Pounding The Keyboard

      I don’t know what to call it: karmic justice? what you sow, you reap? poetic justice? what goes around , comes around? Live by the sword, die by the sword thing? Or just a simple unfortunate incident caused by unhealthy eating and drinking habits. You see, there’s this man in our neighborhood, he’s in his fifties, a tricycle driver, quite harmless, always ready to help when there’s some helping needed, isn’t troublesome,—except that he’s a loudmouth. He loved to talk and engage every one in a conversation but he couldn’t speak in a normal voice. His voice was always loud and booming, you could hear it even when you’re a mile away. The people in our place had grown tired of admonishing him to turn his voice a bit down. Worse, he’s an early bird, he’d be up around five or six in the morning and would start engaging people in a conversation, or worse, in an argument, while waiting for his regular passengers, in effect waking up people   sleeping ...

                 I’m starting to think that I am prone to being a witness to couples quarreling. Yesterday afternoon, as I was inside a jeepney,   we were startled when a woman (probably in his mid-thirties and looking corporate) suddenly started screaming while we were waiting for the green light. “Bakit ba galit na galit ka?” she yelled while looking outside the window. “Mamaya tayo mag-usap! Papasok pa `ko!” After that, a man angrily hurled two huge luggage (I think somebody’s toenails got destroyed there)   inside the jeepney, shouting at the woman, “Lumayas ka! (curses) Huwag ka nang uuwi sa bahay!”      The woman frantically grabbed the two luggage and threw it into the street while screaming inaudibly as the man was walking away . The jeepney roared back to life. The woman screamed again when the jeepney caught up with the man who was now on top of a motorcycle together with another man. ...

           Blue screen of death is scary   because everyone who owns a computer knows it’s the harbinger of death among computers. Well, this Blue Grim Reaper  visited my computer twice today (aside from few random visits the past weeks). And whadayaknow, my computer’s still alive—barely, though. It sort of repaired itself, It had always been resilient, it had cheated death multiple times but now it freezes every now and then and had been very slow and very confused and would, at times, restart itself. It’s like an old man with an Alzheimer's and a terminal disease who’s dying but who still wants to work and serve its master.      Like an old dog dying of really old age but still wanting to bark and fend off thieves.      But it deserves to rest now—it has served me long and well.       Rest now, my faithful, hardworking servant, you can now close y...

     There’s a church near the office that I visit at least once a week. And I regularly see an old, wrinkled   lady,   begging in one of the church’s gates. She would stretch her arm while sitting in one of the concrete planters of the church near the gate, knocking at the hearts of the passersby which include me. But I  would always just ignore her. I have long stopped giving alms after I watched a TV documentary years ago that confirmed that most beggars were controlled by a syndicate, which kidnapped babies and children to serve as props for their (nefarious) begging activities. By giving alms, the TV program said, you’re encouraging these people to steal more babies from the hospitals, kidnap kids from the streets and abuse old people. You see those women, carrying a baby, knocking at cars stuck in traffic? Those weren’t really their babies, most likely. Before, I would hand out alms (just loose change in my pocket) to any beggars I saw. ...

“Oh, my God, I’m so wet,” she said to him, quivering while   biting her lip. "Give it to me now, please give it to me now.”   So he quickly handed her his umbrella.          So there he was, in his room, on his computer, furiously pounding the keyboard, an erotic-writer wannabe, trying to create his titillating pseudo-masterpiece, currently writing a wicked, kinky, nasty hardcore sex scene that would put E. L. James to shame, typing words that would make even Caligula or a convicted sexual predator blush.      Then, the phone in the living room rang—persistently. Grudgingly, he stood up and answered it. It was just a call from the phone company, offering a new promo, he politely refused and went back to his room, only to find his almost three-year old nephew, sitting at his chair, looking intently at the screen (he could already read and write), probably trying to make sense of the words he was s...