Dead Lines

3:10 AM

My friend, Alvin, calls me a little before midnight, pep-talking me into submitting a story, an essay, anything, to the Palancas. Today, of course, is the deadline.

There will be little sleep today for those who, like me, ride on the adrenaline rush to write after, say, needing to watch CSI, Criminal Minds and Medium. The story I wish I’d submit requires more than a few hours’ work, so this time I’ll dip into my hay naku, puede na folder and tweak a story. To add more complication, let's make it, hey, a children's story, knowing that I have no sensibility for such. As a final nouement, let's choose Quentin, whose story does not conform to the Palancas' requirement that the entry be "directed principally to promote appreciation of Filipino literature or culture."

I figure this foolhardiness fulfills two objectives: one, it lets me keep a new year’s resolution, and two, it serves me right for not coming up with something new.

From where I write I can see the moon, bigger than yesterday’s. Its beauty is of no help, for I keep staring at it, and my thoughts fly elsewhere, far.

I prefer to blog.

Serves me right.


5:10 AM

Day comes earlier in summer, and so does the deadline. I'm having the impossible time excoriating multi-syllable words from the story and catching into my language the rhythm of children laughing.

Serves me right.