"Sailed not as a seaman, but as a traveler..."

"Sailed not as a seaman, but as a traveler..."- Sir Thomas More's Utopia

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Still alive and kicking.


Image: Rizal's words emblazoned on the walls of his former prison.

I just realized that I haven't posted anything in over a month. Here's a post to let y'all know that I'm still alive and kicking. I've just been very busy frying up fish heads and whatnot.

Here is another excerpt from a story I have been working on. It really is amazing to be in a country so full of inspiration. Sometimes my hand can't keep up with the ideas pouring out of my head. If you know anything about Philippine mythology, you might be able to pick out a few reinterpretations in this little excerpt. Enjoy!

The Apricot Farmer

Ruled completely by logic, Don Adarna considered his predicament quite closely. The only logical solution would be to swallow an apricot seed and become an apricot tree himself. Without much ceremony, he picked an apricot from a nearby tree and began to eat.

"I have collected much happiness and sadness in the course of my life," Don Adarna thought aloud. "If this is where my story ends, then this is where it must end."

Savoring the essence of the apricot, he particularly enjoyed the subtle but complete and permeating pleasantness of the apricot. He took the last morsel of the fruit's flesh clinging to the pit with a tinge of sadness. Sadness for the fruit because it had ended and not because the fruit's end might also somehow signify the end of his own flesh. Don Adarna understood that although all things must end, all things also continued in manners unseen and immeasurable.

Unlike the yielding flesh of the apricot, the pit drew its course down his throat like the anchor of a ship hastily thrown overboard for a desperately quick halt. The anchor dragged on until it caught the stone of Don Adarna's heart. Taking root in the coolness of the beating organ, the apricot pit began to pull sustenance from his very blood, slowly transforming bone and sinew into moist and fertile earth.

Completely conscious throughout his entire metamorphosis, Don Adarna wondered if the excruciating pain of change would ever end. He waited patiently for the strength of stillness. When the inertia of his evolution finally came to a halt, his leaves unfurled and out came forth a most delicate rustling, the sweetly sad song of melancholy humanity. He listened and he wept for reasons indescribable by words.

All things have their place. Even the most doubtful of minds and the coldest of hearts can give way to beautiful trees with branches hanging heavy with succulent fruit, bursting with understanding.

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