Scream Coherence, oh yah.

Maine pistol-grips the bloody hair of a teary-eyed Jack, and I am ecstatic.
He says, “Oh yah.”
I say, wow.
Nice work.
Really original. Clap. He deserves applause. Please.
I tell myself that maybe Maine just right now fulfills his action star dreams. Yeah, just give him just a little more time. If you squint just a little, you can see he is wearing a leather jacket. The biker kind of jacket, the kind with the premium holes and shock-burn bruises fit just right to tell all the other boys you are tougher than them. A chain is strapped above just above his beer belly. It is silver with specks of red.
And Maine says, “Talk.”
Another thing Maine is doing is holding a knife. No, not the Hannibal Lecter kind of knife you see him slice-slice-slice people’s heads off, just the knife you would usually see your mom use as she works in your completely perfect white kitchen, wearing a pink chicken-patterned apron that says in bold Comic Sans ‘LOVE IS MAY SPLENDID THINGS’ as she chop-chop-chops your butcher cow dinner over a new white cutting board. Well, that is if your mom wasn’t away or asleep or divorced or even dead.
I keep standing.
Maine says, “Speak.”
And the poor, weak, helpless victim in today’s deranged screenplay doesn’t even move. He just limps, arms dangling like a cockroach trapped in a spider web, strands of gray hair falling to just below Maine’s chain. He wears a long, silver cross, perhaps a rosary, and you could see all the red blotches of blood squelched all over his black shirt like a chess board stomped on by an menstruating elephant. His black pants, fit for corporate attire, are torn in most places, leaving car-crash legs over his black Havaianas.
And he doesn’t even swear.
Still, I watch. I stand still.
And Maine says to the bloody, gray-haired apostle of God, “Jack.”
One thing you need to really take note of is Maine’s hand. This could be award-winning, this kind of screenplay. You see, he has only four fingers in both his hands, which he claims is the new trend in evolution. The new giant leap for mankind. The next step to being God, or money. Or angels. He calls it…
The new pimple-eyes.
The new wart-ears.
And I say, “Wuh hey.”
Right now, I say to myself, I shall be the hero. Well, not really the princess kissy-kissy Charming type of hero, the Jack Bauer type of hero, the Jason Bourne, with no, no heart at all, maybe, really, just doing my job, what I can, whatever it takes.
Just to get the job done.
Because sometimes, doing is all we could do.

And all of this happens in a rusty, muddy, dirty two-bedroom apartment somewhere in backyard Makati. Located conveniently between the best malls and all your favorite call centers, this oh-so-secret retreat boasts long resident lifespan (1.25 times more than the average drug dealer!) and a door that really locks from the inside. And get this; it is only a phone call away! Choose from Coup d’ etat Getaway or Drug Party suite. Call within the next ten minutes and you get free media misinformation. Or a discount on your next purchase of quality pot.
So call now.
Now.
Now.
Just remember this isn’t toll-free.

This is just a sort of freeze moment between frames. For the message to sink in. For you to quit and start reading another story. For the subliminals to all turn to liminals, or whatever.
Writers call this a ‘plot device.’

And all is well until the door opens. Like every horror-ish type of story, it starts with a fraction of a secondth creak, then a bang. The superhero entrance.

This is the kind of moment every competent writer would write as time being stopped completely, perhaps just for a second, compelling my heart to jump, then stop, then freeze, echoing a moment that would last an eternity, ridding my soul of all knowledge, all wisdom. Yada yada.
But then again I am not most people. Not even competent.
I describe this moment like when you, oh, oh yeah, you are just about to, urgh, ohh, come sperm all over your men’s magazines or laptop monitor with your mouth open, your eyes dilated, your clean-cut shaved face leaning on the wall poster that says, ‘What would Jesus do?’, when someone suddenly opens your bedroom door.
Without knocking.
Turns on the lights.
Asks son, where, do you know where the remote is.
And you say, with your boiling dick aching and your insides just totally fucked up, No, I don’t know. No, idea.
Then the someone says Good Night,
Night, Son.

And everything just about now is just about ruined.
Totally.
Completely.

Tarararan-taran..
Tadaaa.


Maine would have said, “Oh yah.”
Me, I would say, “Wuh hey.”

Whole tons of meaning, senseless or enlightening, useless or Godly, packed up within two words. Makes you think of titles. Or ranks.

And, I recall. Jack really was the quiet type.

Where we were five hours ago was obviously not where we were one minute ago.

Where we were five hours ago was we were riding a jeepney. As usual.

This particular jeepney was emblazoned with a red Coca-Cola bottle on the roof, and inside, on various, random locations were twelve or eleven different first names:
Pedro. Juan. Thress. Quatroh. Etcetera, etcetera.
Just between the driver and Maine, above the dashboard, above the stacks of coins, were the usual stuffed ‘seven little dwarves,’ only there were twelve. Or eleven.

Well, even the driver couldn’t remember.
As usual.

You see, Maine owns a jeepney, drives one, too.

And because of that, blessed by Maine’s wink, Jack and I became extras in this fraternity of jeepney drivers, while Maine rode in the front seat, wearing his trademark sunglasses.
He called them ‘shades.’

‘Cause in the Philippines, we really do treasure such bonds. Such camaraderie.

By this time, someone faceless would sit beside me, and the jeepney is now full.

And, as usual, Jack fakes a cough.
Then runs his hand through his hair. Then snores.
To draw attention.
As if his existence wasn’t eye-catching enough.

This was my entrance.
This was my cue to take a call.

I say to my clenched fist, “Hello.”
One of my brows raise, and I say, “No. This is not God.”
This shall never, ever be God.

I must look angry. Or stupid.
Or handsome. Cause everyone inside is now looking right at me. Me and my empty clenched fist.

If I were God, I say.
If I were God, I wouldn’t have stopped SARS from reaching the Philippines. I wouldn’t have stopped Bird Flu from rearing its ugly wings and killing a few hundred, or thousand, or ten thousand, faceless individuals.
Maybe just one corrupt government official.
Then I smile.

Louder, I say, if I were God, I say, I would have stopped on the fifth day and rested already.

If I were God, “I would send even just a few of my precious angels and just, you know, help people speed up death.”
I would tell them with my booming, thunderous voice, destroy the vaccines.
Kill the antiviruses. Kill all the doctors.
No, not kill I mean, just, you know, deliver them to the departure area.
Then I grin.
“No, this is not God.”
If we were to continue saving ourselves like this, we would die by overpopulation anyway.

For in the beginning, I created the heavens and the earth.

And it is by this time the jeepney comes to an abrupt halt, then I hear the driver swear loudly, and then I would hear, “Sorry. Lost my balance.” It’s Maine’s voice.
It is then I return my fist to my pocket.
As usual.
Jack tap-tap-taps the ceiling.
Then we, all three of us, go down.

That I remember, I reminisce, as Jack bleeds to death while the light from the half-open door blinds us. Yes, this is still the time-freeze moment, the moment of suspense I shall slowly degrade until it doesn’t mean a thing.
This split-second permits me to catch Jack’s eyes, and yes, he is still breathing.
His single, colorless albino eye pierces my own, pleading. Begging.
Pleading.



The same single eye I once saw in a commuter bus, doing the same thing.
Begging.
Pleading.

Even then, he had only one eye. Sporting the same black collared shirt, the same black formal pants. Wearing the same expensive cross necklace. The same slippers. Flip-flops.
We watched him, Maine and me, as he climbed the stairs of the bus. He held a big battered book.
He held the railings above him for balance, and smiling widely to the driver, he said, Thanks.
God bless you.

Maine coughed, and the one-eyed albino began his speech.
“Brothers,” he said.
“My friends in Christ…”
Fellow sons of God, he said.
“Listen.”
He drawled. Imagine your local parish. Your old elementary school principal with his deep voice and calm, hesitant smile, as he delivers the opening remarks every day of your elementary life, saying how blessed kids today are, how everyone will turn out to be a genius and invent the cure of AIDS or create a machine that kills every corrupt government official. Same thing again and again.
“I come here today, in this commuter vehicle, to tell you all…”
Usually, this is the time I’d be humping some porn star in my sleep.
But this is no where near usual.
“… that all of you are just so fucked-up.”
Sometimes, it pays to listen.
Without changing tone, the albino man talked.
“You see people without even listening to them.”
He said, opening the Bible without even looking at it, “We are products of this indifferent society. Wastes of this culture that doesn’t even give a damn.”
And yes, he said, we call ourselves a Christian nation.
“But we are all atheists in our own way.”
I pretend not to listen. I pretend.
And, he said, our culture is devolving.
In this life, there are no givens.
Blessed are the evil, for they don’t fucking care.
Blessed are the weak, for they die easily.
Blessed are the transvestites and the butcher cows and the Hindu cattle, for they have found their purpose in life.
He spoke, without even changing tone.
And right now, I am Sinful.
I am Dark.
I am pretty much really, really stupid.
“And if God really did care, he would have given us the blessing to go on and kill ourselves.
Cause if we needed weeds, we wouldn’t have any.”
And he closed the Bible, smiling. Without flinching, as if he just read on and on.
He procured an empty tissue box from his pocket, and passed it to the nearest passenger.
Which was me.
The box label said, “scream coherence.”

And for the first time, Jack looked at me and winked.
For the first time, he smiled.