Doodles & Dreams

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March 2017

I live under a sky without stars.

The night feels unhinged, dislocated. The air is too warm for comfort. Mosquitoes abound, but I’m not afraid of being bitten or getting sick because they would sooner die from my caffeinated blood and nicotine lungs.

I try to make sense of the past few days, not realizing that it is already Thursday. I’ve been living inside a story for almost two weeks, hibernating again within the cave of my own imaginings. A good friend asks me where I’ve been, why she hasn’t heard from me. I could only offer the flimsiest of excuses knowing that the truth would make no sense.

G fishes me out from time to time, but he is more courageous than he knows: he sits with me inside the cave, and tries to grasp the illusion that has consumed the hours. He sends me recordings for inspiration, for good luck. He sends them to remind me that I’m not alone in my madness. 

The story is coming along but I’ve hit a snag, and it is absolutely frustrating. Perhaps I’m merely delaying the inevitable. Still though, I can’t wait to wake up when it’s done. 

Mar 23, 2017
#writing #personal #journal #prose #theorchestraofmadness
Mar 23, 2017 2 notes
#art #drawing #digital drawing #theorchestraofmadness #dead girl
Mar 14, 2017 67 notes
#rwby #qrow x winter #snowbird #qrow branwen #winter schnee #nsfw #qrowin
Mar 13, 2017 6 notes
#rwby #arkos #doodle #pls just #spoilers
Mar 9, 2017 5 notes
#baiken #guilty gear #fanart #art #digital art #theorchestraofmadness
Mar 8, 2017 1 note
#art #digital art #babaylan #theorchestraofmadness
Mar 8, 2017 2 notes
#art #digital art #theorchestraofmadness #blue popsicle

February 2017

Feb 27, 2017 9 notes
#WildStar #sketch #doodle #drawing #fanart #art #Exiles #Dominion #theorchestraofmadness #Sketches from Shayne's Notebook

November 2016

Nov 25, 2016
#theorchestraofmadness #letters to a friend #journal #prose #writing

October 2016

Friday the Fourteenth

It’s Friday, and I suddenly find myself thinking about fear. Twenty years ago, the notion I had of fear was much too different from the one I have now. They seemed so basic at the time, so very simple fears that, looking back, I find them rather ridiculous and even somewhat endearing.

 The silliest of these fears, perhaps, was being afraid of a certain milk commercial. Even now, as an adult, whenever I think of its jingle, its grainy 1990s visuals (though I could only recall vaguely), a sense of dread still crawls up my spine with arachnid clarity. And strangely, after such phantomlike recollections, I often find myself watching the child version of me crying in front of the TV as though I were having an out of body experience. I could never for the life of me explain why I had been so frightened of just this one milk commercial. Even as a child, I was aware–through some tiny intrinsic part of my being–that this fear was rather ridiculous. But every time I would see this particular commercial on TV, I would wail out loud, snot and all. Many times, it occurred to me that I should close my eyes and cover my ears, but the whole thing was like watching a beautifully freakish accident from which I could never seem to pull myself away. The funny thing was that I absolutely loved that milk brand, and continued to drink it until it was taken off the shelves for reasons I would rather not know.

 Another fear that hounded me as a child was that lone, dark corridor in my great grandmother’s old room. Until I was ten years old, I used to sleep at my great grandmother’s because my younger brother and I didn’t have our own rooms yet. Sometimes, I would sleep on my great granma’s bed, but most days I would stay with my brother and his nanny on a mattress on the floor. Either way, I had full view of this short strip of unlit corridor that to a six-year-old seemed to extend to the bowels of deep space. It was a corridor that led to the closets, the dresser and the washroom, and though it had its own light, it was never switched on at night. I imagined all kinds of things emerging from the dark edge of that corridor–monsters, evil dolls, ghosts, spirits, and I was sure that no one else would see them but me. Even more unsettling was that my great grandmother owned a very large mirror, old world wood and somewhat spotty at the bottom, which I often regarded as a gateway to unchartered territory. The mirror was long since sold, after the summer of 2000 when my great grandma passed away. My grandparents moved into the master bedroom, then when my grandfather died, my dad occupied the room. The furnishings have changed over time, and now it is filled with books, the bed replaced, the old box-like TV whose channels tuned in to only two local stations had been changed to a flat screen with cable.

A few months back, however, my dad, while preparing milk for my baby sister at around three in the morning, saw an apparition at the corridor of the master bedroom. He said it was a woman, almost translucent, her hand reaching out before she disappeared. My dad knew he was awake. It was the first time anybody saw anything in that corridor.

For much of my growing up years, the house in front of ours had been abandoned. People had lived there before, but they were gone after a while, and I didn’t know the story of why they moved out until I was old enough to be told that an addict used to live there and one morning, he cut off his schlong and ran stark naked and bloody and screaming out into the street. I remember nothing about that incident, but I remember clearly what the house used to look like for more than a decade after the people were gone: The huge windows on the second floor were dark, the glass crumbling, the roof in shambles, the ivy choking the high, brick walls. Whenever I went to the verandah, I would look at the blind windows and wait until someone or something appears. It was like the milk commercial all over again: I couldn’t take my eyes off the empty windows even if terror rose through my throat every time I looked at the nothingness and waited. The abandoned house became particularly terrifying whenever the city suffered from blackouts for it looked emptier and lonelier than ever.

I dreamt about the interior of the house a few times even if I had never been inside it. There were crumbling Greek pillars, a magnificent debris of broken furniture, shattered glass like abandoned constellations, a cold blanket of shining dust, and a huge wooden stairway perfect for a horror flick. In my dream, I went up the stairway but the house ended up being on fire so I had to run to the exit.

These days, a Japanese man and his Filipina wife resides in the house. Everything had been fixed, repainted, renovated. Even the old water tank was changed. 

Everything, but my memories of it.

Time flies. Fears change. It was, I suppose, easier when the things I feared were things inside my head. These days, they tend to be found all around me, surrounding the world, in every corner or every step. These days, most people are afraid to speak up for being accused of political incorrectness and facing the backlash of an angry online mob. People are afraid to say that they are comfortable in their own skin, for the rest of the world somehow behaves as though they are constantly waging a war against an ideology they hardly understand, thus forcing one to embrace those ideologies and theories in order to gain acceptance. In my country right now, people are afraid that anybody could be shot down under suspicion of being an addict without being given the chance to defend their honour and dignity.

I am afraid of how my future children will grow up surrounded by all this chaos. I am afraid that someone would dictate to them what is right or wrong based on gender and not on the whole human experience itself. I am afraid that the educational system will distort their beliefs rather than inspire them to become better people. I am afraid that people will never find it in themselves to read beyond the headline of an article. I am afraid that people will continue to spiral into this madness, hypocrisy and censorship. I am afraid that one day, the world will be silenced into submission because the price would be one’s life and the life of one’s family.

It was much, much easier when things that terrified me were simply inside my head. 

Ghosts, and not the living. 

Oct 14, 2016 1 note
#theorchestraofmadness #journal #friday the fourteenth #thoughts #fears #prose
Oct 8, 2016 1 note
#theorchestraofmadness #drawing #art #sketch #black and white #terraria rp #roleplay

Most people make the mistake of thinking I am always together. Of course, this is far from the truth.

I am not always together. Most of the time, I am scattered in several places all at once, pulling desperately at the pieces to shape a coherent, sensible whole. I am as together as a puzzle hit by the cyclone-tantrum of a two-year old.

What I am adept at is pretending. Surface-level assurance. Willpower engine. The shallow hi’s and trench-deep hellos. Everything is fine and dandy, but in truth, I’ve got the chills and nobody knows.

I am not together and I am not whole. I am stardust flung across different galaxies, with no chance of meeting in a single lifetime. I am shattered glass from an old, forgotten chandelier in a house coloured by the footsteps of ghosts. I am a raindrop crashing to the ground, anticipating the sweetness of a fall.

On days like these, I feel like nobody and nothing at all.

Oct 5, 2016 1 note
#theorchestraofmadness #prose #journal #fever
Sundays

are sacred, surprising, and sometimes sad.

The thought of Monday lingers, and if I were to be completely honest with myself, it comes with dread, lethargy, fear and excitement–all in equal measure.

But I am, as always, getting ahead of myself.

I try to remember that it is Sunday, that it is sacred, that I am free to be selfish for at least one day of the week. That I can think about something else other than work, the pitfalls of being an adult, the frustrations of one who continues to desperately chase after dreams. That without the sublime Sunday air, the rest of the week will never be the same–everything disengaged, dislocated…

Doomed.

So even if Sundays don’t always go my way, I’m still glad that it happens, that I have always been given the choice to make it happen despite all the other things that could easily derail this slow-cruising train.

Today, there are oven-fresh cupcakes, brewed coffee, the laughter of family, the soothing voice of a beloved.

Oct 2, 2016
#theorchestraofmadness #prose #writing #sundays #journal

September 2016

Sep 25, 2016 4 notes
#wildstar #aurin #sketch #doodle #fanart #theorchestraofmadness #reirei

July 2016

Jul 5, 2016 35 notes
#dante sparda #vergil sparda #devil may cry #dmc #devil may cry 3 #dmc 3 #dante #vergil #fanart

Unwinding means remembering to eat breakfast at 4 p.m. 

I had forgotten myself again.

For two weeks, all the world was merely a stream of butchered consciousness, to borrow a phrase from a beloved friend. Waking, working, sleeping. Lather, rinse, repeat. The real world is a merciless enemy. And I could not fight against it at the time.

But now I think I’m realigned. Finding balance is such a tedious feat. I operate off-kilter most of the time. 

On and off, on and off, I flicker like a dying light bulb. Or like Sylvia’s fever. 

Jul 3, 2016
#journal #prose #personal #theorchestraofmadness
Jul 3, 2016 35 notes
#devil may cry #devil may cry 3 #dmc 3 #dante #vergil #fanart #theorchestraofmadness
Jul 3, 2016 41 notes
#lady #devil may cry #dmc 3 #devil may cry 3 #fanart #doodle #theorchestraofmadness

March 2016

Mar 18, 2016 1 note
#theorchestraofmadness #journal #personal #prose #i am not a machine #writing

February 2016

(Part 1, Part 2)

Jackie called.

She did not sound like a girl.

I normally would not have answered the call, but I recognized Jackie’s number and thought maybe she ought to know. She was wasting her time, and I needed to clear my inbox and call log soon. 

“Hello?” I do my best Helena Bonham-Carter imitation because there was no one else I’d rather pretend to be at that moment.

“Mark?” she said in a timid voice.

“Who?”

Jackie lowers her voice even more and the only word I could pick up was “Mark.”

“There’s no Mark here, love. I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

I drop the call and go back to watching Sengoku Basara Season 2 because it was a Sunday and I deserved to lie in bed and let my mind wander off to ancient Japan on steroids.

A small part of me wonders whether Jackie will try other numbers, hoping that one of them would finally lead her to Mark. We step out of each other’s lives just like that, and I expect never to hear from her again.

I pause the video and head outside for a cigarette break. My shoulders were aching. All afternoon until way into the evening, I had been lying on my side, watching, gushing, squeeing, holding my breath. Apparently, while I was indulging on Japanese history, the rest of the nation was watching a debate between presidential candidates on national television. For a moment, it sparked my interest, but I wasn’t going to aggravate myself over lies and lies and lies.

That night, before sleeping, I went to the kitchen to grab myself a glass of water–to ward off the nightmares. I found my brother staring at a watermelon.

“What are we gonna do with this watermelon?” he asks.

“I dunno,” I shrug.

“If we leave it there too long, it might turn into a coconut.”

Feb 22, 2016
#theorchestraofmadness #prose #writing #journal #musings #the saga of jackie and mark
Feb 21, 2016
#theorchestraofmadness #prose #writing #journal #musings #memories #l'arc~en~ciel #friends #leaving

(Part 1)

Jackie’s back. She asks me how I am and if I remember. She starts her sentence with two periods, followed by two smileys, and a lowercase letter. I look at the word remember again, surprised that she spelled it right and ended it with the correct punctuation.

She gives me two calls. Except I left my phone inside my room, and a part of me wonders if she will call again, and how I would break it to her that I am not Mark and I remember nothing about meeting her, or selling her “scarp.”

I begin to wonder about them both, Jackie and Mark–two characters who accidentally made a tiny appearance in my everyday life. Two strangers who I will never know, and have no interest to, save perhaps for the fact that I continue to become fascinated with this little saga of short, mistaken messages, if it will all end up as a trilogy.

I toss my phone back on the bed and shuffle to the kitchen to make coffee.

(Part 3)

Feb 21, 2016
#theorchestraofmadness #the saga of jackie and mark #prose #writing #musings #journal
Feb 21, 2016
#theorchestraofmadness #prose #writing #memories #musings #UST #university of santo tomas #journal

Early morning. Uncaffeinated.

I am texted by an unknown number. Apparently my name is now Mark, I bought “scarp” from Jackie, and I am cute. She informs me that all her numbers are available. She asks me where I work. She spells a kiss with double Js. The message, short as it is, registers in my brain like a puzzle that the keypad spewed out after a night of binge drinking. I wonder if the sender used her forehead to type instead of her fingers. 

I run to the kitchen, relieved to find that coffee is already brewing. Perhaps the caffeine would help me cope with these little intrusions from the outside world. I take the first sip, feeling a bit closer to finally becoming human for a time. But someone sends me a chat message with another stupid question, and I wonder which vortex this person’s common sense has been irredeemably sucked into.

I wander off into the veranda, which is perhaps the farthest I could get away from my tiny space, my office, my room. In the distance, I could hear old songs drifting from a radio. A thin sheet of white noise and bad signal breathes over the wind. Other sounds make it into my bubble of existence: Cars, motorcycles, people walking their dogs, dogs walking their humans, humans talking in a volume best suited for conversation across mountains. There is so much turbulent wakefulness around me that I feel as though the weekday has never left. 

I envy our cats lazing about in the garage. Nothing excites them at the moment. They sprawl themselves over the ground with nary a care for the world. Later on, when my grandmother comes home from the grocery, I discover the scene of a recent murder: A small rat lies dead near our gate. 

The world goes on without stopping. 

(Part 2)

Feb 20, 2016 1 note
#theorchestraofmadness #prose #writing #journal #musings

The wind blows coolly from where I sit, as if winter is just about to begin in this strange part of the world that knows nothing about the snow. The closest we could get to experiencing snow is perhaps when we gaze at the clouds and feel their white, infinite softness fall ever so slowly… but not quite. Or maybe the ashes from a cigarette would suffice, their tiny crumbling forms–fire-stained murky snow–ferried gently away by the wind.

The world around me stirs with agonizing slowness. It is almost night. I can feel darkness beginning. The lights dim slowly. A part of me longs for summers lost, when we could walk home from school and feel the fingers of sunset touch the world and those beyond it. Now, I hardly go out. I am constantly plugged in a dream of monochrome. My body remains in place yet my mind wanders off into the landscapes of memory.

And I do not know if that is the best place to get lost in, especially when it’s this cold.

Feb 19, 2016 1 note
#theorchestraofmadness #prose #memory #musings #writing #journal #thoughts
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