Farewell, Penthouse

Let’s say goodbye, the hundredth time, and tomorrow we’ll do it again

– My Chemical Romance

Penthouse – this is a special place brimful of memories that will hold a special part in the hearts of its occupants lulled to a bottomless ocean of hopes and dreams. Its lofty location is a downside to weak and shaky knees unaccustomed to endure winding stairs, with the innumerable flight of steps to boot. Getting here to feel its magnetic warmth would surely offset the tiresome jaunt. This can be the only place in the campus where only few of the many bright minds meet, where individuals of different idiosyncrasies, ideals and endeavors congregate, where brainiacs gather to postulate senseless and sensible theories, debunk faulty procedures and standards, and raise significant and not-so-significant points for this small world to acknowledge or refute. This is the only place where intense intercourses are an imperative to ejaculate the irrepressible qualms of the curious mind; and masturbation is solace for the world-weary and downtrodden spirits (of course, this is done mentally). If you want to unwind after the school hours, feel free to sing and belt out gibberish to your heart’s content and drown your sorrows with a surplus of general knowledge, anecdotes, criticisms, bloopers, juicy gossips, highbrow words, prejudices, porno reviews and all that jazz. This is the only place where euphemisms are always triple-entendre, where the genderless Christian God can have a phallus, where formalities and politeness are temporarily disregarded for the sake of barbarism, and where appearances are just superficial attributes to the deception each and everyone is capable of doing. Those who have already set foot on this hallowed ground will surely realize that life is a cosmic joke of sorts. The transience and impermanence of life is but an outright contradiction against its essence and purpose.

Should the killer boredom strike unbidden, there’s another world which lay just on the other side of this working room. It is colloquially known as the Veranda. The vistas of the Manila skyscrapers puncturing the sky, the colossal statue of Lapu-Lapu facing west, the LRT carriageway with its three generations of train cars, the massive corroding columns and girders of the former Jai Alai Building, plus a beautiful sundown rendered picturesque by Rayleigh scattering and the polluted Manila air, make it a favorite haunt for those who want to kill time and want to derive inspiration from some elusive and unseen Muses.

This place has already charmed many generations; those who are too smitten by its mystical aura can vouch for that. At this point in time, letting go of an old friend may not become a piece of cake. Packing bags, stripping it of its contents and vacating it for good are equal to saying those unutterable parting words. So long and good-bye.

Star Gazing

I always love to look at the stars, to marvel at their nocturnal beauty, and to admire them wholeheartedly like a teary-eyed child after recovery of his lost cherished playthings. So God really loves all of us, and just by looking at the stars I feel kind of extra-special because of this mystery-laden wonder. He, who flung about lump of rocks and self-illuminating gaseous balls in this ink-black stretch of vastness, is the reason behind the intelligent design of all things seen and still unseen.

And now, we can enjoy romantic candle-lit dinners under the star-seeded heavens, with the faint but cute backdrop of the Milky Way, the ambient light of the full moon, the twinkling constellations and the short-lived pretty shooting stars in a collision course towards the Earth.

It never fails to amaze me that we are all just microscopic carbon-based specks dwarfed by celestial supergiants and humongous spheres of helium and hydrogen. These things, some of which are beyond human scale, do nothing but evoke perplexity and human insignificance.

Nevertheless, we are no ordinary creations; we can think, we can reason out, we can feel, we can fare the oceans, and we can reach the heavens and the outer space. But from an omniscient point of view, we are just wretched bunch of grasping creatures, ever clueless and confounded as to what the Creator’s intentions really are.

I always love to look at the stars and ask myself the absurd, oft-repeated question Why am I here? What if I’m just created to admire the starry skies? What if my sole mortal purpose – my raison d’etre – is to become astonished by the Universe’s inscrutable complexities? I don’t know… I don’t know yet.