Katas ng Keyboard: July 2014

I hear my car engine’s race-car-like sound as I hit on gas so slowly yet with full passion and switch to fifth gear. It’s not a race-car, just a gray Altis, but I’m pretending it is. With my eyes shut even at the speed of my car, I feel like I’m doing what is truly right thing to do at the moment, that this fearless action of mine would patch things up and would finally end my great struggles. The heavy rain that either wets or covers up the sweat and tears all over me doesn’t stop me from keeping my speed. Instead, I turn up the music until my car accessories start shaking a bit because of the bass of my EDM. I then switch off my wiper and choose to watch all the puddles of water dripping on my windshield from my car’s roof as my car continues with full obedience to accelerate.

I’m guessing I’m still on the first lane, the closest to the center island. What pushes me more to do this is that there are only a couple of cars at the road right now as much as I see. Sure, the road lights are all up and at nights when water becomes what you see on roads instead of your city, no one would be too stupid to go and watch the roads. This is great. I mean, if something happens to me, no one will witness. At least at the end of my life, eyes will finally be off me. At that thought, I smile with relief and joy that my brows make more evident. And dying. This is great.

The nearest intersection comes in at around ten kilometers, well I don’t care. Instead I press my window button beside me and slip off my left hand outside, feeling the breaking winds and not caring how much water is getting to me. It’s weird you know, feeling almost all the emotions on earth right now.

I then hear a loud and long ring of horn. My chest bangs against my dashboard. My windshield breaks as my head goes through it, leaving just a few shattered pieces intact to its frame. My left hand which was carefree outside my window a few seconds ago is caught at the corner of its great escape. And my head lands flat on my car’s hood, feeling like it hit a rock from twenty feet behind.

Next thing I know, I’m on my feet. Or not really feet. I feel so light. I’m here at the intersection near a shopping mall and a train station, with all these unknown people. They seem really preoccupied despite that they are so soaked in water.

A loud shout and cry of a little girl at the arms of somebody surrounded the open area. Where could her mother be? She must attend to her soon. What a careless mom.

A familiar sight of clothes catches my attention. I see my checkered red and black polo worn by a man on top of an emergency hospital bed. And the man wears the same shoes as mine. Wait, isn’t that me? Yeah, that’s me. But why am I there? I’m at two places at the same time?

Now I see a wrecked gray Altis right there in the middle of the commotion. Its bumper and hood is badly distorted. Wait, there’s another car. A blue old L300 but it’s a couple of yards away from my ride. And it’s turned right up. It’s obvious that it crashed to each other so badly. The drivers must be really dumbasses. The impact must have been really powerful. Watery blood is all over the cars and the ground because of the rain.

But isn’t that my ride? What just happened? I immediately come near to my car, with all the police tapes around the accident area. I guess they knew it was mine. Not one policeman stopped me from approaching it despite the crime scene, though some of them are examining it.

A fine sculpted middle-age man interrupts my contemplation. He approaches me asking if I have any idea what happened because he can’t see his daughter and no one wants to talk to him. He said he’s so worried because he saw his wife taken by the ambulance, so badly injured and now he can’t find his daughter. I refuse to answer him. I should attend to myself first.

There are just two cars right here. What just happened? I’m sure this is my car. But why is it right here, involved in this commotion? And my body, why did they take it to the hospital by the ambulance? I am convinced right now that I’m dreaming so I raise my left arm to pinch it and wake myself. But I can’t feel it. I can’t feel my arm. It’s nothing.

I run to the other side of the crime scene where there is an ambulance, thinking of the policemen that I might bump into in this rush but not caring. But no one reacts and I feel nothing. I just pass through his body. I’m now a ghost? This is how they show it in films.

I run again and nothing happened.

I realize slowly, I’m now a ghost. This means I’m now dead. I’m finally free! I ended already! I jumped to my happiness. I guess I did. If I am on my body I would. But I’m too light right now to be sure that I jumped. Although my car got crashed, at least I’m dead now. No one could run after me. My mom will no longer be around me anywhere I go. Writers will find new subjects to write about. I’m finally done worrying about how much I have to keep myself from speaking myself out, knowing the influence I have on everybody. My bashers will stop pointing out my mistakes and imperfections. My rivals will no longer bully me. And most importantly, she’ll regret her whole life that she dumped my love for her tonight. For a while, she’ll be blamed. I wanted this. I wanted to be free. I wanted to die, because this is the perfect solution.

So now I’m in the middle of these two cars that crashed, still feeling fulfilled. I kind of understand how I died. My car crashed to another car. Maybe it was a stop for my side and my car was still on its full speed. And the other car was just on its cue to go.

Policemen busy, umbrellas and lights everywhere and a few wet bystanders watching the crime scene. I hear them talking but don’t mind to listen. I lie down on the road. I know they won’t mind. They don’t see and feel me anyway. Euphoria.

I remember the guy that asked me where his daughter was. He said his wife was taken to the hospital and he has a child. He saw me?

I remember the crying child. Is she his kid? How is she going to live after this? Now that her she just lost her father and certainly soon her mother too, what is life ahead of her?

My death costs the child to live with the burden of my agony.

Directed by a young film-maker, Emerson Reyes, Telenobela nina Juan at Luzviminda talks about how the Filipino people cries out for real democracy in the country and why they are not yet ready.

The film is seems light at first glimpse, comic but at the same time, a soft-awakener.

ORIGINAL. So far, this is the first film that I have seen that has this concept: A man named Juan (representing the Filipinos) married to a woman named Luzviminda (representing the motherland) and asks her for a their first born— democracy .

DEVELOPMENT: The story develops, even though at some point is seems as though it doesn’t. The exchange of lines of the characters are interrelated. In the end, Luzviminda grants hope to Juan that democracy will be granted when he is ready.

What I personally like about it most is that it attacks the awareness of the audience in a way that the audience must have to think beyond the words spoken by the characters and read between the lines. One must have to think the symbolisms used over to get a clearer picture of what it really tries to tell the audience.