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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

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. 

writing personal journal prose theorchestraofmadness
I know you’re never going to believe any of this.
I’ve known you long enough to be certain that somehow, as you are reading this, a part of you could not help but laugh, not out of malice, but because that’s simply how things are between us: The...

I know you’re never going to believe any of this.

I’ve known you long enough to be certain that somehow, as you are reading this, a part of you could not help but laugh, not out of malice, but because that’s simply how things are between us: The years have been filled with laughter, sugar-high drinks, and words.

So on the day you stopped laughing for a while, I wondered where you had gone. Who took the laughter away from the only person whose rainbows and unicorns I had allowed to enter the great and dark fortress of my heart. For a moment, I vowed to cripple that person who had taken the laughter from your eyes and replaced it with something sad, something alien and strange and totally unlike the woman I have come to know. I had thought about hurting this person until he begged for the end to come, for the apocalypse to dawn on his very soul, and I would be there, watching and laughing as the torment continued, for he took something so precious to me that not even his screams of agony could pay for that which he stole.

And then you started to talk, under the mellow lights of a quiet coffee shop, in a city you have never been in but braved anyway, about how you believed he was still a kind person, not a bad person at all. Just someone lost, full of himself, someone young and unsure and insecure, and he wasn’t that terrible at all. At that moment, as you talked about the story of your broken heart, I must have imagined you glowing, for in my eyes you seemed to be more colourful than all the other planets scattered in the universe. Brighter than all the stars and the shades that emerge from a fractured prism. I could not explain how someone who has had their heart broken could look at life still with so much hope and understanding. How someone who had been abandoned without any proper explanation could still find it in herself to look at this deserter with such unending compassion. And I knew then, as I watched the night fall, that perhaps destiny led us to meet because someone had to let me see beyond the darkness of my own soul.

I don’t know if you will believe me when I say that you are more beautiful than you would ever think. That your heart is bigger than the galaxies I’ve dreamed of in my insufferable solitude. I don’t know if you’d believe me when I say you deserve to be loved by someone who is just as colourful, as grandiose in spirit, and that you’d find him in this life one way or another.

But I do.

theorchestraofmadness letters to a friend journal prose writing

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
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

(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.”

theorchestraofmadness prose writing journal musings the saga of jackie and mark
After a long time of not seeing each other, an old friend gives me this poster. It is perhaps the closest I could get to one of my favourite Japanese bands, which I had been following since high school. I tape the poster to my bedroom wall, a little...

After a long time of not seeing each other, an old friend gives me this poster. It is perhaps the closest I could get to one of my favourite Japanese bands, which I had been following since high school. I tape the poster to my bedroom wall, a little heartbroken that I might never see them live.

I was unable to watch the cinema screening either, for back then I had no job, no money, and the only currency I had was my pride. I have a treasure trove of it, but it doesn’t pay for anything.

On the night I received this poster, my friends and I went to two nearby bars in a city we’d always call home no matter where we were, drank like we just came from the desert and smoked like factories from the Industrial Revolution. In the morning, I had one of the worst hangovers of my life.

There’s always a small hint of rainbows in this black-and-white world. I call it forever and goodbye.

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)

theorchestraofmadness the saga of jackie and mark prose writing musings journal