The alarm woke me up.

It came from the computer, notifying me that I’ve got unopened mail. It stirred me when it rang earlier but I ignored it. Big mistake. Next thing I knew I had a horde of bleeping robots surrounding me about to bleep me to death. That’s the last time I take mushrooms for dinner.

I suppose it’s been beeping for hours. Only one way to find out, so I shut the computer up and open my mail.

Perhaps it was in the way it was written. Perhaps it was because it came from M. Perhaps it was because I woke up too late to catch her before she left for work. Perhaps it was because she had been moody all week. Perhaps it was all of the above.

Great. M. left me a note. It was all over the screen.

***

From: m24167@ somelawfirm.com.ph
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002, 05:43h GMT
To: francis@localISP.com.ph
Subject: WE NEED TO TALK… WAKE UP DAMMIT

I AM NOT AMUSED. I WAITED FOR YOU FOR AN HOUR.AT FRIDAY’S. I HAD TO EAT ALONE. HOW DARE YOU STAND ME UP!!! I HOPE YOU ARE READY FOR A SCREAMING WHEN YOU PICK ME UP. THAT’S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO.

M

p.s. DON’T CALL ME. DON’T TALK TO ME UNTIL I GET HOME. IF YOU JUST WOKE UP AND THIS IS THE FIRST THING YOU SEE, OPEN THE FUCKING ANSWERING MACHINE.

***

See, M. and I have been living together for years. We got together over advanced calculus back in college. She’s usually a friendly person but she’s not someone who likes writing letters, especially when she’s happy. Getting a letter from her therefore, was first of all, a big thing, because it was so rare, and second, not a good thing because it meant she was really pissed off.

Did I mention she wrote it in all caps and said something about a screaming? Not good.

The last time I got a letter from her it was because I forgot to book our anniversary dinner. She only came out of it weeks later. It didn’t help that it was that time of the month.

More letters lay lurking beneath the first. I eventually got to the beginning.

***

From: m…@localISP.com.ph
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002, 00:43h GMT
To: francis@localISP.com.ph
Subject: WE NEED TO TALK

Yes, talk. People do in that a relationship. You use it to communicate to other human beings and the last time I checked we were both homo sapiens sapiens. Anyway, must talk to you. Soon. Call me when you wake up.

Love lots.

M.

p.s. I hope you wake up soon. Got a big day ahead of you. M

p.p.s. Meet me at Friday’s for lunch. Let’s talk there. I’ll wait for you. BE THERE OR ELSE. M

***

Not to worry. Everything’s fine.

I just used Plan M29.

Plan M29 is my own personal code for a pattern of behavior that I can use to tame M. It’s simple, easy to understand, and can fit any number of individuals. The first letter, in this case M, stands for the person you’re targeting. The number, in this case 29, is in honor of the 29th variation of this pattern, which worked well the first time I used it, around 4 years ago.

I’ve become so familiar with the florists in my area because of my system that they know me by my phone ID and, more importantly, what my codes mean. For M29, I always call this particular florist.

RING
“Hello, *** Flowers. This is *** speaking. How may I help you?”
”It’s Kiko. The usual.”
“You stood her up again? I appreciate the business but you’ve got to get to these things ON time. I’ll send the credit card voucher to your office first thing tomorrow morning. Thanks.”
CLICK.

***

From: francis@localISP.com.ph
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002, 10:43h GMT
To: m24167@ somelawfirm.com.ph
Subject: Re: WE NEED TO TALK

I’m sorry I didn’t reply earlier. I just woke up. I’ll pick you up after work. What do you say about dinner at Struan and Tang’s? I promise I’ll make it up to you.

Love lots.

Kiko

***

I pick M. up from work 15 minutes early. Did I mention the flower shop was along the way?

The first fifteen minutes are always the worst. You get nothing but cold silence and all attempts at ass kissing only make it worse.

“Don’t patronize me,” scorn evident in her voice.

“Come on. I wasn’t.”

“If you wanted to make me happy you would have picked me up on time.” Ouch.

“I could’ve given you this,” I say as I whip up the bouquet from what seems like nowhere. Actually, I’d been keeping them hidden in the backseat.

A lot of guys underestimate the timing of giving flowers. Each kind of flower has meaning. Whether or not a flower’s meaning is appreciated has a lot to do with timing. Time it wrong, and you’re likely to have an expensive bunch of flowers tattered and thrown to the ground. Time it right, and it’s priceless.

“I love you, Kiko. I really do,” said she as tears flowed down her cheeks.

I told you it would work.

“Kiko, we have to talk. I’m pregnant.”

I celebrated my birthday this year by moving to a small studio on the third floor of a small tenement complex that overlooks a narrow street on the “poor” side of what passes for downtown in postmodern Manila.

It’s not a pretty building and calling it depressed wouldn’t be far from the truth. It was built in the late 70’s as an edifice to the mistress of some Marcos lackey. You know it’s from that era because it comes replete with the design clichés of that day: glass jalousies for all the windows, narrow staircases and even narrower passageways, and really, really bad lighting.

Rarely, just rarely, you can see how beautiful the building must have looked, once. To do that, one has to look beyond the cracking paint, missing lights, and broken jalousies, but I doubt if that has still happens to anyone actually living here. Most of the people here just don’t seem to care.

This is actually a good thing. Because the building looks so awful, rent on my unit is likewise awfully cheap. It’s so on the cheap that I actually have serious doubts when it comes to the moral character of my neighbors.

Since the neighbors don’t give a damn, I don’t have to pay extra for building repairs. If anything public breaks down, it’s usually because it’s your part of the hall that gets darkened that some anonymous neighbor to replace a hall light. From the way things look around here, that doesn’t happen pretty often.

It doesn’t help any that my apartment is on the far end of the third floor of a three-story building. This means that I’m going to be the last one out in case anything happens. This also means that if any lights go out, I’m the inconvenienced one. No one lives in the flat opposite, so I’m alone in my misery.

I think it all adds to that el cheapo charm that my building exudes.

When you walk into my apartment, the first thing that strikes you is that it looks quite empty. From the front door, nothing obstructs your view or your movement except for a small refrigerator and a single-burner stove, both items being gifts in act of mercy from my parents. I’ve placed them in the developer-designated kitchen area.

Designated kitchen areas are hard to miss. There’s a small tiled sink on one end that acts as a kitchen sink and doubles as your bathroom sink and your laundry sink. This makes for a pretty interesting soap rack. Right beside the detergent you may find a wok, a dinner plate, utensils, my old toothbrush, toothpaste, and my shaving kit.

It’s a small apartment, this one. The whole thing is three big steps wide and five big steps long, including the bath. The bath is luxurious for these Spartan accommodations; lined with tiles and a toilet that actually flushes. On the opposite side of the toilet is a small showerhead. That’s it. If you want to wash up, you use the sink outside. In reality, this bath is more like a tiled closet, but it does its job.

Most of the evidence that someone actually lives here can be found within one foot of the floor and no higher. For a bed I have my old sleeping bag, which should suffice for the next few months until I get that raise. There are no built-in cabinets to store any clothes; I live out of my knapsack and my suitcase. On second thought, I think I’ll get them cabinets first.

I haven’t gone around to buying a fan to cool me during the day, mostly because I’m not here when the sun’s up. The real value in having a fan is in keeping them mosquitoes at bay. It’s more effective than incense or that electronic bug zapper I helped my friend buy the other week.

The temperature being as it is where I live; having a computer just isn’t possible. Instead, I’ve come to write my entries longhand, not because I think it will improve my penmanship, but there’s simply no place for a computer here. If the heat doesn’t get to it, the neighbors will.

I like writing in longhand anyway.

An apartment on the third floor isn’t that far enough to isolate you from the noise of the street below during the day, but in the deep of night even the streets are asleep. In the day, the street below gradually fills with the din of pedestrian, equine, tricycle, motorcycle, and automobile traffic that make it all but impossible to write. At night, the silence can drive you batty, likewise disabling your capacity to write coherent thought. Somewhere in between is the perfect balance where words may be written. If someone ever finds that balance, I hope he or she or it gets in contact with me. It’s always that there’s more of this, too little of that, but it never gets to just right.

There are 381 individual cracks on the ceiling. Did you know that? 381. I counted them all last night.

Oh yeah, mail came in this morning, from the phone company. There aren’t any available lines in my area, and I’d have to wait three more weeks to see if anyone couldn’t pay their bills. That was something that happened quite often in this neighborhood, if the neighbors’ tales are to be believed.

Time to leave for work. I’ve installed two dual-sided deadbolts, and I pray every morning that they work until I get back home. Before living here I couldn’t care less about God. Now, he’s my home security system.

What am I complaining about? It was my idea to move out of my folks’ digs, if I remember right. It was more like I was forced into it. Dad couldn’t find virtue in any of my actions (as opposed to finding fault) and Mom wasn’t any help either. In the end, I guess I really didn’t have any choice.

Someone once said, “Tell me where you live and I’ll tell you who you are.” What does that say about me?

"You wanna know the secret of life, kid?" an old man asked me as we waited for the train to arrive.

"The what?" I replied, incredulous at the thought of something straight out of Hollywood happening to me. This old man can't be serious. Do I look like the guy who gives a flying rat about the secret of life? I've got more important things to worry about, like whether or not this train is going to actually arrive, whether or not I'll be on time, whether or not loony bin will piss me off.

The way things were going, I was bound to be very, very late. This wasn't good.

"The secret of life. Do you want to know it?"

All right, he's got to be kidding me. If I follow the script, it's either I tell him to fuck off and get his rocks off jawing someone else, or I nod my head like a mindless idiot and allow him to talk my ear off with whatever secret he does have. Seeing as there's no train coming and there's no one I can actually talk to or spend my time with while waiting for the inevitable, I decide to just give Buddhaman my ear. Sure beats being catatonic for the next few minutes.

"The secret of life," he continued, voice turning to a stage whisper that I was sure everyone could hear anyway, "is numbness."

How stereotypical. He's even got that disheveled hermit look with hair (white, of course) that hasn't seen a proper blade since the first Macapagal administration. He sure has it down pat, all the way through to the cryptic answer.

I gave him a raised eyebrow, unsure of how to assess such a character. Buddhaman took my puzzlement as implicit permission to continue his rantings.

"'Tis simple, really. The older you are, the more numb you get. Eventually, you stop feeling anything. Joy, Pain, whatever. It's all a blur to you. Nothing you can do can change this. It's the law of nature, boy. When that happens, nothing can save you."

"You mean to say, we're all fucked and the secret to life is not giving a shit about anything?" I do have to admit this man's theory was getting a bit interesting.

I know about apathy killing your soul like that, or something. My ex used it as an excuse to create a plaid pattern on her forearm with my shaving kit. I even made the mistake of expecting a sensible answer from her when I found her trying to write her name on the bathroom floor in what looked to be red ink.

"Have you ever felt a point in your life where you feel nothing and you need something, anything to feel alive? When pain will do? That's what I feel when I cut myself."

How do you react to that? How do you relate to someone who's lost all feeling that she feels she has the need to skin herself in order to feel alive? I just threw her a towel. I hoped she still had the decency to clean up after herself. Hey, whatever floats her boat, right?

Let's get honest here. Bloody towels can really stretch your love for someone. I don't even have to explain why. Let's just say that it didn't take long before I threw in the bloody fucking towel. I just couldn't care any more.

My soul died that day.

From the distance, I could see the train coming. I smiled to myself at the thought of getting rid of the pot-addled walking loony bin in my ear.

"So Buddhaman," I turned to him, after telling him about my episode with my bloody fucking ex, "that's what I think when you say numb to me. Are we on the same plane here?" I wondered if it was alright calling him Buddhaman. It seemed like the insensitive thing to do, seeing as that he was insensitive to my need for space.

"You're getting there. I hope you didn't mind our little talk."

I couldn't have cared any less.

Nothing much happens to a guy who just sits around all day typing stories into his computer on the third floor of a nondescript building. Most days, hours can and will pass by without event.

Today wasn't most days.

Today, I got a phone call from my friend F., who I usually hang out with whenever I get the urge to have a life. Although F. is nubile, young, and female, and I just happen to be a guy, nothing has ever existed between me and F. In fact, nothing can ever happen between me and F.

You see, F. and I are "friends".

Once you are "friends" with a single girl in this new age of dating, nothing can happen between the two of you. You are "friends", nothing more and nothing less. To have sex or anything close to sex would just destroy the "friendship" that the two of you have. It doesn't matter if she has sex with every other guy in your group, as long as you are tagged as the friend, there's no sex for you.

It's not just sex, it's anything intimate or romantic that's off limits to "friends". If you ever become "friends" with a woman, you might as well turn gay or she might as well turn lesbian. Either way, you have the same chance of ending up together naked on the same bed, sharing bodily fluids: ZERO.

So to keep things the way they are, sex just disappears from the landscape whenever F. and I are together. Any attempt to joke my way into F's panties are immediately met with a flying finger and two months of silence.

Actually, there was only one lousy joke and I had the lousy timing to crack it days before F's period began. At any rate, the hassle that immediately followed became a clear sign to never attempt such tomfoolery again, no matter how funny it may be.

I don't get it. The rules of courtship today demand a man that's open and caring and sensitive and capable of sharing his innermost feelings. Yet the moment you do that, you get labeled as a "friend", and that's that. It might as well be the death knell of dating in the 21st century. As soon as the girl you're after has decided you're nothing but a "friend", that's it. Throw romance and any other similar foolish notions out the window, because it's just not going to happen.

The thing is, as "friends", you get to share anything and everything that happens to you. It's expected behavior under today's societal standards, really. Not only is each emotion shared, it is dissected and empathized with other "friends". It is a right that extends both ways, such that "friends" may call each other whenever the other is needed to relieve any problems, which are supposed to be resolved in the most straightforward manner.

This is being a "friend". And since F. was a "friend", she felt it was her right to be able to call me at the most unholy hour last night.

"Hello, Francis? Are you there?" came a weary voice over the telephone. "It's me, F. Can we talk?"

Of course I'm here. Where else would someone who spends all day making up stories be?

"Yeah, hi. What's up? Is everything okay? It's 3AM for 's sake," was the voice of an awfully pissed off man trying to disguise his disgust behind concern that can only be described as fake.

"Are you sure it's okay for us to talk, I mean... you didn't wake up or anything, right?" God. She was almost in tears.

I could care less, but I was just too tired to tell her. I wouldn't sound grumpy and pissed off unless someone woke me up from a really good night's sleep. Wouldn't you be pissed off to if someone woke you up just when you were about to dig into a bowl of really good-looking Chicken Caesar? I swear I can still smell the dressing.

"What's the problem? Did anybody hurt you? What's happening, you can tell me," I replied, surprised at how the fake concern came through like the real thing. Perhaps she just didn't detect the sarcasm.

"Sorry, Kiko. It's just that I've got a problem. I'm horny. I don't know what to do. There isn't any man around. All the men I seem to be getting are flawed in some way. Isn't there any decent man around? I'm not even asking for... yadayadayada"

So this was the problem. Well, then. The dictates of "friendship" told me it was time for the straightforward response.

"Right. Err. Horny, eh. Well, fuck you too, F. Good luck with your finger. I'm going back to bed. Good fucking night."

CLICK.