Category: Fiction

Watch-your-car

Fiction by | October 21, 2007

By the time Jheric got to the car, it was too late. The blue Toyota Corolla had already backed out of its space. Its window rolled down a notch and Vhong’s hand reached out for the coins. Then the car was on its way out of the supermarket parking lot.

“Hey! That was my customer! You know it was!” Jheric shouted.

“Ha! Early bird and all that, runt!” Vhong said. He jangled the coins in his hand.

“It’s mine! It’s mine!”

Vhong held Jheric back at arm’s length. Jheric flailed but his hands barely even reached Vhong’s shoulder. A small crowd of boys had gathered around them. “Go, Jheric! Give him what for!” They laughed. Vhong pushed Jheric. Jheric fell on his butt.

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Boob Tube Monologue

Fiction by | October 14, 2007

My little brother returned home two days ago from Diliman for the vacation. Now, he sits beside me while I navigate the channels to check what television networks have in store for the summer.

Not a minute passes that David says, “I don’t like that they call our generation the Generation Y.”

I turn to look at David. Only eighteen years of age, a year younger than I, and having to spend two of those years in that university, and look now what he thinks the world is doing to him.

“It’s a slap to our face that we are named so because we have a predecessor that was labeled Generation X. It’s that structuralism thing. You are named this because you are after that. Blah…blah…blah…”

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The Black Moor

Fiction by | October 7, 2007

“So how’s everything?”

If only one could establish a pattern from its movements, he could perhaps assume that it is perfecting a complicated terpsichorean sequence. “Mmm… Okay.”

“Well, I will just tell the guys you’re coming home during the sem break. Perhaps you will have news to tell by then.”

The black fish in the bowl moved to the right wagging its tail as if calling attention to its translucence. “What? Ah, yah, sure…bye.”

It hurled upwards. Its mouth formed a small “o” while meeting these brownish crumbs its owner, the eldest son of the landlady, was sprinkling into the bowl.

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Magdalena and Scenes of Chronic Poverty

Fiction by | September 16, 2007

It’s About Time You Meet Her
You knew her though, or someone you knew of. We were all aware of her existence that, like wallpapers, we never really took notice. Hers was a familiar face in the crowd with that look of desperation crawling right into you. Her face caked with pustules that nobody dared to touch. Her body looked so thin, her skin tightly embracing her bones. She didn’t possess those black-rimmed glasses and buck teeth (though she had one missing on the upper mouth); she didn’t have braces that completed the criteria for everyday geeks. Her mother barely covered the basics; another strain on their budget was certainly out of the question.

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The Legend of the Sacred Butterfly

Fiction by | September 9, 2007

Hi there! My name is Zac. I’m a little boy who really liked exploring, but I didn’t understand why father won’t let me do it. “Please Dad, may I go exploring?” I asked when I was four years old. “No!” said Dad, loudly, “Not until your tenth birthday comes.”

Finally, after six years my tenth birthday came.

“Yippee! I can now go wandering into the jungle,” I said excitedly.

“And just who was it who said that you can go wandering into that jungle?”

“You Dad, you told me when I was four years old,” I said nervously.

“What? I didn’t say such a thing,” lied Dad.

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A Flash Fiction Trio

Fiction by | August 26, 2007

Physical Experiment
If there is no net force, there can be no acceleration.

She met him in her Physics class, listening attentively from his seat in the front row. What is there to know about the law of gravity or Newton’s laws of motion? Only abstract concepts made tangible by experiment. But she taught this to her class anyhow. Like she did not admit that opposites really do attract, and that objects inevitably fall, and that bodies of matter do not move unless something (or someone) exerts some kind of force on them.

The net force on an object is proportional to the acceleration that the object undergoes.

The interested look in his eyes made her uneasy. She felt like one of her peers in high school who fell head over heels in love with some cute teenage boy winking at them in the hallway. The boy’s eyes gleamed with admiration and when he smiled, she swooned over him.

For every action, there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

Once, while walking down the pathway alone, he offered to carry her books. She could not even stare back at him as she handed him the books. Both of them spoke sparingly. But he would whistle against the cool, crisp air. And he had such a confident and majestic air about him, so that when they walked side by side, he wasn’t a boy anymore but indeed a full-grown man.

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Ang Bisita

Fiction by | August 26, 2007

Kalit na sab siyang miduaw kanako; walay pahibalo, walay pananghid. Wa´siya mituktok o nag- Ayooo man lang kaha. Wa´siya mi-lamano sa akong kamot o migawad nako ug halok; iyaha lang hinay-hinay dayon kalit nga gikumot ang akong dughan, gisikaran ang akong pus-on, gipuga ang akong mga luha, gikawat ang nahabilin pang nindot nga mga talan-awon sa akong kinabuhi. Kanus-a niya ko undangan o biyaan? Dugay na niya kong gipaantus, gisamdan, gihaplasag asin dayon giihaw diha sa baga sa kasakit. Wa´siyay dagway apan makit-an ko siya sa daghang mga butang nga makapahinumdom nako sa kagahapon. Wa´siyay tingog apan madunggan nako siya sa talidhay nga pag-atras sa mga balud. Wa´siyay baho apan masimhotan ko siya sa asin sa dagat, sa makabuang nga baho sa durian, sa alimyon sa Ylang-ylang. Gani, kalit na lamang siyang mamintana sa akong handurawan dihang makahunahuna ko niining mga butanga. Usahay duawon niya ko sa akong damgo ug biyaan niya kong nagdanguyngoy hangtud pukawon ko sa unang sidlak sa kabuntagon. Wa´siyay kaluoy, sama sa pagpangtortyur sa militar panahon sa diktador, sama sa kanhing mga kauban sa ilahang pagpanglikida. Wa´siyay kasingkasing.

Dugay na nako siyang gilikayan apan kanunay niya kong giapas, gidakup. Maayo siya sa pagpang-ambus. Maayo siya sa sorpresa. Morag usa ka gerilya, lungsod ka nga kalit na lang niyang atakehon ug kubkubon. Ug dis-armahan.

Buot nako siyang dakpon, kadenahan o isulod sa usa ka garapon. Apan nasayod ko nga makalingkawas ra gihapon siya ug moduaw balik nako. Sama sa abat, sama sa kalag. Hangtud buhi ug abli pa kining akong mga samad.

Me, the Keymaker, and the Quantum Mechanics Bar

Fiction by | August 12, 2007

One day, just as I expected it to be, I met the Keymaker in the cyber highway. So I told him “Hey, let’s go to the quantum mechanics bar and order a shot of neutrino. It’s cool, we don’t have to pay anything because the glass is empty anyway. Then, let’s chat about the keys to the mysteries of the universe.”

So off we went and entered into the weird quantum mechanics bar, for it only has one door from our Present, the only one there is in the entire universe for us to enter. Yet once inside, the quantum mechanics bar peeks into countless portal doors of multi-universes that co-exist with the universe behind our Present door. Rumor has it that, along with the Present Door where we entered, there are other distinct portals with doors from our past, to the future, and to our parallel Present universes. The strange thing about the rumor was that there will appear an inevitable portal that sooner or later we must enter because that portal leads to our Future. Yet, in the quantum mechanics bar, anything can happen, though the bartenders and customers who patronized the bar smugly treated such inevitability as ‘rumor.’

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