The Day the World Went Mad

Gloria might have declared it (through her diminutive voice);
or some hapless citizen from colorful Binalbagan might have
written a letter to Congress: a plea, or some sort of 4-paged
letter, written in red ink with hard, edgy strokes. But both
would not suffice to give clarity to what has been brought up,
resolved, or whatever. Did everyone really want space and time
made public? Was it some economic ploy to save a lot of shit to
pay our debts to the World Bank (if that really ever existed)?

I woke up one morning and saw my glass of orange juice
foaming with toothpaste at the rim. I would have asked yaya
but she was busy texting the boy next door using Dad’s N93.
I was so pissed, so much that I would anytime soon vomit hard
like a bitch of a mongrel after a meal out of our bermuda grass.

As I walked to the gate, I saw from beyond the picket fences
that our neighbor had taken the subdivision road for his bedroom:
a four-poster in pink trappings with ruffles and laces lying on the
pavement. And there he was snoring to his death, a sort of schmuck
for a bond trader beneath a pile of pink pillows, with possibly pink
cotton stuffing.

The world had gone mad! Or so had it only happened in Eroreco?

Not when I saw the kindergartens in Le’Cole standing by the
gate waiting for their charges’ dismissal. Same goes in La Salle.
The IM students were learning how to juggle fiberglass versions of
Cuervos and Inglenooks, if there were such sorts. The Accountancy
bunch sat on the Coliseum floor reading Sidney Sheldon and Danielle
Steele, teary-eyed for the heck of it.

On my way out, the creek beside the USLS bookstore had been
cemented: no water flowed ‘derneath that old bridge. In fact (that is,
if I can call it fact) houses were built beneath it and across what used
to be a dump of garbage and other sorts of trash: dead cats maybe,
injected with formalin by those Bio students; or those stupid snakes
that went up the Amphitheater (or the so called Matre dei Grove)
each time the "defunct" creek or river or fuck-it overflows.

Damn it! Now La Salle Ave was used for jogging at a peak hour
for traffic. The Koreans were the culprit. But sheesk, they were
teaching everyone to speak Nihonggo or that thing, you know
that thing. Err… TasteStation was closed at noon. That seemed
utterly amazing! Ruben was nowhere to be found. The players
at Battle Station was nowhere to be found. Ugh!
Have they gone to school?!

Had the world gone mad? Was this some existentialist bull?

I ran my way towards home, not minding the house that was
putting up Christmas lights on a February, not minding the St. Scho
ballet class practicing their moves on the empty parking lot, not
minding the AirPhil plane landing beside me, not minding that
couple having sex on the side street, not minding the good-for-
nothings happening around, and that gay bond trader of a neighbor
choked up in his sleep by a burglar in a black suit.

I ran my way towards home and saw my git of a sister brushing
her teeth.

"Had lunch?" asking me, her mouth frothing in bubbles.