Roman à clef (cont'd)
The light, romantic drizzle gave way to dark and gloomy clouds later that afternoon, with the constant torrent pounding heavily on the apartment complex. Except for the roar of the driving rain against the roof, and the buzzing flicker of a broken fluorescent lamp, stillness reigned among the corridors and the rooms. Across the second floor balcony, a trail of wet shoeprints led to a room’s wooden door, whose battered surface bore a makeshift sign on bond paper. Written on the paper with a marker pen were the words: THOU SHALT NOT KICK THE DOOR.
A man stood outside, facing the sign on the door, with his clothes dripping like a soaked sponge from the onslaught of rain. A fierce, cold breeze whisked a spray of droplets past the eaves unto the man’s hunched shoulders, sending his body into a shiver. Without moving from his position, the man took out a soggy cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket and stuck the stick between his lips. Still shivering from the cold, he lit the cigarette, and then basked in the following nicotine rush.
The sharp ringing of a cellphone interrupted the man’s cigarette break, and he dug out his phone from its soaked holder. Holding the phone to his ear, he heard the woman’s breathless voice again, this time with sobs mingled in it. His drawn, forlorn face showed no change as the voice on the other line continued to whine non-stop for the next two minutes. He finished puffing halfway through his cigarette before cutting in on her grievances.
“Tomorrow then. I’ll be there.” the man whispered into the receiver. “Sure. Take care.” Apologetic, disenchanted, he withdrew the phone from his ear and then cut the call. “Damn,” he muttered to himself. “I’m sorry, Lyn. I’m so… so sorry.”
The creaking from the door hinges brought the man’s eyes up front, to see his surprised roommate peeking out from behind the door. “Damn, you look awful, Rey.” The man inside scrutinized Rey from head to toe, and shook his head at the sight of the drenched clothes. Rey’s waterlogged shoes left another trail of wet marks on the floor as he dragged himself inside, away from the twilight downpour. Walking past both his bewildered roommate and the welcome mat for drying wet footwear, Rey moved toward the beckoning refrigerator in the kitchen.
“You got a flat one,” Rey’s muffled groan came from behind the open fridge door. Beer in hand, he walked back across the kitchen to the sitting room couch, leaving mud, water, and cigarette ashes on the linoleum in his wake. Twin scraps of torn cardboard drifted from Rey’s hand unto the sofa cushions beside Trevor, his roommate. Trevor had resumed his former seat on the couch upon Rey’s entrance, and he now looked with a contented smirk at the sopping remnants of the class card next to him. “There, Trevor. I fished that out of the garbage can just for you. Are you happy now?” Rey plopped down on a nearby cushioned chair, letting the pads soak the water from his clothes, and then promptly began downing mouthfuls of cold beer in between pensive cigarette puffs.
“You’re not going to change your clothes, aren’t you?” Trevor asked, after pocketing Rey’s gift. “You’ll wet the whole damn chair. And what’s with the ripped up class card?” His voice bore concern over Rey’s atypical melancholy and crestfallen features. “You better get dressed before you get sick.”
“On the way to the department, I saw a dog running through the rain, soaked to the bone. You think he’ll get sick too?” Rey answered in a weak, somber voice, his blank stare still fixed on the white apartment wall. His hand continued to hold the used-up cigarette, as it started burning its way through the filter. “I couldn’t even help her, Trevor. I’m a jerk. I’m worthless and I don’t deserve to live.”
Trevor, in his infinite understanding, simply nodded. Rey had gone through crazier mood swings before, he recalled, and, to his relief, they had always passed without undue damage to either of them. He turned away from his despondent friend, to the blank television screen in front him. Propping his feet up on the low wooden table at the center, he let his sluggish fingers dawdle with the remote control for channel surfing.
En route to the local news channel, he came upon the Home Box Office on cable, with the movie “With Honors” for the current feature presentation. A smile of irony formed on his lips as the faint melody of the theme song “I’ll Remember” pushed through the noisy clatter of the storm upon the ceiling. The groan of protest from his side prompted him to switch channels, and he tuned in just in time to see the usual reporter breaking the latest news on the investigation of the Makati mutiny.
“Analysis by photography experts yielded indefinite results today even as the Palace ordered a manhunt for the missing senator…” Trevor watched the news in silence, ignoring the sorry sight beside him. He clucked his tongue in denunciation of the administration’s obvious resolve to implicate the senator, despite the principal rule of jurisprudence that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
“Can you believe these guys? They have no proof whatsoever, and yet…” He turned to face his roommate, only to find a damp chair, a half-empty bottle of beer, and the remnants of a smoldering cigarette butt on the floor beside it. Looking over his shoulder, he came face to face with Rey’s slouched back as it hobbled over to the kitchen once again, renewing the mess on the floor with his dirty shoes. “Look,” Trevor called out, “after your depression ends, would you please mop up the floor? Piso mojado. Mouillé plancher.”
“Of course they have no proof,” Rey answered without turning around. His hand reached on top of the refrigerator for a small jar of vitamins. Filling his glass with water, he took his seat at the dining table. “That the reason why everybody in this goddamn world suffers. That’s why people become homeless and friendless. That’s why they lose their family and their jobs. That’s why they starve and die.”
“Speaking of employment, Rey,” Trevor had left the sofa, and now took tentative steps across the slippery floor towards his roommate. “Do you think Lyn will ever get a job now, given her status? If she ever applies for a teaching position back at your department, I’m sure the Miss Bea would object with utmost vehemence.” Good luck with her getting a job recommendation from your faculty, Trevor added in his thoughts.
“From now on, I don’t want to hear that name ever again.” Rey’s half closed eyes betrayed a slight irritation at the mere mention of his teacher’s name. “Look, I have no idea. Leave me alone.” His hands shaking from the cold, he slowly twisted the cap off the jar of vitamins and pulled out the cotton ball at the opening. On the other side of the dining table, with his back against the television screen, Trevor took a seat and watched his languid friend.
To change the topic, Trevor mentioned his own teacher’s favorable remarks that morning. “Cheer up, bastard. If it’s any consolation, you got a 1.25 for your project. You are the man; invincible, as always.”
Despite what Trevor had assumed to be good news, no reaction of any kind appeared on Rey’s impassive face. For a moment, Trevor supposed his friend to have also taken valium. “Invincible, my ass,” Rey mumbled, holding five pills in the center of his palm. “First, I’m going to shift to BS Computer Science and then I’m going to kill myself. I’ll overdose on vitamins, I’ll drink alcohol, and then I’ll die.” With a quick tilt back of his head, he downed the pills, followed by a gulp of water from his glass.
“You took drank too many pills, Rey. You only need one.” Trevor noted, with brows furrowed in curiosity. “If you don’t want to get sick, just change your clothes or get a shower.” His brows creased even further in disapproval when Rey shook out five more pills from the jar. He had no qualms about what appeared to be suicide on Rey’s part; the possibility that he would have to buy yet another jar of expensive vitamins bothered him even more than Rey’s futile attempts to end his own life.
You can’t die from vitamin C, you ignoramus, Trevor scolded his friend in his thoughts. How many times do I have to tell you that you’ll just pass it out in your urine later? But, before he could prevent his roommate from incurring additional expense, Rey had already swallowed the next five pills along with another swig of cold water.
“These are not just vitamins, Trevor,” Rey explained, weakly forcing a shadow of his former shark-like smile to reassure his scowling roommate. The rattling of the jar joined the crashing sound of the rain outside for a moment, until Rey began to pick up the pills from the tabletop and place them in his hand one by one. “They’re also medication. You always said that I need medication. I have to take medication right now.”
Trevor stood up and left his roommate to his craziness. What an idiot, Trevor thought, as he returned to his seat on the couch to watch the latest news. Rey had done crazier things during the last time that he was depressed, Trevor recalled, only to forget everything concerning his grief and then come fighting back, meaner and dumber than ever. Trevor reassured himself with the fact that, by some inexplicable cosmic force, the intellectually-challenged of the world had always proved themselves as survivors, which accounts for their prevalence amidst the human population despite the dictates of reason and common sense.
Resting his feet on the low wooden table again, Trevor lazily reached for Rey’s half-finished beer on the table, intent on finishing both the bottle and the newscast before cleaning up after his depressed roommate’s muddy shoes.
Finis
Back to Top 
© Copyright Info 
Contact Info 
About