(UNTITLED)

Entry No. 1

I

No, it was not the time I gave her a ring wrapped around the petals of a rose. Neither was it the time I made her a poem; words picked up from an old dictionary, like broken pieces of glass. The sweetest thing I ever did for Mina was when I woke up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. I kissed her lightly on the cheek, and whispered apologies for failing to give her more.

I may never find out whether she heard my plea or not. If she did, she did not show it. I felt free that day, like looking at myself from the outside. For the very first time in my life I knew I was real. And whatever I felt that moment was something I could hardly describe. I cried. I shamelessly cried that night and I’m not embarrassed to admit it.

II

I keep a journal because my mother won’t possibly buy me a personal computer unless I have a diary of my own. I come from a long line of diary writers. The memoirs of my great grandfather are displayed along with the family antiques. We’re supposed to be proud of our heritage, having been brought up from a lineage of academicians and all those intellectual eggheads.

I mean, I don’t blame my ancestors for starting this endeavor. It’s more of blaming myself for not meeting their expectations. Come to think of it, it took a lousy PC for me to start writing down the chapters of my life.

I know it sounds weird but my family never reads another member’s diary. The journals of the dead are just kept as reminders on how voluminous their struggle has been to put us where we are today. Maybe my mother has a point in saying that writing a diary serves as a reflection and a continuos meditation on the mortality we have. For all I know, half of what is written on my journal is nothing but lies. I lie to tell the truth, that truth that I keep to myself, the same way I utter the softest whisper to make myself heard.

III

“Can I have a light?” she said, looking at the lighter on my hand.

“A what?” I replied.

“A lighter. You know, the one you use to light a cigarette.”

“Oh,” I managed to say. “Here.”

She lighted her cigarette. She took two deep puffs before returning it to me.

“Do you smoke?” she asked.

No. I just keep one. For emergency and stuff.”

“And stuff, huh?”

“Yes,” was all I could manage to say.

“Are you new here?” she inquired, not looking directly at me and acting as if bored.

“No. I was born on this town.”

“Not much of a place, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve seen better.”

Frankly, I didn’t know how to react. She was right though. I grew up on a place where one would rather sleep than spend the night out.

“I’m from the south,” I can tell that from her accent. “Ever been to the south?”

“I don’t travel much,” I replied.

“Well, there really isn’t much to talk about my place. I come from a countryside where ricefields are everywhere and it is quite green all over.”

I just let her talk. High-school students were now flooding the gate where we stood.

“Know what I sorely miss about home?” she finally looked straight at me, cigarette at hand.

“Your family?”

“No, dumb ass,” she smiled. “I miss the little hill I call my own. There, I could spend countless hours looking at the stars.

There was silence. Weird. After three hasty puffs from her smoke, she brushed me goodbye.

“Well, got to go,” she said.

She walked swiftly away from where I am. I stood frozen, able to follow her only with my stare.

QUESTION NO. 9

How do you kill boredom?

QUESTION NO. 8

Most precious thing that could be found inside your wallet (or purse). . .

ALTERNATE REALITY

Last Entry

All in all, I’ve killed seven people. No sense in telling you the gory details on how it transpired. Be content on the fact that I did not kill them without a purpose. They were not senseless. They provided me the revenge I needed on the men who murdered my family. Dog eats dog, they say. For one thing, I also got the money I later stole from them. It made my miserable life somehow bearable.

But no more talk about that. I’m afraid I might bore you. Instead, let me tell you about a dream I had last night. It’s kind of weird when you think about it. I remember the details vividly and I think it’s really out of this world. Anyway, I just need to tell you the story.

This dream I had is about a creature so cumbersome in nature yet so fiery in its eyes. I have seen the eyes of someone who has the same effect on other people. I take it that head of mobs don’t often have to be big in stature but their eyes must have the ferocity of a lion.

As I was saying, this creature is like a rodent though it looks more like a raccoon. It only lives on a particular island that I really don’t know where. The creature would climb down trees only at night and when the sun is up, it would climb back up and sleep for hours.

According to my dream, scientists have found a very disturbing behavior of this animal. They know that it feeds on little insects but they also found out that these creatures often visit houses. It would creep stealthily into the windows of the islanders’ homes and stay there. It is as if it’s guarding them from something evil from the outside. It would perch itself by the window and feast on mosquitoes and other household insects.

Still, according to my dream, people on this island have accepted this as a fact of life. Locals have called this creature “sleepwatchers,” mainly because of what it does. However, during one experiment regarding sleep patterns on that particular island, there was a sudden rapid eye movement on the person they were observing. This happened at exactly the same time a sleepwatcher was coming over. They shooed the creature away. On that instant, brain impulses from the sleeping person also started to wane. He began producing soft moans. The researchers tried to wake him up but they couldn’t. Fearing he might be suffering from a stroke, they tried to resuscitate him from deep slumber.

Suddenly, there were loud moans outside the house. More than a dozen sleepwatchers suddenly lined up from nowhere as if chanting a song. The sound was like that of a person dreaming. The scientists were in shock. They have heard of sleepwatchers doing that but they took it as sort of a mating dance.

The person suddenly stood up, opened his eyes, looked around him, and then went back to sleep as if nothing happened. The sleepwatchers also disappeared.

“Maybe it’s the chemicals spewed from it’s behind that transpired what happened,” said one researcher.

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” cried another.

“Maybe still,” said one, “there are things that we really don’t know. For all it’s worth, maybe there are creatures whose brains are more sensitive than ours that it sees through our dreams.”

In my dream, a sort of documentary don’t you think, the locals not knowing what the sleepwatchers are really capable of doing, slaughtered these gentle creatures in great numbers.

----------------

Now I’m here at my cell. I committed myself here. The cops are good enough not to abuse me. They said I needed help. With the help of my grandmother who came with me, I told the investigator of the dreary things I did.

The fact that I confessed is because I don’t want them to get ahead of me. Before they can put me in, I’ve decided to surrender. Conscience? No. It’s more of quitting while I’m still ahead. A few minutes from now, I’m sure the investigators would visit me in this cell. They would ask the same questions. I already told them twice the things that I did. No sense in telling them over and over again.

Fact is, I think the investigators here got things all mixed up. They would come in pairs with no guns while wearing white robes.

“I pity her,” said one who came to see her.

“I could imagine the trauma she went through,” said the other.

“How about her mother?”

“She died while she was still young,” said the bearded guy.

“Is it okay if she hears the things we are talking about?” cried the other.

“She’s into a state of shock. Alternate reality.”

“Incest. How many cases do we have here?”

“She’s the only one who killed her father.”

With that, I could not help but laugh. What the hell are they talking about? The whole thing about incest is the funniest thing I could imagine. It’s so funny I can’t help but laugh. It makes stomach ache I want to cry.

QUESTION NO. 7

Why do you blog?

ALTERNATE REALITY

Entry No. 4

The first kill I made was the time I was eighteen years old. I sell cigarettes and stuff at night to augment our income. My friends would stay with me until the late hours of the morning. Mostly, those who buy from our makeshift store are drunkards or men who simply couldn’t find sleep at the comfort of their homes.

I admit that some of my friends do engage in prostitution. It’s good for business. Their customers would buy from me packs of cigarettes and candies. Sort of a way to impress my friends. It’s a simple operation. A car would slow down in front of us. The driver would open the windows of his car then first ask for a cigarette. Then he’d ask us if there’s someone he could spend the night with. The price is then negotiated.

Both heterosexual and gay customers would visit our place. I would also get some sort of bonus from them. My friends said that it’s for permitting them to use my place as a negotiating area of some sort. They wouldn’t tell me straight in the face but I was becoming more like a pimp. They never urged me to try it mainly because I don’t want to.

Then one night, about two in the morning, when their patrons have picked up all my friends, I was left alone waiting for them to come back. A red car slowed down in front of our stall. He did the same routine. The man is not that old, most probably in his late thirties. You could tell that he’s a closet gay. He slid down the window and asked for a menthol cigarette. I gave it to him. He asked if he could have some candies. I gave him some. But when I asked for the payment, he replied curtly that he has no small bills. He then showed me the rolls of bills in his pocket. Frankly, it was the biggest amount of money I have seen in my whole life.

He said that he could give me some of the thousand bills in his possession if I would go with him. At first, I said no. But when he pulled a gun out of the drawer in his car, fear and rage inside me flickered.

“Either come with me or I’ll have to force you into something we both don’t want,” the man said.

“The store, “ I replied.

“Leave it,” he was grinning, “You’re store is not as much as what I would pay you later.”

Mainly out of fear, I stepped inside his car.

“We’ll go somewhere private,” he said.

I was silent. Things were happening so fast that it begun to make my head spin.

“I want you to do something for me,” he said. “I want you to put your mouth on my stick.”

I managed to say that I don’t know how.

“You’ll learn,” was his reply.

I asked him that shouldn’t it be the one giving oral sex.

He answered back, “The customer is always right, baby.”

We drove for about twenty minutes before we stopped inside a subdivision on the outskirts of the city. He opened his zipper.

“Come on, I want to enjoy this,” he said. He then pulled my hair and shoved my mouth to his thing. It was disgusting.

“Wait,” I said, “I want a downpayment.”

“What? Okay, wait,” the man said.

I caught him off guard. I ran out of the car. There were empty lots around where grasses as tall as I am abound. I felt the blades of the grass hitting me on the arms and the legs but it did not matter. I heard the man following me. It was obvious that he’s drunk with illegal drugs.

My legs were failing me so I sat down and waited.

It was then that I prayed, incoherent words that all meant, “Please, God. If you truly exist, then stop this man. Show me a sign.”

But even before I could finish with my prayer, the man was right behind me pointing his gun at the back of my head. I turned and saw the menacing smile on his face. Up to now, I could not erase that picture of his face from my mind. He then slammed the butt of the gun on my face. I was half-conscious.

He then pulled down my shorts and inserted his penis into my anus. The pain was more than I could imagine. It’s not the physical pain that almost made me crazy but the humiliation and utter disgust for the whole thing. I then realized my utmost hate for life and my existence. As he was thrusting in a maniac way you can imagine, he was laughing at the same time. He was moaning and grunting at the same time.

“Animal! You don’t not deserve to live,” I cried.

This seemed to please him more, painfully thrusting on what seemed like an eternity.

I wanted to live. Regaining my strength, I forced my hands to form a fist. Still shaking and still on that awkward position, I threw sand on his face. It caught his eyes. In an instant, he was off me.

He swung his gun from side to side shouting curses. With his pants down, I struggled to get mine up. I then kicked his legs. He groaned in pain. He was off balance. He dropped the gun. Struggling to get it, he caught one of my arms. With that, I pointed his .45 caliber at his forehead. I pulled the trigger. Blood splattered on the grass around us.

“It’s over,” I told myself. He lay sprawling on the ground.

What made me unlike the others who kill is the fact that I clean my act after I made my revenge. I wiped my fingerprints off the gun and saw some drug paraphernalia he at his car. I wiped the seat of the car where I sat. I scattered the drug paraphernalia around him then made my escape. I also took his money. Thinking the about the hot meal I had the day after, I told myself that everything was worth the thrill of the kill. Plus all his money became mine.

I don’t know whatever happened to the investigation but owing to the fact that local police are incompetent enough not to check out details, I was never convicted, not even accused. The investigation ended as an abuse of illegal drugs which led to suicide.

I never told my friends what really happened. I just told them that I had to rush home because I need to go to the comfort room. The truth is, I burned all my clothes then came back to gather the things at the makeshift store. I acted normal enough. I still sold cigarettes at the place until I’ve decided that I could earn more by killing.

ALTERNATE REALITY

Entry No. 3

It could rightfully be called that those I killed were victims. They were victims of circumstances. It’s not cold-blooded murder. It’s merely what the situation called for. Emperors and kings massacred hundreds of thousands yet history perceives them as men of great honor. Generals plan their tactics on the comfort of their headquarters while ordinary soldiers die on the battlefield. No, what I’m saying is not entirely new. But looking at these things on a perspective of someone who actually killed someone, it justifies the action committed. It also strengthens the fact that there are more who are worse than me. I have killed because I have to let all the pain within me out. Without the thought of taking my vengeance, my life would have been over by now.

My last victim was a Japanese tourist. You can meet their kind on the lonely yet busy streets of the tourist belt. It’s very simple. You could approach them to ask for the time and they’d get the hint. After offering you to eat or drink at the sleazy bars lining up along with hotels and motels, they’d invite you up to their room for another drink or two.

Smoking a cigarette, I waited at his apartment while he took a shower. Inspecting his belongings and pocketing some of the money he had, I decided to make a run. But the Japanese came out naked. He was a pervert. He pulled down my pants with haste and started murmuring words I did not understand. He gave me a blowjob while I was lying down.

After a few minutes, I told him I needed to drink. Teasing him, I tied him in bed. Libido has no conscience they say, much more, libido has no brains. It’s the mother of all stupidity. I even turned the stereo at high volume.

Convinced that he can’t let go without extra-effort, I went to the kitchen. Instead of opening the fridge for water, I turned the gas out of the stove. After smelling the gas, the Japanese shouted what sounded like curses. I lit a lighter, and then threw it at the screaming tourist. I then proceeded to call the only guard on duty. I knew the buildings in that area and checked the security set-up they have for occasions like this. Then there was a loud bang. The stove exploded sending flames into the air.

With the heat throbbing on my whole body, I managed to hide behind the entrance door. After the guard came in, I jumped for his revolver. He is the only witness I knew who saw me coming in with the Japanese. He must also be eliminated.

Using his service revolver, I shot him at the back of his head. I buried three bullets in his body before killing the tourist with the other three bullets. The fire was raging around me. Before stepping out of the fire exit, I threw the gun inside the fire.

“Neither fingerprints nor any evidence would be found after they subdued the flame of this room,” I told myself.

On the dark alleyway below, I made my escape.