Ripples

We write our story on water.

Nary a photo to immortalize any moment. No souvenirs to mark the milestones.

No traces. No prints. Nothing to burn, or discard or donate when all this mess is over. No ashes to clean up. The world shall turn still, business as usual. When it ends, it’s as if it was all in my head. Just memories of a distant past life, so hazy it seems like it was all imagined.

Just a story for the books, an idea to fuel poetry and art. Just fiction. When it ends, its like it never happened.

Only…

It did.

Tucked Away

It’s one of those things that you keep in the back of your mind.

Like boxes you store in the attic, locked and hidden from the rest of the world, away from prying eyes. It’s nothing horrible, really. It’s just that you keep them where there’s less chances for people to stumble upon them and ask awkward questions.

You go back to open them once in a while, brushing off the layers of dust, rummaging through each box, examining the contents one by one, remembering what they all meant to you, asking yourself if its worth keeping them there.

There’s this one box that I’ve been keeping in the attic for a while now.

But I guess it’s time to take one last look, and throw it all out.

Photo by Planet Game

It All Ends – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

This is not a movie review.

I don’t think I can review the last Harry Potter movie effectively, simply because I might have put too much sentimental value in this entire franchise to comment in a completely objective manner.

Yeah, best not make me do a proper review.

I met Harry about twelve years ago. I was eleven, same as he was when he first entered Hogwarts. I’ve seen copies of Sorcerer’s Stone several times in the stores, but I always ignored them. I was a cocky eleven-year-old. I read the summary in the back of the book and immediately thought it was “too childish” for me. Yes, yes I know, shame on me.

And then I saw one of my friends reading it in class. What’s so weird is that this friend is a guy who just didn’t like to read. Was the book just THAT good that it even interests non-readers? That sparked my curiosity enough to borrow the book from him and read, at the very least, the first chapter.

I wasn’t able to put it down after the first page.

This collection isn't mine, but I'm sincerely wishing that it is

From there, I religiously followed the series, saw all the movies, haunted fan sites and read fanfiction during the excruciatingly long periods of waiting in between books. I bawled like a baby whenever someone died, hated Umbridge and Cho Chang with a passion, shipped all the pairs that are never going to happen and apologized profusely to the books for thinking so horribly of Snape.

I'M SORRY OKAY STOP MAKING ME CRY ALREADY T__T

I honestly felt that as I grew up, Harry and everyone else grew up with me. Standing in line for the last movie gave me the same feeling I felt when I was boarding the plane for Canada. Like I was saying goodbye to everything I knew and loved.

Admittedly, the scenes from the final battle could’ve been more epic, Voldemort made the weirdest sounds a villain can ever make (I think it’s the severe lack of a nose), and that fucking epilogue just really never worked for me, but STILL. It’s the last movie, the end of everything. I can’t even begin to describe how much this really means to me and to fans all over the world.

Yeeeah we're stuck with this epilogue forever, aren't we? Oh wellz.

But it’s not really good bye, is it? JK Rowling said so herself.

“Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.”

Make sure your kids get to experience Harry Potter, guys. It would be a huge mistake if they don’t.

What If I Were

Look at them. Standing around in their white coats, poking around where they shouldn’t, scribbling notes that they think will someday help them understand.

So serious. Always so serious.

They keep trying to study us, make us subjects of their little experiments. I know what they do to the rest of my kin when they somehow catch one of us. I heard the stories, and they didn’t sound pretty. They use the crudest methods of study, cutting us open and picking us apart like some sort of carcass, as though the secrets of our existence were written on our bones. They argue among themselves, trying to decide who is wrong and who is right when it came to our…behavior.

Highly insulting, that.

Their ancestors never tried to question us. They worshipped us. They made shrines in our honor, painted us on their walls, carved us in wood and clay and into immortality. We were…why, we were gods.

Now…we’re only lab rats. No longer gods but mere objects of speculation. They have me on their table, bound and immobilized. I was caught, and they think it is some sort of victory. They think they’re so smart now, with their fancy gadgets and “complicated” theories, theories that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I lie here, and I watch them. It’s laughable.

They are not studying me. No. I am studying them. Those long hours of lurking in shadows weren’t for leisure.

And now that they’ve caught me, I will feed them information without their knowledge, and they will think they are another step closer to understanding our nature. And when I’m done here, I’ll be gone, and I will leave no trace behind. I, unlike these barbaric humans, know how to clean up after myself. They would wonder, I know, where I have gone and how I left, but they wouldn’t mind. They’ll be so confident that they can find and capture another like me.

Oh but of course it would be an easy task, finding another one of us.

I was caught, because like everyone else of our kind who was captured, I was supposed to be caught.

It’s laughable, the way they think their intelligence is above ours. For all the intellect that they boast of, they do not know that should we decide to really, finally take this earth from their fragile little fingers, they will not survive. They, with their fancy gadgets and complicated theories, will not be saved from what we’re capable of.

I close my eyes. Let them enjoy this so-called victory. There is nothing in me that they will find that I don’t want them to find.

We were here long before them. We’ll be here long after they’ve gone.

They're watching.

—

A/N: Another exercise for the writing group. The challenge? Less than 1000 words on “What If I Were”. Anybody have an idea who or what is speaking? :p

Distrust

My entry for a writing exercise. 300 words on “distrust”. Characters are fictional. Names with resemblance to real persons are purely coincidental.

—

She drummed her fingers on the table, the glass cold under her touch, biding her time. A window for Yahoo! Mail was open on the screen, the cursor in the Username box blinking strangely in sync with her heartbeat, mocking her.

Do it. You know you want to. You have to. It’s the only way.

She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. She’s not that kind of person, the kind that pokes her nose where it doesn’t belong.

A chat window popped onscreen. “Hey honey,” it said. Her eyes burned at the term of endearment. It’s a wonder how a word that used to make her feel so special and effortlessly happy could suddenly feel so contrived. So…false.

“You’re out late again,” was her response. “Overtime at rehearsal?”

“Kind of. Hung out with the others for a bit after too,” he said.

“Oh okay. Who with?” She keyed in a smiley, glad that her webcam was broken and he couldn’t see her grit her teeth through the screen.

“Org mates. Garret. Jay. Therese. The usuals.”

Of course. Therese. She really should’ve guessed.

She’s a friend. I told you that.

“I missed you,” he said. It only made the burning worse. Hot tears leaked out as she squeezed her eyes shut.

Really, now?

She couldn’t take it anymore. She had to know.

It was almost uncanny, the speed in which her fingers hit the keys and entered his e-mail’s username and password. Within moments, the page has loaded and it showed five unread messages. Out of the five, only one stood out. There was no subject, but the header said it was from therese.sison@gmail.com.

She moved the cursor until it hovered over the link, her hand trembling on the trackpad.

A mouse click, a photo and a few seconds of reading later, she burst into tears and promptly shattered to pieces.