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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. 

theorchestraofmadness journal friday the fourteenth thoughts fears prose

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.

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.

theorchestraofmadness prose writing sundays journal

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. 

journal prose personal theorchestraofmadness
The last two weeks were a little bit like hell in the Devil May Cry sense, which isn’t really much of a comfort (it swallowed up Vergil, didn’t it?). Good thing I have role models like Lady who remind me that I could totally Kalina Ann the shit out...

The last two weeks were a little bit like hell in the Devil May Cry sense, which isn’t really much of a comfort (it swallowed up Vergil, didn’t it?). Good thing I have role models like Lady who remind me that I could totally Kalina Ann the shit out of my troubles from time to time (not literally of course, but that would have been nice).

lady devil may cry dmc 3 devil may cry 3 fanart doodle theorchestraofmadness
My heart is a rusty little thing.
I am even more plugged in these days, wired to my seat, hands bolted on the mouse and the keys. Eight hours, twelve hours, sixteen hours… I log in like clockwork despite the lack of sleep, lack of peace, the haunting...

My heart is a rusty little thing. 

I am even more plugged in these days, wired to my seat, hands bolted on the mouse and the keys. Eight hours, twelve hours, sixteen hours… I log in like clockwork despite the lack of sleep, lack of peace, the haunting tick-tock of the clock that shrieks deadlines, deadlines, DEAD-LINES. Even in conversations, I answer in auto-reply, in practiced spiels. 

They have turned me into a machine.

My mind gets exhausted. My bones creak. My fingers cramp. My eyes burn and bleed. But they still think I am a machine.

Well now, darling dictator, I’m slowly running out of energy. I am doing this out of need, out of love. Love powers my engine, but even cars run out of gas. What do you think I am?

Oh right–you think I am a machine.

One day, I will rise above you, into the stars that look upon me not as a machine but as a human being. I will rise above you and your stupid, tiny world that panders to your every whim. One day, I’ll sail into space, into the vast dreamscape that your closed little soul will never dare explore. By then I would not need to smile at you with my mercurial teeth, my steel grin. I will have no need for you and I can forget about you, fully, finally.

Darling dictator of doom, when that time comes, I will no longer be your machine, your little puppet whose strings you could pull at your beck and call. I promise you this.

I am not a machine.

theorchestraofmadness journal personal prose i am not a machine writing