Reclaiming Gregoria

One puff and my mind almost feel like it would break at any moment. My brain must have turned into glass after that, it now feels too fragile yet clear and I keep the smoke deep inside my lungs for a few seconds. As I exhale, a pang of pain strikes right through my chest. The smoke doesn’t smell that bad, it actually smells more like grapes. That is some drug, I suppose. And I grin as I let it inflict me.    I lay down in my bed, trying to relax, and the ceiling starts to look like it has been filled with stars now; golden and sparkling. The white paint has suddenly transformed into blue and red, blending into something precariously hypnotizing. It looks amazing. I stretch my arms upwards, grabbing for the stars, but it keeps moving far away from me. That’s quite disappointing. So I move and foolishly follow it. Don't go, come back. I won't hurt you, I can be your friend. But it shakes its head at me, as if to tell me it is impossible. Yet I still want to have it, but it seems too unreachable. And I feel frustrated.   My phone suddenly rings in the background, distracting me at once, and I look over my shoulder, seeing the screen flashing. It comes from an employee, code 65543. He is calling. I don’t have a good guess what he will be on about this time. When I answer it, his voice comes in very small and muffled. I tell him he does not have to keep it that way, we were on a protective phone. But he does not listen and he just keeps on whispering to me. The drug must be kicking so damn strong that my hearing has turned defective, so I couldn't quite hear what he wants to tell me.   "Be clear." I say.   "Mwey mwon numwas."   "I don't understand." I shift and press the phone on speaker, but it still does not work.   The line drops on his end after that, and I never hear from him again.   I drop my arms to my side and I keep still, I want to feel the illusion of freedom even in this short moment of solitude tonight. Tomorrow will be another day, work will not stop. It never will just because I'm high right now. I shut my eyes and breathe. It takes me quite sometime before I eventually let myself give in to a deep slumber.   I open my eyes to the sound of a beating drum, like the one you’ll hear in the jungle, loud and pounding in a continuous rhythm, its cadence goes faster as it keeps on. I don't know where the sound is even coming from. Yet I listen to it as its tempo slowly becomes more like the sound of a heartbeat--my own heartbeat-- and it keeps getting faster and faster and faster. I feel my feet moving on its own trying to follow the sound. There is no stopping me.    From afar, a light flashes brightly into my eyes, I squint and my vision adjusts to an extensive view of what used to be the city of Manila, desolated as it should be, just like everything else, but in this version of my sight, the place is cleaner. No wind, no sand, nothing but just the broken debris scattered all over the ground. The sky is colored pure crimson, and the aroma of the hot dry air as I breathe it smells like some burnt rubber where wheels of a truck are made of. I suddenly come to a brief halt and drop on the ground on my knees.   The stability of the gravity beneath me suddenly goes awry. The earth is shaking when I try to stand up. Then out of nowhere, a crowd of men with long hair swaying behind their backs as they run, bulging breasts bouncing on their chests, come forth holding bolos and hand-made axes in their hands. They soon all stop and stay gathered from a distance, eyes looking around, as if waiting for something to happen. Then a sound of a trumpet blasts in the background, and it is soon followed by another beating of the drum. Behind the crowd, I then see another striking long-haired man, and despite the uncertainty of what kind of human he is, I find myself drawn to his face. He is beautiful, and he is definitely no ordinary man. His likeness and figure seems to have been forgotten through time, and the entire crowd of the same appearance finally looks my way and I stare back. From the corner of my eye, I notice the beautiful human frown at me. The rest of his group has now moved together and suddenly, they all start to run towards my direction. I start to panic and I feel the adrenaline rushing to my brain as I move to run away but I couldn't get my feet moving.    I am starting to hyperventilate, looking over my shoulder as they get closer. Until finally, as the drum beating stops and the trumpet blaring noisily from somewhere eventually ceases, the men who are almost just a few more steps from where I am, suddenly disappear. They are gone. I hold my breath and wait for a moment. Then a strong blast of wind hits me like a tornado as it moves in the atmosphere, the breeze around me surprisingly carries me up to the sky, and just when I am about to reach the clouds midway, I feel myself falling down in a shocking drop. And with fear, I begin to anticipate the impact.   At that point, I was really convinced that I was going to die.      When I finally come to, my eyes feel strained the moment I slowly open them. Squirting back to reality, I realize that the sun is already shining through my window and I groan as I feel the heat blistering my skin as I roll over. I jump out of bed and quickly close the windows with a thick board, blocking the light. My head feels like it would combust at any second and I take a deep calming breath as I try to retrace what had happened last night. Scanning the room. I quickly move again and take the phone that has been left abandoned over my bed and I start scrolling through my recent contacts. I immediately saw that employee 65543 had called me three more times after we spoke last night. The memory is foggy but I still remember answering him once.    I quickly type and send back a text saying, "What happened?"   It takes several seconds before the message gets delivered. I then leave the phone on the bedside table and walk straight to the en suite bathroom. I checked myself on the mirror by the sink and I could see from my reflection the weary bones in my face. I stretch a smile wide across it like a clown, and I laugh at myself, thinking: Am i going crazy?    Is this how it is?    I shove down my underwear and the shirt I am wearing. I turn my head sideways and sniff myself. And hell, I smell like someone who hasn't really bathed for days. It is shitty. I jump into the shower and the hard blast of cold water makes me shiver in an instant as it hits my body. Putting a hand on the wall in front of me, I begin to sing while rubbing soap all over my skin.   "Hey, Jude. Don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better…"   Have you ever had that moment when you just start imagining things? Like something bad is about to happen while you're in the shower? or like when you forgot that you left your stove open, and the fire had started to rise, burning up your home and you failed to realize that you ran out of time to save yourself from it? What about when you forgot to lock the door, and you never noticed that some intruder had entered the premises thinking no one was home, but you were there inside your bathroom, in the shower, singing Hey, Jude, and the moment they open the bathroom door, you're standing there naked and in shock, and so are they, but they are conveniently armed and all you have is a soap in your hand? One shot at you, bang bang and you're dead.   Weird ideas, I know. Yet thoughts like these always happen to me during shower time. Things that always lead me to wonder about death because I wasn’t careful enough.   I spend the entire shower, just occupying myself with those things until I walk out and dry myself near the sink. And right when I am brushing my teeth, my phone rings once more and I rush out of the en suite, heading straight to the phone over the bedside table to check who is calling.   Employee 52113. Not the one I have been expecting, yet he is calling me this time and it only means one thing…work. I lift my eyes to the time displayed on the top of my phone screen, and realize that it is now quarter past 10. I am definitely late for work.    I groan and quickly finish the brushing of my teeth. Ignoring the call, I choose to dress myself up first, making sure that I have an extra jacket for the burning heat outside. I soon walk out of the room, leaving my apartment in a haste. And just like what I have expected, the sun is totally searing three times more than yesterday. It feels like a hundred degrees enough to cook an entire town and the gust of wind blows over me really hard. I have to cover my goggles that I have on my face like a shield to push through the strong blow of the wind. My boots feel too heavy on my feet as they start to get filled with sand. I walk a few more steps further, but it seems like there's no going through this. I take a detour instead and quickly enter a small shed from a near distance, noticing two people sitting on the bench inside it.   I take my gloves off and remove the extra jacket over my shirt. It might take a while before I start walking through that chaotic path again. I wipe the sweat off my brow as I squint over the heat.   "The winds, they're extra strong today, don't you think?" Says one of the men to me who is sitting on the bench.   I pause and give a polite nod at him as I turn around, uncertain of the casual talk but I say, "It is."   "What a hell we're living in."   I don't answer that though. I glance to where I will be going instead and dread the distance. There seems to be no vehicles heading there right now.    "Are you waiting for a transport?" the other man on the bench asks me this time, as if reading my mind.   I nod again, and for some reason this reminds me of the shower moment I just have this morning. But this is where I am bummed by two strangers in a waiting shed, trying to engage me in casual talks while I keep a suspicious thought about their intentions. I look at the both of them, two men wearing the same heavy jacket, their boots looking old and dusty and the goggles that are hanging around their necks both have the same crack on the left eye.   "Well, no car has passed by since early morning, the sun's too harsh today, and the wind is just preventing any transportation from moving forward, are you on your way to work?"   "Yeah."   "Well, looks like luck ain't on your side, man."   I shake my head. Shifting my weight to my other foot, I wore the extra jacket again and pushed the sleeves up to my elbows. Then I nod at the two strangers like a form of farewell and leave.   I walk further into the south, hoping for any vehicle to pass by, but there is none and the wind just keeps getting much stronger as I move forward. I try to look for any abandoned shed again or any place to take a rest, but nothing. It is all just the desolate Manila that it is.   I groan from the pain, the heat, and the wind brutally blowing over me. It has enough force to make it difficult to push through. The sunrays are almost penetrating through the thick jacket I am wearing. And finally, in what felt like almost years, I am able to find a small spot on my way and I quickly get into the place and remove the goggles and jacket right away. I have to wipe the thick sweat dripping mad on my face this time and I start to feel so exhausted. This situation has finally taken its toll, and I still have to get to work.   My phone rings again from the front pocket of my pants and I fish it out to see employee 52113 calling again. I dread it but I answer it, having no choice left but to tell him about my situation and a static noise greets me from his end.   "Hello?" I say.   "Where--zzt---are you… zzt." the person on the other line comes in an incoherent mess.   "I'm almost there…" I tell him reassuringly, but honestly, I am no longer sure where I really am now.   "The bo--zzt--ss are lo--zzt--shh-oking for zzttt… you."   I don’t have to make him repeat what he said, because I already know what awaits me at work at this point. And I just say, "I'll be there."   I end the call after that and put everything back on. I have to hurry now. I continue to pace through the wind and the heat of the sun, but nothing else is on my mind but the urge to finally get to work.   And miraculously, as if my thoughts have been answered, I finally reach my destination after the entire ordeal. By the time I am nearing the workplace my head is already dizzy, my sight blurry, and I could not see clearly through the goggles. Yet as soon as I removed it, the sight of the tall humongous building from a few meters away, standing tall in front of me, instantly gave me the feeling of relief. I cross the remaining distance and immediately enter through the glass door. As I punch my timecard in the system, a guard nods at me with an easygoing smile. I pass him by and stop at the lift at the end of the lobby.  The elevator doors ding open and I enter it in a rush. As soon as it starts moving up, I tap my foot on the floor hoping that everything would be alright. Damn it, I am late. But then, what could be worse? I just have to let this one terrible day go by like it did yesterday, same as the other thousand days that had passed before it. After all, life in this world has been constantly boring ever since. This is now the present where everything seems so… insufferably redundant. And I don’t have anything else to look forward to.