, those white little … things that remind me so much of awkward skeletal figures. There is horror in flowers.
[insert shiver here]
Got back still quite early, kind of sluggish, the way it is at 8 in the morning when everyone’s still yawning and you’re already one box ahead of the others in the day’s checklist. You know how it is. Sat in bed and smoked for awhile.
And then… Julien appeared before me, sitting on the edge of my bed.
“Hi,” he said. “Hi, sunshine!”
I rubbed my eyes.
“I said, hi,” Julien repeated. He took my cigarette from my hand and took a puff. He was wearing his checkered shirt and his workman pants, the one with the funny seam across the pant leg.
“hi,” I said hesitantly. Then, “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, the smile he uses to push his dimples to its possible deepest
(100% adorable)
“I had a cigarette,” he declared, “for breakfast.”
I sat up in bed and there was no Julien, there was no cigarette. My reactions were:
1. “It was a dream, haha”
2. “hey… what time is it?”
And then… Julien appeared again.
“I had a cigarette,” he repeated, “for breakfast.”
I thought I was awake already?
“Hi,” he said. “Hey, Kala.” He poked me. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I squinted. “Errr.”
He started to converse jovially in French.
“Wait,” I interrupted him. “Talk slowly, you’re too fast.”
“Blah blah blah…” he said slowly, in French. “..blah… blah blah blahhhh.. blah blaaaaaaaaaah…”
ouhla I’m hallucinating I need help they were right I need to talk to someone sane where am i
“Jul… what time is it?”
He answered gallantly, still in French.
“Wake up.”
“Wake up.”
And my phone rang, and I sat up in bed, and I looked at the message and it said WAKE UP the way I had set it, you know, the one you use to set reminders to yourself.
Now in the Land of Awake. It’s quite a realistic place to visit, you know.
I dialed Julien’s number. Sleepyhead answered after the third ring, still intoxicated and half-asleep, mumbling. I could imagine him groping in the dark for his phone, fingers stumbling for the right button to press. He talks like someone who was awoken by a jarring phone, which was exactly the case.
“My eyes,” he said, “aren’t facing the right holes.”
Quite descriptive. I give him A+ for that. He should channel all his energy in writing numerous metaphors and similies, and we could make a book, you know: Similes and Metaphors for all Ocassions, by Julien, copyright 2002.
“okay,” I said after I’d bothered him for a few minutes and made sure I’d disrupted his peaceful sleep. “I just wanted to wake you up. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Kala…yaaaaawnnn”
Do you think he’ll dream of me speaking in Filipino?
“Blah blah blah,” I’d say in his dream, “blah blaaaaaaaaaah…”
“Kala,” he would say, “Talk slowly, I can’t und—”
“BLAH!!!” I’d interrupt him, but slowly. “BLAH BLAH BLAAAAAAH” in Filipino. Then I’d laugh, and he’d bang on the door to the Land of Awake, wishing the dream would end, thinking “isn’t it time for me to go to work? Get me out of here!”
Hi Jul…I miss you much too much.
Dragged my body into black clothes, held myself awkwardly. Holding a white rose in my hand. I knew the purpose of why I had to wake up early. Three years ago on Valentines Day, we were at the annual Valentine’s Day concert held at UP Fine Arts, sitting on the concrete that starry night, surrounded by damn red-and-white cutout hearts and all the couples who had suddenly turned up the Corny-Lovin’-O-Meter to its fullest. And a bunch of boys started to pass out flowers, single red roses, for each of us girls they knew, and although they could be absolute jerks at times we said “Aaaaaaawwww how sweeeeet” (numerous aaaa’s and eeeee’s are needed to show how cornily we pronounced that sentence) and gave them a kiss, because it was a really sweet gesture (plus points because they didn’t have baby’s breath)
Today one of those boys who gave us flowers has left, and now I’m the one holding a flower for him, although I wish that he were still alive to touch it.
What can I say, but Damn You. Damn you, damn you. It could have been different, you know.
