Street Kings (A dangerous living part 2)

My uniformed life ended with a resignation letter, that means freedom from corporate bonds (hello street-life). At this moment, while counting the last of my salary; wondering if it would end up until the 30th, I am thinking of having a racket. Some things pop in my mind, some old feats that I know. Thinking my way home after a nice chat with my buddies and beer, I remember this guy; a good ex-office mate and let's just call him Max. A bald dude who has a good physique and a nice car. He actually invited me on some races after our shift was up. He told me that our salary is not enough to earn a living or even filling his car's tank. So that is his reason why he has this kind of 'sideline'. 

While riding his good old car, he told me not to talk about this in the office. For someone might actually intrude on our doings and file some sort of conduct shit or whatsoever in his doings. So the ride to mayhem started. After swearing that I won't talk about this in the office, he showed me the world of the underground fighting. Here, there is no rules, there is no referee either. The fight is about endurance and how long can you take the pain from your opponent. At that time, I've seen this fat guy, maybe around 6' flat in height, he's wearing a loose shirt and a short jeans. He's got a tattoo saying this phrase "only God can Judge me" on his right triceps. I thought that dude is one of the crowd, but his appearance is disturbing but at that night, he is the one fighting for the money. Before the fight starts, the crowd will place their bets on their chosen fighter and then the 20% of the total winnings of the fight will go to the fighter. For example if the pot is 10,000 automatically the 2000 will go the fighter. And the remaining money will go for the betting crowd.

So here it goes, after the moderator asks for more bets, the fight is on. The fat-guy send a hard-hitting blow over the face of the other guy. But the guy didn't knocked his opponent on that blow. A counter kick hits his ribs and the brawl continues. After sending some hard punches and sharp kicks, the other guy won the battle with bruises and cuts on his eyelid.  Max told me that here, the only opponent of yours is yourself. If you fail to knock the other guy, that's your problem. He said to me that in this kind of game, there are only two sides; there ain't no draws here if you're fucked, then you're fucked! 

That's how it goes, he told me that on this line of fighting there are still match ups needed to agree upon. Because a 5 footer can't fight a 6 footer all by his hands and wits! Come on, life is not fair! That's why Smith and Wesson created its signature peacemaker! On the other hand, this is the rule of the street, fight hard and thrive with its rules! If you're feeble and dumb, you cannot win this harsh environment! You better plant sweet potatoes instead! 

We can find good lessons on everything around us, it's just that we are the ones who will pick the right decisions and wisdom out of the scenario we are in. In this case, street fighting is illegal, but some local officials still tolerate this because of its profits that is way beyond the legal fighting generates. In what I've seen, there are some professional boxers who are joining this kind of game! They're most susceptible in joining because the pot money lures them while they don't have a ringside fight. Some boxers say that this is a good training grounds to hone their skills as a fighter. Well, you are the reader you decide on picking what's a good shit and what's a no-no! 

Shock in the Shacks (A short story)

 Calamities are the usual visitors of the Filipino people every year. With broken houses, broken dreams, dead love ones and serious economic problems, we can say that this is a curse a Filipino must pass every year. With this, I wrote this short story. Enjoy....

Shock in the Shacks

by Axle Cano

There’s a hole inside Antonio’s room. No one knows why it’s there, but the only explanation that they know is that, Antonio wanted his room to be cleaned up after the storm surge devastated the shack village a week ago. Her mother screamed indiscriminately in sleeping Antonio, “Antonio! What have you done with the plank-pile!?” He get up as quickly as possible, wear the tattered shorts he had and answered his mother, “Mom, I don’t know, I will not even noticed it myself?” a puzzled kid wandering why there’s a hole.

Underneath the hole is garbage… full of garbage from the neighbors, from the other shack villages, from the near canal establishments carried by the flood. News’ are crowding the airwaves with what’s in and what’s not. For the shack people, what’s in is finding new materials for repairs of their houses. An army of kids below 13 are on their way to find scrap lumbers from the construction sites nearby. Scouring the newly flooded metro is hard, because of the pile of dirt flood has brought. But for them, it’s a new way to find living. All those scraps, garbage, plastics and other spoilage of flood are worth gold in their eyes.

“Tonyo, have you seen istak?” an asking woman around 18 approached Tonyo.

“Nope, not a trace… why’re you looking for him”

“He didn’t come home for the last few days, after the storm hits our boat-house. That is our concern right now.” Nearly sobbing as she continues.

“Hmm I will tell you as soon as possible, anyway got to go. There are so many things to do”

Antonio pushes his cart as quickly as possible. Every pile of dirt, he searches for materials they need, and for him to fix the mysterious hole in his room. After hours of searching, he nearly full his cart with some soaked mattress, few books that are nearly dried, coco-lumbers, tarpaulins of politicians who promised his mother and deceased father some good relocation site (their faces are in better use if they will put it on their shack). All of those ‘knick-knacks’ filled his cart.

On his way home, there’s a crowd going loco about a pile of garbage. Scavenging their way for good ‘trade’, some of them pushing each other in order to get the nice spot, and Antonio is not that interested to get in to trouble. He just continued to walk until he reached his favorite ‘fishing spot’. On that spot, he can get good stuff; the television that they’re using in their house is a big-fish from that canal.

Wandering and digging the petrified garbage is hard if it’s not rainy season, but after the flood, scavenging here is easy. While searching for precious ‘fish’, Antonio realized that the hole in his room is a part of an old oak barrel that his fathered salvaged from the pilings of Manila Bay. After some afterthought, he noticed something’s floating near his rope, the barrel! 

When he lifted the barrel, he saw Istak floating and all swelled up. 

A Dangerous Living, Chapter 1

It's been awhile since my last creative non-fiction has been published (as a blog), well schedules are to blame for that. In any case, no need for me to regret; time passes so they say. On the past few weeks I've been in my hiatus, a state wherein no creativity nor drive is available for me to create something out of this world or even what people expected me to do so. The question is, what happened? There was this kind of searching, a journey to which I am supposed to find the inner reflections that will guide me to my being.

The dangerous life

There's a fire burning outside the window, smoke lingers through the open space of the house. I can barely see due to the smoke, but one thing is certain--it didn't choke me. This is the dream that woke me that day, on the day that I realized that I am living on numbers. That everything around me is manipulated by norms, that being creative and revolutionary is a sin, that really chokes me! So it started that way, in a dream. Anyway, I do believe that my dream has its meaning. Not a mystical one, but a psychological instead. I am seeing smoke as an indicator of what's coming, something disturbing--like fire.

Things happen very fast, I am thinking of resigning out of my job. I've experienced apathy enough with that kind of work, literally that kind of work will turn a sane man into a zombie. Or a clockwork being having an off button at the end of the day and a start button in the morning after. Same old stuff, same old shit, same old fucking faces that you wanna hit. And then somebody's calling the phone, its your supervisor from Japan cursing you with his unreasonable rants. Poor old guy you can't answer the boss with what you are allowed to say in corporate etiquette. In my case, poor old supervisor, this guy doesn't care if he will receive another IR (incident report) for your dumb reasons and foul words throwing at me without any explanation. Voila, MEMO! A fucking memo for calling your boss a stupid dumb-ass who cannot speak English as fast as I am. Who cannot identify what's a significant market to a lowly not profitable one. For being smart and being proactive. A fucking memo for that! Well that's what I deserve, people told me. The only person that didn't laugh is my Fiancee, for she knows my capabilities. Anyway that's out of the question, I decided to leave the company. There are no razrez whatsoever, I packed up my things, say goodbye to a few fellow who treated my stay there and called em mates ( for we consider ourselves prisoners of 8 hour shift) and then that's it.

As I walk around the J.Vargas avenue, I've seen so many happy faces, I am wondering why? Maybe being a corporate dude/gal is their dream in life, maybe sitting in an office and doing what they boss wants em to do sooth their longing for completeness in their being. I am wondering? Does parents want their children to be lobotomized by the system? I dunno, but I think this way of thinking is idealistic and immature (me saying in the future if I will change my views about life and philosophy). A question will left my statement here hanging and for me to continue writing my rants, does living dangerously will show me something (the BEING) that is worth seeking?

What I Miss in Blogging

It's been awhile since I wrote something here. They say that blogging is like a way of life, everyday you will write everything that happened in your life, significant or not--just write it down. Well in my case, I treat my blog as a significant part of my being, to which my ramblings about life,death, and everything in between are intact. when time comes to reminisce those bittersweet whatever, I can just click it right away here in my URL. So for today, I am just updating my blog and preparing a debut poem to which a friend inspired me to craft and wield in my foundry of poems. And what a damn coincidence that I am thinking of Edgar Allan Poe's passage about sleep,( in my mind I was just thinking, "I should write this one") damn! I will just post it and here it is.

“Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.” 

―Edgar Allan Poe

Poems are likely to be found in ordinary language...

And ordinary language is most likely part of the usual

Sleep is part of the unusual, wherein

dreams are the catharsis of poems. Well, will you miss Morpheus?

 if he'll lulls you to sleep, but in waking

you'll forget everything? I owe it

 to the usual, for it manages to remember

 what you have lost,

through blunders.

the title of this poem is 'what we miss in sleeping', technically the reason why I wrote this one is a mystery. It is for the reader to interpret what I've said and what the poem is actually about in their own perspective. to that, a poet will never reveal his own motives/intentions in his craft.
P.S. tomorrow again I will write something.