In Defense of the Mundane

Below is a little free-writing done yesterday, during Trig class. Hopefully something I can turn into, well...something soon. :) Please feel free to comment and tell me what you think--especially to the MLF members/Prosers and literature enthusiasts out there who are reading this; there is a "comment as anonymous" option below if you're feeling shy.

In Defense of the Mundane

You seem to be obsessed with the word "awesome". We're driving down the highway at rush hour, trying to get from Manila to Muntinlupa and you tell me that the lights that line the avenue look like the eyes of a demon that lurks in the forests of doom in the map of the world you have made in your mind. Isn't that awesome, you say, not really asking.

I look up and see pairs of orange bulbs hanging from metal frames.

Your new favorite word is "epic". You have said it sixty-five times on this ride home. Look at all these tail lights, you say. Don't they make the cars look like the angry metal mafia bosses that are out to take you in your sleep and hide you in some basement somewhere until the detective with steel knuckles come to save you and blast you out of there? Epic. Isn't that epic.

I look out the window and say nothing.

So, you say, tell me about that guy you're dating.
He's a nice guy, I reply. He plays guitar and sings--
What kind of music does he listen to?
I can hear the apprehension in your voice, as if what music he listens to will make everything okay or not okay. Normal stuff, I tell you.
Normal stuff? I thought he'd be into something awesome like-- you list names of bands we have only ever listened to when we were drunk and sitting in the backseat of your car.
He likes Incubus, I say a bit forcefully.
You wince. Pre-accident though, right?
No. Like "Morning View" shit, I say. Nice to Know You and Wish You Were Here are his favorite songs.
Oh but he likes their other stuff too right?
No, I say nodding slowly and enjoying how this is making you uneasy. No, those are the only songs he knows.
Oh. But he's a cool guy, right? Not like, a normal guy you know? I mean, yeah he must be. 'Cause he's with you.

And for the first time tonight, I feel insulted for real.

No, I say, hearing the lilt in my voice and the moment I realize where I am going, I also realize it is too late to stop myself. He is completely ordinary, I say. He goes to school and is taking up Psychology and walks home and listens to rock songs on his cellphone cum MP3 player and we both call it an IPod. He is touched by the things that touch everyone else--cats snuggling and couples holding hands and shooting stars. All the remarkable things about him are small things, real things--there is no birthmark shaped like Satan or a sharp tongue. He is just like everyone else except his hair smells like honey shampoo and he has a mole on his upper lip, a ticklish spot on his side and a slightly crooked--well, you don't wanna know.

You open your mouth--

And another thing, if you want to know my opinion on streetlamps and what they look like, it is this: they look like streetlamps. What I like about those streetlamps is that they kinda look like shit but people walk past them and lovers kiss under them and strangers stand under them when it is dark and they are afraid they are lost.

And to me, tail lights look nothing like mafia bosses. Under their suits, those old men have skin and they are scarred with rings on their fingers from all the men they have put in the ground, resting like cold trophies on a shelf. Tail lights look like tired eyes. They are not epic, they are small. People are small too and that's what I like about them. We are small and insignificant and living suspended in time and space. Also, it's nice that tail lights look small and tired because if you are looking at tail lights, it means someone is leaving you behind or you're not going as fast as you'd like to be going. Tail lights remind me of a janitor who's not won the lottery (again) or of my father when the doctor told him this would be the end of crabfat and roasted pig.

And if a man was going to fight for me, I would like his knuckles to be made of plain old skin and bone, so that if he was going to march into a warehouse to fight against a mafia boss of steel, he would do it knowing that he would bleed.