IN Black and White Stripes,

Guerilla sweeper slacks, technicolor heels, chicken with petchay and maguro sashimi, and Vertigo Can Be Translated Into A Text

I say, “I was asked why I accepted considering I turned down the offer two years ago.”

He laughs, “What did you say?”

I laugh, “To serve our country. That made them blink.”

He laughs, “They think I’m being too kind because it’s about helping these people who can’t get jobs.”

I laugh again, “I did say it was because of you and your program.”

He says, “It’s their only left option.“

I say, “I know. But hey, remember our deal. Make sure it’s kept or I will kick your ass.”

He shrugs, “Don’t worry, it won’t affect your writing.”

I almost snap, “Don’t fuck with that. It took the last two fucking years for it to get to this.”

He grimaces, “What target did they tell you?”

Give me time to map it, I smile, “60%. Let’s make it 100%.”

He laughs.

Two hours after lunch: The human brain is actually three--- Mammalian, Reptilian, and Cerebral Cortex. Fight or Flight is from the Reptilian Brain. To survive life, we become reptiles.

I am asked by him and everyone who had answered the same question, “And what of you? What happens when you feel lust?”

I quietly remember, “There is that softening… and tightening… inside me… You feel that, don’t you.”

Heat, silence, nods, then he coughs while looking at me, “Oh…kay… I think I need to go the restroom! Damn writers…”

That naughty lecher, we all laugh, the author of the term Horny Sapiens.

Three hours later: The future exists the moment it is put into thoughts and words like “will” for then it exists in the now. He and I then talk about emotional intelligence, changes in modules and adjustments in approaches, and marriage. I laugh, “Big John said to me Almost eleven years?! What are you waiting for?!”

He shudders, laughs, “And what did you say?”

I laugh, “When the crow goes blond?”

He laughs and we remind each other of the existential past, about how he was an alienating womanizer and how I was so close to crossing that line between sanity and insanity.

I laugh, “You dumbass, I crossed it already and by the time you and I started becoming close, it was about crossing back to this world.”

He laughs, “Not many people get how difficult that is. Buti na lang bumalik ka!”

I laugh again, “Not quite, not yet,” remembering how Ma’am May Flores used to berate me about the difference of the two phrases.

Then he and I remember how our hearts broke almost at the same time and how our bodies felt that break--- a long time ago, we laugh now--- his with regret and mine with the acceptance of how things pass.

I say, “I just puked it all out but man you were a vindictive bastard. You were cruel and you did those things but you call me cold-hearted bitch? Hah!”

He laughs, “Not many women are as liberal as you.”

I wink, “No, no, it’s just that not many women are aware of what is a woman and even I am still learning. Marge Piercy says that freedom is our real abundance.”

He asks, “And what of Rustom Padilla becoming BB Gandanghari?”

I laugh, “Transgender. When one says I am a woman trapped in a man’s body, it doesn’t mean homosexual. It means exactly that and so there has to be that death, that whole transformation, so that the outside can match the inside. And in most cases, in between usually is that homosexual transition. Later on would be sex change and then gender re-assignment.”

He shakes his head, “Damn, I miss intelligent conversations!”

I shake my head, thinking of China, “Damn, I miss Collins! Did you know that she suffered through discrimination when it came to jobs here? One motherfucker even said Maybe other institutions would be more welcoming to and the fucker didn’t know what pronoun to use. At least the bastard didn’t say it. I wanted to find that moron and kick his ass. It’s been five years but that still pisses me off.”

Butterfly, come home and look at the woman I’ve become. Are you now your friend, the moon, woman?