Pounding The Keyboard

         Pagkaraan nang labingwalong taon, muli akong napilitang lumabas ng bahay at nagtungo sa city hall upang umayos ng ilang papeles. Naninibago sa tama ng araw, nanghahapdi ang balat ko at gustong magbitak-bitak. Pagdating sa city hall, dalawang babaeng kawani ng nasabing tanggapan ng gobyerno ang nakausap ko at nakatransaksiyon, na ang edad ay kapwa mahigit limampu na siguro. KAWANI 1: Ano ba ang trabaho mo? AKO: Freelancer po. KAWANI 1: Freelancer na ano? AKO: Writer po. KAWANI 2: (medyo incoherent) Dubber? AKO: Ano po? KAWANI 2: Ano ka? Freelance dubber? AKO: A, hindi po. Writer po (pabulong) writer-writer-an. KAWANI 1: (may hindi naniniwalang reaksiyon) Writer ka? Ows? Totoo? AKO: Opo. KAWANI 1: May pruweba ka? AKO: (ngumiti lang) (sa mahabang silyang inuupuan ng dalawang kawani, may isa pang babaeng nakaupo, nasa mid-twenties siguro, hindi ko alam kung empleyada rin na nakadistansiya ng kaunti at may nakapasak na earphone s

      I was inside a passenger jeepney yesterday, seated behind the driver when suddenly, it forcefully stopped and I almost found myself flying through the windshield. Apparently, a boy, probably 13-14 years old, uniformed and carrying a bag, suddenly darted in front of the vehicle and thank God for the driver’s alertness, nothing gory occurred, the boy gleefully ran away and the driver continued, well, driving.       But it reminded me of an incident which happened around many years ago, when I took the fancy of learning to drive a car. I didn’t have a car then, but I was thinking, “the wind of change continues to blow and I might find myself a multi-millionaire one day and able to buy myself a Lamborghini, so I better be prepared to drive it.”       So I decided to learn to drive (which really was a bad idea since I was often reckless, had bad reflexes, was easily distracted and would often, like many other writers, zone out).  And after four or five days, I was alrea

      Just two days after I wrote about a f-ckboy of a husband who was caught cheating by her wife, I found myself watching this viral Facebook video of a wife who caught   her husband and his mistress inside a motel as they were climbing the stairs to go to their room. The wife was able to assault and manhandle the mistress but was promptly separated by a security guard. The (loving) husband then rushed to her (the mistress) side to protect her, which, naturally, made the wife more furious.       Unfortunately for the husband, the wife wasn’t alone, she was with some of her relatives or friends, who rained the mistress (and the husband) with curses, insults and physical threats.       The still seething wife then went inside the car (the one that her husband drove to the motel with the paramour) and the husband meekly followed. The abandoned mistress, cowering behind the guard, looked stunned and defeated--as if she’s expecting a fairy-tale romance but got a Game-of-

      Few weeks ago, I was sitting in front of the computer inside my room when I was startled by two loud, arguing voices outside. I looked out the window and saw a woman and a man (probably both in their late forties) standing and bickering directly below my window. Both looked lower class, the woman a bit fat and ordinary in her duster and the one really doing the tongue-lashing. And the man, he was potbellied, dark-skinned, he sort of resembled the late great character actor Max Alvarado and had black, crude tattoos on his right arm and was, as I listened to the woman, jobless, a drunkard and an ex-convict.       I stayed by the window, looking at them, hoping that once they saw me hovering on them like a spy drone, they would move out and quarrel in a different location. They saw me, alright, but they stayed there and continued their heated argument—so I gave up and went back to my seat in front of the computer. The man’s an ex-con and would probably not relish my eav