Pagkakalat

Pagkakalat. 2000-2004, 2004-2008. :D enjoy

This short story begins in 2004, when a young man named, Zara was pulled out of Manila Science High school. He didn't really like the high school anyway because he felt that it was a Nazi prison camp, being headed by a tyrant named Banta. His schedule was from 6 am to 8 pm, and that was only first year high school. He only had 50 pesos in his pocket, so one missing peso meant that he would have to walk home. He was thin, beyond recognition, simply because he was hungry, but unable to eat much, and he was growing, he was in his adolescence. He didn't really have a favorite subject, except English literature every 3 pm to 5 pm, because he got to read a book called the pearl, the rest of the subjects he hated, because there was a lot of pressure going on . He would spend lunch time, feeling bad because he had to eat canned food, or rushed instant food, instead of being able to buy food from the canteen, but he didn't know how to complain, rather he was simply grateful, because this is how he was raised, simple, What was there more to ask, he graduated from an unknown school in paranaque city with honors, in a class of 40, or was it 50, no one really remembers, only the songs of graduation rang through his ears, as he carried his heavy bag, through one kilometer of walking everyday, and commuted his way through to UN avenue daily. The burden was getting heavier as each day passed by. But that was the story of his life. He had spent 6 years in america, studying 3 of them at a public elementary school, making friends he could never keep, acquaintances that would seem strange in the future. Losing, losing and more losing, that is all that he had known. Losing people, is very painful as he would realize later on in life. This was the story of Zara's life, it was a story of staying in one place, while being in another, in spirit at least. After all, it is hard, being a Persian, without knowing Farsi. He was born in Persia, moved to america, learned English, moved back to Persia, cried that he wanted to go home, but this was his home after all.

So shortly after he entered this high school, where he was not really struggling, because he understood the lessons, very well, he was struggling because he was far from home, and always felt lost, and didn't have much lunch money. He would eat spam, fried fish, fried eggs, while everyone else ate hot food. He would eat alone, when everyone else was eating in groups. Secretly he cried, because he didn't know what kind of foreign place this was. The day came, and the assignment order was released, zara was scheduled to go to china, a province in china rather, called Fujian, the land of the egrets, this is where zara's life would be bound to change forever.

So the next chapter begins, zara gets his clerances signed, one time, even getting lost along un avenue, because he overate a boiled egg, he had to call home and be asked to be picked up. While sitting in front of jolibee un avenue, he was thankful to be leaving this place, filled with beggars, filled with students, roads filled with so many people busy with their respective lives. He drank some coconut water, and waited to be fetched. His younger years, were filled with feeling bad, while not having money, while not realizing both of these at the time. The flight to fujian finally came, it was a 2 hour flight, he would be riding economy, upon arriving in this strange place, he would take a cab, and be sent to the Lu shan hotel, which would overlook the place where he would stay, the twin condos of Xiang Jiang Hua Yen. This was a strange land filled with strange people. People who spat in the roads, buses where men got to sit and ladies had to stand, a land where people don't shave their underarms, and dance with swords to strange music, a place where there were no spoons nor forks, but only soup and chopsticks, a place where everything was inherently cheap, you could buy a kilo of vegetables for 10 centavos that is how cheap it is there. After a week or two, he got enrolled into an international school which would define the next phase of his life. His first experience would be being asked if he was from sri lanka, on the old campus, by one of the spouses of the teachers there. He would take an entrance exam that he would fail, he sucked so hard at math, for some reason. But change would come soon. So for the first few days at school he would meet some good friends that would stay with him for a long time. He would also meet Mexica, who would have a profound influence on his early highschooling. This international institution where zara would study for the next four years, would be a comfort zone, because it is a place where everything is acceptable, a place where you can play basketball all day long, change your clothes, then listen to the story of the Iliad. He would ride a bus every morning going to school, along side other foreigners like himself. and they would listen to the discman, pirated cds were common sight and collecting dvds and music cds were very common during the time, he would spend every sunday with his family, commuting to a strange island, where you had to ferry yourself accross, simply to attend the catholic mass. Before the end of the first year in highschool, zara would ask mexica out, and they would spend afternoons, on the schoolbus writing a strange book called the journal. They were happy for two months at least, until mexica's father had to go back to mexico. This was zara's first heart break, it was deep because he couldn't do much about it, he was losing someone to the reality of distance, and he knew that there was nothing to stop it, until the day came, that she no longer went to school, through out highschool, he would try to call her on her birthday, That was the story, according to her she kept this strange journal under the broken floor in her home in guadalajara. But who knows, time and distance change people.

Zara would meet and stay with three taiwanese, liao, zhang, and zhou, they were good friends because they had this mix of cultures somewhat. Avril lavigne was introduced her first album at least. He also had flip friends, lem, ten and je, and loko, and even one guy named victor tong. He also had a friend named uncle sam. This is the context wherein everything would happen for the next 4 years, the four best years of his life, he thought, until he saw better. As the years went by math became his favorite subject, because it taught him that the key to success is constant correct practice , and his favorite teacher was his math teacher, followed by his science teacher, and then his english teacher, however the english teacher would come and go from time to time and take these huge protein pills, scary right? That is how crazy it was back then. basketball three times a day. 8 subjects 45 minutes each, and a folder, who remembers the folder where you can put all the works that you did at class, so that your parents at home can review it, the part that he hated the most was his homework, because it was tedious and every subject had its own homework everyday. But that was all ok, he improved academically, and read and read and read, and studied and studied and studied, he became known as goodie two shoes as the koreans would call him.

Eventually he would begin crushing on this girl named reseta. Called her reseta because she's just like a pill and the horror doesn't end in fujian, it goes back to home. The issue with reseta is everyone in highschool became her boyfriend except him. It is a very interesting story indeed, zara spent 4 years chasing this reseta, and even home he spent some time with JC, at chilli's in greenbelt just to run into the silver surfer. The good thing about zara is he seems to always have a right friend at every wrong turn of his life. In this case he had JC to pay the chili's bill.. but after 4 years of chasing reseta, and some more years at home writing her rediculous thesis about 6 million pesos and a computer shop, time came and the distance and time changes people come along again. Eventually she ended up marrying without sending any of her flip friends any invitations, but one of the taiwanese was able to go to the home town of inasal, to attend this gregarious event.

Now we move on, so basketball being the only sport we really played in this strange country, we learned the fundamentals of it, including plays. flex, 1-5, triangle offense 1-8, 212 defense. 32 defense. man to man, full court press, how to lay up correctly, correct posture in shooting, where to correctly get your strength in shots, and stuff like that, even ball movement. Now many people contest the athlete of the year award, all i can say is it is true, zara played pingpong, bowling, basketball, billiards, not to mention joining a marathon and a bikeathon, if that isn't an athlete of the year, then I do not know what is.

Eventually he would meet wrinkel, she was shockingly cute at the time, and young, The would get christened together, by christened, I do not mean the dirty christening, but rather, the John 3:16, in the perspective of a non denominational, uncle sam, Presbyterian light, he would begin rejecting the catholic teachings and begin reading the bible in itself, the thing in itself, he would end these four years, being able to read the book 6 times from cover to cover, to the point that his father would think that he was going nuts. But deep inside he was convinced that this religion was his path, his calling, was to become a pastor to teach the word of god to the ends of the earth, this was his original plan, until everything went to hell. This is the point in his life when he would make the subconscious decision to enroll in philosophy.. It was a quiet afternoon at a buffet at the holiday in, and his mother's boss, was giving suggestions on what he should take in university, and ended up that philosophy is for those who do not know what they want to do, but have a unending search for the meaning of life. That plus the fact that one of his friends told him that they would be taking law would be the guiding posts as to why he would enroll in philosophy, going back to the story of wrinkle, she ended up saying that god said we're not supposed to be together, and this crushed him very deeply. What kind of wrinkle can hear voices about god, and mixing this with philosophy lessons made zara a very bitter person.  He hated the fact that wrinkle was only appreciative of these foreign races, JC would eventually say that she was the rudest of all his friends, because when uncle sam visited him at school, that is the only time wrinkle would show up. He ended up doing a mean thing to spite her by sending her over to the tv station when there were no auditions going on. Perhaps she would eventually find out about this, but no one is really sure. no one to verify the fact.

Moving forward, there were good times as well, like hiking in a mountain, starting a fire, and getting called out by the red guard. Playing basketball against the chinese military, and the flip community. These were the good times, oh and yes, the tour when zara got to see how huge the country actually was, imagine driving 5 hours through 17 tunnels, just to reach another mountain, which he had to climb, it was an enjoyable experience, although, these highschool years were full of heart break and drama, It was entirely due to circumstance I should say looking back. It slowly sank into zara that this was his comfort zone, but he didn't know yet, graduation came, and the day after graduation was the shocker, once landing in manila, he and his dad, visited his grandpa colonel, while having k9 as a driver. He broke down again in the car, and said that he missed his friends, but slowly he was realizing that another phase in his life had come, the phase of leaving again a life behind him. Perhaps this is the same in any highschool, but the difference here is the fragmentation of the people into different countries all over the world. Thank god for facebook he was able to add them all again. The pain was there but slowly subsided. Again he did not know who he was. He didnt' know what he wanted to do, so he ended up taking his mom's boss' advice of taking up philosophy. And these is where 2004 begins.

2004 was a very strange year. The first person he talked to was general. General was at the time a communist. He hated the capitalist system and started day one of philosophy reciting verses out of the communist manifesto. He treated zara to jolibee, with a chocolate shake, this general would eventually become his good friend for a very long time. This is also the best academic year of zara's life because he would do nothing but study hard, he didn't have anything else to do but study, he ended up with a very high gpa and even made the deans list. This is where he would meet JC, and mr fai, and the sissy. And together they would form the kalat crew. This kalat crew would stay together, until golum came along. The story of golum is a simple one, it is about carnal pleasures, and cognitive lying. Golum was about 5 ft 1, yellow skinned, and a very good definition of insane. She would quote fictional books, and try applying them into philosophy, she would dream up reading the second vatican council and try quoting it in philo class, She transferred over from accountancy to philosophy for some reason, and eventually zara and golum would cross paths, and this would become what is known as the greatest loitering in human history. Zara would pick her up in miguelin every day at 5 am, so as they would not miss out on prudente comp class at 7 am. Then they would do public affection all day long, which the class would find very distracting and disturbing. Golum would teach zara the secret of carnal pleasure without going full all out in it. This would drive zara to the point of madness, and define his life for the years to come. She would also teach him how to lie, and lie good, and it would also become part of him for the years to come. Zara would be unable to overcome this predicament really. So after 6 months and much goading from friends and family, and even a couple of row with zara's highschool buddies, zara called it quits, by returning all the stuff to golums place. But this would only be the beginning of a search for zara, the search for carnal sex. This would define his next four years, or more, wanting to do nothing more than get lucky. Golum and zara never became friends again, perhaps because of the damage the relationship did or both or who the hell knows. All I know is they can't be friends, and it is sorta better that way, although efforts were made to bridge this strange gap.

So after golum zara found himself immersing himself in mmorpgs, which would now define his life going on further, JC of course was watching the entire time, but was busy writing a hate mail in webdings, the general was busy with his works of art, sissy was being a sissy, and fai was busy somewhere, no one really knows. The first offspring of golum would be Olviga, which zara met online, and tried to impress by buying expensive oh sorry, not even expensive cloths in sm manila, again using JC funding. Patrick star was there busy making fun of zara's melt down. Eventually after about a month, it didn't work out and zara failed in his goal of getting lucky, but spent a shit load of cash on this campaign..

Grimace would then refer zara to this lady in fairview. Zara would secure a loan from the general and they would have their first date in tokyo tokyo, This lady would be very mean to zara, eventually giving him the name chaka, unintentionally which will continue to haunt zara to this day. Grimace would end the year by quitting and transferring, because she was afraid to face the difficulty of philosophy. Zara would eventually get called him by babes, his professor who is his neighbor, and they would ride home together, I could still remember this crazy day. The lady ordered the very expensive at the time dish,

After this instance in fairview, zara now known as chaka, would go on playing his games, and eventually met the mamasang. The mamasang was based in baguio and eventually referred him to nympha. Chaka went to baguio, and got very lucky with nympha, he was shocked, that such a creature had existed. Such a strange creature who didn't want anything but carnal pleasure in and out, she didnt' even want the money looking back at it, she just wanted the pleasure. It was very disturbing looking back at it, chaka was able to use fai's tool in this endeavor, and it was one of the craziests experiences of his life. He ended up coming back home, and his father said that does he look like the back of a burnt pan, and eventually time and distance came back into play because nympha had to go back to baguio..

About a month later, chaka informed JC that he was going back up to baguio, in hopes of getting lucky. JC insisted that he see this one through because of the dangers involved. This is now the era of the queen, who looked in fact like a washed up version of wrinkel, back in the day. The bad side of this story was, we ended up spending a lot of money, chaka and jc, And learning in the process of how to smoke, while almost jumping off a cliff in baguio, while listening to it ends tonight. The story was really simple, this strange nympha 2.0 wanted JC, instead of chaka, but couldn't get JC, so called her EX, and instead flirted with him, its a very disturbing life really, looking back.

So chaka and JC went back to manila, money spent, and it was OJT time. Chaka was able to spend a good 3 -4 months sober, until the lady from fairview decided to call him back, And this story after this one is for another day.


Now to reflect on what happened in zara's life is a tedious task. It seems that at some point in his life, he was unaware, resentful yet pampered to a certain extent. He seems to have been very envious of what others had, yet he was in a way pampered, I do not understand how this is possible. How can you have and not have at the same time? Aristotle would be very angry because this beats basic logic, and the principle of non contradiction, how can someone be pampered, and lacking at the same time, or better put pampered while being envious? Is that even possible, that is a question that I have to ask. It also seems that chaka grew up around people who always seem to have more than what he has to offer. He grows around rude but not bratty kids, he tries to go with the flow but it never seems to work because his facticity is very different he isn't trying to pose, but neither does he has what they have. He becomes their friend out of genuine trust, however, he seems to be envious of what they have because that is how it rolls, it happens that the is the poorest man in the room, but often the smartest. He became very angry because of his hung up experiences in sex. But he is certainly able to be honest, at times, which needs to be always.

We will have to continue to push to grow, to overcome to be honest and to be true, and be genuine. This is the story of his life, the luck of having others, but the curse of not being the best. I guess there is no perfect life, just one that you have to make perfect by yourself. The story of consistenly overcoming your hang ups and weaknesses, instead of feeling self pity. The need to be brave instead of being afraid, This is the story of chakas' life, the struggle from moving from weak to strong, while those around you are in a way better, and in a way worse. Acceptance and understanding humility and faith, life and love, sex and hate, pain and glory, losing one's self because of being unaware of the surrounding, that is the life story. In one short sentence, chaka's biggest mistake is one of ignorance, and not rethinking the things the he should be doing.


Till this day we continue.