(this portion is being edited… again. it’s back to my hard drive. i’ve been editing it for years…i just left a few paragraphs here, below the parenthetical note.
i know of a sculptor who finished all of his work and pieces, and put them out in various exhibits…. …. except for one, which he kept changing and kept working on for years and years ….)
It’s been raining again for nights on end. Last night, dead people clambered out of my chest drawers : Lean; Bing “Uling” the c.c. of the Lakbayan People’s March (years later, murdered during the purge); Babette of Ateneo de Davao eight months pregnant, shot in the leg by the military in Mindanao, she crawled for help and the military rained her with bullets while sprawled under their boots; Banong, one of the c.c.’s of the biggest ever Mendiola march on the anniversary of martial law, who drilled the marshals at midnight while everybody else slept on the asphalt road, (years later, murdered during the purge) — friends who once walked and laughed with us; each of them stayed awhile in my room; perused my books and folders, and gave me quizzical looks, then pointed at my pre-trial briefs and memos. The other night, friends who had disappeared, those who were taken captive and electrocuted till blood oozed out of their noses and their teeth shattered, became whole again. They walked through my walls, and said they didn’t recognize me because I’ve been dismembered, and I laughed with my half-mouth because it was true.
When did I start dying slowly without feeling the breath being snuffed out? How did I inhale city stench and exhale memory until I was buried in a mass of amnesia and mediocrity? How is it that my dead friends were more alive than I was, becoming song and poem in a spark of remembering?
There is no excuse for those who have moved on by standing on their friends’ bones, stepping on shards of skulls , staggering on good days. There is more forgetfulness for the many who find solace, remembering only in deep sleep and paralysis. But there is lamentation for the demented, a soft drumming, the constant dirge of the unceasing, incessant rain.
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( I wrote this many years ago, I never published it; I posted it once under a pseudonym several years ago. Here it is , updated for WordPress, for the Weekly Writing Challenge – WordPress said “surrealism” as follows: “When it comes to absurdity or surrealism in literature, there’s something extra xxx of Gabriel García Marquez’ scene of thousands of yellow flowers falling to the ground in Love in the Time of Cholera xxx” The instructions on three possible ways of writing: “Write a fictional piece that incorporates the everyday life — and add a surprise twist through an imaginary character, xxx Tell us a story when you were going about your own business and something completely ridiculous or inexplicable happened. What did you do, and how did you react?xxxTap into your inner child and conjure up some of the magic you experienced in your childhood. When I was a kid, I was convinced that I could fly and wouldn’t let anyone tell me otherwise. What improbably hopeful dreams did you have?“
photo from the “Lean Alejandro” facebook account.)
