The Mail Box

[bluegreen717]

J,

 

I cannot compete with her. Not with her:

 

Long, rebonded locks.

 

Smooth, papaya-whitened skin.

 

Billiard maneuvers.

 

Penchant for noontime variety shows.

 

Racy pics taken in her bathroom, square white tiles and fluorescent lighting in the background.

 

Eloquence in the vernacular.

 

 

No, I cannot compete with her. I can only laugh.

 

I feel like a winner. For some reason the men who've pursued me, and are pursuing me, were, and are my intellectual equals.

 

Cat

Edited August 24, 2006 by bluegreen717

[LostCommand]

18 Aug

I want to run down to Manila North Harbour very late this Friday night, jump into one of our semi-trailer 18-wheeler International cargo trucks, unhook the cargo trailer tail, send up them hottie young hookers to take gentle care of my faithful driver, then I will slam hard the big red start button with the flat of my right palm, and feel through my backside all 12 massive cylinders and 22 liters (yes, ten times a car's displacement) of the MAN diesel machine firing up with a rough rough throb, a throb that dips deeper as I touch the throttle and rev her up to clear the night's crud from the throats of the wailing KKK twin turbochargers. I want to grab the long thick gearshift, select one of the 10 forward gears in the two-split Torsen transmission, grind in that gear with a firm muscled forearm and meaty fist, ease the Dino-Soar servo clutch out, and run the truck (minus the long cargo trailer) through the backroads of Tondo, the piercing scream of the unmuffled exhaust throbbing the windows and doors of the tight packed houses as we rumble by, Jacobsen brakes swishing air, exhaust streaming way back, routing out through Roxas, and left to Edsa, and straight on to Balintawak, then right to North Diversion.

 

I want put those tonnes of steel machinery through her paces at the NLEX, headed deep north, to sanctuary, to sanctuary. Capable of pulling 40,000 kilograms, or 40 cars pickups, now she pulls but her owner's 78 tense tight and brutally berserk kilograms, and with such ridiculous ease she overtakes car after car, bullies bus after bus, weaves through jam after jam, using the shoulders the same as the road, long contrail of dust rising behind as I wrestle the heavy steering around precision shoulder swerves, gears the size of car tires slotting up and down in unconscious double-declutching tranny harmony. Exiting at Santa Rita, we charge alone through the cake flat plains of Central Luzon in the dead of night, engine, turbos, tinny stereo, and at times myself at full cry, just like college summers past, but now my years of experience are added to that old raw hungry energy of youth, and twice deadly we pass the night fearless and heedless and free.

 

At dawn the ramparts of the Caraballo mountains rise up at the horizon, the gates to North Luzon. Pacing around my ticking rumbling truck, inspecting, whilst I sip my hot cheap carinderia Nescaffe, the cold clear morning mountain air wakes me up and washes away the night's fatigue. Jumping up back on the driver's seat, the truck and myself charge up the foothills of Dalton Pass for what must be the near 200th time, 90+ memorised kilometers of steeply inclined twisty trucky driving, cliff to one side, mountain at the other, inches of clearance in between, 180 to 270 degree completely blind curves at random intervals, landslides if you are lucky, sudden death if you are not - rusty broken carcasses of past crashes littering the way, a new one with my every trip. Eating up the wrong side of the road time and again, following the racing line with a massive truck forced to dance car-like; though barely tameable, all her ten tires squealing, the charge continues, straight up cloud wrapped Dalton Pass, thousands of feet in the sky, the oil and water temperatures ratcheting on the VDO gauges as the machine is pushed most unmerciful, engine revs touching red, machinery suffering as much as the driver, the exhaust manifolds abake with dull heat, that burnt candle stink of overhot steel, the diesel exhaust a light boiling blue and gray plume, overtaking everything, everyone, everybody

 

Call it passion, call it adrenalin, call it energy, call it lust, call it ambition, but they will not leave me be, they will not give me peace. I may, at last, sicken and stumble, and rest, but always always always I will come back, wounded perhaps, but unheeding, unheeding, demons flooring every last one of my various throttles, I cannot say no, I cannot stop, it is not me that wishes this so - I charge north to sanctuary, but it has been years since I found her last,

 

and now she is gone.

 

do you understand? I fight (and f#&k, and love, and fight again) like a race machine, and know no other way. You may even pierce my defenses, (and I may pierce yours, accidentally, and never never with malice aforethought), but it really changes naught; I am battleship compartmentalised, literally unable to simply sink down and thereby put an end to my many hits, holes, and hurts; I must suffer each and every one instead. I take you as you are, so then take me as I am, or not at all. You may want what I can not give, yet still I give you all what my demons may allow me to keep as my own, and these are not little. Here, with all masks removed, you see me, immersed in power and flames, and writhing, but unbroken; steel and smoke and fire.

 

And you, you've got the look.

 

do you understand?

 

No matter what I may do or not do, we are already doomed by a century of blood karma and wholesale political misdeeds gone fatal, and still unchecked, still unconfessedn, till even today. Our very existence remains so far unjustified, and our mere names considered criminal. Hell already awaits us all, why do I even bother to get up and go to church and perform my work and duties? But I only seek the Truth, as always; I am addicted to Darkness, but no demon, I am enslaved to Light, but no angel; giving hope to others, but keeping none for my own.

 

The usual rules do not apply to me,

 

do you understand?

 

At the peak of Dalton Pass, with a loud crankshaft shuddering cough I engage the engine brakes, and head down, engine temperatures swiftly ratcheting back to blue, the machine normalising. For here at North Luzon, sanctuary is nearer. The green empty unpeopled plains beckon, we should go there, where lie the wild white unnamed beaches and completely blue waters and crashing Pacific Ocean waves on rocky cliffs, those cumulus white clouds, envelop me, envelop all. Join me, a few days, a few days, some hours, a fraction of this finite existence, at Sagada, Baguio, Banaue, Baler, Bontoc, Casiguran, Aparri, Conner, Apayao, Palanan, and beyond.

 

The misty mountains beckon, hundred million years of mystery underfoot, eternal monuments unmistakeably God's. We really have not much time to dwell on jealousy, nor on selfishness. We really only have here and now and today; that short lag between the lightning flash of Genesis and the thunderclap of Armageddon.

 

I want you there, I want my head in your lap, I want your fingers closing my harsh light brown eyes and mussing my black brown hair, I want my heart and my thoughts to be still, I want sanctuary, even temporary, and I want you be heedless and fearless and free, free, here at the seat of power, you will fear no one, fear nothing, not my kills and counterkills, not the coming nights, not the loneliness, not even yourself, not even fate, not even the end. And I shall take naught away from you,

 

for you, I would only add, for you, I would wrap such powerful arms,

 

do you understand?

 

A. Paz-Benitez III

[KristinLavransdatr]

***,

 

the time has come when friendship has to take the backseat.

 

the board meeting yesterday didn't turn out good for your unit. again.

 

you've been losing and losing tremendously.

 

there is no art in running our business, just guts, lots of it.

 

you are brilliant. you are the one person who knows everything about the philippine and singapore operations. no one else but you, can claim authority over them. but...

 

i hate my job as it tasks me to tell you you're losing yours. i know, it is not all your fault that the unit is going to the dogs. but the blame had stopped after you've been in the post for 10 months. that unit is 10 years old. it has been the flagship business 3.5 years ago. but now, it has gone from bad to worse. not because of you entirely. but because you failed to be firm and ruthless. i go to E- and i see the employees walking zombies, laughing clowns. don't they know they could lose their jobs for that?

 

i am getting a man to replace you. i think it is about time i trust a member of the opposite sex to run that business. even if it means that now all my managers are men. damn! there used to be just us women running the show which should be headed by men. now, i am forced to hire them dicks again.

 

starting september 1, you will no longer be the GM of E.

 

no apologies.

 

---

[TNT Hsia]

I wanted a simple life.

I wanted to stay at home

but I didn't want my brains to lie idle

so I allowed it to roam.

Now I understand why Gandalf & Sam

Refused to wear the ring of power

even if there was the opportunity

to do not just a little

but a lot of good.

So once more I resist

the temptation to have & to be

for what most mortals aspire, dream

& eventually lie, cheat & steal

in order to survive,

to mitigate a greater evil

to sacrifice my soul so other souls may keep clean

as well as other false excuses

that spare a person's accountability

for the evil he does to himself & to others.

 

"...prosiguió su camino, sin llevar otro que aquel que su caballo quería, creyendo que en aquello consistía la fuerza de las aventuras".

[Barenaked-NoMre]

You said THIS is NOT you ...

 

Yet ... you're chasing after someone who would probably NOT give you the time of day.

 

I wish you luck.

 

You may have the cash to spend lavishly on women ... but you wont get that ONE special lady.

 

You're not worthy to have one.

[willow_boy]

To the assh*le at Condo Unit #80,

 

You are such a f#&king assh*le! You f#&king JACKASS!!!

 

You and PALEFACE assholes like you can go to HELL!!! People like you are racists in f#&king denial! SOBs like you are a f#&king disgrace to your country!!! You found a very convenient excuse to let loose your RACIST/BIGOTED attitudes towards foreigners!

 

You don't like my kind because you know fully well that our kids are blowing your kids away in academics! Your kids are losing in the schools, in the arts, and in the economy! We are slowly gaining economic power, albeit through legal means, and idiots like you are dying a slow and painful death in your own land! You guys are SCUM who f#&king hate the sight of us beating you at your own game! GUESS WHAT, assh*le? GET USED TO IT!!! IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FOR YOU AND YOUR KIND FROM HEREON IN!! IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME! We will make sure of it!

 

p#tang %na MO! KUNG NASA 'PINAS KA LANG E GINULPI NA KITA!

Edited August 24, 2006 by willow_boy

[Dr_PepPeR]

I'll wait. Not a peep. Passive mode. Have to catch up with the rest of my life. I always wonder whether you think of me too. I won't even say goodbye. Let's just let it all keep hanging, might be better this way than doing the proper thing. I'll miss you, and it's a good thing you will be far far away.

[TNT Hsia]

The point isn't if you put at risk your life or your very soul so that I can keep both my life & soul. The point isn't if you think I'm ungrateful for questioning the service you've done that I, the nation or even the world benefit from.

 

No one asked you to. You volunteered for the job. Although your loved ones may do care for yours -- & I hope they are spared the consequences of your thoughts, actions & ommissions but if not -- one's life & soul is ultimately a personal responsibility. So...

 

Did you or did you not order the Code: Red?

Edited August 26, 2006 by TNT Hsia

[iwalkalone]

I was a fool :cry: ....guess we all are sometimes... And i thought...I was special to you....i was wrong. I'm so stupid to ever think i was.... :cry:

[LostCommand]

The sweat and blood behind every seemingly effortless success, the tears and fears at the back of each apparently careless gamble, the heartstopping suspense held at bay with thin masks and paper costumes, and smoke and mirrors; this masterworld laid bare.

 

I gave you myself; the magicks made transparent, the sleights of hand exposed, the continuing connivance of many generations revealed - the no-tomorrow (bed) behaviour explained.

 

The mysterious made logical, the subtle strategies made plain, the impossible made simple; the mountains made mortal.

 

I gave you what you needed. Even if now, I should stand diminished in your eyes.

 

I gave you of myself. Even if now, I should only be a booty call.

 

I seldom err in my choice of close company

 

"...to give, and not to count the costs..."

 

LC

 

p.s. - keep my secrets safe.

Edited August 26, 2006 by LostCommand

[transcience]

i'm drawn into you. you may never feel it because i won't allow you to know that side of me.

[Edmond_Dantes]

Are you really here? I never thought that you'd lie about something like that.

 

Why? Just to be with him?

 

Him. Think about that.

[Dr_PepPeR]

Ano ba? Can't we just say exactly what we mean from the start? I don't want to read between the lines, you know that. Sayang yung time, yung effort, yung emotions because we have to "dance". I'm frank with you now why can't you be the same with me?

[pussycatdoll]

i miss you so much. travelling alone seems to bring these feelings into sharper focus.

 

wish you were still here. i really miss you.

[iwalkalone]

It hurts in my heart and my fingers feel numb from pain or love for someone of something undefined.... hey I’ve dealt with it before but yeah, my heart still weeps. I guess I should just live, safely and stop thinking too much?

It just hurts