Two Minutes Past Midnight
TWO MINUTES past midnight: My eyes opened up in the cold dark room of my apartment. The air-conditioning has just dozed off on timer. I got up; my head up off my pillow. I was double-wrapped by my blanket and my bed’s sheets. What to do? I thought. I thought of sitting up by my writing desk. Perhaps I could write some stories. No, just some notes. Stories would be too ambitious at the moment. The exposed red brick wall behind my desk appears weirdly illuminated by the moonlight in my room. Or was it the light from the outside of my room that is still on? I sat up on my chair. It creaked a bit as it swiveled upon my weight. What to do? I thought. What to write then? I thought. A few pages of blank paper lie on top of my desk. Plus some smaller pieces of ones that I use as papers for reminders to pin on my corkboard that rested at an angle between the desk and the window pane. It fell off the wall a few days ago and I had not had the time to mount it back again. I had to buy yet another roll of mounting tape from the bookstore. What to write? I thought. To change the world, what do I do? I started to think. I shall build a new civilization. Rebuild, or build a new one. Three issues of Esquire Philippines and some magazines of the past three months are still piled up on my desk. Them stacked is not proper to describe. One, a black and white cover of a man in a suit with a sour expression, mouth wide open, on his meta-wrinkled face. From the very bottom of the magazine pile, I noticed and pulled out my favorite issue. Its cover is an undressed woman wrapped lazily in white sheets, sitting on an artist’s stool, as if the object of an intimate human painting art class. She is beautiful to look at. I realized I have to yet store and stack them in order with the rest of the others in the cabinet. I can’t wait to buy and read the latest issue this new month. Now, who lives in this new civilization of mine? I continued thinking. New men. A changed men of the past civilization either, or a new breed of men. The room was getting warmer and I got a little sweaty from the inside of my skin. I thought. It is weird how suddenly I can hear every bit of sound that vibrates around me: the strokes my pen does on the paper I’m writing on; the sticky sound the side of my right palm is making atop my desk every time I raise it to start writing a new word; the rush of trucks outside my window, down there on the avenue; they sound like a revolution; the blurry voices of my neighbors next door, they’re still awake at this hour; their talking about something; the tick and tock of the clock; they dropped a mug and it broke; now they just switched off their light; I did not see it coz I can’t see it but I heard it; the crickets, I can hear them – there are cricket sounds in the city, I can’t believe it!
What do crickets look like? I wondered. Jiminy Cricket. They popped a big short laugh next door. All these sounds suddenly. While in bed a few minutes back and the air-conditioning still on, I can hear only it, roaring. Now that the conditioning’s off and its timer lapsed, I can hear them so many, I can hear them so little sounds, I can hear past through walls and past through distance. I can hear them all. What to write? I thought again. I want to see a beautiful face. That’s it. I want to see the most beautiful face that I would ever see in the world. I have yet to see this face. Where can this face be found? I asked. Shall I ever see this face? I asked. When? I asked. But what does this face look like? I recalled a lot of faces that I have seen so far. I won’t dare deny that I’ve indeed seen a lot of beautiful faces already. One of the very remarkable of them, I’d say, is the face of my mother – with all the little brown blots that I could regard as freckles, only but sporadically scattered over her face’s area. Also! Her face when she was still virgin and young, from the old photo of her that I had dug among my grandparent’s paper memorabilia of past life and time. Very remarkable. Another is the face of my grade school love. Was it love? Do I call it love? The face that most of my dreams in grade school were about. That face. That face that has stuck in my memory just like a tattoo. It, too, is as very remarkable and memorable. But deep inside, deep inside me, I know neither among them is the most beautiful face. Deep inside, I’m sure that I have yet to see this most beautiful face, and my eyes shall bear witness to its flames, to its warmth. Shall I be blinded upon sight of it as though looking straight at the sun, I’d still dare. I’d still… Still dark, I woke up for the morning is rising. What to do? I thought.