Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 1 Read online

  29 March

  I BELIEVE IN past lives because if, say, we die and we all go to heaven and every generation thereafter follows suit, heaven (or whatever place we go to) would be overpopulated. From an industrial engineering point of view, purgatory’s capacity would be overloaded. Its planners have forecasted special allocations for wars, holocausts and food poisoning. So somebody has to go back.

  Hi there, Mina.

  Mina Harker.

  Do you like that name? Seduced the vampire until you became one yourself. Had you been a man I would’ve called you Vlad the Impaler. Got to this conclusion since you love blood. You are a night person, and you love black on white.

  River

  {I like it. Corrections though, gray on white.

  I drafted a very long e-mail last time, and I thought it was sent. We still experience network problems, but I hope you’ll receive it because I can’t remember the things I wrote anymore. I‘ll try my best to remember them. Here goes:

  Can we meet on Sunday afternoon? Say 2 pm?

  I wrote a lot, and all I can remember now is that. [Rummages through the cosmic trashbin] How pathetic!

  Mina}

  4. Tell me your secrets. Let me be your tree.

  12 April

  JUST GOT BACK to work today.

  Yesterday was dull torpor, I was surprised by water splashing on sleeping me at 4AM. Yet Sunday was hot in every sense of the word. Thank you very much for the conversation. I sometimes hate myself for speaking most of the time, as I still want to know you better, and I enjoyed our talk so.much. Those little things that I can’t say to my bestest best friends, like family, design and sex. Things that I‘ve wanted to share. I’m into my own Kris Aquino Complex.

  Next time, I‘ll make sure you do the talking. I so damn wish that your unsent mail would eventually find its way into my mailbox, but I got snippets of it during the conversation anyhow. I‘ll wait for the zephyrs today to whisper to me the things you would have said.

  As promised, I FedExed you the jacket I mentioned. I have to fill up the nights of empty while the wife is asleep. I dabbled a bit on the Doppler. I‘ll tell you when and where to wear it to send the embrace signals. Don’t be surprised when you feel it enclose your body. That’s me giving you a virtual squeeze. You’ll notice that, as the distance between us gets shorter, the sensation feels like the real thing.

  I don’t know how to say this, but you always run parallel to my lines of thinking, and stay there even when every thought has expired.

  You’ve entered me, you Impaler you.

  R

  {Last Sunday was fun, indeed. I appreciate you coming over all the way like the North Star. The effort was deeply appreciated. Not to worry, whatever we talked about stays on that coffee table. And no, unlike your other online friends, I will not talk about you to other people, in a manner that will promote your paranoia.

  I received the jacket and am too excited to size it up to the bells and whistles.

  M}

  The jacket looks like what it really is. A jacket.

  Within the fabric there is a mesh of miniature mechanical systems, which correspond to electronic signals received from an internal antenna. I’m wearing a similar jacket and from far away I hug the air in front of me; my jacket absorbs the signals and transmits them like ordinary e-mail to you. You receive the embrace signals while wearing a similar jacket at the same time.

  I’ve managed to place a temperature sensor to send my body temperature too, and a heater in yours for the experience to be complete.

  Then there is the Doppler effect. The embrace signals become more palpable as I get near you, but not if we’re several cities away. Satellite transmission should take care of that.

  I’ll be working on the pheromones next.

  R

  5. Alternate universes, a sea of ifs

  15 April

  I AM NOT really worried about what we talked about last Sunday spilling out to friends.

  Knowing how you kept my design files during the first days was proof enough that I trust you. Deciding to send you that confidential information in the first place meant I knew that you could be trusted.

  I’m looking at myself as a dysfunctional person now, paranoid on one end, attention-deprived on the other. Maybe it’s just a phase; maybe it’s the weather or the moon. Like the common cold, I have to let it take its course.

  You are always present in your own universe. The universe perceived by your five senses and everything else. You are at the center and you are the center. Anyone beyond your universe is beyond your perception but it doesn’t matter.

  I’m waxing poetic, and I sound like an astrologer, but I’m happy for you, free spirit. You can move on without the hurt. You have the luxury of going back to happy moments, even to the time before your birth.

  Coffee again.

  R

  {I’m flattered that I gained your trust that early. Really. Trust is very hard to earn these days.

  You’re not dysfunctional, that’s overrating. Let’s call it the blue disease. Everyone gets it, almost as often as each phase of the moon. And it’s perfectly understandable in your case; the wife is acting so womanly, so womanly impossible and aloof as it appears to me.

  I am always present in my universe? Honestly, what do you mean? I need to understand.

  What’s holding you? Break free, River. You are infinite, and you know that.

  Coffee would be nice. Soon.

  Mina}

  I’ve got a period, but I don’t bleed. Still not talking to the wife like she is the anti-Christ from the kitchen. The jacket I gave her went by unappreciated. Sending a virtual snuggle from a different timezone would not take root on her plate.

  Cold wars on a hot summer’s day. I have a melancholy to nurse.

  I’m guilty of bromide in my previous post, but being present in your universe is an exercise in existentialism. If you are not present in your universe, then surely you are somewhere. And that somewhere is your own universe and nothing else. I am always present in my own universe. You too. I’m happy that you’re happy.

  We still have so many things to do.

  R

  {The last four days have been very busy, it seems like they want me to die.

  I hope things are better between you and the wife. She should have done her part as a woman and as a wife to you. And you should learn how to swallow.

  I can’t be happy just yet. I delay pleasure and happiness for better gratification.

  Watch closer.

  M}

  6. The color of the sky as far as I can see is greyburnt.

  16 April

  WE’RE ALL BUSY, we’re moving in our own directions, parallel arrows of time. There really is a slim probability that we intersect. And that is when we see above the x-y plane, from the z-direction, and disobey Euclid. We have Gauss and Leibniz on our side.

  Wasn’t able to go to Galera on my own last weekend. The wife and I have started to talk things over, and if you happened to be in Glorietta last Friday night, we were the couple shouting with our voices down. We choose where we shout at each other. We shout at each other. It’s good therapy. I’m sure you know what happened next. It’s good to snuggle up after a fight.

  I had a Doppler moment. Will let you know next week what it is about.

  The next two weekends will be superbusy, as there is a semblance of pressure in the office which I can’t put into words to sound like a weather report. Might see you in May, but if I bump into you anywhere in this lifetime, carpe diem. I‘ll be seeing you in all Irving Berlin ways possible.

  Because the deserts miss the rain.

  River

  7. The cosmic trashbin

  4 May

  IT’S MAY. ALTHOUGH my worst fears are over, looks like pressure and paranoia are becoming permanent desk fixtures here in the office. But I digress; maybe it was just me and my Andy Grove. Here we go.

  I remember the last two items I owe you: an Almodovar movie a
nd free coffee, but e-mail? Honestly I was waiting day in and out for a reply even in the thick of my things. I knew I was about to tell you something about the Doppler moment but I held back. I’m not at all comfortable discussing it here—so might as well use it as the meat of our next meetup.

  The question of which, is when and how.

  I’ve so wanted to write to you again without being a disruptive element in your solar system. You had your silver boyfriend perched on a fire hydrant; I never knew that it was a goodbyeless end to the affair. I don’t know how to feel for you, but I‘ll let you bleed first then see what I can do. It’s not really proactive but for now, that’s the best and lamest I can think of.

  Sunday won’t be an issue if it will be for you. I know that fire hydrant is irreplaceable.

  I need a bicycle.

  R

  8. What planet are you from?

  6 May

  I HOPE IT’S the same as mine.

  We are typical. My life is typical—what is there to expect anyway? Couples argue and have sex all the time, straight or otherwise. The strange thing about us is, with petty fights about the news and the weather; we organize shouting matches. When very serious issues come to the fore, like a third party, there are long, painful silences. It’s one uneventful day passing by to pave another uneventful day. It’s searching for thoughts that have absorbed into dinner plate scraps the minute she walks by without a word.

  A sliver of silence can cut the stratosphere deeper than words can.

  R

  9. Out of reach

  19 May

  {FINALLY, I GOT them, your mails.

  It’s been long since I wrote you. We somehow lost each other in the transit of time. Events, as they were, became so off- tangent; my face fell into pieces over things and places. I indulged too much in loneliness for a time, then in pleasures of the flesh, and now in independence. I like living alone, it gives me the pleasure of liberation, and it’s overwhelming.

  I’m not really living alone, though. Scout stays with me, and keeps me from loneliness, and gives me too much pleasure. I know, it’s selfish, but I’m selfish, and I learned to accept the fact that people are meant to use and be used. The issue lies on which role you choose. People do not own other people.

  My work is giving me a hard time once again. New batches are coming in; therefore more work. I apologize for this short letter. I want to save some topics on the plate when we meet again.

  M

  PS. I agree. Your jacket should come with pheromones. But then again, my evolution is not programmed to your smell.}

  10. Too blind to see the writing on the wall

  19 May

  YES, FINALLY.

  But I’m copying your other mail for good measure. I don’t want you to miss a thing anymore. And I don’t want my absence felt doubly strong in your moments of loneliness.

  Honestly I hold back for quite a number of reasons that’s why e-mail is my only point of contact. Even though I’m comfortable with people around me, I learned to check my emotions as I aged.

  Good thing that there’s somebody to keep your loneliness at bay. For your other types of loneliness try me. You got me, as you used to say before.

  One thing that came good out of this jacket is that I’m finally having it patented. I should tell you this when we meet and I want to show you how happy I am. You’re the first one to know. The wife wouldn’t get it, since she’s not into these things, as most people are. We’re yin and yang but that’s how we create balance in our domesticated universe.

  Soon it will rain.

  R

  {Aged? It gives me a dreadful feeling inside as if it’s a great pale cloud above my head.

  There’s a danger in what I do, a risk I know that will take its toll on me in the future. I fill the loneliness by surrounding myself with people, entertaining the flesh and the ego. Last week, I received a message from a good friend: “Don’t let anyone hold your happiness in their hands. Hold it in yours, so it will always be within your reach.”

  I feel that it’s getting out of reach, the farther I go. I have another issue, Scout is falling and it’s hurting him that we can never be “we”. My point is life is full of complications, and there’s no other way to live it.

  I appreciate the fact that you’re always there for me. Don’t worry; I will refrain from raping you, in any way. You’ve been good, and I don’t want to take advantage of it.

  M}

  11. Like there’s a storm in my soul and it’s escaping through your eyes

  19 May

  RAPE ME? HMMM, just let me know. I‘ll find ways to enjoy it if it’s inevitable.

  I somehow felt guilty. It’s ironic that I said that you got me when I can’t even reply to your e-mail. And I thought absence would breed either fondness or abomination. In the end it’s all network issues, technical buffoonery we can’t control.

  That’s why I checked you out last Saturday night. I hope you got my message. The thing with you and Scout—it’s expected. At least one of these things happen everyday: he’s the first one you see when you wake up, and he is the last great thing you see before sleep. He’s got into you and you to him one way or another. But remember, and this also goes out to Scout, that you are your own universe as I told you. The center to be exact. Don’t act like planets and revolve around. Just be.

  I’m working on the jacket’s Doppler compensation. Satellites are too unfaithful to be trusted, they circumscribe all round the earth like a philandering husband. This is the reason why the electronic embrace signals seem alive at night and too ghostly by day.

  Hello? I’m getting nothing but static.

  R

  12. Draft: The Doppler Effect

  14 April (revised and unsent thereafter)

  I FEEL LIKE a fake Vuitton bag left in the rain. I would like to tell you why.

  Or maybe I was just too doused watching TV and the word “protect” is always there. Full House is on tonight. I heard the lines “I want to protect you from other people who may hurt you, because I’m beginning to like you” and “How can you protect me when you don’t even have me?”

  And I guess that’s where your “People do not own other people” comes in.

  Please don’t get me misinterpreted here, like I’m beginning to fall for you. No. Not that I would want to offend you. You are so beautiful; it hurts me. But I saw right through you as a person I want to protect, probably out of my fatherly, protective instinct. Protect from what or from whom? I don’t know. Except for the fact that I won’t be interfering with your life like a loud street preacher cornering you for a few nickels.

  I’ve been running so fast right from the starting line.

  It’s the Doppler Effect at work, my Doppler moment. I’m coming at you but not through you. At my unholy hour. Let me laugh at that. Or let me smile at that. I’m not putting it off, but I would like to take it lightly. It’s not difficult to love a person like you. It is too complicated for me to love a person like you.

  Our screams got lost in a paper cup. The length of my words engulfed your mail space and left you wanting for silence. Like the jacket, I sent you my electronic signals but it seemed you sent one on a different frequency. Maybe you wouldn’t want to but I’m not blaming you for all the universe’s woes.

  I’m beginning to be happy again. And I know you’re very happy with the one you have right now. I hope I don’t come off as wanting your attention, or envious of other people’s lives. You still have me even if you don’t own me.

  The Doppler effect. Remember when an ambulance passed us by as we chatted at the cafe that Sunday full of portents? When its siren started out high, slid down as it passed, and continued lower as it receded?

  Because the siren didn’t hit you, Mina Harker. I came at you but not through you.

  I’ll try to gain some balance now.

  R

  River

  ANDREW DRILON

  TENDRESSE

  Andrew Drilon
won the 2002 Likha Comics Making Contest and was part of the National Book Award-winning comic book Siglo: Freedom. He has two self-published ashcans, The Germinator and Subwhere, and has also appeared in Grafic Magazine, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Pugad Literary Magazine, Hilites, K.I.A. and hey, comics! His most recent comics work can be found in Siglo: Passion and Project: Hero, which he co-edited with Elbert Or. His upcoming works include Whapak! and Funky Monkey Comics.

  “Tendresse,” an emotional coming-of-age story in the grand tradition of Dali and Dada, is Drilon’s first published work of fiction.

  MORNING HAD SETTLED in after midnight, a wave of heartache and longing crashing on the breakers of the soul from the long stretch of darkness and stars. If you were to touch your lips to the imperceptibility in the air, it would solidify into words, and this is why the boy was sitting steady at the computer in the hours before dawn, fingers tapping lightly on the keyboard, slowly and with utmost care, as if each word drawn from air had to be condensed first in his mind, then in his heart, and finally, out onto the blank, emotionless screen. Had he been writing anything more than what he felt, he might have gone mad, but as it was, still, his heart had yet to be broken, and he was already twenty years of age, floundering in a sea of emotion far, far away from innocence.

  Outside, the coconut man stood erect by the window, its shoddy brown head bobbing up and down, carried on an ocean of breeze, watching, watching the boy type. A childhood nightmare, the boy thought, nothing more, but still it inspired a primal fear inside him, lost and ignored but still screaming, and the boy had to put it away from his mind in order to concentrate.

  Once, when he was only ten years old, the coconut man had found a way into his room, and the boy stayed under the covers, terrified of being found. The coconut man ran his hands over the blankets, rubbing the boy’s legs, his arms, his face, clutching at the sheets that the boy struggled with all his life to keep under. All the while he could hear the constant sloshing inside the coconut man’s hollow head, liquid and empty and so terrible. After what seemed like an eternity, the coconut man disappeared, leaving the clashing smell of buko juice and deodorant lingering in the air and an unrelenting echo of liquid sloshing in an airtight space. He had acquired an irrational fear of coconut trees since then, always fearful that the man with the coconut head, dressed in black from head to toe, would come out from behind the tall tree trunks and exchange heads.