Standing right in front of me

What happens now? For four days, the pious sit huddled in make-shift chapels in the middle of asphalt streets, chanting the Pasyon to the tune of whatever latest song caught their attention. Jesus Christ, yeah, dude died on the cross, yo. Until Sunday, the trains shall be motionless. Birds will delight on hearing their feet tick and tack against the steel roofs. Brothers will most probably lounging in hammocks while chickens scuttle beneath them. Green mangoes shall be peeled.

I'll be here, in Katipunan, no witness to that, kept company by Francine Prose, Gala Dali, Francis Ponge and Aime Cesaire. This is not a well-intentioned sacrifice of a well-meaning schoolgirl. This is plain absent-minded stupidity coupled with inherent laziness. Ai-yah. And me gots less than five hundred bucks to my name.

I should have gone at the first fade of sunlight, with nothing but Blue Angel and a change of underwear in my bag.

*

The girl next door, they say she looks like me. Except, of course, she has breasts. Comparatively, they simply exist.

She has long brown hair, curling from the shadows above her ears. Her lips are thin. When she smiles, a semi-colon deepens in the corner of her mouth.

Maybe some time before Easter, I could knock on her door, holding a mug of Swiss Miss in one hand. I might say, "Hello there. Have you heard me through the wall?"

*

A part of me wants to sit on the steps of that (obscenely arrogant) church in Varsity Hills, gnawing on Chickencow barbecue. Hm, Chickencow. I wonder if they're open today? Oh, sadness: a girl, alone on Lent, chatting up the waiters and waitresses, sipping RumCoke. Yes, why not?

I also want some Cherry Coke. (Do they still make those? Had I been the only one who liked its curling sweetness?) And some Cappuccino Mudslide. Would it be in bad taste to head on over to Rustan's and get myself some liquor? Yes, I think so -- even I know that much.

*

The flower shop across the street is closed. No one, apparently, wants to buy flowers during Lent. Why, though? They're on full-swing Valentine's and November 1st. Why not Lent? Love and death (in the pages of some tattered leather-bound book) -- potent combination, big sales? Or is it because you can't have a cup of coffee afterwards with Jesus? Because he has no tombstone to lay daisies on?

*

Holy fuck the palaspas, it's only Wednesday night.