Wednesday, February 23, 2011

La Pelle

[Part 3 of the "Voices of I" series]

I could have spent the rest of the day inside the vehicle and paid every penny I had just to make the ride endless. Gently rubbing shoulders and arms with a beautiful girl for a few stolen moments feels like being trapped in an event horizon. Escape is almost impossible. Neither can you fall through the invisible surface of a powerful vacuum. You are simply there, suspended in a void, frozen in a cosmic chasm, but you soon metamorphose after a few carefully chosen muscles move as your brain willed them to. You are reminded of Franz Kafka and, suddenly, you feel like one or all of three things:

A crude organism beholden—for the first time since 1986 or thereabouts—to the sight of a female apparition so close you can almost taste her by planting a soft kiss on her right shoulder by surprise; a bookworm suddenly turning ignoramus about the distinctions between the laws of Newton and the laws of physical attraction; or a pious laity sitting in posterity beside a creation unmistakably divine that you cannot help but be thoroughly convinced just by looking at her lips that no god could have quite possibly shaped her being from the rib of a man. It just cannot be. It revolts against plain logic. No beautiful lady could have possibly evolved from the flesh and bones of a creature that has nothing to do with aesthetics.

Her cheeks had an amber glow, too unimposing on close view that it blended quite well with the afternoon sunlight. She has a name I do not know but I was certain we were studying in the same university. The print on her loose shirt was a dead giveaway.

Inside the passenger jeep, she was a total stranger and yet I was at the mercy of the slightest touch of her skin. I cannot be certain if she noticed but it was not I who made the first contact, at least as far as I can recall. Unfortunately, my memory is a traitor. It betrays with calculated precision and I am always at its cross-hair. More to that, I think she did not bother to dignify my presence with an innocent rub, more so one with malice. All too clear, I plainly did not deserve either one. A mortal must never expect being ennobled by a deity on their first encounter.

There was something about her, and perhaps it was not her fault that her lovely arm brushed with my tired hand in the first place. It may have well been an accident all along, a progeny of a force majeure as picturesque as a French film's climax in slow motion, an enticing casus fortuitus with only one casualty—reticent, though, like an inquisitor forever cursed with silence, but still a casualty.

Me.

If there is an oxymoron to put the gamut of the experience in an odd syntax, it would be "lovely trauma". There was a point when the length of our arms glided with one another and, at that moment, I could have instantly died from a form of pleasure better left unspoken, but I will say it anyway because it will not make any difference. I am neither a big fan nor an advocate of asexual reproduction, the one where you do not really have to work your genitals, but her skin alone is enough to incite either involuntary orgasm by day or wet dreams by night. In fact, when the passenger jeep made turns at two consecutive curves on the road, twice did I realize that her supple skin defies friction. It was incredibly smooth I felt incredulous myself for wanting to touch her arm just to satiate my curiosity. There was absolutely no way to make fire with it, and it will be senseless to even dare. I smiled at the thought of it and I wanted to tell her how much I would like to skate my fingers up and down her arms.

But there was an attempt less sinister, or more trivial, which was borderline barely there. Like a paratrooper disguised as a very shy cabbage doing reconnaissance on vegetable territory, my little finger made mild contact with her wrist. My finger was barely there until it landed like a chopper on a pristine helipad. I tried to recoil my finger but I was too late. I was already too happy that I found myself partly smiling and partly grimacing. I went ecstatic inside and I still have the butterflies in my stomach to prove it. While I kept my little finger lightly deployed, I could not help but glance at her, as if I was about to say, or sing, I want to hold your hand.

I swear it would have freaked her out if I did, for I do not sing too well. I sing too bad you will want to kill me by smashing my larynx with a sledgehammer. Thrice.

All pleasant experiences can last infinitely until the point where they necessarily have to end. Para po was the magic phrase, her voice surprisingly tender, prompting the driver to maneuver the passenger jeep to a halt just in front of the dormitory's entry path after I echoed what she said but with more vitality. In that rare opportunity, I had to make sure that she was heard. Para daw po. She got off the vehicle, looking more unbearably attractive with the parasol by her hand. And I remember her briefly looking back at me with a smile before she went her way. It was a good day and I went home.



Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

5 comments:

AIS said...

i am fascinated with your unusual selection of verbs and adjectives and heavy use of figures of speech without sounding rhetorically destructive.

by the way, i strongly feel that singing unprecedented regardless of the quality of your voice will freak any sane person out.

David said...

Great Day! Nice ride.

http://arandomshit.blogspot.com/

sub said...

ditto with ais.

ahahaha! i like the part where any sane person will smash your larynx. thrice.

pansin ko lang ahh, dami mong girls pero they all exist in your imagination?

anong dorm yan? molave? haha!

SPLICE said...

@Ais
I haven't tried it, at least not yet. One of these days, when those rare moments of madness hit me, I think I will try just for the heck of it haha

@Sub
Tama, Molave! Ang galing! :)
Nangyari talaga ang sanaysay na isinulat ko, dinagdagan ko lang ng konting detalye hahaha! Typically, I try to get to the limits of meddling with strangers just to see up to where I can go because -- this I admit -- I am naturally shy in person. But I am trying to break from my shell one fragment at a time. It's that fertile landscape where I try to draw my inspiration to write :)

sub said...

those who are typically shy in person naman talaga are those who write the way you do. i think im getting the difference between your imagination and your experience. well, anyway, there are somethings talaga that we can vent through writing than in person..

you never fail to impress me! wala yata ni kahit isang post dito ang hindi ko hahangaan. real or reel, magaling!

i can be a friend... :)