The Mail Box

[LostCommand]

I spurned the chill of London's winter, took leave of my office, decided against the seductions of Paris, and flew for glory of Rome, the Eternal City.

 

The ceiling of the Sistine. Of all the Panels there, the Creation of Adam, of the finger of God touching the finger of man, that famous scene, is what we know best. Yet it took Michelangelo a mere week of furious work to paint this Panel, for he was allowed to to express the story of Creation any way he liked. While the other Panels, which had to follow a strict script laid down by Julius II, took him months, years even, to complete. And are basically unremembered today.

 

What burden it is to follow another, more powerful man's vision. What blessing to the world that in even a small way, some of us manage to express our inner vision in one or two panels of our day to day. As managers, even as CEOs, we are mostly bound by others' rules. Save the Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates, the Peter Druckers, and Napoleon, who created their own rules, and achieve true greatness.

 

And Michealangelo both buggered boys and fukkerrd women all his long life. Decades of sexual depravity. Out of such unburdening, did he preserve Creativity. In there is a lesson.

 

(The nameless whores and toyboys throughout history - someone must write about them. And why they matter then. And why they matter now)

 

I fly back to the cold gray stones of London.

 

LC

[LostCommand]

D,

 

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 a young nubile hooker 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 Cummins 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 overnight crud from the throats of the 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 angel wail of the unmuffled turbo 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 and alloy machinery through her paces at the NLEX, headed deep north, to sanctuary, to sanctuary. Capable of pulling 40,000 kilograms, or 40 cars, now she pulls naught 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 wheels 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 energy of youth, and thus mixed twice deadly we pass the night fearless and heedless, blatant 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 she is 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 up 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 inch of my gas pedal, 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 fukk, 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, 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 fire, and writhing, but unbroken; steel and smoke and flame.

 

And you, you've got the look.

 

do you understand?

 

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.

 

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. The misty mountains beckon, hundred million years of crustal 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.

 

The usual rules do not apply to me,

 

I want you there, I want my head in your lap, I want your fingers closing my harsh brown eyes and mussing my thick 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 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?

 

LC

Edited August 25, 2012 by LostCommand

[SiLvErClAw]

you...

 

i guess it's a case of too little, too late...

 

me..

[TheBlackDahlia]

J

 

Thank you.

I may not always be very patient with you,

and slam the door in your face every time I feel like it,

But you always remember me.

I promise, I wont slam the door very hard next time.

and I will try my hardest to be patient.

Till I here from you again.

 

H

[LostCommand]

Neil Armstrong, our hero, has passed on. He has inspired generations of engineers to envision what can be, and not merely accept what is today. And to materialise that vision, he put his life on the line to lead from literally the very front, as true leaders always do. Yet afterwards, you humbly shunned all glory and gave the credit to your people instead, retiring to teach engineering at university. Engineers today and the ghosts of engineers past, the von Brauns, the Goethals, the Brunels, the unknown visionary designers of the Pyramids, rise and salute you as you depart to take your place at the Pantheon of the Greats.

[dungeonbaby]

here's to the self-effacing hero in a pocket protector

[Halcyon]

Not Roxane. It's Jennifer.

 

You know how some things don't make sense until life pushes buttons to cast us in roles wherein what once seemed gibberish suddenly become legitimate. I may be on to something here.

 

There was a book I bought when I was in college. It was the oddball in my personal collection, sitting unabashedly on the same shelf that housed the Coelhos, the Murakamis, and the Gaimans. I didn't feel it would be right to place it alongside the Rowlings or the Tolstoys or the Shakespeares. Hmmn... Looking back, maybe it would've been justifiable to make it roomies with the Dantes.

 

I tried, no, labored, to finish the book in question, but reading it proved to be too difficult a task. The images were elusive, the words awkwardly stitched together. I had been persistent though. Every once in a while, in irregular year-month intervals, I would go back to it hoping for that Oh-I-see experience, which never came. Years passed and it got pushed back to the dimmest corner, new and more popular titles taking its spot.

 

The last time I saw it was about a couple of years ago. It was supposed to be sent to our house down South for safekeeping. I remember fishing it out of the box, but I can't remember where I put it. Something a close friend said earlier this week made me want to read it again. He was referring to the historical figure, not the character from a play. And I was thinking of the one presented in this book.

 

So I've been looking for it for almost an hour now. It's black with a purple flame on the cover. It should be easy to recognize. And I'm just taking a break.

 

http://i1156.photobucket.com/albums/p570/vanillakisslove/SoIAmGlad2.jpg

Edited August 26, 2012 by Halcyon

[sklardrog]

I told you the things you wanted to hear, what you believed in even though you were off track. On that last day, I wish I had the courage and strength to tell you the truth but I resisted for fear that it will just make a bad conversation worse. What I was trying to do throughout all those times was to protect you from yourself. You were your own worst enemy, not me. You will never hear these words from me but I hope you find them here in the near future. So long.

[ADAM]

Seem like such a simple thing to follow one's own dream

But possessions and concession are not often what they seem

They drag you down and load you down in disguise of security

[sklardrog]

You love to emote here but for me, you still are and will always remain an idiot. You're a loser.

[viral]

Please, my friend, hang tough. Don't do it. The pain will subside enough and you'll be able to breathe again. I wouldn't know what to do if you went. Maybe the same thing, I guess.

[sklardrog]

I'm very sorry to hear of what you're going through. It's hard for me to imagine the hurt you're feeling. Take some time off. Spend some time in another place far away from where you are. You need a change of scenery. Forget about the whole thing even though that must be so difficult to do right now. Try to forget and move on. You'll be much better off in the future. Don't worry. Life will sort itself out in the end.

[Knucklehead7]

I applaud your driven spirit, but you went overboard. You're so driven, you drove me away. Now look what happened.

[sklardrog]

COD Modern Warfare 3 is so addicting. I have to wean myself away from it.

[sklardrog]

You have lost command of your senses. Why? Because behind the seemingly perceptive and artistic facade you project, you're a loser and an idiot. Gago!

[dea-mische]

My love,

 

Nothing more to say but thank you.

 

Alexandria

[sklardrog]

Congratulations on hitting that threshold. You're a little more free, my friend.

[JayZip]

k,

 

cheesy is as cheesy does but i love you.

 

M

[Guns of the Patriots]

Alexandria,

 

This eagle will never leave your side.

 

T

[sklardrog]

Never forget this word of advice when you're either in a party or some social gathering:

 

"Never put your drink down, whether it's soda or alcohol. And if you do, you get a fresh one yourself, and you make sure you see that it comes from a closed bottle."

 

So many people have landed in problematic situations by failing to observe this rule. Ignore it at your own risk.

[BettyConfidential]

my neurotic insomnia,

 

After two years, you think we'd grow tired of each other. No. Never.

Thank you for the cute note. It was indeed one of the best.

10/10 will do it again.

Anything for my Norse god.

 

ILY, too.

 

 

your equally neurotic paranoia (see that, we were meant to be lol)

Edited September 9, 2012 by BettyConfidential

[JayZip]

k (as in kunoichi),

 

your "healing prowess" is next to none.

now I'm down to one.

 

please stop at zero.

more would be "un" incognito.

 

it doesnt matter anyway

I still got you either way

 

M

[ReDBaByBuRn]

gee...

 

not because i am back here i will be stupid and a bad girl again...

i'll prove you wrong...

because with or without mtc...

if a person chooses to be bad or not...

they will...

though this maybe a way...

but still...

that's why we have our own free will to decide and make our own decisions...

don't blame me for going back here...

nor don't be mad...

if you me being here would make you furious again...

then, you really are not giving me any chance to change and stand on my own...

 

burn

[Eddy Syet]

I have to stay away from you. It's for my own good. My self-esteem is at an all-time low right now. I don't want to lose it completely because of you.

[ADAM]

Torn paper birds

Drop from the sky

And carry my home away

The rooms in the walls

Climb out and fall

I hope they'll be okay