Sometimes, I think of you-
amid the memory of the sand and the sea
and the moon in the cloudless sky.
Or when dreams are scarce
and night are sleepless.
Or when days are silent and sweet.
~ An excerpt, Poetry by the Water I
The dying day of November and the beginning of December were magical to me. After ages, I was finally able to just leave behind everything and have my much-deserved break. As much as possible, I kept very little contact with everyone. I took time to just be lazy, to think, to be quiet, to cry a little. It felt great. It felt wonderful.
Suddenly, I was in love with the feeling of being able to just get away. It was only for two days, but I don't think I'll ever be out of love for it ever again. The experience made me write two poems, excerpts of which I'm sharing along with this blog post. I don't think they're very good (makapal ang mukha ko, since I'm sharing them despite quality)- because, after all, my best poems come from me being intoxicated, suicidal, and emotionally fucked-up. What they have, though, are a kind of quiet loneliness, which, I think, come from my unrequited passion for the solitude these two days gave me. The water, the sun, the sky, the stars at night. They were all so beautiful, but I'll never be able to have them.
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| Eliza Victoria's book, A Bottle of Storm Clouds. Art is by Naermyth author, Karen Francisco. |
It was probably only fitting that, when I was not half asleep or thinking, or swimming, I was reading Eliza Victoria's A Bottle of Storm Clouds. This book is a collection of short stories published by Visprint. my friend Gary Mojica got this for me when he failed to gift me with Karl de Mesa's Damaged People. We got the book during Visprint's WIT 2012. I also got to meet Ms. Eliza, who was bubbly and pretty cool. She even signed the book for me. The book contained sixteen short stories in my favorite genre - speculative fiction. All of which are written in an almost poetic manner.
Before I actually met the author, I've already read one of her works in Philippine Speculative Fiction. It was a story called Monster. Honestly, I really did not pay attention to the writer's name, but what I found out was she has a thing for taking creatures of Philippine Mythology and spinning humanity into them. This is what caught made me re-read Monsterseveral times. It reminded me of another Filipino work I enjoyed - the indie film Yanggaw. In Eliza Victoria's world, even aswangs go online and surf the Internet. They work for a living. They party, drink beer, and do drugs. They fall in love. Not the typical portrayal in mainstream media that's alreadykaskas.
I remember Ms. Eliza wearing a cute dress and tights when I first saw her. I thought she was funny and girly. Her stories, however, are anything but. They remind me of twisted fairy tales. One particular story was An Abduction by Mermaids, which starts out with an apathetic guy working in a newspaper office. He gets a call from his mom who tells him that his sister has been abducted by mermaid. Guess what happens? Of course, the main character has to go on a quest, but it isn't a quest you'd be prepared for. It doesn't end with happily ever after either. It seems that none of Ms. Eliza's stories do. Actually, they don't seem to end at all. I guess I would never cease to wonder what would happen to David Cruz, whose sister was supposedly kidnapped by mermaids. Or how it was possible for all the dead of a small town to rise from the grave and live again. Or if business deals with gods and goddesses were really as brutal as Ms. Eliza portrayed.
Truth be told, it was the second time I've read the book, but I couldn't really resist flipping through the 197-page volume again. It was so good that after the first time I read it. Ms. Eliza became one of my top 5 Filipina Writer Crush (more on that later). While I was by the water, I revisited some of my favorite stories.
One story that struck me was Sugar Pi. It was about a high school math genius who dreamed of the last digits of pi, which is impossible, as pi is infinite. He shares his obsession about the infinite number to his best friend, who, despite not being in love with Math, begins to see the power in the number. I honestly thought that the math wiz would turn out to be an alien and that pi would predict the end of the world. The math-wiz-turned-alien and his best friend would figure out the puzzle of pi and save themselves from destruction. But Eliza Victoria fooled me again. The story ended with a prom and a confession - of how important pi is. The math-wiz's name is Vincent. After reading the story, I would have wanted to find him, maybe hug him for a bit. Just so he knows I also think pi is important.
The characters in A Bottle of Storm Clouds are that real. You love them, fear them, admire them, pity them, cry for them. They evoke something out from you, they demand a reaction. For a brief, magical moment, the characters become so real to you that you can all but touch them. Although there are some characters you'd really not want to encounter, especially on moonless nights.
My rants may not make sense. All I know is that I'm eternally thankful to Gary for sponsoring my book, but if he didn't I would have bought this one without a second thought. It won't even matter if I have to skip a meal or two. I'm definitely looking forward to other books by Ms. Eliza to be available in print. Next time I go on my getaway, I know exactly what reading material to take.#
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| If I can be here for, perhaps, a week, I think I'd be able to write a novel.^_^ |
My heart wrote a message
on the sand by moonlight
and by morning the sea
had taken it away.
But in monotonous repetition -
each one a sharp and burning pain -
the sea responds into my dreamless sleep,
"It is what it is."
I wrote a message
on the sand by moonlight
for the moon and the stars to see
but all of it is futile and
but all of it is futile and
so my heart has taken it back.
~An Excerpt, Poetry by the Water II
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