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Saturday, April 18, 2009

"If you wish to be a writer, write." Epictetus


The cat watched as the child cried. What is she doing on my roof? The cat wondered. A sniff, and a sob. The child continued to cry. How bothersome.

The moon asked the cat, why is the child crying? The cat looked up at the moon and frowned. Why would I know? The moon's mouth turned downward. The stars could see it had become sad. Tell us cat! The stars whispered. Why does the child cry?

The cat was annoyed. It was perfectly comfortable, in its cozy little corner on the roof. But even the wind was insistent. It brushed against the cat, ruffling the soft, brown fur just a bit too aggressively. Go on cat!

The cat couldn't swipe at the wind with it's claws or pounce on the moon with it's jaws. It really wished it could paw the stars out of the sky, just to show the insistent lot who's boss!

The cat sighed and came towards the child. Paw by paw, the cat was silent. It traveled the red sloped roof, up and down. For the cat, the way to a child was very long.

What is the matter child? The cat purred when it got there. A bump on the shin was enough to get his attention. Tell me, tell me, tell me.

"
Cat!" The boy exclaimed. He ran his fingers over the cat's smooth, furry head. "Where have you been?"

I have been busy being a cat. And what do cats do? We sleep on roofs, hunt birds and eat blades of grass when we have stomachaches. The cat sat tall and comfortably beside the boy, enjoying his ministrations.

"I love your fur. It feels nice, stroking you like this." The boy said through his tears. And indeed, the cat's silky fur against his palms made him feel happy and not quite alone anymore.
"I miss her cat. I miss her."

The night was unbearably cold, even with the moon and stars shining brightly above them. The sky used to give heat to the dark world. Now it couldn't. Not for a child who has been left behind by his mother. Said the Cat.

"Take her into your heart, dear God." The boy sobbed into the Cat's fur. "She didn't mean to! She didn't mean to do it!"

The wind was sad and the moon wept. The stars stayed silent. Only Cat stood with the boy. Only the cat knew how deep the hurt went.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Wind on my Face

I stood on my mother's vegetable garden and waited for the sun to hit me. It did! And I never felt the same after that. Bright black-brown loam stood in stark contrast to the scattered vines of talbos ng kamote. I focused on that startling image and for a moment, wondered why I was real.

"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader--not the fact that it is raining,
but the feeling of being rained upon." -E.L. Doctorow-

This afternoon I went out of the house with a goal in mind: I wanted to feel and experience the wind on my face. It should have been easy, the wind is everywhere. But I wanted an experience that I could remember years from now, when I'm lying on my deathbed (preferably happy and not in pain).

Did I fail? I created a blog, didn't I?