Spectacleshards [ii]: Graphic's

[SPAM! Before anything else, please do take time in voting for my entry in the Philippine Educational Theater Association's contest in re/creating a Shakespearean icon that is to be used as PETA's, well, 44th anniversary icon, if you like my design and it wouldn't be too much of a hassle. If you don't, then vote for other designs. If you don't, then, don't. Here's my write-up re: Liking. Here, for the nth time, is the link to my entry. Shameless plugging at its finest. I shall roll-call most, if not all, of my facebook contacts via tagged comments this weekend. Hope no one kills me for spamming, though I spam in a less irritating manner (I suppose) compared with those who tag you in photos of products they sell. At least twenty times.]

These are snippets taken out of context from the November 2, 2009 issue of Philippines Graphic (Vol. 20 No. 22). Unlike the first SpectacleShards that clipped a scene told through successive paragraphs, this entry quotes from all over the piece Pili Nut by Ma. Romina Gonzalez. Like the first SpectacleShards, this is encoded with all my might, since the Graphic's web archive only contains literary pieces published in 2010 & 2011.

I tried to take a good look at those eyes the first time we met at an exhibit of Nabokov's memorabilia and manuscripts at the New York Public Library. You wore dark glasses indoors, making me wonder whether you were famous or disgraced. We were appreciating the white heart-shaped sunglasses worn by Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick film version.

***

You ignored me and left the room as fast as you could leaving me to wallow in Nabokov's pet peeves. He seemed to hate everything except his work. I felt exactly the same, only I had no work.

***

"You remember the first time we met?" I ask as we walk to Strawberry Fields. You let your shades slide down your nose, revealing dark, brown eyes, a curious mix of amber and streaked onyx, depending on how light struck them. I was instantly drawn to your eyes, I don't tell you.

***

I accepted the folders like the diploma from the university I attended there a month before. An aunt was at the ceremony. I slipped one of the folders out of its rubber bind, my mouth gone dry from excitement. You watched me the whole time. No, you weren't strange; not at all, I thought, as I look through carefully cut-out sections of New York Times, the National Enquirer, the Real Estate Gazette and old Consumer Reports. I was overwhelmed with delight. I understood you completely.

***

We reached the Strawberry Fields marker, dedicated to the Beatle who was killed in his adopted city by a fan who claimed it was God's will. He was your favorite of the four. I bring out a newspaper rose I had made for the occasion and lay it on the Imagine mosaic which is completely outlined by a daisy chain.

***

"Pi-li brit-tle. Don't you just hate it when you get something that doesn't live up to its promise? The first few bites were great and perfect but now that I've been hooked and I want more, out comes this huge honey, nutty planet of a 'brittle,' like a cruel, cruel surprise."

I hope I didn't commit any typographical errors. Anyway, connect the dots of this fiction with the fiction that pretends to be fiction, if you may and if it pleases you so much it makes you happy. I thought of murmuring between the passages through parenthetical remarks to-- Well, I decided against it. So, there.