just trying my luck

this morning, i emailed a story for consideration by a literary giant. i was so into it these past months (okay, years!) that i decided to let go. below are the first few paragraphs of the story whose title must remain a secret. for now.
******

Torok ducks and Terya covers her face in reflex when it whizzes past and crashes on the table. Then to the sound of shattering glass, he dashes to the window and leaps into the night.

When she opens her eyes to the flickering light of the kerosene lamp, a cellophane bag lies tattered before her, its content of mushy excrete splatters the table like rotten squash. She vomits her dinner of sautéed frog.

Terya sits in a corner and breathes deeply. Surely this is not a prank, she tells herself, but who? Then she remembers: Two or three nights ago, as she was washing the dishes, a shadow moved furtively in the mangroves. She didn’t tell Torok about it because she thought it was just a pig rummaging for food below the outhouse. But now she’s convinced that it was indeed a crouching silhouette of a man that she saw. Still, why?

Her stomach starts acting up again when Torok pushes the door open. The veins in his temples tense like anay trails and any tighter, the skin of his jaw would tear apart. All at once she feels clammy and cold; the last time he was like this, over a hundred pigs lay dead on their tracks.

She closes the door on her way to the kitchen to get a rug.

“Let me do it,” Torok says when she returns. He takes the rug from her and proceeds to clean the table, unperturbed by the smell. In the vermillion light of the kerosene lamp, she observes that the years have not altered Torok much. He remains small and lean, just as he was eight years ago when she, at 24, married him. Though his face has become weather beaten, making him look older than his 40 years, his eyes have remained somnolent, still hinting at an internal conflict that for the longest time now she wishes to fathom but couldn’t. These small brown ovals were what attracted him to her the first time she met him at the fiesta where he sold gaffs. (It was her father, a cockfight aficionado like Torok, who introduced him to her.)

The lamp wavers and flaps its shadow on the wall. Done with the table, Torok wipes off the sweat running into his eyes before picking up the cellophane bag that he has earlier set aside. She squirms and wonders what he’d do with it as she watches him enter the small room.

Torok closes and bolts the door behind him. He puts the cellophane bag down and lets his eyes adjust to the darkness. From his pocket he takes out a match and fires a stick. A windowless room is revealed. Unlike the rest of the house, it has a ceiling and a double wall of woven bamboo, and all it contains are a small table, a chair, and a lamparilla made from a bottle of Kulafu. He lights the lamparilla before lifting carefully the top of the drawerless table, then from its bowel, he pulls out the tools of his trade. He replaces the table top, making sure it securely fits.

Needing only a small amount to work on, he rips a portion of the cellophane bag where the blob of shit is thicker. He has to be thorough and precise, and to be thorough and precise, he needs a lot of time. But the night being young, he is confident that before his fighting cocks crow for the third time, he would be through. And by noon tomorrow, just when the old church bell starts to peal, Barrio Unaban would mourn the death of its impertinent son!

thursday with the real morrie

this. made. me. cry.

the harvest continues

two friends, one from new york and the other from california, are on home visit, and they brought me a lot of surprises that include, among others, 17 joel osteen CDs, the DVD of the now famous ted koppel interview with the real morrie, a perry ellis cuff links in muted silver, a michael kors polo shirt, and the book below.



this book keeps me up all night, making me wish it can truly improve my craft!

thank god for all these blessings.

Tinuy-an Falls

The Department of Tourism used Tinuy-an Falls in one of its campaign ads shown on CNN. Every year, a shipload of foreign bird watchers troops to this site to catch a glimpse of the smallest bird in the world.

And this is why you can't make me leave my province, my town. No, not even if you drag me.

another manna from chicago

The goddess in chicago must be feeling particularly generous yesterday because this 1GB, 240 songs PC+Mac just fell into my lap. Measuring 3.5 inches by 1.5 inches by 2/10 inches, this Apple iPod nano is---

so sleek,

so slim,

so nice.

it's time to throw away my vinyls.

advice columns

This kind of advice column makes me wish i had one.

******

Dear Prudie,

I can't believe I'm actually in this ridiculous situation. I am in my late 30s, dating a wonderful woman the same age. We've known each other for seven years, been best friends for five, and have dated for two of those. Why the wait? My girlfriend is a widow. She married her high-school sweetheart when she was 21 and he died in an accident less than a year later. Understandably, she has been hesitant to move forward with any commitment to another guy. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to marry this awesome woman, but I have been sensitive to her need to move slowly. I have tried to show her that I respect her love for her deceased husband and her slight sense of guilt in "moving on." When I finally thought the time was right, I asked her to marry me. She said that she wasn't quite ready and she wanted to hold off on marriage plans until her cat died. (Strange as it sounds, I felt it was a reasonable request since she and her husband got this cat together when they were married.) This cat, Pumpkin, was 16 when we made the agreement and seemed to be on his last legs. Prudie, that was almost three years ago. I hate to pressure my girlfriend to break our agreement, but this cat is a freak of nature that is ruining my chance at happiness! What to do?

—Non-Cat Lover

Dear Non-Cat,

Believe me, Pumpkin, who is now the equivalent of 80 in human years, has long since moved on. Your girlfriend did suffer a terrible loss when she was young, but that was heading toward two decades ago. Either she is truly stuck and needs some counseling, or she doesn't really want to marry you but enjoys your company and stringing you along. I have the feeling that once Pumpkin turns into a pumpkin, your girlfriend may enter an extended period of mourning over him that leaves her unable to contemplate marriage. While Pumpkin might have nine lives, you have only one, and you have to get going with it. Tell her you need her to set the date now, or you'll have to look for someone with less emotionally complicated pets.

—Prudie

*****

Ha-ha. Hmmmm, nice plot. or as stephen king would say, nice situation, one that could lead to an even nicer story.