NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED: Tales of Crazy Possession and Lethal Obsession

Friday night: Here I am sitting in front of our ancient laptop in a 3-year-old orange No Fear blouse and kittycat pajama pants, feeling suppressed and in the mood for sighing, trying to fish some thoughts out of my head and hoping I was somewhere else while listening to my parents yell at me for supper. Typing without my glasses makes the screen look all blurry and distorted, and best of all it makes my head ache; still I haven't yet a single plan to increase the size of my WordPad fonts, which is currently set at 10. Alone in my southerly room, I can hear the rain pounding relentlessly outside my window and onto the corrugated-iron roofs of houses nearby, a lonely sound seemingly adding to the gloom of the day. I plug the radio headset into my cell phone and slip into a silent daze as a favorite radio station bombards my ears with a sweet-sounding, subliminal never-heard-before song centered on a club dancer. It stings. It stings my eyes with truthful images of a vicious reality. It stings my ears with a strange sadness that stings my heart. It stings my entire self with an urge to get this world fixed once again and make things good for its future dwellers, if not for the stubborn people of today. It stings, but for a good reason. The rain has calmed down to a steady drizzle. Everything is quiet, and this time I crave for noise. The skies grant my wish.

The clouds they hide behind the sun,
But dear, I wonder where the storm has gone?

Wednesday: classes suspended at lunchtime due to the rampaging storm—all to no avail. Turns out we were all dismissed from school to say hello to a sunny afternoon.

Thursday: no classes once more. But where was Mr. Rain? Well, where else could we find him but on our rooftops, whistling a happy tune as it skipped along lightly, in a form whose pleasantness could never be matched—that of a young, playful drizzle.

Today: official holiday from school. It was also on this day that I finally saw eye-to-eye with the storm (literally). But it wasn’t strong enough to keep me from going out in the open, neither was it able to prevent me from exploring the depths of LitNet, one splendid “hobby” which I happen to enjoy the most.

Here it is, he’s come again
Pounding on my cozy den

The rain has returned once more; it’s in quite a moody state. I shall not go about cursing it. It has saved me from reciting an extemporaneous speech on center stage in front of all those fault-finding eyes with hardly enough preparation. It has saved my IS project and has allowed our group to make more improvements. We shall allow it to fall.

An eerie creaking on a wooden plank,
Some pounding on my bed,
Footsteps on my hollow ceiling…
Could these be of the dead?

The rain has calmed down, and weird things are happening to me in my room. I’m hearing noises again, and I’m certain it’s not the ringing in my ears or a glitch in the state of my mind. Something is pounding on the top bunk of my double-decker bed. I have absolutely no idea of the history of this house I’m living in, therefore whether there were ghosts or not in my room or some spirits ambling around unconsciously without showing any of their faces is far from anything I can express my views on. Yet there seems to be strong enough evidence, and evidences are extremely hard to contradict (unless we make use of other evidences to oppose them). Last night I was lying in bed when all of a sudden some mysterious force drove a poisonous bullet into my brain, contaminating it thoughts regarding death and the inexistence of an afterlife and afterwards I jumped out in I ended up writhing in pain, struggling for my breath, forcing myself with all my might to scream out the words (silently, though, so as not to wake up my mom and dad), “I AM ALIVE, AND FOREVER SHALL I BE!!!” I closed my eyes and allowed myself to recede into a world of almost perpetual darkness, still pretty convinced that I would live (why, who were they to demand me to die just like that?) and neither did I see any reason why I should end my life despite the fact that I did have many problems, but got over them easily. So I prayed. And here I am to prove that I’m definitely not crazy and absolutely not the type to submit to any such idiocy, neither would I face such a situation with a heart bleeding in fear and chapped lips trembling in frozen delirium. I may be emo sometimes, but I’m strong enough indeed to hold on to my existence and resist all kinds of futile temptation.

Saturday morning: It’s raining still, and my family and I seem to be the only people awake down here. It’s awfully quiet, except for the rain drumming softly on our rooftops and trickling into the gutters, and the whole neighborhood is asleep. No stir from the askal dogs snoozing soundly on people’s doorsteps, let alone their masters inside the house. A motorcycle engine rumbles nearby, yet in a seemingly gentle manner, and leaves. Mindless of anything, the town sleeps on.
A rooster crows, yet its calls lie unanswered and slowly disappear into the dewy air. He, too, tucks his head into his wing and resumes his slumber.
A short siren rings through the air, and woman lets out a squawky shout. Yet everything remains the same.
Meanwhile, I am sitting here doing practically nothing, except perhaps writing, which is not what I am supposed to do as I am supposed to do my homework in Earth Science which I have been putting off for such a long time (since Tuesday, in fact), which is to make a detailed map of the way from school to my home, a terribly complicated thing to do as my home is no less than three rides away (sometimes I am forced to take a fourth). However, I have been told to do it so I shall, and besides when my EarthSci teacher says something we know he means business and we know he really does mean it. So ta-ta for the meantime as I retreat to my study desk to complete my map.

Sunday noon: A practically sunny day. The headset has been plugged into my cell phone for a day already, and just now I wonder why of all names did they have to call it a “headset” when you wore it in your ear anyway and not over your head or anywhere else specific to the cranial region. *Sigh* How confusing. Still haven’t finished my map ‘til now, and yet I only have one (basically two, if you count today as another) day till classes resume. No classes on Monday, but I don’t want to busy myself on schoolwork on the very last day of vacation. God, I’ll definitely miss the long vacations! Not the coming Saturday classes, though. No way, absolutely! Let’s beg the Director not to require us to attend any—but that would be a useless request, telling you, because the national government itself requires all schools to provide suffering students such mandatory classes. Argh… how horrible! Tell me, where oh where is summer?!

2:21 PM: Just finished Evan Almighty. It was great—a wonderful family movie—inspiring, of course—with God in the persona of a calm, soulful, motivating “human” (Morgan Freeman). Though most of the events portrayed were basically biblical, I believe the story will be enjoyed by people of all faiths; for I’m sure everyone could relate to the lessons it wishes to communicate. Also, it promotes environmental awareness and strong family ties, which is a good thing especially in times today. Despite the fact I would not consider myself religious, as I believe spiritual would be a more correct term, I cannot deny to myself that I was impressed by the film (which gave me a good laugh as well) and actually came to love it. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Sunday noontime: Busying myself with schoolwork while playing Prince of Persia on my phone 19 hours, 43 minutes before classes finally start. From here I can see my school uniform hanging from the hook on my door, and just the sight of that four-button cream blouse and brown checkered skirt makes me want to scream. I like school—my wacky life in school, that is; and believe it or not I actually could’ve happened to love everything if not for the following things: 1) Mr. Attitude-Problem, chronological age: 14, mental age: 24, emotional age: 4; and 2) His Problem With His Ex-Girlfriend (who is one of my closest friends); 3) Misunderstandings—thus the dissolving of our clique (Mr. A.P. takes the blame!); 4) Treachery; 5) Silent Lunches and Corny Jokes; 7) Madness; 8) Seeing the Pursuer who pursues no longer (a traumatizing sight!); 9) Homework, Seatwork, Quizzes, Projects, Grades; 10) Tedious Lectures, Boring Teachers 11) Cramming Stuff in the Middle of Class 12) Having to learn the Art of Shutting Your Ears Discreetly whenever Mr. Veggie “Mature”-and-Pathetic begins to lecture about how stupid people are to eat meat and be able to stand animals getting hurt (when we can hurt the plants anyway) and indulge in Physical Violence (when Verbal and Elemental Violence seem more convenient); 13) Bad Luck; 14) Being Dismissed at 4:10; 15) Hassle with Time, Hassle with Transpo, Hassle with the Brain. *Sigh* For some crazy reason I’m still very much in the mood for summer even though it’s been three months since the two-month vacation ended. If only I could turn back time and hopefully be able to make things better. Unfortunately, I can’t. On the other hand, assuming it was possible, would that be a solution? What if I made things worse?

6:56 PM: Watched a movie again, this time Déjà vu on DVD. A great fictionalized elaboration of Einstein’s wormhole theory. Here, we have a puzzling mystery novel and an astounding sci-fi masterpiece all fused into one great high-tech film. Possible, all events being justifiable by science, yet impossible still. Watch it, analyze, and find out why.

8:52 PM: A magnificent idea has just slipped into my mind, and I hope this will be able to put up my grades. Since I’m expecting four grand from my aunt and I’m sure that will be enough for me to buy a China-made iPod—it’s been a year since I lost my old one just one month after I got it (using money I’d won from a story-writing contest) and now I’m dying to get a new one—a better one, too (its brilliant manufacturer has made more high-tech versions and is selling them at the same affordable price); I will get things fixed and ask my parents if I could use half of the money to buy one provided I must show them, let’s say, five perfect scores in five different tests—one simply outstanding feat for a PSHS student to accomplish. *sigh* What a big dreamer I am.
Great dreams, great responsibilities.
Am I responsible enough to handle it?
Snaps my father...
You know what he said.

and finally...The Dreariest Monday Night in the Entire Universe:
Tonight we witness the light of enjoyment being seeped into the black hole of suffering.
Tomorrow reality shall begin.
Put on those hated school uniforms despite all desperate cries of refusal and forcibly embark on the dreariest death march to the Prison of... School.