Drunken Frenzy

It was Camellia School. The B clan were there, as young as they were when I had left them. The school also doubled as an apartment complex; like a dorm for all the students; like White House in ElBi. And just like it, at night, the whole complex partied.

I went around from room to room, and met some people. One of whom is JGL. He was studying amidst the exchange of alcohol.

I got a little drunk, and logic evaded me. I thought it would be faster to get to my apartment going around the complex. As drunk as I was, I mistook the fire exit staircase as the proper one.

Before I knew it, it was breaking dawn. One of the younger B girls was opening the school gates. She caught me climbing up and down the fire escape, obviously lost and confused. The drunkenness faded away when she started scolding me. She had someone escort me back to my quarters; and someone else to keep me in the apartment until she summons me. Slightly tipsy, I asked her to make JGL guard me. She shook her head as she went away.

-oOo-

Interp pending.

Anger Management

I have a lot of anger in my dreams. It probably manifest itself there as I repress it in real life.

-oOo-

1. LOST THINGS

In a gated community in Las Pinas City, I took a tricycle home as I made my way home. I had a choice between the red line or the blue line, and I chose the blue.

The driver was a girl and she was new, so she had with her a teacher of sorts. She brought me to the exit of the gated community, where the department store RFC stood.

I got off and asked how much it cost. She told me PhP 12.00. So I put down my bag, and took out my coin purse, but I couldn't understand the coins as they weren't the same coins when I left the Philippines. They actually had me confused between the 50-peso coin and the 5-peso. It took me a while to complete the 12-peso fair.

When I got back to my bag, the bag was open and my Blackberry, IPad and other important belongings were already swiped.

I got so angry that I screamed at everybody around me, incluing the tricycle driver. Violently swayed the bag trying to hit everybody in my way.

Then, I woke up.

-oOo-

2. BROTHERLY (UN)LOVE

I never abandoned my brothers. THEY ABANDONED ME.

So my brother, JC, was staying at the room next to mine. I closed my door and turned on the TV with the volume at mid range so as not to disturb neighbors.

JC barged into my room and grabbed the remote control from my hands. He tries to turn down the volume. He looked at me and smirked, then put the TV on mute. When that did not get any reaction, he turned off the TV and threw the remote to me.

In sudden rage, I went after him and started kicking and punching. Even in my lightest-girliest punch, I was giving it all.

I woke up in the middle of kicking and punching. I was heaving trying to catch my breath.

__________________________________________

I chose blue over red. Peace over agression. Optimism over Negativity. However, in the end, I still lost hold of my temper. Or maybe because I repress it all, that's why I lost my temper in my dream.

Losing important stuff only means -- still -- the anxiety over the change in my life. So am I angry that I'm thrown at this change without giving me any options at all? Or does it mean, I'm angry at losing all the opportunity I could have?

The fair means how much I have valued myself. It's not just 12 pesos as I'm willing to give 50 even. It's just that I think it's how much people are valuing me -- at least in my perspective.

As for my brother -- I guess, I feel like my brother is pushing my buttons when it comes to things I want to do. Or maybe, he's still ranting about it. And this angers me. Because he has always been the one who never supported me in my dreams. Really.

Hang up. Is all he'll ever be.

A Pulp Fiction of Dreams

I can only remember a few. Most of them, my waking memories were intact -- but. slightly affected. The setting were mostly in Las Pinas, where I grew up, specifically my Aunt's home town.

_______________________________________________

1.) Snake Bite and the end of the world

End of the world is nigh. We're just waiting for our end, hoping that we'll survive it, if not die in our sleep. We were told, our will be different for each person or couple.

Mine was snake bite on the back of my hand. I saw a guy -- supposedly my lover or husband -- got bitten by a snake. When i tried to touch him, a piercing pain clamped on my hands. I threw away the snake, it was big actually.

Together, hand-in-hand, we walked out of the safe house and into the street, looking at kids in the school, reminiscing our childhood and how we climbed up the mango tree, welcoming our death.

-oOo-

Simplified -- end of the world symbolizes my stress and my helplessness -- and, yet, I don't know how to ask for help. It's all this moving thing. (And probably missing the chance to get a Waku-Waku Arashi school sticker D:)

Being bitten by a snake is no different. It's still the worries and stress. It could also mean, someone's out to stab me in the back. But, right now, I don't care about that -- 'coz I'm leaving, and stabbing me in the back will not amount to anything.

_______________________________________________

2. Shooting with Clint Eastwood was over before I've even absorbed it. He told me to go take a shower, and afterwards I can leave.

But everytime I try to take a shower, one or more of the male staff comes in the bathroom, or stands by the window to watch me. I already had no top on, and was just covering myself with the shirt I took off.

I could not understand why they wouldn't let me have my momentary privacy in the shower.

-oOo-

My new role has been set for me, but I do not know how it'll go.

The shower was meant to be a renewal, but, I couldn't go on with this renewal because I'm bothered by the people -- probably the people I'm leaving behind.

_______________________________________________

By the time I'm writing this part, I've already forgotten the rest. I should never open any other browser tabs when I'm writing dreams. I'm so incorrigible.

A Fight in the School

The setting is school. High school -- once again, to be exact. Probably caused by reading up reports of Waku-Waku Arashi School, but, it could also mean something else entirely.

While most of the earlier parts of the dream have already started degrading from my memory as I type this, the last part was the funniest and most entertaining anyways.

-oOo-

It was raining hard. School was in progress.

Shun Oguri, a classmate, was teasing me with a few other guys. Then, a little boy from the Taekwondo club suddenly started sexist jokes that infuriated me. I was just slightly higher, but he had a heavier built. I dared him to take it on out, mano y mano.

So we went out in the rain, in the quadrangle, and started fighting. In my head, I had no chance of winning. I was nervous, but I had to do it because I called him out.

Everytime he tried to give me a flying kick, I would catch his legs and swing him around and threw him in the pond. It happened three times. The crowd was cheering under the rain. Shun was laughing at his tiny corner.

Then the fight was broken up by Nakai Masahiro, student council president. He pulled me to the faculty office. Goro Inagaki, student council secretary, was walking behind him shoo-ing the students and telling them to go back to their classrooms.

I asked Nakai, "Am I going to be suspended?" to which he responded, "What do you think?"

The teachers in the faculty office was not concerned with what was happening. We went past them and they just continued doing what they were doing. Nakai told Goro to go call MatsuJun. Matsumoto Jun, student council sergeant of arms, who should have been the one breaking up the fight.

When he came, he was with Ninomiya Kazunari, student council treasurer. They were followed by the school directress who said that the students were rooting for me because most of them were from Arashi faction, to which the treasurer and the sergeant of arms giggled to.

I was trying to cover my face with my hair in shame. I have never been suspended from school before. When I looked at MatsuJun, he gave me an approving smile and nod. It was like, he guarantees no suspension will happen.

While Nakai was droning off in the background about school rules and regulations, Goro was asking me about the fight and how I won it. He was super excited and every sentence, though not outrightly, meant that he's also on my side.

______________________________________________________

I'm assuming I didn't get the suspension.

I don't want to get the meaning of this one because, it's mostly full of lolz.

Before it lead to this dream, I was making out with some guy, I can't remember who it was. At first I thought it was Nino, but i can't be because he wouldn't have appeared as two different characters in my dream.

I wonder who it was I was making out. It felt so real. And he was so thin.

High School [Part 1]

I slept at around 4am. (+8GST). But at 7am, I woke up from a dream, not exactly a nightmare, however disturbing. Since it was too early for me, I slept a bit more trying to memorize the key symbols for that dream. I should have expected to get a second dream, equally as vivid and more disturbing. I could not remember how both dreams started. But, I can remember the smallest detail, including -- but not limited to -- the feelings inside the dream.

Today's dream is in divided into two entries.

As I'm writing this entry, I realized that both dreams have FIRE DRILLS as passive symbol. In both dreams, it was the inciting event.

-oOo-

Fire alarms blasted through the hallway as I climbed the stairs. Feet scuffled on the planks of the hard wood floors. As I reached the top of the stairs, students were already lining up to get out of the building. The crowd was lead of J.Lee, a pretty Chinese Filipina classmate in Camella School. She was one of the movers and shakers of the popular group. I was the social butterfly who didn't want to be affiliated.

But there seems to be some animosity between us brought about by a subtle competitive relationship. We were both in the student council. Struggling over power. Who should lead, whose projects should be approved, who has more followers, etc.

She was trying to get down the stairs, and I was in her way. So I clutched my skirt (school uniform's blue plaid) and stepped aside to give way to the horde of female students lead by J.Lee.

I, at least, respected her calmness and ability to lead the pack through the drill. I was wondering about the sudden fire alarms. I smell no smoke. I feel no heat. However, I see the teachers in a slight panic to get the students out of the building and into safety.

I see an old adviser, J.Abratique directing students what to do. As I pass by her she tells me to secure the safe contents. I went straight to where my classroom should be. By the window of the hall, across my classroom, three medium sized safes stood unaffected.

As part of my student council responsibility, I had to secure the treasures inside the safes. I had the key in my skirt pocket. I opened the safes and started to take all the watches inside of it for safety.

J.Pineda (another classmate from Camella School) squat beside me and whispered something. But I could not hear him because of all the noise that surrounded us. In my frustration, I gave him the car keys, thinking that as soon as I secure all the safe's content with me, he'll drive meto a safer place.

We hear a car security system open, I look at J.Pineda and he looks back at me innocently. J.Abratique approached me and tells me to lock the car as they heard it open, too. I tell J.Pineda to lock the car. He shows me the key I turned over to him does not have a car security remote. Only the key and the ring remains.

Then, J.Pineda clutches on to the key and jumps our of the window. Leaving a stunned J.Abratique and infuriated me behind. The watches was never their target. It was the car.

______________________________________________________

FIREDRILL, in real life, is a practice to stay alert even in the middle of a routine. Something needs my attention.

Old classmates -- I'm not sure if it's some things in the past that needs my attention, or I just need to see my old classmates.

Former teacher -- seeking advice for my impending new life. Yeah, makes sense. (surprisingly, she's now the guidance counselor of my old shcool)

Emptying a SAFE of WRIST WATCHES boggles me. I think I'm trying to keep a lot of activities to my own when I should be delegating. I should listen to Id (still has no name).

Losing the car-KEY may mean I'm losing confidence in myself or I'm not seeing the point. Or maybe, I've let go of an opportunity that may been brought me to places.

I'm starting to forget the second dream, so I have to write it quickly. Moving on now.

Another Post-Apocalyptic Dream

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.

2nd Chances

The rule was ... you may go back to the the time in which you want to re-live. But you will only relive the year and the feel --- at the age you are in, the fulfilments you've already acheive, the wisdom you've acquired along the years. In my sad mind, I took it on but not because I want to relive the time, but more to change it how I wanted it to be.

I chose to go back to my third year in High School.

I noticed that I had to look for a place near the school. A boarding house or a room for rent ... for my mom and me.

I enocuntered a few highschool classmates who were there for the same reason but different purpose ... people I never really liked as they bullied me just because I was weak when we were younger.

15 was the age I changed from the stone steps to the stone on the pedestal. I was always out of school to loitter in Diliman buildings; I was playing in one band and managing the other; I obsessed with Tekken and almost lived in SM Southmall; at night I'd be riding someone's car with the Eraserheads just to get in the hottest bistros and bars for free.

In my sad mind, it wasn't a thing to be grateful of.

Because of that --- the moment changed.

When I came across Bong, he was getting married to Jeni because she was already pregnant. We were 15, they weren't even supposed to hook up after the Karen months, after we were 16. They were supposed to marry at 21.

The bullies were slated for another year in High School. And then there was my mother who was having troubles letting me go with my father who was taking me with him for a better life.

Everything about me was a whole lot better. On the other hand, everyone else was suffering.

For everything I took, I had to pay for ... with someone else's blessing.

I want to be happy, but the guilt it carries made my sad mind sadder.