Stuck.

( a short story) Feb 19, '10 2:36 PM

for everyone
Stuck
I had this nightmare once where I am back in high school. It seems that I was no
t able to graduate for the third time because of some reason I do not know but n
evertheless was not that curious nor surprised about. In this dream I have aband
oned myself to something greater, destiny or fate, or God perhaps; and I no long
er care what other people think of me. This did not produce a sense of tranquili
ty but instead, a weariness blanketed my heart. This darkness, appearing like a
cloud of smoke around me, never goes away. In the classroom, I remember now, we
were having an exam, something mathematical, and for over an hour I was just sta
ring at a blank sheet of paper and thinking this is not the worst thing that can
happen, this is not the worst thing that can happen, which is my mantra wheneve
r I am faced with extreme situations.
You are walking and as you are walking, you do not notice the laces of your shoe
s getting untied and as you walk, the tips of the laces manage to lodge themselv
es into this crack in the cement and you are stuck. You pull and pull and there'
s just no way you can get out of there. You just stop and with all that frustrat
ion coursing inside your veins, pumping poison into every internal organ in your
body, you simply stand there, stoic, unmoving. A feather landing on your head,
a fly on your arm, would have made you explode into millions, trillions of tiny
high-energy pieces, but this does not happen. Instead you are an eternal prisone
r in this ridiculous hypothetical situation.
The teacher says submit your test papers and I submit mine. I stand up and walk
towards the desk at the front of the room when suddenly we hear people shouting
from the outside. We take a peek, we see nothing because our room is beside the
corridor on the ground floor in front of which is another classroom which blocks
out most of the sunlight so that our room is darker than most rooms in this lab
yrinthine high school. We then hear shots being fired and we start to get scared
. We hear the words "pusila," "pusila," which is a Cebuano word commanding that
you shoot someone. The origin of this word is Spanish, in that the Spanish word
for revolver or gun is fusil. Fusil or pusil is still used in Cebuano-speaking r
egions in the Philippines today to refer to handguns generally. Larger caliber w
eapons such as the Armalite or M-16 are called by this term as well, though the
actual names of the firearms are used when for example, talking to a male high s
chooler, who usually is highly interested in guns and various weapons. But I dig
ress.
The first thought that came to my head was that these were police working under
the current Administration cracking down on student activists, firing on them wh
ile they were attending their classes. Backhanded tactics such as this can only
be expected from such a treacherous collaborator anti-nationalistic, neocolonial
, neoliberal government. I was mistaken. It turns out the police were chasing se
veral aswang who managed to enter the high school grounds. The class did not rea
lly see any of the aswang, but merely heard one of the policemen shout the word
and then bursts of gunfire. It was at this point that the whole classroom descen
ded into chaos, with everybody panicking and huddling together against the walls
, as if doing so would be effective against these supernatural creatures.
And that's when I woke up. I found myself in my dorm room alone. It is late in t
he afternoon and the sun is already starting to set. It is hot and it has not ra
ined for weeks. I do not get up, but instead, I stare at the ceiling. There are
cobwebs, several months in there probably. The ceiling is painted white and in s
ome places it starts to crack because it is so old.