Your daughter,
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.
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 five-
star 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
* Love and kisses,
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.
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 sab-
a 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
* where he works, Jun is treated like a god; he is a doctor and is
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 beri-
beri 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
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"
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.
Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and
relaxed every inch of her body.
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.

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
The Haunted Mind
polar atmosphere. It is too cold even for the thoughts to
venture abroad. You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a
WHAT a singular moment is the first one, when you have
whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with
hardly begun to recollect yourself, after starting from midnight
the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of
slumber! By unclosing your eyes so suddenly, you seem to
have surprised the personages of your dream in full nothing but delicious warmth, such as you now feel again. Ah!
that idea has brought a hideous one in its train. You think how
convocation round your bed, and catch one broad glance at
the dead are Iying in their cold shrouds and narrow coffins,
them before they can flit into obscurity. Or, to vary the
through the drear winter of the grave, and cannot persuade
metaphor, you find yourself, for a single instant, wide awake
your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver, when the snow
in that realm of illusions, whither sleep has been the passport,
is drifting over their little hillocks, and the bitter blast howls
and behold its ghostly inhabitants and wondrous scenery, with
against the door of the tomb. That gloomy thought will collect
a perception of their strangeness, such as you never attain
a gloomy multitude, and throw its complexion over your
while the dream is undisturbed. The distant sound of a church
wakeful hour.
clock is borne faintly on the wind. You question with yourself,
half seriously, whether it has stolen to your waking ear from
In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon,
some gray tower, that stood within the precincts of your
though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us
dream. While yet in suspense, another clock flings its heavy
to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners
clang over the slumbering town, with so full and distinct a
whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight,
sound, and such a long murmur in the neighboring air, that
those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like
you are certain it must proceed from the steeple at the
this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active
nearest corner. You count the strokes--one--two--and there
strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting
they cease, with a booming sound, like the gathering of a
vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or
third stroke within the bell.
controlling them; then pray that your griefs may slumber, and
the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain. It is too
If you could choose an hour of wakefulness out of the whole
late! A funeral train comes gliding by your bed, in which
night, it would be this. Since your sober bedtime, at eleven,
Passion and Feeling assume bodily shape, and things of the
you have had rest enough to take off the pressure of
mind become dim spectres to the eye. There is your earliest
yesterday's fatigue; while before you, till the sun comes from
Sorrow, a pale young mourner, wearing a sister's likeness to
'far Cathay' to brighten your window, there is almost the
first love, sadly beautiful, with a hallowed sweetness in her
space of a summer night; one hour to be spent in thought,
melancholy features, and grace in the flow of her sable robe.
with the mind's eye half shut, and two in pleasant dreams,
Next appears a shade of ruined loveliness, with dust among
and two in that strangest of enjoyments, the forgetfulness
her golden hair, and her bright garments all faded and
alike of joy and woe. The moment of rising belongs to another
defaced, stealing from your glance with drooping head, as
period of time, and appears so distant, that the plunge out of
fearful of reproach; she was your fondest Hope, but a delusive
a warm bed into the frosty air cannot yet be anticipated with
one; so call her Disappointment now. A sterner form succeeds,
dismay. Yesterday has already vanished among the shadows
with a brow of wrinkles, a look and gesture of iron authority;
of the past; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future.
there is no name for him unless it be Fatality, an emblem of
You have found an intermediate space, where the business of
the evil influence that rules your fortunes; a demon to whom
life does not intrude; where the passing moment lingers, and
you subjected yourself by some error at the outset of life, and
becomes truly the present; a spot where Father Time, when he
were bound his slave forever, by once obeying llim. See!
thinks nobody is watching him, sits down by the way side to
those fiendish lineaments graven on the darkness, the writhed
take breath. Oh, that he would fall asleep, and let mortals live
lip of scorn, the mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger,
on without growing older!
touching the sore place in your heart! Do you remember any
Hitherto you have lain perfectly still, because the slightest act of enormous folly, at which you would blush, even in the
motion would dissipate the fragments of your slumber. Now, remotest cavern of the earth? Then recognize your Shame.
being irrevocably awake, you peep through the half drawn
Pass, wretched band! Well for the wakeful one, if, riotously
window curtain, and observe that the glass is ornamented
miserable, a fiercer tribe do not surround him, the devils of a
with fanciful devices in frost work, and that each pane
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? and find it more fragrant than an English rose garden,
By Carmen Guerrero Nakpil more exciting than a castle on the Rhine and more
delicious than pink champagne.
Travel has become the great Filipino dream. In the To go with the rice there is siopao (not so rich as at
same way that an American dreams of becoming a Salazar) pancit guisado reeking with garlic (but never
millionaire or an English boy dreams of going to one of so good as any that can be had on the sidewalks of
the great universities, the Filipino dreams of going Quiapo) fried lumpia with the incorrect sauce, and even
abroad. His most constant vision is that of himself as mami (but nothing like the down-town wanton)
tourist. Better than a Chinese restaurant is the kitchen of a
To visit Hongkong, Tokyo and other cities of Asia, kababayan. When in a foreign city, a Pinoy searches
perchance, to catch a glimpse of Rome, Paris or London every busy sidewalk, theatre, restaurant for the well-
and to go to America (even if only for a week in a fly- remembered golden features of a fellow-pinoy. But
specked motel in California) is the sum of all delights. make it no mistake.
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 lapu-
lapu. 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
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.
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,

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.
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.

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
TWELFTH NIGHT
William Shakespeare
←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.
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,
happily follows its commands. He behaves so strangely
that Olivia comes to think that he is mad.
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.
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.