Heavy Things
by Denver Buston
the world cannot bear the weightlessness of sparrows
or the confetti of our illegible addresses
the moon’s breathless ascent
the world cannot bear it
so the world makes heavy things
like airplanes
and skyscrapers
like your heart
and heavy things fall down
because the world cannot bear them either
Here is a fact: we will never run out of stories to read.
This is more evident now than it ever has been before. Online speculative fiction publications easily number in the hundreds, including many new publications looking for worthy submissions and just itching to get up and running (e.g. GigaNotoSaurus and Smash Cake Magazine). Just to illustrate: to date, Duotrope lists166 fledgling markets, or those markets with a publication history of less than six months.
Even the Philippines, horribly late in the technological race, generally speaking, has two active online publishing entities: Rocket Kapre, which has published Usok 1 and the charity anthology Ruin and Resolve; and Estranghero Press, which has published the anthologies The Farthest Shore (secondary worlds) and Demons of the New Year (horror). As in the rest of the world, online publications appear to be a growth industry, as evidenced by the upcoming launch of the POC Review (which is not genre-bound) and (a bit farther into the future) the online version of the Philippine Genre Stories.
So: why an online publication?
I’m no gamer. I don’t have the patience, or the required hand-eye coordination. The simplest challenges frustrate me: You mean I have to go to this room first and get this equipment before I can get that equipment to blast open that door – the hell with this, I’m reading a book. I’ve given up on Chrono Cross (too convoluted), Suikoden, Left4Dead (I can’t figure out how to pick up the guns, so I gave up before I could even shoot a zombie), and Resident Evil (too scary; there was one point during the game when a huge crowd of zombies burst through a door – in real life, I threw away my controller). My default gaming strategy, it appears, is that if I can’t get it right the first time, then it probably isn’t worth it. (I don’t apply this to real-life problems, like clothes shopping.)
Then I met my boyfriend, who’s a proud member of the Hobby Gamers’ Circle, a gaming organization based in UP Diliman, a group of like-minded individuals who’d probably throw me down a pit should they ever read this piece of blasphemy.
One Saturday I went home to Bulacan, and brought the boyfriend with me. Dun dun DUNNN.
Some notes:
1. FX ride from SM North Edsa to Malolos. Played this game to entertain ourselves: category, then give answers that belong to that category. Sample: Movies with Dustin Hoffman. “Rain Man.” “Sleepers.” “Uhh.”
2. Boy it was hot and crowded in Malolos.
3. Arrived at the home town after a jeepney ride. We were walking over to the municipal building when Jaykie suddenly pointed to the ground and said, “Tingnan mo o, si Villar lumalangoy sa dagat ng basura.”
4. Minimal flood, thank God.
5. Dinner was caldereta, which Jaykie liked a lot. Dessert was yema and my sister’s candy from Davao. We went upstairs, watched some 30 Rock, some TV, and Jaykie and my father sat on the terrace and drank beer. My father even told him anecdotes I didn’t even know about, like how my father at first didn’t want to man the store we own now. Gusto ko magtrabaho sa munisipyo. Sabi ng inang ko, ano naman magiging trabaho mo dun? Alam mo ba kung magkano lang sweldo nila? Magaganda lang postura nila, pero wala silang pera.
6. Jaykie and my father got along pretty well. Marvelous. I can stop freaking out now.
7. My brothers just went, “Uy”, as boys were wont to do. Jaykie slept in my brothers’ room (he had the room to himself, as guest), and slept quite well.
8. It rained that night. Water outside the house swelled; the walkways disappeared under the flood. When we left we had to wear boots. Yikes.We dropped by the store, said hi to my father before going to the bus station. Inside the bus, we played a game where we guess what the radio station had in its playlist. Jaykie won by a point. (The station played Freddie Aguilar’s “Anak”. I called Roxette. How can this station not play a Roxette song, is what I want to know.)
9. About our house, Jaykie said, “I can imagine growing up there. It’s really nice.”
10. That weekend was ridiculously easy and fun. I shouldn’t have worried too much. Heh.
I’ve set aside Falling Man to read this. Thanks Jaykie for the pressure buying me a copy. Note the lace bookmark. (I make bookmarks out of everything. Folded receipts, shirt tags, etc. This one came from a top I own. I still wear that top – amazingly the subtraction worked.)
I have an idea for a story, but every time I sit down to start writing it just runs away. It simply won’t take shape. Very frustrating. One of these days I’ll sit down in a quiet corner with a pen and my Spongebob notebook (the white, empty screen of my laptop is making me puke) and a cup of coffee and brainstorm until I churn out an outline. (“Outline” is a fancy term I use for snippets of scene descriptions and dialogue arranged in more or less chronological order. I don’t do the academic outline with the Roman numerals and shit, I’m not that crazy.)
Also, I just learned at the PSF V launch (thanks Charles for the head’s up) that my poem, “Tour Guide” (the last poem I wrote before the pesky poetry writer’s block hit), is in the April 4 issue of the Free Press. Yeah, I’m late, I’m sorry, I forget to monitor these things. Hope you can get a copy. :) National Bookstore and the convenience stores (7-Eleven, Mini-Stop) carry back issues; Jaykie and I even saw some inside a Mercury Drug branch. So yes, my poetry can be found inside a drug store, or on the shelf beside the booze. Coolest thing ever.
A lot has happened since then. Quite frankly, when I attended the book launch of Philippine Speculative Fiction’s fourth volume, my first publication in the anthology, I was more apprehensive than excited because I didn’t know anyone. I’ve never met the Alfars in person, and it was obvious a bunch of the writers there already knew each other, making fun of each other as they gave their speeches, and calling each other by their first names and what the hell am I doing here. Thank God Eula came with me, so I at least had someone to talk to during the event.
Compare this scene with the PSFV launch yesterday (April 24), where Kate [Aton-Osias] told Jake that she’d seen pictures of him and our dates (all hail Facebook, sorry Jake for your girlfriend’s online exhibitionism heh) and Dean Alfar gave a heartwarming speech in addition to my introduction, calling me a “hot writer”, i.e.”She’s been published practically everywhere.” (Can also be i.e. “She looks hot.”) (I’m kidding Nikki.) The book launch felt like home, so when I gave my speech I was at least coherent. I mean, I gave a public speech and actually made sense! What an accomplishment.
Also, I discovered something while I was walking around the U-View Theater shopping for autographs: PEOPLE READ MY STUFF. This is a revelation! When I post plugs for my new fiction/poetry I usually don’t get responses, but at the launch co-contributors Isa Yap and Tin Lao actually approached me and said they’ve read my poetry online and loved it. Tin even said she’s a big fan, and that she was glad to finally meet me. Me! And I’m not even wearing my fuck-me shoes! How surreal. That made me feel warm all over. :D
Thank you to Jme, Beej, Phil, Juabe and of course Jake for coming with me to the event and for not insisting on the original plan of lifting your shirts to bare your torsos painted with the letters E-L-I-Z-A.
Thanks to the other authors for signing my copy!
Much love to Nikki, Vin, and Dean for the successful event. I am in awe of all your efforts to promote the spec fic field, I really am. (I just can’t articulate that in front of a large crowd, that requires more charm and more brain cells.) And look, you got two fourteen-year-olds this year. Amazing! Can’t wait to read the book.
(Semi) group pic! Sorry for my sucky phone cam resolution. Let’s see if I can get the names correctly. Seated: Tin, Kenneth Yu, Dean Alfar, Andrew Drilon. Front row: Isa, Nikki Alfar, me!, Kate, Charles, TJ Dimacali (na boyfriend ni Ders! UJP-UP peeps? Remember Ders? Maganda hair niya. LOL.), Mia Tijam. Back row: Ejay, Alex Osias, Joseph, and Vin.
Outside the gates after the event:
After that we headed out for dinner and then had dessert at Xocolat.
“Well I didn’t know the churros would arrive on a hell plate,” Jaykie said when this appeared on the table. I said it’s not a pentagram, but a Star of David. Jewish churros!
LOL. Good times. :)
Don DeLillo’s Falling Man. Reading this now. The prose is just perfect.
Yesterday I re-read this piece I had been working on and had set aside for what felt like forever, and lo I still like it. I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe I can finish this thing.
I don’t think I can write poetry anymore, hm. Everything turns into prose. But meh, the words can take whatever form they want, as long as they leave my head.
Eliza Victoria 