When Blogs Die

When the news that Friendster is going to have an overhaul of their system, you wondered what will happen to your blogs. According to the advisory, the pictures and blogs would be wiped-out. Where would your thoughts go? When the ideas, opinions and other stuff from the mind are immortalized on the virtual memory, they could be considered as snippets of one's soul. So, with the demise of such thoughts, part of the soul would also succumb to the "other" place. But, again, is there a nirvana of sorts in terms of these?

Reading your blogs could sometimes enthrall you. There are ideas which you could not remember having. There are also beautiful words and erroneous syntax... Still, you wonder what prompted you to think about those things. Sometimes, a stimulus could just be a simple event that would mutate into something incomprehensible. There were instances too when the events are too good to be true and you say nothing at all.

You then remember Stephen King's "The Dark Half". You got scared too much when the writer's other half knocked on his doorstep and introduced himself as his pseudonym humanized. Paranoia and other forms of insanity could be traced but then the author was wise enough to allow the reader to imagine that indeed the dark half is true. Paired with the smell of apples and the vivid imagery of sparrows on the cable wires, sleep would be a bit impossible for those who are gifted with clear image projections.

Then, there are instances that you got scared of yourself too. Looking at the humongous bulk of your journals, you sometimes hear them whisper. Since 1986, you were scribbling things on a myriad of feelings, occasions and trivial stuff. When you would dare open them to read some, it seems that they were being written by a different person. probably your dark half...

But you're concerned about them. Even if you get scared sometimes with the way the mind brings you to unimaginable places, you still worry they're going to vanish like cosmic dust...

Digressing, there are men you know who have this scary thing once they'd get drunk. Like a stranger, they would show something that even their friends and their families get amazed with the display of something near the bizarre or even the macabre! After the euphoria, they would put the blame on the alcohol and dismiss everything indifferently. Now, you realize that multiple personalities live inside you and the people around. There are trigger points when these characters come out in the open. Some are beneficial and others could be harmful... Sometimes, by just thinking about it could cause a headache...

You need to save your soul, er, your files now.

(picture: sodahead.com)

Sadako That Time

It was roaring. The groan seemed to come from the depths of the earth. And as if scared, the house trembled and the glasses shattered while the saints on the altar went down the floor to kiss the dye wax on it. There was nothing to register in the head but fear. Engulfed with panic, the body swayed like a rag doll towards the safe haven of the outside. Mumbled prayers became screamed ones as the need to do self-preservation escalated. Disorientation gripped the mind as the heart sank at the sight of fallen structures and cracked dreams of supposedly-tough materials.

The loved ones were then remembered. Where are they? Are they safe? Is Kino with his classmates when the earth shook? Is Akihiro outdoors when the groans from the earth complained?

While trying to collect the thoughts, hissing sound commenced. It was like a snake roused from a deep slumber. The sound could be a signal of an aftershock but it was... wet.

From the corner of the eye, a silver reflection blinked. It was ignored first but it seemed to be the source of the hissing! Then, when the eyes focused on the onslaught, it dawned on the senses that water raged towards the land!

The breaking of wood, steel and other materials mixed with the sound of screaming for help but the hissing sound overpowered everything. Debris and people made love on water as life ebbed when the force of the quake was transferred to the liquid medium. On an aerial view, the scene looked like a computer-generated simulation of a scary catastrophe. Yet, it was real...true.

A forty percent increase from the previous panic increased as the body moved back inside the shaken house. Water ran after like a mad dog insulted by his territorial claims. Lots thought that the houses would protect them. But they were wrong. The hunger of the water seemed insatiable. A liquid beast devouring everything on its way...

When its claws scratched their walls, she exhaled. A sign of surrender and defeat. As the soul felt the force enveloping the structure, it remembered the unsaid haikus to the loved ones.

Hundreds of kilometers and continents away, people viewed the nightmare on cable TV. They were gripped with fear too that something as destructive could reach their place . They intently listened to the broadcasts and started to pack their bags as the authorities raised Alert Level 2.

But back in the place where it all began, ghosts started to haunt the fallen places as waves of aftershocks continued to animate the now-silent surroundings.

Silence--a strangled
Telephone has forgotten
That it should ring - (Haiku by Michael R. Collings)

(Photo: Sanni Vincent Guillergan)

Hiccups

(for the Goat who found a boner scary...)

Enveloped with the dark shroud of despair and rain-kissed
the heavy soul picked himself from the shattered pieces of his dreams
the mirrored past loomed in his future, his bent present seemed full of pain
but a tinge of the distant rainbow could still be traced that he moved slowly

Towards the comforting arms of reality- his father, his mother, his siblings, himself
yet their realities excluded him from jumping up to Mars
that he decided to be embraced by the comforts of "the others"
their laughter became his and he went to hell and to heaven and back

He decided to become his own universe, free from gravity and other forces when rotating,
his own axis and his own center was not the sun but the night
he became a demigod, then God himself... then, the devil incarnate
justice, truth and other stuff became distant feelings from his numbed ones

Then, the rain, the shroud caressing him like a lusty lover... and the man on the moon!
he wept and looked at his tattered clothing of a self
and stooped, grasped the last breath of oxygen gifted by another demigod
he died, tried to but survived, he left the old shell of a body but the spirit won't...

Vampire or not, he must grab that tinge of rainbow that Baxter's world is offering
Death would come intimately, as Sugar Hiccup suggested...

(photo:circlingthelionsden.blosgspot.com)

His Island, Our Islands

Jack opened his eyes. He was dazed. He saw green trunks of trees. Before moving, he sensed the eerie quiet. Was he dead? But, a blade from grass touched his cheek. He felt something - of course, he was still alive!

Then, he stood up and realized he was in the middle of a thicket. Vegetation surrounded him like foe and he saw the dog looking at him with curiosity... He felt pain all over his body and he heard the ocean. He rushed to where the ocean was and he saw them.

There were people both living and dying. The dead stayed immobile on the beach with eyes wide open, the dying ones were trying to figure out whether they were in heaven or hell. Then, Jack saw the debris of their plane. Of course! He was a passenger of Oceanic Flight 815 and their plane crashed.

He hurried to where the injured persons were. He tried to resuscitate a woman who seemed not to breathe. The woman coughed and he commanded someone to take care of her as he scurried on the sand to find more of the injured. He must help them!

Jack then remembered he was a doctor.

So goes the opening sequence of J.J. Abrams' pilot episode of LOST. The TV premiere garnered an average of 15.69 million US viewers per episode on ABC. During its sixth and final season, the show averaged over 11 million US viewers per episode. Viewers hungered for the answers when they find themselves asking a lot of questions as the episodes unfold more twists and turns.

But the series was a no-nonsense one. Although there were twists, they were presented in a consistent manner where the story is intact and the characterization, precise. Indeed, every time the scenes were presented, the viewers were allowed to think... deeply. The main interest would crop up when one realizes that "there's something about the island!"
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You know such places.

One time, you were cajoled by your friends to go to a night joint and you suddenly sensed sex on the atmosphere. When the nude women started to gyrate onstage, you wanted to find blankets to cover their imperfections. The men salivate on the mons pubis downwards but you saw poverty behind the staged lust on the ladies' faces. You also saw the scars of childhood rashes and deprivation of Vitamin C. Their reptilian skin was slick with perspiration yet the men around you wanted to perform the animal instinct of mating and nothing more. But there were no blankets and your urge was as blasphemous as shouting F_CK YOU! inside a church while the priest is venerating the unleavened bread to become the body of Christ.

You also remembered a street corner where some drinking buddies drowning their souls with intoxicants witnessed an accident from someone riding a motorbike. The driver, sans a helmet, flew some feet away from them banging his head on concrete. The will to help surfaced on the drunks. One lifted the victim while another started massaging the chest of the man. One shouted to unbuckle the belt and take off his shoes. When another saw that the man stopped breathing, he grabbed the man's balls and squeezed them hard. He died anyway.

There's also an acacia tree near the church of your place. Across the street is the statue of Michael the Archangel stepping on the devil with his sword angled to impale Satan. But at night time, some young couples (gay, straight and whatnot) would make this spot as their rendezvous. Others are equipped with protection, others would simply make the Australian bush as their thin shield from shame. You even wondered if the energy of this place would shift since an adoration chapel is on its completion.
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Yeah, Jack is a fictitious character and his island. But his kind and his island is here amongst us.

(Matthew Fox's photo: fanpop.com)

Inner Demons

Heavens wept. It was twilight and the sick light from the sun turned shadows on the wall. It's unhealthy to speak to them, the shadows. Sarah Maclachlan told you a while ago that:

Time here,
all but means nothing,
just shadows that move across the wall
They keep me company,
but they don't ask of me they don't say nothing at all.

Outside, the twigs trembled as the wind made love to them. Their groans of pain was felt by you even if the windows were shut. What would be their complaints if it was snow to penetrate their pores? What would you feel when you're away from the confines of you prison?

You remembered Naomi. Yeah, the supermodel...She guested on Oprah's last episodes and you wondered if she's a liar, a control freak or a victim of childhood fears? But she told the viewers that no one could be blamed with her outbursts... Could you throw a phone to your assistant too? Could you kick a police man, punch a TV crew if you are a SUPER-SOMEONE?

Then, anger management was mentioned. Is it really that scientific when we consider the shrinks' way of dealing our demons? Or is this simply a way of anesthetizing human faults and failures? You don't know. All you understand is the fear in you that you will become what your lineage promised - insanity.

You see, you are now being paranoid even with the sunset and the rain. There are figurative threats a raindrop could make inside your brain. Your heart would beat faster when a caterwaul is heard not realizing that the cold could send cats to their basic need to mate. You would tremble when you hear Edgar, your neighbor, who would yell at his daughter when the pail inside their makeshift restroom is unfilled with water from the nearby poso. You then wonder if the girl is being molested by him since the mother ran away three months ago...

Like Naomi, you must do something about the things churning inside you. If not, this would come like raging phones flying to the faces of your companions, or the "red" thing she saw during such experiences... What is the red thing anyway? Tint of blood surging? Anger materialized into color? Or the devil himself?

The devil.... The devil!

You need to go out and shout that the world is on the edge of being destroyed... That Armageddon is here! The placard you prepared is now ready for the persons on the streets to see. In big red letters, you wrote:

REPENT! REPENT! THE END IS NEAR!

(art: northbankfred.com)

Like Parasites, We Feed

Let's face it. We always have intentions. We do some things because deep in us, we want to get out something from it. We read for some reasons. We eat because we need to have nourishment. We go to school to learn, or some reasons otherwise... We roam the streets to hunt or be the prey...

We use social networking sites because we have our intentions. We like to link or communicate to others. We also like to hunt potential victims or be the sacrificial lambs for others so for them to learn that evil exists even in the virtual world.

Was it some months ago when it was reported on national TV that a girl was being blackmailed? Her nude photo was published on the web by her irate boyfriend. There were some who got raped. There were untold stories. And, there are stories to be told...

The accidental billionaire, the facebook creator, designed his social networking site to know the status of the girls in his campus so that he would know whom to be with for future copulation. The story is now immortalized into film with the so-called artistic license being used by the filmmakers. But you think that those who are into these sites don't give a fig on its history. They just feed on narcissism and lick their insecurities to the point that freedom of expression would sometimes cut across the norms.

You like to think. For you, it's like breathing. Sometimes, you like to think out loud and you like your thoughts to be translated into words. Others would accuse you of being a show-off. But whom are you showing-off? Inside your place are boxes of notebooks with your thoughts for two and a half decades... Nobody is reading them...

But there are things that you need to write. It's like an itch that you need to scratch. But your intention is like that of others. You need to feed. Thinking aloud could be your food. Writing could be the nectar that would nourish you for you to be able to fly. Others could have their purpose of making you as their hapless victim but it would be OK. Life is like that.

In the end, we would all be cadavers others would dress-up for our funerals. We will then be remembered, then become a distant memory...

Now don't hang on
Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
- Kansas

(art: GaneDev.net)

Crypt dweller

On top of the tombs, the flowers wilted and the candles melted. The living who paid their one year guilt of forgetting, left the dead for the earth...Life has to go on for them. So with the dead, death has to go on - some would be cherished and others would be just fertilizers to the dandelions...er, in these parts of the world, lemongrass.

Why is it that the epitaphs here don't tell stories? You see, you had an activity with your boss long before when he told you to write your own. But would that tablet synthesize one's existence? Or simply a poetic justice of his mishaps and failures?

"Here lies a man who lived a life full of fun - booze, sex and drugs. He is well-loved by his friends who think of him as THE GUY." This would raise eyebrows and could make grimaces out from the faces of the conservative flock.

"Here are the remains of a person who devoted his time, treasures and talents for the well-being of others..." This could be superficial too. It might create a stir to others who would pass as crabs in the vicinity.

You then think of such things: we are so busy acquiring things and performing activities that could be considered as funny and rubbish once we imprint them on our epitaphs. You would then worry about your sanity for you oftentimes envy those who "live their lives well". But then, what is "living well"? Whose definition must be followed?

Still, the dead must not worry about the status of the words on their tombs. Who would care about the grammar, the sense and the impact of the words? Who would care when the man inside the crypt is rotting with the maggots infesting his skin (dabbed with gallons of soap and moisturizers before) and flesh?

You could just be with those who celebrate life on top of the faithful departed 's tombs during All Souls' Day and tell others to cut the crap when they'd throw comments about the drinking binges which could sometimes lead to stabbing incidents at the cemetery. They are always equipped with reasons like: It's the only time we could spend with our loved ones! Forgetting that it's their own selfish intentions they're bloating.

Life is filled with mysteries...

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget...

-(Christina Rossetti - Song)