A hodge-podge of dreams, one even with a post-apocalyptic theme once again. And this time, it's as vivid as a movie on your TV screen.
~oOo~
I was back in Camella, where I was bullied from elementary to high school. But, here, instead of being bullied and being manipulated by the cool crowd, I was the one doing the bullying. It seems that the boys and the girls were separated into two class. In the girl's room, one of my close friends was bullied by James Pineda. So I went to the boys class with a bottle in my hand, and took a seat behind James. None of the other boys hindered me, they were scared of me. I taunted James, with Jeffrey Padilla beside him. I threatened him without actually saying threatening words.
When Ms. Joey came to hush the class, James and Jeffrey told on me. They kept on accusing me of bullying from behind Ms. Joey, I denied every accusation. Being good with words, I argued that I didn't say anything to threaten them, I argued that they just assumed all threats when I was just asking them how they were. Ms. Joey left me off easily. With a smug on my face, I left the classroom to return to mine.
~oOo~
We were told of an exciting experiment, with an unknown results. But being young and adventuristic, we wanted to know how it would feel to do the experiment first hand. So, with two of my close friends, did some crime, hurt the feelings of a beautiful young girl, and went straight to the basement of the school to do the experiment. The formulation of the bath was weird, it contains formaldehyde and an unknown liquid that our Science teacher gave to us. After making sure that we have followed our teacher's precise instructions on the consistency of the formula inside the earthen jar, I immersed myself. But, the other two boys suddenly pushed my head down as if to drown me. After a few seconds of struggling, I blacked out.
When I came to, the whole basement was a mess. Everything was scorched and scattered all over the floor. Even the earthen jar I came out of had scorches. I tried to control my dizziness and struggled to walked towards the light from the door. The bright light of the sun greeted me. There was no building above the basement anymore. Only ruins of walls. Across the door where I came out, there was a shanty that looked like a small ruined wooden sail boat, where a young girl was looking back at me. The face vaguely familiar, took me a few seconds to realize she was the girl we bullied before doing the experiment.
Then suddenly, people came out from the boat, one of which was my Science teacher. Rejoicing my return, they pulled me inside the boat and led me a community underground where they bathe me, and clothed me, and fed me. As the others danced and sang, the Science teacher explained to me that I have been out for quite sometime now.
~oOo~
My teacher brought me to a mall that connects to the underground community. People were staring at me, recognizing who I was. We ran across Homer and a girl I'm supposed to know. Homer was shocked. My teacher and I walked more, telling me just get whatever I need and he'll pay for it.
The girl who was with Homer ran to me with Ryan Toledo behind her. Her eyes were begging, and I didn't know what to do. Then she talked to Ryan, telling him that I was an old friend. Ryan looked at me, and said he doesn't know me, but he kept on talking about things I can't understand. I realized, Ryan, not only had lost his memories, he had already lost his mind. Feeling pity and guilt, I tried to make him remember things about me, relating to his fears. But, he realized I was lying, that I was tricking his brains into remembering me by associating my existence through other things he remembers.
Ryan ran off. The girl followed after him.
My Science teacher said, that Ryan wasn't the only one who became like that.
~oOo~
On an SUV, we travelled all the way to Las Pinas. They said I needed to go and meet somebody. The road we travelled on looked so strange in my eyes. The buildings and plots beside the road were unfamiliar. There was a resort being built, with water slides dumped on one spot waiting to be put together. I told them, this was not the Las Pinas I once knew. One of the girls, we were with, told me that the resort was the newest project of the man who gave their life again. The man, made sure everyone's scorched skin, were operated on. However, the Man, had been dictating what the country and its citizens would do. With me, the survivor of the catastrophe without having any help from the Man, they would be able to topple this restrictive government.
We stopped at a busy rows of karinderias, where cabs were lined up and their drivers having lunch. My Science teacher went up to one of the cab drivers and converesed a little. The walked back to the SUV together wary of their surroundings. My Science teacher opened the back of the car and left it open as he settled himself in the driver's seat. The science teacher gave me a bill and told me to hand it over to the cab driver subltely. The cab driver took something out of his cab's trunk and placed it inside our car. I shook hands with the cab driver, passing on the bill subtely. He closed the back and smiled at me as car drove on. I watched him grew little as we moved forward, and I watched him as he exploded and burned.
A riot suddenly started. Gunfires could be heard everywhere. The cars before us stopped moving. My Science teacher put the car in reverse trying to get away from the riot as fast as possible. I saw a man in front of the car aiming a sniper at us, and I watched him pull his trigger. Frozen in place by shock, I felt the bullet went past by my ear and lodge in cushion of the back of my seat. As the whizzing sound of the bullet passing beside my ear reverberated, I vaguely heard my Science teacher say to me, "you could have been dead if you weren't so God-damn lucky."
___________________________________________________
Bullying is a sign that I'm being too agressive in a part of my life. What part, I'm not sure. Maybe, I'm over-compensating for all the bullying I received when I was child, that now, I'm running with my false-bravado in full throttle.
As the earthen jar had protected me from the devastation in the apocalypse, it symbolizes my need to be protected like a baby in a womb from the fast approaching change in my life.
The girl in the boat is the other me. It only means I've finally learned how to be honest and express my true feelings. That, I know what to say now.
As much as people were staring at me in the mall, is just as much as I want my arrival to be celebrated. Same with the people rejoicing upon finding me.
The waterslides indicate that I'm letting this change guide me without objection or resistance. Probably because I'm done resisting it.
The taxi drivers eating may indicate that I'm being eaten by this change alive, despite not resisting this change.
The burning man seems to mean that I'm blinded by my own ambition, consumed by it. And that also represents the ambition I have burned a lot of people with. It's just a reminder that I can be consumed by this ambition even after the great change.
The bullet seems to be a warning, I will have to bite it and accept the difficulties that lie ahead.
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