Flip Gothic

FLIP GOTHIC by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard Dear Mama, Thank you for agreeing to have Mindy. Jun and I just don’t know what to do with her. I’m afraid if we don’t intervene, matters will get worse. Mia, her Japanese American friend, had to be sent to a drug rehab place. You’d met her when you were here; she’s the tiny girl who got into piercing; she had a nose ring, a belly ring -and something in her tongue. Her parents are distraught; they don’t know what they’ve done, if they’re to blame for Mia’s problem. I talked to Mia’s Mom yesterday and Mia’s doing all right; she’s writing angry poetry but is getting over the drug thing, thank God. There’s so much anger in these kids, I can’t figure it out. They have everything - all the toys, clothes, computer games and whatever else they’ve wanted. I didn’t have half the things these kids have; and Jun and I had to start from scratch in this country - you know that. That studio we had near the hospital was really tiny and I had to do secretarial work while Jun completed his residency. Everything we own - this house, our cars, our vacation house in Connecticut - we’ve had to slave for. I don’t understand it; these kids have everything served to them in a silver platter and they’re angry.

We’re sure Mindy’s not into drugs - she may have tried marijuana, but not the really bad stuff. We’re worried though that she might eventually experiment with that sort of thing. If she continues running around with these kids, it’s bound to happen. What made us decide to send her there was this business of not going to school. Despite everything, Mindy had always been a good student, but this school year, things went haywire. This was what alerted us, actually, when the principal told us she hadn’t been to school for two weeks. We thought the worst but it turned out she and her friends had been hanging out at Barnes and Noble. It’s just a bookstore; it’s not a bad place, but obviously she should have gone to school. We had to do something. Sending her to the Philippines was all I could think of. She’ll be arriving Ubec on Wednesday, 10:45 a.m. on PAL Flight 101. Ma, don’t be shocked, but her hair is purple. Jun has been trying to convince her to dye her hair black, for your sake at least, but Mindy doesn’t even listen. Jun has had a particularly difficult time dealing with the situation. It’s not easy for him to watch his daughter "go down the drain," as he calls it. He feels he has failed not only as a father but as a doctor. It’s true that it’s become impossible to reason with Mindy, but I’ve told him to let the hair go, to pick his battles so to speak. But he gets terribly frustrated. He can’t stand the purple hair; he can’t stand the black lipstick - yes, she uses black lipstick and the black clothes and boots and metal. I’ve explained to him that it’s just a fad. Gothic, they call it. I personally think it looks dreadful. I can’t stand the spikes around her neck; but there are more important things, like school or her health. She’s just gotten over not-eating. That was another thing her friends got into - not eating. Why eat dead cows, Mindy would say. She was into tofu and other strange looking things. For months, she wasn’t eating and had gotten very thin, we finally had to bring her to a doctor (very humbling for Jun). The doctor suggested a therapist. One hundred seventy-five dollars an hour. She had several sessions then Mindy got bored and started eating once again. She’s back to her usual weight, but well, the hair and clothing might scare you, so I’m writing ahead of time to prepare you. Thanks once again Ma, for everything, and I hope and pray that she doesn’t give you the kind of trouble she’s been giving us.

Your daughter, Nelia * Dear Nelia, She had blue hair, not purple. Arminda explained that she had gone out with her friends and found blue dye - obviously you were unaware of this. She brought several boxes of the dye, including bottles of peroxide. Can you just imagine--peroxide-what if the bottles broke in her suitcase? Apparently, she has to remove color from her hair before dying it blue. The whole process sounds terribly violent on the hair, but I didn’t say anything; I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot. Arminda arrived an hour late -- PAL, you know how that airline is. She was not wearing boots; she had left them in New York, she explained, and was wearing white platform shoes instead. It’s an understatement to say that operations at Ubec Airport came to a halt when people caught sight of her. People around here like to say Ubec is now so cosmopolitan, with our fivestar hotels, our discos and our share of Japanese tourists, but it will always retain its provincial qualities. When I saw Arminda - blue hair, black clothes, sling bag, platform shoes - I was not sure Ubec is ready for Arminda. I had to remind myself that I survived World War Two and therefore will survive Arminda. Indeed she is rebellious. It does no good to tell her what to do; in fact she goes out of her way to do exactly the opposite of what you say. I have placed her in your old room and have stopped entering the room because the disorder is too much for me to take. Clothes all over the bed and dresser chair, and scattered all over the floor as well. One cannot walk a straight line in that room. There was also the business of blue dye all over the bathroom. The maid Ising spent one whole afternoon scrubbing the tiles with muriatic acid to remove the stains. Her language is foul, her behaviour appalling. I will not pretend that it’s been easy having Arminda here. I try to give her a lot of leeway because she is just fifteen and doesn’t know any better, but having her here has been purgatory. Frankly, Nelia, I blame you and Jun for all this. If she had been trained properly, if she had been taught right or wrong from the beginning, she would not be this incorrigible brat. Forgive me, but I don’t know what else to call this willful, mouthy, and arrogant child. I have repeatedly called your attention: I have warned you that that child will bring you to your knees if you don’t discipline her. But all I heard from you and Jun was: Ma, don’t be old-fashioned; this is the American way. Here now is the result of your American experiment. My words have proved prophetic, have they not? There is some poetic justice in all this: your daughter has finally shown you the pain parents endure, as I have endured on account of you. I am still trying to figure out why you left for America when you had a good life here. You parroted all the cliches about America-freedom, equality, human rights, opportunities--well, obviously you have learned that cliches are just that. I am not enjoying rubbing it in and pray she can still be saved. And I also pray that you and Jun can alter your ways. You two have become too American for your own good. This has contributed to the problem. You have spoiled her. You yourself admit you have given her everything. Every material thing perhaps, but not a good sense of herself. It is clear this child is terribly insecure, that she does not like herself. Coloring her hair, this outrageous get-up - she is simply hiding behind all these. Another thing, you do not even keep an altar in your home; and even though you go to church when I visit you in New York, I am well aware that you do not always go to Mass on Sundays. Despite all your wealth your family does not have a solid foundation, so there you are. But let us drop the matter for the moment. After all, you and Jun are paying for your mistakes, and I can only hope that it is not too late. Let me resume my report on Arminda.

Arminda has been so disagreeable, the kids of Ricardo dislike her intensely. I had hoped they would all get along and that therefore Arminda could spend time with her cousins. I am old, and my interests and hers are very different. Miriam and Oscar are close to her in age. Unfortunately things didn’t work out. In her New York accent Arminda called her cousins backward and ignorant, and therefore they boycotted her. She has only me and the servants who barely speak English. She does not really talk to me but does extend standard cordialities: good morning, Lola, good evening, Lola, at least you have taught her that much. She is restless; she does not know what to do with herself. She roams around the house and yard. She likes helping the gardener build bonfires in the afternoon; of course her playing with fire makes me nervous so we keep a close eye on her. There is just no telling what will enter her mind. In the evening, she watches television. She is constantly flipping the channels, from Marimar to CNN, my head spins when I watch TV with her. The maids say she reads and writes when she is in her bedroom. I have suggested that she write you and Jun but she says she will never talk nor write to you. Obviously, she cannot hang around here forever. I’ve visited schools around here so she can go to school soon. She will not do at St. Catherine’s. The nuns there are as strict today as they had been half a century ago. Ricardo suggests enrolling her in American School. Your brother says American School is more liberal, less traditional; perhaps Arminda will not be so different there. Oh, another thing, she insists on being called Arminda, not Mindy. She said she has always hated that name; that it reminds her of some dumb television show "Mork and Mindy." I will let you know how her schooling goes. Love and kisses, Mama * Dear Nelia, Arminda is not in school. I had enrolled her at American School, but the night before she was supposed to go school, she shaved off her head -- the whole thing except for the blue bangs. Even the liberal Americans will not have her. She hated school in New York and will never go to school again, she insists. I was very angry but have decided not to force her. At any rate, there is no school in Ubec that will take her. The Christmas holidays are almost here, then there’s the Sinulog festival; nothing much will be happening in school any way. I have told her that she must spend a few hours reading in our library; your father had many history books and there’s the entire collection of the Encyclopedia Brittanica besides. For once she agreed to something. Frankly I feel she is unhappy about having shaved her head. She has been wearing that black fedora hat of hers with the veil in front. When she is not in the library, she sulks in her bedroom. I have raised six children and have eleven grandchildren; I know better than to give her attention. Mama P.S. I forgot to mention that it had entered her head to dye the hair of my Santo Nino. Since you were an infant, that poor statue has been standing at the landing of our stairs, unmolested; we offer it flowers, we light candles in front of it; we take it out for the Sinolug parade; the artist Policarpio Lozada carved it from hard yakal wood, which is now impossible to find, and here your daughter comes along and colors its hair bright blue. It looks ridiculous, Nelia--the Child Jesus in red robes with blue hair. When she saw how upset I was, she offered to dye the hair black, but I told her to leave it

that way as a reminder to all of what she has done. I am saying the novena to the Santo Nino, patron of lost causes, for your daughter. * Dear Nelia, I don’t know if the Santo Nino had something to do with it, but she has discovered the animals. I have three pigs, one enormous black female and two small males that I’ve earmarked for Christmas lechon. She releases the small ones from their pen in the morning and chases them around. Sometimes I catch her talking to them. The runt, the pink one with freckles down his back, cocks his head to one side and stares at Arminda, as if he is listening. She gets the water hose and hoses them down. The piglets root about and roll around the mud near the water tank, then afterwards, they march back to their pen. She also plays with my two hens. Abraham had given these to me several months ago, but one day, they started laying eggs and I could not kill them. The chickens run around scot-free and they never learned to lay eggs in a regular place. I’d tried to make nests for them near the garage, but they prefer the many nooks and crannies around the yard. Arminda hunts for the eggs daily. She says the hen that lays brown eggs favors the place under the star apple tree, whereas the hen that lays white eggs lays under the grapefruit tree. She asked the cook to teach her how to prepare the eggs properly so Arminda now knows how to fry eggs, scramble them and make omelettes. This morning, she made me a cheese omelette and she arranged it on the plate with parsley garnish to make it look pretty. She was quite delighted at her creation. She is really still just a child. I cannot help wondering if your lifestyle there has forced her to grow up too quickly. Your way of life is horrible; when I am there my blood pressure rises from all that hurly-burly. Life does not have to be such a rat race. One ought to "smell the flowers" - as your kitchen poster says. Love and kisses, Mama * Dear Nelia, We did not have lechon for Christmas. I had seen it coming. Christmas Eve, when the man I contracted to slaughter and roast the pigs arrived, Arminda begged me not to have the pigs killed. She was in tears. She said she would grow out her hair once again; she promised to behave - anything to save the pigs. Like Solomon I weighed the matter: Christmas meal versus the pigs. I could see that the pigs meant a lot to her, that in fact, the pigs are partly responsible for her more mellow behaviour. In the end I decided to save the pigs. For the first time since her arrival, Arminda kissed me on the cheeks. She was actually charming to her cousins. We joined them for midnight Mass at Redemptorist church, then later we gathered at home for the Noche Buena meal. Even without the lechon, there was plenty of food. It’s always that way every year, even when you were small, too many rellenos and embotidos; and Ricardo always makes his turkey with that wonderful stuffing. The desserts are another whole story: sans rival, tocino del cielo, meringue, mango chiffon cake, maja blanca, all the way to the humble saba bananas rolled in white sugar. I don’t know if it was a joke but Miriam and Oscar gave her a black wig. Arminda removed her hat, tried on the wig and kept it on the whole night. I was surprised to see that she looks a lot like you. Arminda gave everyone poems written in calligraphy on parchment paper. I do not know what mine means but it says: I fled from you

A world away I turn and Find you All around me. As usual, she wore black, but this time it was a dress sewn by Vering. It had a nice flowing skirt, and instead of a zipper, the dress had black ribbons that criss-crossed and tied into a ribbon. She wore black net stockings and black chunky shoes. She continues to wear black lipstick but we have become used to it. Actually we have become used to Arminda and her drama; and I believe she is getting used to us. I hope your Christmas has been as lovely as ours. Love and kisses, Mama * Dear Nelia, Arminda wanted to know more about the Sinulog festival. People are getting ready for the Sinulog and the Christmas decorations have given way to the banners with the image of the Child Jesus. I explained that even before Christian days, Ubecans have always celebrated during harvest time. When Christianity was introduced, the statue of the Child Jesus, called the Santo Nino, became the focal point of the festivities. People dance to honor the Child Jesus. In parades, people dance to the beat of drums. Some people blacken their faces and they wear costumes and dance through the streets of Ubec. People do get drunk and it can get wild sometimes, so one must know where to go; I told her this because I could see her eyes sparkling with interest. We visited the Child Jesus at the Santo Nino Church. I could not help myself - I pointed out to her that this original statue does not have blue hair. Embarrassed, she looked down at her shoes and mumbled that she had offered to dye my statue’s hair black. I explained that if we dye the statue’s hair from blue to black to God-knows-what-other-color, it will lose all its hair. She apologized once again for having touched my statue. She said this sincerely and I decided to let the matter go. I related stories instead about the Santo Nino: how the Child roams the streets at night; how the Child gives gifts of food to His friends. And I told Arminda of how you were born with beriberi and how I danced to the Child Jesus so that you would be saved. The last item fascinated her. "What is beri-beri, Lola?" she asked. "A disease caused by a lack of Vitamin B," I said. "What happened to my Mom?" "She was born near the tail-end of the war, and I had not eat properly when I carried her. Your mother had edema and nervous disorder. Her eyes were rolled up; she was dying." "I didn’t know my Mom almost died." "I prayed to the Santo Nino for her life." "She never told me she was sick when she was a baby." "Perhaps she did and you didn’t listen." She furrowed her brows and thought for a while before asking, "How did you pray?" "I danced my prayer." "Show me," Arminda said. And so outside the Santo Nino Church, we held candles in our

hands and we shuffled our dance to the Child Jesus. It was mid-day and quite hot and sweat rolled down our faces as we swayed to the right, then to the left. People gathered to watch us. I am usually shy about this matters, but this time I did not mind. Both of us were laughing when we finished. She also wanted to see the old Spanish fort, so we drove to Fort San Pedro and later we stopped by the kiosk with Ferdinand Magellan’s cross. This got her interested and she scoured the library for information on Philippine history. She was pumping me full of questions; then this morning, she expressed interest in going back to school. After the Sinulog, I will meet with the principal of the American School. I think, Nelia, that Arminda’s problem has been basically a question of identity. I know Jun has talked to Arminda, telling her she has Filipino blood but that she’s an American citizen. I am not sure that is enough for that child. At the hospital where he works, Jun is treated like a god; he is a doctor and is not subjected to the "looks" and the questions: where do you come from? Or worse - what are you? He doesn’t feel the discrimination, not as much as Arminda may, in your American world. These past months, she has immersed herself in our world granted it is not her world because one day she will return to America - but in the meantime, she has a better understanding of what it means to be Filipino. It is important for one to know where one comes from, in order to know where one is headed. Love and kisses, Mama * Dear Mom and Dad, I need six packages of blue dye and three bottles of peroxide. If you call Mia, she can tell you where to buy them. Tell Mia, I’m glad she’s well and that I wish she were here with me. She’d like this place; it’s cool. Tito Ric has brought us to the beaches here, and he’s promised to take us to the rice terraces this summer. He said the place is very old, and there are mummies there, and there are fireflies at night. He also said some of the people there, especially the older ones, have tattoos on their bodies. (He’s already told me I can’t have a tattoo, so you don’t have to worry.) I can’t wait for the summer. Last week we had the Sinulog. It wasn’t as fancy as the Rose Parade nor the Mardi Gras, but there were numerous parades all over the city. Day and night for a week you could hear the drums beating. People from other towns came to the city and many of them slept along the sidewalks. The city was crammed with people, celebrating and eating and dancing. I went around with Miriam and Oscar. They were such dorks before, but they’re not that bad any more. For the main parade, we wore costumes - Lola lent Miriam and me some of her old sayas;Oscar blackened his face and wore a huge feathered hat. The three of us had blue hair. People stopped us in the streets to ask about our hair. They fingered our hair and wondered how we turned it blue. We just laughed. We did not tell them we used dye from New York. It was like a secret - our secret. But I’ve ran out and need more. Be sure and send it; but don’t rush because the school does not allow blue hair. I’ll have to wait until summer vacation before I can dye my hair blue again.

Love, Arminda

"The Story of An Hour"

Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

Kate Chopin (1894) Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! "Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door." "Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

presents something like a frozen dream. There will be time enough to trace out the analogy, while waiting the summons to breakfast. Seen through the clear portion of the glass, where the silvery mountain peaks of the frost scenery do not ascend, the most conspicuous object is the steeple; the white spire of which directs you to the wintry lustre of the firmament. You may almost distinguish the figures on the clock that has just told the hour. Such a frosty sky, and the snow covered roofs, and the long vista of the frozen street, all white, and the distant water hardened into rock, might make you shiver, even under four blankets and a woolen comforter. Yet look at that one glorious star! Its beams are distinguishable from all the rest, and actually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed, with a radiance of deeper hue than moonlight, though not so accurate an outline.

The Haunted Mind WHAT a singular moment is the first one, when you have hardly begun to recollect yourself, after starting from midnight slumber! By unclosing your eyes so suddenly, you seem to have surprised the personages of your dream in full convocation round your bed, and catch one broad glance at them before they can flit into obscurity. Or, to vary the metaphor, you find yourself, for a single instant, wide awake in that realm of illusions, whither sleep has been the passport, and behold its ghostly inhabitants and wondrous scenery, with a perception of their strangeness, such as you never attain while the dream is undisturbed. The distant sound of a church clock is borne faintly on the wind. You question with yourself, half seriously, whether it has stolen to your waking ear from some gray tower, that stood within the precincts of your dream. While yet in suspense, another clock flings its heavy clang over the slumbering town, with so full and distinct a sound, and such a long murmur in the neighboring air, that you are certain it must proceed from the steeple at the nearest corner. You count the strokes--one--two--and there they cease, with a booming sound, like the gathering of a third stroke within the bell. If you could choose an hour of wakefulness out of the whole night, it would be this. Since your sober bedtime, at eleven, you have had rest enough to take off the pressure of yesterday's fatigue; while before you, till the sun comes from 'far Cathay' to brighten your window, there is almost the space of a summer night; one hour to be spent in thought, with the mind's eye half shut, and two in pleasant dreams, and two in that strangest of enjoyments, the forgetfulness alike of joy and woe. The moment of rising belongs to another period of time, and appears so distant, that the plunge out of a warm bed into the frosty air cannot yet be anticipated with dismay. Yesterday has already vanished among the shadows of the past; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. You have found an intermediate space, where the business of life does not intrude; where the passing moment lingers, and becomes truly the present; a spot where Father Time, when he thinks nobody is watching him, sits down by the way side to take breath. Oh, that he would fall asleep, and let mortals live on without growing older! Hitherto you have lain perfectly still, because the slightest motion would dissipate the fragments of your slumber. Now, being irrevocably awake, you peep through the half drawn window curtain, and observe that the glass is ornamented with fanciful devices in frost work, and that each pane

You sink down and muffle your head in the clothes, shivering all the while, but less from bodily chill, than the bare idea of a polar atmosphere. It is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad. You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth, such as you now feel again. Ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in its train. You think how the dead are Iying in their cold shrouds and narrow coffins, through the drear winter of the grave, and cannot persuade your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver, when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks, and the bitter blast howls against the door of the tomb. That gloomy thought will collect a gloomy multitude, and throw its complexion over your wakeful hour. In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your griefs may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain. It is too late! A funeral train comes gliding by your bed, in which Passion and Feeling assume bodily shape, and things of the mind become dim spectres to the eye. There is your earliest Sorrow, a pale young mourner, wearing a sister's likeness to first love, sadly beautiful, with a hallowed sweetness in her melancholy features, and grace in the flow of her sable robe. Next appears a shade of ruined loveliness, with dust among her golden hair, and her bright garments all faded and defaced, stealing from your glance with drooping head, as fearful of reproach; she was your fondest Hope, but a delusive one; so call her Disappointment now. A sterner form succeeds, with a brow of wrinkles, a look and gesture of iron authority; there is no name for him unless it be Fatality, an emblem of the evil influence that rules your fortunes; a demon to whom you subjected yourself by some error at the outset of life, and were bound his slave forever, by once obeying llim. See! those fiendish lineaments graven on the darkness, the writhed lip of scorn, the mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger, touching the sore place in your heart! Do you remember any act of enormous folly, at which you would blush, even in the remotest cavern of the earth? Then recognize your Shame. Pass, wretched band! Well for the wakeful one, if, riotously miserable, a fiercer tribe do not surround him, the devils of a guilty heart, that holds its hell within itself. What if Remorse

should assume the features of an injured friend? What if the fiend should come in woman's garments, with a pale beauty amid sin and desolation, and lie down by your side? What if he should stand at your bed's foot, in the likeness of a corpse, with a bloody stain upon the shroud? Sufficient without such guilt, is this nightmare of the soul; this heavy, heavy sinking of the spirits; this wintry gloom about the heart; this indistinct horror of the mind, blending itself with the darkness of the chamber. By a desperate effort, you start upright, breaking from a sort of conscious sleep, and gazing wildly round the bed, as if the fiends were any where but in your haunted mind. At the same moment, the slumbering embers on the hearth send forth a gleam which palely illuminates the whole outer room, and flickers through the door of the bed-chamber, but cannot quite dispel its obscurity. Your eye searches for whatever may remind you of the living world. With eager minuteness, you take note of the table near the fire-place, the book with an ivory knife between its leaves, the unfolded letter, the hat and the fallen glove. Soon the flame vanishes, and with it the whole scene is gone, though its image remains an instant in your mind's eye, when darkness has swallowed the reality. Throughout the chamber, there is the same obscurity as before, but not the same gloom within your breast. As your head falls back upon the pillow, you think--in a whisper be it spoken--how pleasant in these night solitudes, would be the rise and fall of a softer breathing than your own, the slight pressure of a tenderer bosom, the quiet throb of a purer heart, imparting its peacefulness to your troubled one, as if the fond sleeper were involving you in her dream. Her influence is over you, though she have no existence but in that momentary image. You sink down in a flowery spot, on the borders of sleep and wakefulness, while your thoughts rise before you in pictures, all disconnected, yet all assimilated by a pervading gladsomeness and beauty. The wheeling of gorgeous squadrons, that glitter in tile sun, is succeeded by the merriment of children round the door of a school-house, beneath the glimmering shadow of old trees, at the corner of a rustic lane. You stand in the sunny rain of a summer sllower, and wander among the sunny trees of an autumnal wood, and look upward at the brightest of all rainbows, over-arching the unbroken sheet of snow, on the American side of Niagara. Your mind struggles pleasantly between the dancing radiance round the hearth of a young man and his recent bride, and tile twittering flight of birds in spring, about their new-made nest. You feel the merry bounding of a ship before the breeze; and watch the tuneful feet of rosy girls, as they twine their last and merriest dance, in a splendid ball room; and find yourself in the brilliant circle of a crowded theatre, as the curtain falls over a light and airy scene. With an involuntary start, you seize hold on consciousness, and prove yourself but half awake, by running a doubtful parallel between human life and the hour which has now elapsed. In both you emerge from mystery, pass through a vicissitude that you can but imperfectly control, and are borne onward to another mystery. Now comes the peal of the distant clock, with fainter and fainter strokes as you plunge farther into the wilderness of sleep. It is the knell of a temporary death. Your spirit has departed, and strays like a free citizen, among the people of a shadowy world, beholding strange sights, yet without wonder or dismay. So calm, perhaps, will be the final change; so undisturbed, as if among familiar things, the entrance of the soul to its Eternal home!

What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example,'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

WHERE'S THE PATIS? By Carmen Guerrero Nakpil Travel has become the great Filipino dream. In the same way that an American dreams of becoming a millionaire or an English boy dreams of going to one of the great universities, the Filipino dreams of going abroad. His most constant vision is that of himself as tourist. To visit Hongkong, Tokyo and other cities of Asia, perchance, to catch a glimpse of Rome, Paris or London and to go to America (even if only for a week in a flyspecked motel in California) is the sum of all delights. Yet having left the Manila International Airport in a pink cloud of despedidas and sampaguita garlands and pabilin, the dream turns into a nightmare very quickly. But why? Because the first bastion of the Filipino spirit is the palate. And in all the palaces and fleshpots and skyscrapers of that magic world called "abroad" there is no patis to be had. Consider the Pinoy abroad. He has discarded barong tagalong or "polo" for a sleek, dark Western suit. He takes to the habiliments from Hongkong, Brooks Brothers or Savile Row with the greatest of ease. He has also shed the casual informality of manner that is characteristically Filipino. He gives himself the airs of a cosmopolite to the credit-card born. He is extravagantly courteous (specially in a borrowed language) and has taken to hand-kissing and to plenty of American "D'you minds?" He hardly misses the heat, the native accents of Tagalog or Ilongo or the company of his brown-skinned cheerful compatriots. He takes, like a duck to water, to the skyscrapers, the temperate climate, the strange landscape and the fabled refinements of another world. How nice, after all, to be away from good old R.P. for a change! But as he sits down to meal, no matter how sumptuous, his heart sinks. His stomach juices, he discovers, are much less neither as apahap nor lapulapu. Tournedos is meat done in a barbarian way, thick and barely cooked with red juices still oozing out. The safest choice is a steak. If the Pinoy can get it well done enough and sliced thinly enough, it might remind him of tapa. If the waiter only knew enough about Philippine cuisine, he might suggest venison which is really something like tapang usa, or escargots which the unstylish poor on Philippine beaches know as snails. Or even frog legs which are a Pampango delight. But this is the crux of the problem  where is the rice? A sliver tray offers varieties of bread: slices of crusty French bread, soft yellow rolls, rye bread, crescents studded with sesame seeds. There are also potatoes in every conceivable manner, fried, mashed, boiled, buttered. But no rice. The Pinoy learns that rice is considered a vegetable in Europe and America. The staff of life a vegetable! And when it comes  a special order which takes at least half an hour  the grains are large, oval and foreign-looking and what's more, yellow with butter. And oh horrors! - one must shove it with a fork or pile it with one's knife on the back of another fork. After a few days of these debacles, the Pinoy, sick with longing, decides to comb the strange city for a Chinese restaurant, the closest thing to the beloved gastronomic county. There, in the company of other Asian exiles, he will put his nose finally in a bowl of rice

and find it more fragrant than an English rose garden, more exciting than a castle on the Rhine and more delicious than pink champagne. To go with the rice there is siopao (not so rich as at Salazar) pancit guisado reeking with garlic (but never so good as any that can be had on the sidewalks of Quiapo) fried lumpia with the incorrect sauce, and even mami (but nothing like the down-town wanton) Better than a Chinese restaurant is the kitchen of a kababayan. When in a foreign city, a Pinoy searches every busy sidewalk, theatre, restaurant for the wellremembered golden features of a fellow-pinoy. But make it no mistake.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare Summary On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn.

Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages. A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety, orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once. Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there. He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s plan for Hamlet includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death. In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark

after pirates attacked his ship en route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity of Elsinore just as Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and declares that he had in fact always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio that he believes one must be prepared to die, since death can come at any moment. A foolish courtier named Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to arrange the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. The sword-fighting begins. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by the poison. Laertes succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own sword’s blade, and, after revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies from the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies, and Hamlet dies immediately after achieving his revenge. At this moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to Denmark and attacked Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from England, who report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is stunned by the gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying sprawled on the floor dead. He moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last request, tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried away in a manner befitting a fallen soldier.

TWELFTH NIGHT William Shakespeare

happily follows its commands. He behaves so strangely that Olivia comes to think that he is mad.

←Plot Overview→ In the kingdom of Illyria, a nobleman named Orsino lies around listening to music, pining away for the love of Lady Olivia. He cannot have her because she is in mourning for her dead brother and refuses to entertain any proposals of marriage. Meanwhile, off the coast, a storm has caused a terrible shipwreck. A young, aristocratic-born woman named Viola is swept onto the Illyrian shore. Finding herself alone in a strange land, she assumes that her twin brother, Sebastian, has been drowned in the wreck, and tries to figure out what sort of work she can do. A friendly sea captain tells her about Orsino’s courtship of Olivia, and Viola says that she wishes she could go to work in Olivia’s home. But since Lady Olivia refuses to talk with any strangers, Viola decides that she cannot look for work with her. Instead, she decides to disguise herself as a man, taking on the name of Cesario, and goes to work in the household of Duke Orsino.

Meanwhile, Sebastian, who is still alive after all but believes his sister Viola to be dead, arrives in Illyria along with his friend and protector, Antonio. Antonio has cared for Sebastian since the shipwreck and is passionately (and perhaps sexually) attached to the young man—so much so that he follows him to Orsino’s domain, in spite of the fact that he and Orsino are old enemies.

Viola (disguised as Cesario) quickly becomes a favorite of Orsino, who makes Cesario his page. Viola finds herself falling in love with Orsino—a difficult love to pursue, as Orsino believes her to be a man. But when Orsino sends Cesario to deliver Orsino’s love messages to the disdainful Olivia, Olivia herself falls for the beautiful young Cesario, believing her to be a man. The love triangle is complete: Viola loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia, and Olivia loves Cesario—and everyone is miserable. Meanwhile, we meet the other members of Olivia’s household: her rowdy drunkard of an uncle, Sir Toby; his foolish friend, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who is trying in his hopeless way to court Olivia; Olivia’s witty and pretty waiting-gentlewoman, Maria; Feste, the clever clown of the house; and Malvolio, the dour, prudish steward of Olivia’s household. When Sir Toby and the others take offense at Malvolio’s constant efforts to spoil their fun, Maria engineers a practical joke to make Malvolio think that Olivia is in love with him. She forges a letter, supposedly from Olivia, addressed to her beloved (whose name is signified by the letters M.O.A.I.), telling him that if he wants to earn her favor, he should dress in yellow stockings and crossed garters, act haughtily, smile constantly, and refuse to explain himself to anyone. Malvolio finds the letter, assumes that it is addressed to him, and, filled with dreams of marrying Olivia and becoming noble himself,

Sir Andrew, observing Olivia’s attraction to Cesario (still Viola in disguise), challenges Cesario to a duel. Sir Toby, who sees the prospective duel as entertaining fun, eggs Sir Andrew on. However, when Sebastian— who looks just like the disguised Viola—appears on the scene, Sir Andrew and Sir Toby end up coming to blows with Sebastian, thinking that he is Cesario. Olivia enters amid the confusion. Encountering Sebastian and thinking that he is Cesario, she asks him to marry her. He is baffled, since he has never seen her before. He sees, however, that she is wealthy and beautiful, and he is therefore more than willing to go along with her. Meanwhile, Antonio has been arrested by Orsino’s officers and now begs Cesario for help, mistaking him for Sebastian. Viola denies knowing Antonio, and Antonio is dragged off, crying out that Sebastian has betrayed him. Suddenly, Viola has newfound hope that her brother may be alive. Malvolio’s supposed madness has allowed the gleeful Maria, Toby, and the rest to lock Malvolio into a small, dark room for his treatment, and they torment him at will. Feste dresses up as "Sir Topas," a priest, and pretends to examine Malvolio, declaring him definitely insane in spite of his protests. However, Sir Toby begins to think better of the joke, and they allow Malvolio to send a letter to Olivia, in which he asks to be released. Eventually, Viola (still disguised as Cesario) and Orsino make their way to Olivia’s house, where Olivia welcomes Cesario as her new husband, thinking him to be Sebastian, whom she has just married. Orsino is furious, but then Sebastian himself appears on the scene, and all is revealed. The siblings are joyfully reunited, and Orsino realizes that he loves Viola, now that he knows she is a woman, and asks her to marry him. We discover that Sir Toby and Maria have also been married privately. Finally, someone remembers Malvolio and lets him out of the dark room. The trick is revealed in full, and the embittered Malvolio storms off, leaving the happy couples to their celebration.