The Cook of Castamar

 

Thanks for the shared enigma of camaraderie and good work of people weaving them together in unity.  Splendid!

Love After Heaven by Isagani R. Cruz

Love After Heaven, Parts 1 to 5

2015/08/04 FICTION IN PROGRESS ONE COMMENT

I shall but love thee better after death, one book says, but I don’t believe that. I’m dead and I don’t see Julie anywhere around. Of course, another book says that, after death, we neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. Angels, my foot! I don’t have wings. I’m not playing a harp. In fact, I’m exactly as I was the day I died, except I’m not tied to that hospital bed with all those tubes going in and out of my body.

Heaven is grossly overrated. I thought that, when I died, I would experience unimagined happiness, like orgasms that last for decades or food that I can eat without having to go to the bathroom or music that I can listen to without getting tired. Or at least, something really enjoyable. I spent most of my life praying that I would go to heaven, even being sorry for anything that would endanger my life after death. I could have done all those things I was not supposed to do, but I didn’t, because I thought that life was hell, or at least purgatory, and if I had suffered enough on earth, I would not suffer in heaven.

What crap! Heaven is just like earth, only a bit cleaner.

I remember the day I died. They were all around the bed – Julie, my cousin Gerry, my sister Yoly, and four, maybe six doctors all shouting orders to three or four nurses scampering like terrorized schoolchildren in the background.

Code, someone kept shouting.

I looked at them from the ceiling, or actually through the ceiling because I could see in front of me the fluorescent lamp and the fire sprinkler. My body – it looked like my body, even with the grotesque tubes injecting all sorts of colored liquid into it – was jerking with every touch of the defibrillator.

I could see not just the bed where my body was lying, but right beside it, or maybe superimposed on it – I can’t be sure now – my condo apartment in upscale Global City. There were two or three cops there – it’s funny how I can’t seem to count properly here in heaven. They were talking to my two domestic helpers, the cook and the laundry woman. I half-expected Julie to be there, shouting at them to keep their hands off the antique blue porcelain plates, but of course, she was in the hospital room, like the dutiful wife that she wasn’t.

I could also see a room in a seedy motel in downtown Manila. He was there, the asshole, the guy that turned Julie against me. He was with a woman, or maybe a man, or somebody anyway. They were in the shower. He was sitting in some kind of contraption that looked like a trapeze swing. He or she or whatever that shadow was was hovering over him.

Then I found myself, without even a dissolve or a fade-away, here in heaven, sitting in this queue that must have stretched for miles.

Oh, yes, sometime – and here in heaven, time has no meaning, so I can’t really tell if this was long ago or just a minute ago – I went through a tunnel. There was a light at the end, the light that some guy in white was waving at my face to guide me through the darkness. I say it was a guy, but it could have been a woman, or even an animal, or something. Maybe an angel? But whoever or whatever he or she or it was, he or she or it had no wings.

But I knew I was in heaven because, well, it felt good to be here. Peaceful. Calm. With no more pain. Not as good as I thought it would be, but good enough. Better than having all those doctors forcing my body to bounce on the bed. Better than seeing Julie pretending to still be in love with me even when she was already sleeping with that asshole.

Boy, that sucks! That really sucks! Some guy with a long beard comes to me and apologizes that they made a mistake somewhere in the bureaucracy here in heaven. I’m not supposed to be here yet. I’m supposed to suffer some more down there on earth.

Okay, so I got carried away saying that heaven was overrated. Okay, so I used the word asshole here. But surely those are forgivable misdemeanors. Surely all my efforts at being good on earth were worth something. I thought that the bureaucrats here kept a ledger of my good deeds. Of how patient I was when I found out about Julie and that asshole. Excuse me, that person. Okay, that human being. Surely that counts for something.

I can’t go back to earth. I was the laughing stock of the entire corporation there. Everybody knew about Julie. Except me. Her husband. Her husband of twenty years. Twenty years of being faithful to her. Not even glancing at any other woman. Not even entertaining any thoughts of sleeping with anybody else.

I was a fool, for heaven’s sake.

When I did find out, I did not even confront Julie. I just went to our parish priest and asked him what to do. He said that I had to forgive her. She was a human being, fallen because of original sin. The devil made her do it. He asked if I still loved her, and I had to say yes. I couldn’t lie to him. He was a priest, after all.

I did love her. I still do love her. But I am not sure if that means anything to her. One thing I know, I don’t really want to see her again. When we got married in that grand wedding in that old cathedral, she promised to love me till death do us part. Well, death is a good way to part now. Though she did say, during our first anniversary, that she would love me better after death. She made me memorize that poem, for heaven’s sake. How do I love thee and all that shit.

No, please, do not let me go back. Please, no, let me stay here in heaven. I promise never to badmouth heaven again. Seriously.

Well, it looks like this guy listened to me. He now tells me not to worry. He will send me back, but not to the same body. He will send me back in a different body, as an adult. I do not have to be born again as a baby and wait so long to be as old as I am now. I will be resurrected – I think he used the word reincarnated – as a male, single, mature adult.

Maybe things won’t be so bad, after all. Maybe I will meet Julie again and she won’t meet that asshole again and maybe we can live happily ever after after all. Perhaps even meet here in heaven again. Perhaps.

What? Now, that really sucks! This guy with the beard says I won’t remember my past life at all, except in moments of great stress. How can I find Julie again if I won’t remember that we were once happily married, that I loved her even when she was unfaithful to me, that I want to be with her again? Holy shit!

* * *

Julie cried, as she had to. It was what she was expected to do. She had practised it at home, in front of the mirror. How to cry without ruining her mascara. How to cry like she meant it.

This man had made her life miserable by doing what she never expected him to do. He had ignored her affair.

He had kissed her like he always did when he would come home from work and she was in the kitchen, preparing their dinner. Except that she had not prepared dinner. She had dinner instead with Frankie. And not just dinner. Dessert. Dessert like she never had dessert before with this husband of hers.

But this man kissed her anyway. Did not even ask, never even asked, where she had been. She was sure that he could smell Frankie on her skin. He was not dumb. He was, in fact, very smart, the smartest in his group of business executives. He had not become a millionaire by being dumb.

She knew that he knew, but he never said anything. Just kissed her on the cheek as he did every evening of their married life. Their unexciting, boring, routine married life.

The only excitement – if she could call it that – was the anxiety of not knowing when he would finally let go and slap her, kick her, maybe stab her with that paper cutter he kept on his desk. But he never let his anger show. The guilt she felt was worse than even the ugliest scene she could imagine between him and her.

She could never forgive him for forgiving her her trespasses.

http://isaganicruz.com/2015/08/04/love-after-heaven-parts-1-to-5/

The Jeepney Murders by Isagani R. Cruz

The Jeepney Murders, Chapter 1

2014/11/13 FICTION IN PROGRESS ONE COMMENT

CHAPTER 1

I smell of oatmeal, she said to herself, as she vainly tried to hail one cab after another on the crowded Makati street. She hadn’t had time to moderate the amount of oatmeal-based skin lotion that her dermatologist had prescribed for her pruritus – a fancy word, as far as she was concerned, for the itch that violated her entire skin every single blessed day of her harassed life. What really got to her was not the itch on her external skin, the largest organ of her body, but the itch down there, on the most sensitive organ of her body.

She wouldn’t have been on the street this early, or this late, had it not been for her driver who had texted that he had a bum stomach and could not come in today. She would have been, as she had every single weekday for the last ten years, sitting comfortably on the back seat of her old Mercedes Benz, putting on her make-up, sifting through the papers that she had brought home from school, getting a few more minutes of much-needed sleep. Her work as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of Saint John Paul University was not really that much, but with six hundred teachers and five thousand students knocking on her office door at least once every semester, she had no choice but to work in the car. The two-hour ride to the university – which should have been only a half-hour, were it not for the traffic that defined and defiled the streets of Metro Manila – was a chance to rest or to work or to daydream.

Daydreaming had become her most precious escape from having to read through undergraduate theses that she had to sign as Dean. There was really no need for her to torture herself with the two-hundred-page manuscripts – most of which had been cut and pasted from various Web sources anyway – that students had routinely submitted as partial fulfilment of the requirements of their degree programs, as the formula went, but she had unthinkingly issued a memo last year to all teachers that she wanted personally to see if her university had become a diploma mill. It was her fault that she wanted to micromanage, or as she once overheard her secretary say, she was nothing if not obsessive-compulsive.

She had to get to the university board room in less than an hour. The Executive Vice President of the holding company of the richest tycoon in the Philippines was going to meet her, together with her own Executive Vice President. The tycoon wanted to get an honorary doctorate from the university, in exchange for a library building that he would build named after himself. She wanted to be there to object to such an obviously mercenary arrangement. She would have every right to object, because the degree would be Doctor of Arts and Sciences, and that was the very name of the college she managed. There was no such degree to begin with, but then, there was no library building either. My loyalty to my university ends when my loyalty to academic excellence starts, she repeated as a mantra to herself.

At the moment, however, she had to think not of academic excellence but of getting to the university at all. I have no choice but to ride a jeepney, she told herself, and jumped up the first jeepney that looked like it could squeeze in an extra forty-year-old female. She shouldn’t have worn her favorite skirt, but it was the first thing she could get hold of in her stuffed closet. Had she worn slacks, she would not have felt so exposed with her pale legs, still shapely as her driver kept flattering her when they were in bed, attracting so much attention among the males in the jeepney.

There were eighteen of them passengers in the jeepney, two more than the jeepney could accommodate comfortably. It was rush hour, and it was not unusual for two or three men, sometimes women, to hang on for dear life standing on the step board. The jeepney had two seats, more like benches, that faced each other. Everybody stared past each other, pretending not to notice that they were not only packed like sardines, but smelled like sardines. Well, she didn’t smell of sardines, she thought, but of oatmeal.

The jeepney wound like she expected it to through the streets of Makati. Makati’s streets were, at least, still recognizably streets, where motor vehicles could move faster than joggers. When the jeepney got to the city of Manila, however, the streets ceased to be streets but more like parking lots, with vehicles hardly moving, if at all, and people moving around the vehicles in steady streams. There were more people on foot than in vehicles; these were beggars, vendors, pickpockets, snatchers – the very people she wanted to avoid by moving to upscale Makati.

There were pedestrians who at least looked like they were really going somewhere, but it seemed to her that most of the street dwellers were just moving around the virtual parking lot, selling various things to the passengers of jeepneys, tricycles, buses, delivery trucks, horse-drawn carriages, and cars. One can buy anything on Manila’s streets, one American tourist had once written, leading to massive protests on social media from Makati’s rich residents, who had never been on a jeepney ride through Manila and who were in complete denial of the state of poverty in the metropolitan center. She had followed the barrage of insults on Facebook both against the American and against the Manila mayor, but it was only now that she saw, just a few inches from her face, a real street vendor selling not cigarettes, not bottled water, not newspapers, but condoms.

Then there were the beggars. They came in very imaginative forms. One had an amputated leg and walked around with an umbrella for a crutch. One had an eye that was obviously supposed to be blind, because there was a massive red spot where the eye should have been; she could not tell if the red spot was only red paint, but it sure was gory. Another was really blind, or at least pretended to be really blind, and had a tree branch that served as her walking stick. One had a baby in her arms; the emaciated baby did not look anything like the presumed mother, who was much fairer and had larger eyes. She had heard of beggar syndicates that passed babies from one woman to another, or even deliberately blinded or maimed beggars to make them more pitiable. She knew, however, that it was against the law to give money to beggars, so she did not budge when one of them nudged her.

A passenger got off at every street corner, apparently because no one wanted to walk one meter more than necessary, but someone would immediately come up and fill in the space. To pay the driver, passengers had to pass their money up the benches through the hands of other passengers. Nobody seemed to mind, she thought, as she herself took a fifty-peso bill and passed it on to the passenger nearer the driver. I have to tell my mathematics professors to research on the native way of counting, she reminded herself, for surely jeepney drivers must have a system of remembering who went in and who went down, how much the fare was according to the number of kilometers each passenger stayed on board, not to mention deducting discounts due to students and senior citizens. Since she was neither a student nor a senior citizen, she did not expect any discount. Not knowing how much the fare would be, she decided just to give a large bill and hope that the driver would not give her change in too many small coins.

A street vendor came up and sold the driver a garland of flowers. They weresampaguitas, common white flowers easily made into necklaces by the homeless. She noticed that the driver gave the boy too many coins for such a paltry necklace. The driver hung the necklace on the rear-view mirror. She had heard of the contributions the police extracted from every jeepney driver, and this must be it, she thought.

After what seemed like an hour but was really only five minutes, the jeepney driver suddenly uttered what seemed like the cry of an ape standing over a fallen prey or Tarzan finally beating the poacher in one of the old movies she loved watching on television.

“Aaaagggg!”

Then the driver spat something yellow on the windshield. It didn’t look like sputum, because it looked rock solid, like a piece of food that one would cough out after having been subjected to a Heimlich choking rescue maneuver.

The driver must have slammed on the brakes, because the jeepney lurched forward and she was pushed against the woman to her right.

“Sorry,” she instinctively said, but no one paid attention to her, not even the woman, because they all saw what was happening to the driver.

The driver had suddenly turned green, literally, then crumpled like a rag doll.

http://isaganicruz.com/2014/11/13/172/

Imagine Dragons

Araby by James Joyce

Fiction.theeservercollection

Eserver.org

ARABY by James Joyce

North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.

The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers. Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant, and The Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes, under one of which I found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister.

When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner, we hid in the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.

Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.

Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: 'O love! O love!' many times.

At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go.

'And why can't you?' I asked.

While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.

'It's well for you,' she said.

'If I go,' I said, 'I will bring you something.'

What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.

On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly:

'Yes, boy, I know.'

As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window. I felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me.

When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and, when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the dress.

When I came downstairs again I found Mrs Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old, garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come. Mrs Mercer stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn't wait any longer, but it was after eight o'clock and she did not like to be out late, as the night air was bad for her. When she had gone I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists. My aunt said:

'I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord.'

At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door. I heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was midway through his dinner I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten.

'The people are in bed and after their first sleep now,' he said.

I did not smile. My aunt said to him energetically:

'Can't you give him the money and let him go? You've kept him late enough as it is.'

My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he believed in the old saying: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' He asked me where I was going and, when I told him a second time, he asked me did I know The Arab's Farewell to his Steed. When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt.

I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name.

I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to a weary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall girded at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a service. I walked into the centre of the bazaar timidly. A few people were gathered about the stalls which were still open. Before a curtain, over which the words Café Chantant were written in coloured lamps, two men were counting money on a salver. I listened to the fall of the coins.

Remembering with difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of the stalls and examined porcelain vases and flowered tea-sets. At the door of the stall a young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen. I remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their conversation.

'O, I never said such a thing!'

'O, but you did!'

'O, but I didn't!'

'Didn't she say that?'

'Yes. I heard her.'

'O, there's a... fib!'

Observing me, the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to buy anything. The tone of her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and murmured:

'No, thank you.'

The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder.

I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

I Wrote Fiction: The Color of Life

Fiction stories are those stories that add color to life. These are the stories you have wanted to happen, an episode in your life you didn’t like, or something you could have wished on this planet or yonder paradise. The expressed and mute chanting of your heart becomes real in fiction.

I wrote fiction. I have wanted to make a small world of my own imaginations (dull and exciting), cravings, and abhorrence. Fiction stories create in me a goddess, of which I am not. Fiction creates in me life, of which I can bring back the dead to life. Fiction stories, I believe are God’s gift to human creations to fill the gaps of yesterday and today, of the life now and heaven, a link of time and space to immortality.

Let us run through five-fiction story exerpts and their authors:


1. The Dead James Joyce (1882- 1941)

Born in a suburb of Dublin during a turbulent era of political change in Ireland

“O, I am thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim.

So she had had that romance in her life: A man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think him, a part he, her husband , had played in her life…”

2. The Blue Jar Isak Denisen

Pseudonym Isak - meaning “the one who laughs” in the spirit of saying GOD loves a joke.”

Isak isthe name under which baroness Karen Blixen of Denmark (1885-1962) published her writings

“…Now I can die. And when I am dead you will cut out my heart and lay it in a blue jar. For then everything will be as it was then. All shall be blue around me, and in the midst of the blue world of my heart will be innocent and free, and will gently, like a wake that sings, like drops that fall from and oar blade.”

3. Hills Like White Elephant Earnest Hemingway (1898-1961)

Born in Oak Park, Illinois

“Anis del Toro. It’s a drink.”

“Could we try it?”

The man called “Listen” through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.

“Four reales.”

“We want two Anis del Toro.”

4. The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros

Cisneros collections represent the writer’s attempt to achieve both the intensity of the short story and the discursive light of the novel within a single volume

Unlike the chapters of most works, each story in the collection could stand on its own.

“You live there?” a nun from her school had marked when seeing Esperanza playing in front of the flat on Loomis. “There I had to look where she pointed the third floor, the painted reeling…. wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there?” The way she said it made me feel like nothing…


5. Scent of Apples Bienvenido Santos (1911-1996)

“His stories capture with warmth and deep humility the pain of exile and the cost of progress…” Washington Post

Filipino-American fictionist. He lived in the United States for many years where he is credited as a pioneering Asian-American writer. In 1946, he returned to the Philippines to become a teacher and university administrator.

“ Bievenido Santos Creative Writing Center,” De La Salle University, Manila Philippines


6. The Execution Charlson Ong This story won several prizes for short fiction (Woman of Am-Kaw and Other Stories)

It was raining the morning of execution. I remember how brackish and crimson was the sky. God has sliced open the sun, spilling its innards, carving out its heart…”

Rose Flores - Martinez
Iwrotefiction
Ishallwrite
Ezine articles.com
7.10.2010

Sushi's Dress Shop

Sushi’s Dress Shop

Mahilig magtahi si Sushi. Mga personalized bag, wallet at simpleng mga damit ang kanyang obra. Isang ‘handheld’ na makina ang kanyang gamit imbes na malaking makina. Ito and tumatahi sa matitigas na gilid ng tela. Tahing kamay na back stitch at hem stitch naman ang ginagawa ni Sushi para pagdikitin ang mga gilid at zipper.

Si Sushi ay anak ng mga manggagawa ng sinulid. Ang tatay niya ay naputulan ng kamay sa makina ng factory at ang kanyang Nanay ay nahubaran ng dami sa trabaho sa salang bintang ng pagnanakaw. Simula sa kanyang malungkot na kahapoon ay nagging tangan niya ang sinulid at karayom araw-araw.

Tuwing hatinggabi nananahi si Sushi. Nakakagawa siya ng magagarang istilo para sa kanyang mga customer. Nagagawa niya ang lahat ng ito sa dilim.

“Sushi, itahi mo naman ako ng isang party dress.”

“Oo ba. Anong istilong gusto mo? Meron ka bang tela?”

“Wala, ikaw na lang bahala sa lahat. Otso-deretso. Gusto ko golden brown ang kulay..”

“Sige Mimi, hanap ka ng istilo dyan sa catalog.”

“Okay.”

Tinahi ni Sushi ang isang damit na deretso at Chinese style.

Kinaumagahan binigay niya it okay Mimi. Tuwang-tuwa si Mimi. Ginamit niya ang damit sa party kasama ang mga kaklase sa Rotary seminar. Pinuri si Mimi ng mga kaibigan sa party. Sa ganda ng kanyang kasuotan siya ang ‘star of the show’.

Nang pauwi na si Mimi…

“Mimi sabay ka na sa akin.”

“Sige Roland – para hindi na ako mahirapan kumuha ng taxi.”

Masaya ang dalawa sa daan ngunit nakainom si Roland. Itinigil ni Roland ang sasakyan at kinabig si Mimi papalapit sa kanya. Pilit hinalikan at binuksan ang damit ng dalaga. Nagpumiglas si Mimi sa lakas ng binata. Pilit inabot ni Mimi ang sinturon ng damit niya para isakal kay Roland. Sa pambihirang lakas pinulupot niya ang sinturon sa leeg ni Roland. Pumulupot din ng kusa ang sinturon ni Mimi, sakal si Roland.

Ang sumunod na customer naman ni Sushi ay si Greta. Si Greta ay isang probinsyana. Nagpatahi siya kay Sushi ng isang gown para sa isang contest ng mga bagong modelo sa Maynila. Itinahi siya ni Sushi ng magandang sleeveless gown na may isang pulang alampay. Litaw ang ganda ni Greta sa suot niyang gown at alampay.

Samantala, sa contest, ay nawalan ng mamahaling alahas ang isang contestant. Dahil si Greta and roommate ng biktima ay siya rin ang pag-hinalaan. Ang mga contestants ay naghinala rin ay Greta.

Gabi ng contest. Si Greta ang paborito ng mga hurado. Wari’y nainggit ang isang contestant dahil ayaw niyang manalo si Greta.

“Greta, huwag ka nang sumali dahil hindi ka nababagay sa contest na ito, magnanakaw!”

“Hindi ako magnanakaw.”

“Anong hindi e ikaw ang kumuha ng alahas ko! At itong alampay na ito akin na nga…”

Inagaw ang alampay na pula at isinukat sa kanya.

“Pwede na ito.. .Akin na ito, kapalit ng kinuha mo sa akin. Kulang pa nga itong kabayaran. Kaya lang, gusto ko ang kulay nito.”

“Wala akong kinukuhang alahas mo. Maniwala ka! Akin na ang alampay ko,”

Nag-agawan ang dalawa sa alampay na tahi ni Sushi. Pinunit ng contestant ang alampay sa inis. Ngunit, sumampal ito sa sariling mga mata at umikot-ikot sa kanyang leeg. Sinakal ng alampay ang contestant.

Sushis Dress Shop

Ang mga tinatahi ni Sushi ay may hiwagang dala. Ang bawat istilo ay may istilo rin ng pagpatay sa masasamang kaluluwa na umaapi sa mga taong walang laban. Katulad ng mga pangyayari sa kanyang Inay na pinagbingtanga at hinubaran sa factory.

Rose Flores – Martinez, August 20, 2006
Copyright Rosalinda Flores Martinez, 2009
Http://iwrotefiction.blogspot.com

I Wrote Fiction Stories

I Wrote Fiction Stories

Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, The Little Pigs, Gulliver, Moby Dick, and more magical plots are the stories children love to hear. And of course, even for professionals who want some kind of inspiration, fun and creative entertainment – childhood and fiction stories are forever part of life.

The thrill these stories give to readers are intellectual and helpful because new ideas are formed and copied from the classic and basic story patterns.

The short story roots form an idea that involves a theme; a plot with a conflict, a climax and a denouement; characters; point of view; setting; dialogue and symbols.

The short story is a fiction story that is a work of imagination telling about life here, now, and yonder as if happening truthfully for real.

Here are tips I compiled from some books about the qualities of a commendable short story:

1. The story must be fresh in style
2. The story must portray true-to-life events
3. Words used must sound real and easy to understand
4. It must have freshness of appeal
5. Writer must use his own style
6. The story must involve a series of crises and should be of value to life
7. The story must tickle the reader if it involves humor and must get into the reader’s nerves if it is heavy drama
8. it must be of vital interest

and of course, it must be original.

Short stories run between 1000 and 5000 words. To the imaginative person – and no one who is not imaginative would attempt to write fiction – every human being is full of interest. The trained fictional eye observes in order to find material for his work.


/rose flores - martinez
http://iwrotefiction.blogspot.com
http://rfvietnamrose09.blogspot.com
11.12.09

Heat

Heat

Michael and Lora were friends. They have met only in the bus going to the province. Michael was a typical guy in his late 20’s with a good physique while Lora was in her early 30’s but very charming. During the trip, both stole glances from each other until a good conversation ensued.

“Hi! I’m Michael Santos. May I know your name?”

“Lora Camus.” And she smiled.

“I’m going to get off in Naga and it’s good to be back home,” Michael said.

“Me, too. But I’m going to work at the same time because I’ll be doing a research.”

Both were excited. They enjoyed the conversation and then traded calling cards.

Months passed.

Back in Manila, Michael rang Lora.

“Hello, may I speak to Ms. Lora?”

“Yes, I’m Lora. May I know who is calling?”

“Michael Santos.”

“Michael! I’m glad you called. How are you?

“I’m fine. But not so fine that’s why I called you up.”

“My girlfriend just left me.” I don’t know… We recently had a fight. Maybe it’s for good.”

“Of course.”

Suddenly there was silence. Michael took a deep breath. “Can we see each other tomorrow? I’ll treat you for lunch.”

“OK. Maybe you are upset. I’ll see you then.”

“Thank you for being a good friend to me.”


“Oh, don’t mention it. I feel your pain. I have been there before. Just sleep tight and don’t forget to wake up early so you won’t be late for our date tomorrow.”


“Bye. And…”

“And what?”

“Nothing. I’m just missing you. Tomorrow…”

“Yes. Goodnight.”

Lora’s mind prowled like a ravening hind through long years of being alone. She had strings of boyfriends and to her frustration she chose a wrong guy. Being true to the relationship was not a vouch to a happy ending, because her boyfriend got married to her former girl. A sudden anger nipped off Lora’s memory and her thoughts quickened with its challenge.

Yet… she was still in control of her emotions. She thought that Michael could be a good friend though, maybe a good friend because they share the same fate.

That was the most awaited moment. Michael pleased Lora in many ways. And Lora felt good about it. From the restaurant, they will drop by Michael’s place to get something before bringing Lora home. Lora agreed because Michael wanted to see Michaels place, too.

“Your place is nice. Who lives with you here?”

“My brothers and Manang Gloria, our housekeeper. But my brothers usually come home late. Lora look at this painting. I painted this when I was still in college.”

“It’s wonderful!” Lora exclaimed.

Michael held Lora’s hand and slowly he pushed in her body close to him. Lora didn’t resist. He kissed her on the cheek, the lips… She kissed her, too. Lora was the answer to Michael’s aching heart and thirst. Then he kissed her cheeks again lightly going down the neck.

“I want to make love to you,” Michael whispered.

“No. Not now. I know we are two matured people yet we still have to know each other deeply. I don’t want sad endings. I’m afraid that after the heat, and everything goes normal love would be a forgotten word.

“Oh, common – don’t play hard to get. We are in living a modern world. Loosen up.”

Gripping her shirt, Lora answered softly thinking she lost again. “I thought you are a friend. But you just used me. I admit everything happened with my consent because I really thought that somehow I could lean on you. But you are like the others … I guess I could have submitted to making love but… But I have my period right now! I’m sorry.”

Michael strode to the window and stared pensively.

Lora walked out without another word.

Outside the trees were more than dark, skeletal shapes of it in the slashing rain. Self-consciously, Lora smoothed her clothes and raised her brows. She would not forget that her pride had been stung too often beneath the haughty arrogance of several men. But this time she knew, she won.


Copyright rosalinda flores martinez 2009
http://iwrotefiction.blogspot.com
posted 10.12.09

Three Scary Stories in Filipino

I will start publishing here in my blog "Stories For You," short stories in Filipino. Two of this set, of Three Scary Stories were authored by Wenzi Jeanne Flores Martinez and Ma. Riza Flores Martinez. I've written one of the three. And so these 3 stories that make this set! Wenzi and Riza wrote these stories while they were in college and they have got a few poems and essays of their own as contributions way back in their school paper. I am happy and I thank GOD that they in themselves have found an expression of life in some form of words. These stories - they, considered as jokes, or practice, or simply an expression, showed part of their talents growing up students. In some way or another, they have done texts that might be helpful, and useful in the study of Filipino literature that shows that part of a culture in their contemporary period of growing up. Three Scary Stories in Filipino, R.W.R, IWROTEFICTION copyright 2009

September 25, 2009, Philippines
http://iwrotefiction.blogspot.com

I Wrote Fiction