Background:
Right after Xmas in 1996, my family acends the slopes of Tagaytay and sleeps in the Taal Vista Lodge for several boooorrrrring days. The only book I have to entertain me is My Education by William S.Burroughs. It is a collection of his twisted, macabre dreams in very minute detail. Because of that book, my dreams became crystal clear during this period of time.

December 27, 1996

HERO
I am watching TV. There's a hero riding a bicycle using only one hand. With his free hand, he's ping-ponging a ball connected to the paddle by string. How this makes him a hero escapes my subconscious logic.

LEAPING THRU THE FIRE EXIT
Next I am walking down Ayala Avenue, when I see a building with a fire exit. The exit is a metal door (like a bank vault's), locked from the inside, with a flap right smack dab in the middle of it---looking like a mutant cat-door. I see an old classmate from grade school, Jay Arnaldo, who takes up my dare regarding jumping into the flap on the fire exit's door. He goes thru, and then the flap closes and traps him. There's no way to get out from the inside. I ponder jumping in also and joining Jay but shadows appear. People are coming. I hide, deciding to leave Jay to his sorry fate.
___I cannot really hide, so I pretend to be pissing near the building's edge. When the fire exit opens, 2 teachers and a collared Jay emerge. The teachers ask me about him.They tell me Jay may have to be prosecuted or something. And I say..."Well... he broke the law. He must pay." I walk arm-in-arm with the less attractive of the 2 teachers and she morphs into Ate Lerma (the head of our 6:30 a.m. Adult Choir in Sacred Heart Parish).

WALKING PAST THE STREET MAMBO
We are walking down Ayala Avenue and suddenly turn down Paseo De Roxas only to find ourselves in the middle of a thousand people seated in rattan party chairs. They're listening to a mambo band playing ballroom favorites right out on the street. There are balloons everywhere. Traffic is rerouted.
___We sidestep to avoid the crowd and pass by a building with a statue of Atlas holding the globe on his shoulders. Except that the globe is a rubber beach ball. Sometime later, a man replaces the blue beach ball (which went missing suddenly--- stolen?) with a pink ball.

DEVELOPING PICS
I'm inside the building. Buying trinkets from some side boutique. I'm also having pictures developed in the same place. I ask the cashier to total my bill and she tells me it's 23 pesos. I'm in awe. That's so cheap! But then some other customers (teenage guys) come in and have their film developed too. They nosily peek at my pics. Somehow or other, their developing charges are different. I complain to the management.
___Why not list their prices down so that no problems or arguments occur regarding pricing? I also get mad at the teenagers for flipping thru my pictures, because I don't want them to see my pictures of Agnes at the beach...

December 28, 1996

HELL'S GRADUATION
It's my graduation Baccalaureate Mass and it's being held at the Ateneo High School covered courts. Bukas Palad is singing for the Mass, Norman Agatep is playing the majestic "Lover Of Us All" song by premier liturgical composer Dan Schutte. It should be a fine day to be alive...except that outside the courts, it's dark, dusty and musty. Rain is falling, and the atmosphere is reminscent of a demonic ritual. What then is this occasion? My graduation into hell?

December 29, 1996

POLTERGEIST IN BULUSAN
Again, I am in the music room/sala of my lola's former house in Bulusan Street. Again, I can feel that the place is haunted. There are ghosts making their evil presences known by turning off light switches and tinkering on the piano. The spirits are restless and angry, and I know not why.

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