A Legacy of Littleness

He had spent most of his life by her, with her, and through her—and yet thirty years into such a life, a feeling of profound curiosity was nevertheless still with him at all times that he regarded her.

Who is she, what ails her, what does she want to say?

Ricardo was a man of little words, as was he a boy of similar disposition. He had grown up in a nondescript small fishing village in Bohol in the Pacific, no different from any other small fishing village in Bohol, except that his little town faced the east. This tiny luxury has been lending him the beauty of sunrises—which he so dearly loved—against the Bohol Sea for as long as he can remember.

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Someone Told Me To Stop Dreaming

I know a lot of people wonder why I do the things I do, why I live my life this way, up in the clouds (as you would say) and not the way everyone is used to. What sort of discordant music do I dance to, that I can’t seem to equip myself for the practical rhythm of this world?

What do I hope to gain and conquer when I sing songs of utopia, of alternate times and spaces and beings, when I frown upon the tenets of your material religion?

Do you know why I like to walk alone for long stretches of time? It’s because I’m looking for things—maybe looking beyond things—so that in those flower bushes we easily ignore, I see life and the mystery of how it unfolds each passing day; in those trees that tower well above us, I hear secrets and things we can only hope to know if we listen… In searching for the meaning of life, the way the universe works, and how you and I are infinitesimally small, I gain nothing except a keen sense of my role in the tapestry, this tapestry woven with such intricate detail and beauty that a quick pause for quiet observation will show you how much a person can soil it. We make the mistake of arrogance, in thinking we know how to determine this pattern, and do so with the bigotry and egoism we call “human freedom”, whose values are skewed to point in errant directions, and do you see now how much we’ve been perpetuating this ugly pattern? It never looks as beautiful as it should, not even if one took out the role of the world in it, and all it featured was just us people. Against the backdrop of the universe, we’ve become abominations and erratic lines and nonsensical scribbles.

While you think, “Poor girl”, with all the little things I do, and all the big things I refuse to do that look life-determining and important to you, I’m only doing all those things you’ve been longing to do, all those things you didn’t even know you wanted to do. And probably should do. I dream. I question. And I look for answers in places where they should be looked for—in the universe, in myself. Because we should be one and the same, the universe and I. “I am part of it and it is part of me,” the thing I’ve always wanted people to believe, deep, deep down in the core of their being. To this day, I’m in awe for how few were open to even just listen to this impetus of our humanness, our meaning, our existence. Why? What is it that they have forgotten, and why have they chosen to forget despite the constant tug at our heartstrings? In the tides of the ocean, in the vastness of the sea, the howling of the wind, and the smell of the earth—it is there, always calling us, lamenting for us, always asking you to stop and wonder and search for what it is we’ve forgotten but still choose to forget.

This impetus has nothing to do with suits, money, nor prestige, and all the things we’re taught to want. While we argue that we can’t really defeat the system, can I ask you, which do you really think is the mightier? The abomination we’ve made of nature, what we’ve come to believe is natural, or nature’s silent threat of unleashing its full power? In the face of this vastness, do we see how small we are? Or is it that we’ve purposely corrupted our notion of scales, in our quest to make ourselves appear bigger than we really are, that we have made ourselves the center of everything, when we’re logically and obviously not? And worse still, we have fully convinced ourselves of this, and planted a billion seeds of this lie in our daily lives, in the little actions we do and the choices we make.

And when I refuse to live the way you do, please don’t take too much offense, nor pity me. I look for things and so I see things you often miss, like the sound of shadows, the smell of colors, and the hundredfold flavors of the wind. That is the sort of music I dance to, and it is only discordant to those who refuse to hear, much less listen, to the grandeur and scale of the whole which it is only a tiny part of. My whole existence has been dedicated to inviting you to pay attention to the things that truly matter, to that which you call frivolity but is actually what real music might sound like. I pity you only insofar as you refuse to truly, really, wholeheartedly, and sincerely live. Only then can you have the right to tell me to stop dreaming.

Mirrored

You look at me with the same fear I regard you with, the same awe, that very same fascination that seems to keep us both at a distance, fearing that to approach further would shatter the fragile beauty that struck us so in the first place. We share gazes that hold promises of a better future, laced with questions and unsaid musings of some past we may or may not be trying to forget—I look back, hypnotized by the inherent charms of anything and everything in the grey area. Potential surmounting, and in perpetual wait for the crucial first move. Not so much a power struggle, but an indecision between the role of actor or audience, giver or receiver, which one would we rather assume?

The mirror, or the mirrored?

Luna Was…

I’ve always had this insane theory that when the moon is full, or nearly is, people spontaneously go insane. Now, before you dismiss me as insane, allow me to explain. 

My theory stems from the fact that the moon, next to the sun, has the most significant gravitational impact on everything earthly, thus explaining tides, for instance. Also, I think the human body is wired to react and repulse like a magnet. Maybe it’s something in the blood? Some time back in high school, we used these big-ass magnets for a lab experiment and for some reason I tried moving it over my heart a couple of times. I remember that my heart either skipped beats or accelerated, all dependent on how close the magnet was to it. I think I came by the idea to perform this stupidity when magnet bracelets had its popularity stint back then. It amused and freaked me at the same time, but the point here is, does that mean people are, well, magnetic?

If indeed, we are, I felt it was sufficient to say that when the moon is particularly low over the horizon, extra bright, extra full, and extra big (or something), it has some sort of effect on our psyche? Maybe the gravity inspires something in us into action, or feeling, or disposition. But I have noticed people acting slightly more out-of-character under such an influence.

I may be crazy and under-researched but everyone thought Copernicus was bonkers when he said that the Sun was in the middle of the Solar System. I’m sure knowledge of this kind won’t help mankind, but it does make for interesting beer-talk, or something. The next time you go out in public and notice that people are acting weird, check on Luna, maybe? :)

Universes

Of course, we’re too arrogant to even consider the possibility that maybe, just perhaps, we are actually just an offshoot — a branch — of the many that stem from a real Universe. Somewhere out there, another me is living, the Real Me, and it doesn’t matter how the flit of a butterfly’s wing can cause storms because none of it matters over there, and I’ll still be the Real Me if you chopped my head off over there. Of course, you wouldn’t, not there, because you’d be the Real You and your real self wouldn’t want to do so. Well, not that anyone There will want anything, because if it’s the Real Us it means we no longer have to be tied down by and to our desires, earthly as they may be…

And the argument comes back in full circle as the arrogant Not-Real You (which is you now, as you read this) chooses to believe that life without struggles, desires, and dark chocolate cannot be anything but lame, and meaningless. To which, of course, the Real You would only have to shake his/her head, lamenting your misinformed state; that is, according to your Real Eyes.

So now, I come to ask: which one is real to the other one? Is not your reflection in the mirror asking the same?

Letters to No One

Dear T Dear No One,

Hi. We meet again. Today, I would like some answers. Yesterday I poured out my heart to you, like the day before that, and before. And you never said a word (like the day before that, and before). Sometimes I stare at this pile of junk I write you, at this litany of the things I had bitten my tongue over trying not to say to your face. Fear. And I allow myself to have a good laugh at why the fuck I bother—slow, shuddering chuckles, and delirious logic. Some people shit themselves in fear, I laugh. Things could have been worse, then.

So then I start to cry. Messy thing, crying. Ugly sounds and an uglier face, scrunched up in some inscrutable imitation of the infant that I probably actually still am. Well, at least babies don’t give a fuck as to how they look the next morning, so, same conclusion: why bother?

So today I would like answers, if you don’t mind. I’ll probably still write tomorrow, but I always do. I want to know why no one’s sending any replies, but I can’t stop writing to No One, anyways.

I suppose this is why no one bothers. You’ve mostly gone far past the stage of even wanting to search out a write-able surface, much less a pen, to reply to someone who’s written enough letters to drown the world and cause an Apocalypse borne of ink and paper.

Vices take many forms, love.

Stuck In The Perpetual Cycle of Murdering Hope and It Resurrecting Needlessly,

Me

Some Try Too Hard

I am a slave to the rage you inspire in me, I must admit. However, do not think, for a split second, that this is some form of repressed idolatry that I regard you with. No, idiot, this is dislike in its purest form. A strong one at that.

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Persona Anthology: William

Title: Vincent
Length: 751 words
From the Persona Anthology, Capricorn

~

 The first time you notice him is towards the end of the year, because somehow you’ve never noticed him until now. He hasn’t exactly made any effort for anyone to notice him outside the routine of his daily life, and his routine is one that is set in stone. And even then, he doesn’t seize your particular attention for months after you’ve been introduced, until he has somehow become a part of the outskirts of your everyday life.

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Persona Anthology: Vincent

Title: Vincent
Length: 850
From the Persona Anthology, Scorpio

~

He was quiet there—almost brooding—in his own corner of the pub, so you don’t know why you’re ambling towards him, but you already are. That first time he took a glance at you, it was aimed right at your core and something about that, you feel, is dangerously alluring. Or alluring because it’s dangerous. You doubt the coherence of your thoughts sometimes, but most especially when he’s around.

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