Café Kontra

Echo

Well, it’s been almost a month, so I thought it was about time for another long-ish post. Unlike the previous one, though, it’s hardly going to be coherent

Let’s start with something I have done relatively rarely in my college life: publish a poem for public viewing. Because,

What you don’t know is—

I want a secret.
I want a word, whispered to myself
And a soft smile
Maybe even a laugh, thrown to the wind
That no one will understand.
I want to see their puzzled faces,
Musing on my
unknown.

I want to stare off into space and
Think thoughts no one ever thought I’d
I want to hide my sandwich and scream
at the ants crawling on my sundress
and run into the building and disappear
for three days and come back to the world with amber
sap all over my hands and hair
dripping into pools at my feet reflecting
my eyeslits as they widen
and glisten with newfound wonder at all the things to be known
and found.

You look at me with that twitch at your mouth
helpless to know what,
exactly,
exactly.
I tilt my head, the amber still dripping,

To look in your eyes and share with you a secret smile
and have you know everything
and laugh with you
our voices disappearing
into the night sky,
This night that keeps secrets so well.

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That was brought to you c/o one whacked-out night. Subject to personal interpretation (mine, that is).

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V is such a curious letter. In several pieces of literature, it has been made into the symbol for the enigmatic, unattainable, and indefinable as much as the letter X has been transformed into the symbol for the unknown. It’s ironic that both letters are non-existent in the original Filipino alphabet. What does that say about us, I wonder?

This current fascination I have for the letter V springs from a graphic novel I read recently—“V for Vendetta”, written by Alan Moore. I think I have a thing for novels political plots, especially those that revolve around totalitarianism (what can I say? George Orwell is the best). I suppose V may not have the most original plot: England falls into fascism after almost being destroyed by nuclear warfare—but I like the way characters interact. The main character, V, is particularly interesting; despite his extreme single-mindedness and apparent cruelty, he still exists as someone very human.

A little spoiler-filled background on our (anti) hero: On the surface, V is a vigilante (unsurprisingly, the letter V appears throughout the novel quite often) fighting against England’s fascist government, headed by Adam Susan. V acts more like a terrorist than a vigilante though, and I suppose that would be a more accurate description; he blows monuments and structures indiscriminately and without regard for innocent lives, and even wears a Guy Fawkes mask (Fawkes, as I recently learned, was a 17th century terrorist). He espouses the ideals of anarchy and pursues his goals almost single-mindedly. Just to teach his protégé, Evey, the meaning of true freedom, he misleads and tortures her, with Evey believing that everything was being perpetrated by the government. V, at times, is unflinchingly cruel, especially when carrying out his “vendetta”.

V, however, is so much more than a vigilante or a terrorist or a murderer. He is a man, yes, albeit somewhat superhuman due to an experiment the government carried out on him when he was in a concentration camp. Despite his being able to break free and starting a whole new shadow life, I believe the experiments—whether chemically or psychologically—changed (dare I say broke?) something essential in him. The main part of his vendetta is against the former staff of the said camp. Yet V transcends petty revenge; his pseudo-conversation with Lady Justice is both telling and intriguing. But what I found most poignant about the character was his recognition that a person such as himself—someone whom he characterized as essentially a destroyer—had no place in the new society. In the end, a train filled with explosives serves as his grave, and Evey takes his place as society’s symbol for truth and freedom.

At this point, the discussion could branch off into so many places, such as a deeper, more in-depth discussion of V for Vendetta, I will not go there now. I advise you to read the graphic novel (and “From Hell” as well, if you have the chance … hell, anything by Alan Moore).

Instead, my mind wanders and wonders about frivolities, such as the different instances where the letter “V” appears in recent history. Most prominent is Thomas Pynchon’s first novel, entitled—surprise, surprise—“V”. This is a huge novel, oftentimes hard to grasp, but from what I gathered, V is another potent symbol, this time of something unknowable or unattainable. V appears in a myriad of forms in the novel, but we never really find out what she really is, probably because what she really is as a concept does not exist. We cannot really know.

On an even more frivolous note, V is the assumed name of the hooker (or is it stripper? I can’t really remember) in the movie Milk Money. Again, V has that enigmatic sheen.

I really wonder sometimes whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that V doesn’t exist in the original Filipino alphabet.

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Suddenly I’m normal.

I’m active in my organizations and doing well in my academic work. I go out regularly on excursions, hang out around school and elsewhere, and even find the time to read a good book or seven. I even have a love life. I watch TV, listen to the radio, talk to my friends, laugh, gripe, tease, and dip my prying fingers into the latest intrigue, of which I am, for once, part of.

This has never happened to me before. Suddenly I’m wonderfully, surprisingly, irritatingly, nauseatingly normal.

My brain, briefly baffled by this turn of events, thinks at first that it must be a portent of things to come, one of the signs of the End of All Things. Then it, too, is engulfed by the utter ordinariness of the situation, and it realizes that no, the End is not near, lest it be simply the End of My Life as I’ve Known It. I am—and a shudder runs through my entire being as I realize this—growing up.

And I sound like one of those pompous idiots who dramatize everything, don’t I? What most people—those who’ve been “normal” all their lives—don’t realize is, realizing that you’ve become your average Maria is quite unsettling, especially for someone who has tried so hard to maintain a façade of uniqueness, for one who espouses the principles of self-expression and individuality. The God was the Individual, the Key Word: “extraordinary.”

Suddenly those labels seem so hollow. It’s a bit of a letdown when you realize that, all this time, you were never really that different. Then you get used to it, and suddenly you’re happy with the way things are, which is: normal. Just like it’s always been.

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The following nonsensical piece was something I wrote some time ago. Now the lights and the toilet really are fixed, but cable is non-existent and due to some weird going-ons at PLDT, we have no phone. Again. Ah well.

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The place I have always known as home has leaky faucets and a broken fuse. The lights don’t turn on in half of the house. The telephone line’s disconnected (yeah, no internet). The toilet doesn’t flush properly. The fridge is empty. And the TV’s only use is for watching pirated DVDs (yeah, no cable either).

I spend my time outside, usually. Me and my mom, we buy food and just take it home to eat a lot. And we don’t eat lousy Chinese takeout or greasy American fastfood; we eat good food, like the roast chicken over at Rustan’s, or Paksiw over at Milky Way. And we eat out a lot, too, usually at Dulcinea but sometimes over at a fancy resto in Greenbelt. When she’s with her friends they like eating at not-very-well-known-but-extremely-good restaurants like Segundo Piso and Café Juanita, and I like tagging along, for the food. I just eat and stuff myself while they gossip and chat about their good old days

When we’re at home, I watch DVDs. I’m not sure what she does; we don’t talk much, at home. She gives me water, prepares dinner sometimes, and disappears, probably to do her pottery, most likely to sleep. And I sit in front of the TV, glazed like a doughnut and equally inanimate.

===

I’m not home, right now. Mom’s getting the lights fixed, and the phone as well. The toilet was fixed a few weeks ago. Maybe she’ll even have cable installed. She told me not to go home yet, while the house is being fixed.

When I go over there, the first thing I’m going to do is sit on a chair, draw my legs up to my chest, turn the TV on, and watch a DVD, my eyes glazed like a sugar doughnut.

I’m tired, really. And I should be studying.

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Anyway, one last parting shot:

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"Nothing's a pretty good hand."

posted by Jael @ 12:51 AM