Stories in 140 words or less: status messages

I remember that super flash fiction activity we had back in the hell hole, the 50-word story, and I realized that most of the people I know do it on a daily basis - in status messages. Most status messages in Facebook or YM (or Twitter, let's not get into that) give me ulcer, but some of my more enlightened (and grammatically adept) friends have the most amusing things to say in 140 words or less.

When you think about it, status messages are the best avenues for venting out whatever murderous vibes you're feeling, or sharing your elation after recovering your accidentally deleted website (...that sounded vaguely familiar. Moving on). They are also quite efficient in conveying your innermost desires, thinly veiled passive-aggressive threats, hardly subtle wink-wink-nudge-nudge hints to the opposite sex, and displaying your forever ignored busy sign, among other things.

bits and pieces

while looking through updates on the LGBT case, stumbled on a comment on Spot.ph's coverage of the sordid affair (okay, Ang LadLad's war against the Comelec isn't as sordid as say the Hayden Kho - Katrina Halili scandal, though i think what the recent issue lacks in - ahem - oomph and star power, it makes up for with social relevance):


in case you're wondering, i saved the image for two things: one, Ige Ramos' dissertation about how a world without gays would be like; and two, somebody linked to my article.

a long time ago, i wrote asking, "If I write an article and no one reads it, does anybody give a flying fart?" and admittedly, writing is my greatest inferiority complex. reading something like that comment lifts my spirits (i think the effect was far more potent because it was an anonymous commenter). To Aki, whoever you are, thank you for reading [it justifies my existence somewhat, no matter how that sounds].

also, the comment reminded me to fix the annoyingly gigantic block quotes and put up a new favicon to YuppieUniverse. let's hope my brain returns to its relatively normal axis soon.

~~~

i've been dreaming a lot lately, and i'm starting to think that it's because i haven't been writing fiction/making shit up and therefore my subconscious felt compelled to make shit up for itself. the fiction muse is on vacation, i think, and in her place came her batshit crazy non-fiction narrative sister. [i'm not complaining! i am not complaining batshit crazy non-fiction narrative muse, i am not.]

there are a couple of things lined up for finishing, so please don't leave me yet. T_T

One more story: Of tall-tales, pointless anecdotes, and stories within a story

According to my mom, I started making things up before I could write. I would take a pencil and draw stick figures on her recipe notebook (which thankfully survived the abuse and now belongs to me) and tell stories. I started writing things down back in highschool, though the stories (and poems, ugh) were of questionable grammar and of even more dubious plot. I tried to learn from the masters: Edgar Allan Poe, the then not-so-famous J.K. Rowling, the ghost writers for The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and the other denizens of St. Joseph Academy's library.

Years later, I go to college and find the Humanities and Filipinana section of the UST library. I meet more masters (Agatha Christie, Bob Ong, Jessica Zafra, JRR Tolkien, among others), but I think the most interesting master I met there was Scheherazad. In case you don't know this particular Persian queen, she's the heroine of One Thousand and One Nights or for Disney's Aladdin fans, Arabian Nights.

One Thousand and One Nights is actually a collection of stories and folk tales told by the said queen to the vengeful Shahryar. You see, the said king's first wife was unfaithful to him and in an epic fit of bitterness he takes a wife each day, and beheads the wife he took yesterday. Enter Sheherezad, a vizier's daughter who obviously had no plans of losing her head after a day with the king. She goes and tells him a story the first night and ends halfway, at dawn. I'd like to think that the story she told him was enganging enough since the king spared her life the next day to hear the end of the story.

Tricky Sheherazad had other plans though, since after finishing the first story, she begins a second one and much like the first, it was engaging and ended halfway. She used several literary techniques, covered various genres and even used parody and satire. This went on for several nights, one thousand and one nights in fact. As the legend goes, on the last night, she told the king that she had no more tales to tell him. By then, the king had grown wiser and kinder with her stories, and he had also fallen in love with her.

I guess my point with this post is, if I were Sheherazad, would the king scream OFF WITH HER HEAD on the first night? It'll be nice to be like Sheherazad, a thousand and one stories and none of them are boring or unfinished or met with indifference.


PS. If you're interested with the legendary queen, you should watch Hallmark's 3-hour miniseries Arabian Nights with John Leguizamo as the wiseass lamp genie.

half-baked, half-assed, half-dead

i was checking my gdocs yesterday, and was flooded with half-finished work. i fancy myself manic-depressive, but this sort of thing makes me wonder if i'm just attention deficit. To remind myself to finish them, snippets are in order:


Working Title: The Shop 2

The girl stole a glance at her phone. He must be asleep, she thought as she walked along a familiar street. Music blaring out of the shoe store’s giant outdoor speakers interrupted her thoughts and she remembered that it was having weekend sale. She picked up her pace and stared at the ground, afraid that she’d be tempted to take a peek. She’d been saving her money for something special.

When she looked back up, she saw a store with the sign saying, ‘Everything.’ She searched her memory for a bit; she’d been working in the area for quite some time but only noticed the shop in between the shoe store and the mini mart today. The tiny brown brick shop looked out of place in that commercial street, squished in between two noisy neighbors.

Ah, he usually picks me up and we take a different route.

The girl walked up to the display window to try and see what’s inside. She was about to press her hands on the window when she thought better of it. Dust, thick as barnacles, clung to the glass. She decided it must be a curio shop run by a highly eccentric old man. Eccentric and rich, she guessed, as ‘Everything’ was on the main street.

In a couple of years, the entire block might be flattened to make way for a mall or something.

Armed with the thought that ‘Everything’ might not be there for very long, she opened the door.

Door chimes welcomed her entrance into the shop, their light tinkling sound nearly drowned out by the music blaring from the shoe store. As soon as she closed the door, the music stopped.

What’re the walls made of? Lead?

She smiled at her private joke and let her eyes adjust to the light. Yellow fixtures lined the wall, bathing the small cramped shop with a warm glow.  She scratched the thought of an eccentric old man and replaced it with an old spinster woman.

As the girl was revising her mental images and as if on cue, the shopkeeper stepped out from the backroom and took her place behind the counter.

The girl raised an eyebrow. The shopkeeper looked to be in her late 20's, with shoulder length black hair and wearing a simple white T-shirt and blue jeans.


Working Title: His Story, Her Story

"Luce?" He stared in surprise at the girl stooped in front of him. She continued to look around her feet as if she didn't hear him; considering they were standing in a crowded mall, it was quite possible she didn't.

"This is one hell of a day," she muttered.

"Sorry!" he said, almost jumping a foot when he realized he had trampled on what she was trying to find. Her glasses. He picked them up and handed them to her. "I'll pay for it," he quickly offered.

She studied the mangled pair. Well, shit. She had been hoping to go home early, no such luck when she's half blind. Unscheduled detour to optical shop, here we go. "Nah, it'll survive, I think. Thanks anyway." The words hadn't completely left her mouth when she squinted at him. "Kenneth?"

He smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry about your glasses, Lucy. I don't suppose you've got a spare on you, or do you?"

She shook her head and made a mental note to have a spare - or three - made. "I'll just bring these to a shop around here. No worries," she said. She tried a smile, but she bit her lip. She was dangerously close to laughing maniacally at the universe' latest joke.

Kenneth laughed. The first time in weeks. "Let's go."

She frowned. "Where?" Trap, trap, trap.

"The optical shop," he said simply, still smiling broadly.

Lucy didn't budge. "No, I can't possibly impose. I'm sure you've got somewhere else you have to be and -"

"Nope, I don't have anywhere else I have to be," he said. Then he added, "I stepped on them, I feel personally responsible."

"Fine," she said, resigned. Her better judgement screeched in utter horror.

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

"Three years," Kenneth started. "How have you been?"

She chose the safest answer. "Same old. You?"

He sighed. "Unfortunately, the same."

Awkward silence descended upon the coffee table. Kenneth hated sitting outside, but he chose outdoor seats anyway. He watched as Lucy took out a pack of cigarettes.

He smiled a bit. It's something familiar, at least. "You still with that-- what's his name?"

"Ray," she answered. "And no."

"If I remember right, you used to be more talkative," he said as she took a deep drag.

"Sorry, it's just... I'm just... Tired, I guess." She was starting to have a headache; sometimes, one hour was too long without glasses.

"Bad day, huh?"

She laughed. "Remember that time I slid off a bus and broke my shoe heel? It's a day like that."

Of course. Lucy had been getting off the bus when the driver suddenly stepped on the gas; she lost her balance and nearly broke her ankle. Lucy was a real trooper; she only called him when she was already on a cab on her way back home to change her shoes. He grimaced. "That bad? I'm sorry about the glasses again."

She waved her free hand dismissively. "What are you doing in a mall anyway? You used to loathe it."

"Long story."

Lucy grinned. "We've got an hour, according to this stub. Summarize."

"I just kinda wandered here. I'm parked, I don't know, ten, maybe twelve blocks from here."

She raised an eyebrow. "You still work at that sweatshop?"

He laughed again. "Yeah. I'm an over-glorified meat puppet now," he said ruefully.

"Damn, I left three years ago and you're still there. Wow." Lucy chuckled. "Something's been keeping you from leaving."

Not a question. "Same reason as three years ago. They pay well."

"Get real, Ken." She had heard some stuff from their old office mates. The gossip was tactful, but far from flattering.

"I'm serious."

She raised an eyebrow. When she looked at him like this, he couldn't find it in himself to continue lying.

"No, she's not keeping me there." Was it his imagination or did Lucy's eyebrow rise up higher (if that was possible)? "None of them are. Actually, the reason you found me here was because I was thinking about resigning."

She laughed. "Oh, Ken. I've been hearing you say that since, well, since we started at that bloody sweatshop. What year is this?"

Kenneth chuckled at her gentle chiding. She was right, of course. "Luce, you're way smarter than I am and I have heaps of respect for your guts. Shit, especially since you resigned from that hellhole."

Lucy laughed even harder. "Did you hear what you just said? You sounded like you left your bucket of testosterone at home."


No Title:


i held her in my arms, kissed her, and you flashed before my eyes. i wondered how your lips would feel on mine, how your body would feel against me, how your warmth would erase this merciless loneliness. how you would hold me and i'd know that nothing else outside your embrace matters, how i could simply lay there and be weak. i violently erased those thoughts of you, and if she ever noticed that i had somebody else in my mind, she never showed a clue.



Working Title: Will You Hold Me?

Will you hold me?

I just need it right now. I don't care if you have to be somewhere else later, just stay with me for a while.
And pretend. Pretend that you'll stay, or that you'll come back.
Play a game with me. A waiting game, a game of waiting for nothing to happen. Waiting for things that will never come.
Let's laugh. At ourselves. And this absurd dance. Of stepping forward and of stepping back. Of moving forward but not getting anywhere.
Blink. Do you see me?
Lie. But don't make me promises. Or I'll hope. Then you'll have to dance for longer than you expected.
And I'll have to keep you for longer than I intended.



This was supposed to be a Yuppie post - i forgot to post it. :|

Two consecutive long weekends has left me with a lot of time on my hands and I am happy to report that most of it was spent in a movie theater. There were a lot of interesting stuff to watch the past couple of weeks, and I'll note that while not all of them were good, they were interesting all the same.


The Ugly Truth

I've always been a rom com fan, and since watching The Proposal a few weeks back and seeing The Ugly Truth's trailer, I knew that I had to see the Katherine Heigl-Gerard Butler combo. I wasn't really expecting When Harry Met Sally or even Sleepless in Seattle, but the lighter fare did manage a few laughs and the pairing was worth watching to say the least.

Basically, it's a boy meets girl, they hate each other's guts, they strike a deal, deal goes too well, they fall in love story. You've seen the formula before and you've probably seen it better executed, but you've got to admit the couple is scorching and you want to see Gerald Butler being modern day crass and not loin cloth crass.



G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

I had to watch this movie and I was totally prepared to hate it (Come on, it's a movie based on a toy line. What's next Barbie? Wait.). I had to watch it to check if they could say "Yo Joe!" (and the other morning kiddie show catchphrases) with a straight face - and oh horrors, they did. Dennis Quaid looked constipated during the entire movie, but as Rica pointed out, that's how he normally looks.

Here's the trick to enjoying this movie: Remember that the Cobra Commander has always ALWAYS been one to use the dumbest evil plans ever; and so it follows that the G.I. Joe movie isn't supposed to have a logical plot.


Up

When Rica watched this one, the first thing she told me was: "Up is not for kids." To which I replied, "But Pixar doesn't make movies for kids." Anyway, Up proves that Pixar still has the magic - the magic to grab audiences by the shoulders and shake them really hard until they bawl behind the 3D glasses. I for one am happy for those 3D glasses when I watched Up with Mabie; the first half of the film left me feeling totally wretched. Who can't empathize with Carl Fredricksen?

Up is all about adventure: promising adventure, remembering and rediscovering it. Some of the stuff I can't put into words, but the movie was oddly affecting in a way that I wanted to start an adventure myself and was left wondering how it would feel if I were in Mr. Fredricksen's shoes (By the way, I also want to be a Wilderness Explorer).


Final Destination 4

Okay, I'm sure all of you have realized that the Final Destination franchise has run out of original ideas since... well, the original movie. I went to see the movie for pure macabre fun, and halfway through it I realized I should have just rented the original one. Final Destination movies are more like ice cream flavors; would you like to watch an airplane crash, a freeway pile up, a rollercoaster crash or a race track crash today?


District 9

I had no idea what District 9 was all about. I just heard it was based on a short film and that it had aliens in it. Needless to say, all my expectations were blown into smithereens by the mothership and

gusto kong maging kape

in another bout of self-flagellation, i wonder about being coffee. how it would be like to be coffee and not cola, or juice, or tap. the little girl in me, the one screaming bloody murder whenever my cynicism pulls out a knife on her, still wishes that somehow, someday, somebody will come. he doesn't have to come on a white horse, he doesn't need to come in shining armor, he just needs to fucking get here.

i've said it before, and i'll say it again. this is just like waiting for godot - except in waiting for godot [the play, dammit], Estragon and Vladimir at least had each other.