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Part I: You Can't Cry Because You're Not Kris Aquino
After giving it five more rings, Erik hanged up the phone and decided to put off his plan of sharing the news with Paolo. No. Never.
He took to his journal instead and consigned to start on his autobiography. He tried to run the ballpoint of his pen again over the title and even gave arty curves on the tails of letters “y” and “g” and, as a finishing touch, the base of the capital “M” was ornately curled on both sides until it looked like a dairy maiden’s cap.
As soon as he wrote down the sub-title – The Life of the Unliving by Erik Lazaro – he felt a sudden rush of self-pity until his fingers grew weak with the pen. He closed his eyes hard and long, and in the dark expanse, like a fresh Polaroid snapshot, he saw a vision of a child on the prairie watching the cattle graze on the first green shoots of the rainy season.
When he came to, Perla, the maidservant from the outskirts, announced at the living room in a piquant Siquijor accent:
-- Koya Erik, I need to use another detergent! My hands look horrible!
He frisked the pockets of his jeans for loose change. There was no use arguing with a girl whose only dream was to finish a secretarial course at a nearby vocational school and perhaps by some stroke of forceful luck marry the sinewy houseboy of a Chinese merchant.
-- Heaven knows including the whole set of my folks that I shall be coming home one day with my sweet and temptingly virile Stanley with me…
He decided to make a pass on the salami at the breakfast table.
-- …and yes, Koya! You can actually tell the number of children you are going to raise in the future by the lines on your wrist…
She was suspended in midair with a recognizably naughty thought. Her bread was now oozing with Devil’s sauce as she let out a hearty chuckle.
-- I need the sauce…please pass it!
-- I know the Lord will forgive me if I ask two or three more children from my Stanley…You know, he has six or seven visible lines on his wrist…if the small ones count, my bosom will obligingly deliver them all for the improvement of mankind!
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