Written Contusions

What do you call the son of your aunt's husband? I know I should be calling my aunt's husband as uncle-in-law. Does it follow that his son is my cousin-in-law? His name is Jojo. He is the fourth since I started this blog! Fourth what, you may ask? He is the fourth person who died since the creation of this blog. It seems that all I can blog about is the death of somebody around my age.

I really don't know why I am so high-strung regarding these deaths. Other deaths did not affect me so much.

Perhaps, it's because those who died were around my age. Perhaps I am realizing that death is always at my doorstep, no matter how young I am. Perhaps...

I can't seem to let the idea of death go. I can't really seem to admit to myself that I am scared. I can't seem to stop thinking about it. It's driving me crazy.

It seems that whenever I post here, something dreadful happens. This is the third time I am posting a death in my blog. This time, her name is JaGurl.

I knew her from work. Worked with her for 2 years. She laughed. She cried. She got angry. She dressed up, wonderfully and unabashedly flashy. She was a good friend.

I remember, distinctly, as if it just happened yesterday -- she was still alive.

One fond memory I have of her is when one day, we ate lunch in Chef di Angelo in Glorietta. It was not planned; it was just another impulse of the day. She was the one who instigated the whole trip to the mall after work. She had her camera with her. I wore a blue-green turtle neck long-sleeved shirt. She was trigger-happy with the camera. I was hungry because I couldn't eat too much within our shift; my shirt was body-hugging.

Then, lo and behold, JaGurl asks us to eat in Chef. I couldn't resist! It was one of the best restaurants, in our opinion. While waiting for our food, she took pictures of our group. She took a picture of the two of us because she said that my eyes looked so good. Apparently, she thought I had Spanish eyes; my eyes are almond shaped in reality.

The next day, she gave us prints of the pictures she took.

That was in 2006.

Now, she just smiles in my memory. In the picture she took of us, she was smiling. I was in my usual tempting aura. I was so fond of that picture. Now, I can't look at it without feeling sad.

It seems like the Devil's Mirror is soon to shatter.

Earlier, when I was riding my homeward jeep, I thought crept up my tumultuous mind. Freedom! Beauty! Truth and Love!!! That was a line from the movie Moulin Rouge and it kept on flourishing in my minds ear. Since I was not able to shrug it off, what I did was to listen intently to what it was saying.

After each flourish of that line, I actually deciphered a message. "Smash the Devil's Mirror!" It sounded as clear as the humming engine of the jeep. "There is no room for darkness when the light shines even in the depths of your soul."

And then I said, "But what about the layout, the html coding, the wonderful skin the Devil's Mirror and all the other Devil's Implements?"

"Take them with the Mirror and discard them. Throw them off the Imus Bridge!"

As if dazed, I just realized that it was true. There was no room for everything the Devil had to offer on my little piece of cyberspace. In fact, it never was a recurring theme on any of my blogs. Thus, when the jeep was crossing over Imus Bridge, "Splash!"

I am getting ready for a big change.

While I was updating my blog sometime this past week, I got a text message coming from my friend Lovie. Nung una, I was very happy to hear from her because I lost my phone due to freakin' stupidity (kwento ko na lang some other time). Anyway, she said she has some news about one of our dearest friends back in college.

When I clicked on "read" on my cel... guess what!? She said our friend Pits died.

Hindi ko na alam ang iisiipin ko. This year, dalawa nang kaibigan ko ang namatay. First was Muller. He was one of my office mates. Ngayon naman, si Pits. Kung nalungkot ako sa pagkawala ni Muller, mas malungkot ako sa pagkawala ni Pits dahil mas matagal na kaming magkakilala.

When we met, nagkasundo na kami kaagad. That was in the basketball area of LaSalle during the recruitment week for school orgs. Dahil ako ang VP for Tambayan, siyempre andun ako, manning the booth. Napakakulit na mama yan si Pits. Palatawa pa. Jokester and sometimes, the subject of his own jokes is himself. Mabait pa yan. He would attend our weekly prayer meetings and iyakan ng bayan. Pag may mga problema ang mga tao, marunong siya makinig and to give his own advice.

And then of course, there was the good times. Sa kanya ko natutunan ang katagang sprite genie (sprite na may gin). Madalas kami mag-inuman and he would even let everybody stay in his place kapag inabot na kami ng hating-gabi just to keep everybody safe.

Sabi ni Lovie, next Friday na daw ang funeral. But the thing is, nasa Binangonan ang wake and I don't know how to get there. Hopefully makapunta ako sa burol man lang.

To every body that reads this post, please play this game called High Delivery from Orisinal.com. Each flower you collect gets offered to Pit's memory.

The last person who massaged me died.

Somehow, for some crazy, twisted reason I have, I blame myself partly for Muller's death. Perhaps, if things haven't happened that way on that fateful Saturday, he was still alive.

That Saturday, my shoulders and back were aching from stress. All my muscles were tight. My back felt like it was about to snap and my shoulders felt a pull that I could describe as wanting to fold me in half. In addition to that, I was not feeling emotionally well that day.

I've always told my friends that I am an emotional vampire and I could suck a person's energy, like a vampire, only I suck emotional and psychic energy rather than blood.

In retrospect, perhaps I drained him of his last remaining energy resisting his impending heart attack.

What if I did not ask him to massage me?

Would he still be alive?

While at work, I received the most bothering and shocking of all news I will ever get this week. This would really ace the list, though at the moment of discovery, the date was only May 5th, 2008, a Monday.

While going home from the office, I received one of the saddest text messages for this year. My batch mate Elsa texted me asking me if I have received any messages from our other batchmate, Jojie. This came in as a suprise because number one, Elsa hasn't texted me for about 2 years now. Number two, I got chills when I read Jojie's name on the screen of my celphone. A following text message arrived saying that she already died. She died of pneumonia. I was so crushed because pneumonia can be easily cured.

I am now thinking about my own life...

Reflection mode.