fiction

TV Show
by Russel Mendoza

He picked up a tiny chocolate cup
that was marked: ricoa
from the window, then
he sat on the floor,
choosing the part where
the umbra of the shadows lay.

She didn't notice him.

faint, short, quiet rains
don't come easily these days,' he
said, smoking a cigarette while she read on.

There were two reality shows that Saturday night on cable TV: the girl from Makati and Jeff ; neither of them could be considered exciting or interesting. In fact, I thought, there was more plot to Fear Factor than these two stories combined. They were to most people what soap opera was to high-hatting college boys and girls- something they would never admit watching but would flip through them anyway when they're home alone just to see what others are watching.

The concept of both shows was simple. They feature a person- someone with an interesting personality most likely, and they follow him or her around round the clock whatever it was he or she was doing; basically, the same as the aquarium channel except that there's very little water involved.

The girl from Makati is, as the title suggests, about a girl from Makati. She's a 24 year old marketing officer for a company located somewhere in Paseo de Roxas, and lives several streets away in a nice-looking apartment. No. 79. That was her house number; the camera always showed this intricately carved reddish stone that bore the number of her place every time she comes home, except during the times that the camera focused on her behind as she fumbles with her keys or tries to locate them from its hiding place in her doorstep.

Tall, smart and beautiful, she has a way of getting things going her way. The first time I saw her, she gave me an impression of someone who has everything under control, her whole life planned out, and a positive disposition towards life, which never let up; a picture of someone who knows what she wants and how to get them. I guess it's in the way she walks or stands; she always kept her back straight and her movements were measured but not stiff. She was simply full of grace.

Jeff was from a cooking show that was taken off the air not very long ago. He was the country's answer to the naked chef although not exactly as handsome and clean-looking as most women would imagine a naked chef would be. His build was a bit on the slender side, and he fashioned a look that brings to mind contemporary rock artists or hibernating writers who haven't seen combs and razors in months with his wavy careless hair and un-trimmed beard. It was part of the package that present cooking shows have been brewing on: the rock star turned soft-spoken, passionate-about-aroma-and-basil-leaves-chef. The package was true to its content anyway. He was indeed a very gentle character. He was brisk when he worked the wok, but his voice had an undertone that was filled with honest concern for the viewers.

Once, during a live episode, a guest actor tipped his temper. The actor had been babbling about his trips to Europe and how exquisite their cuisines were with a forced slang as they were preparing the first of three dishes for that day's episode. On the second dish, the actor criticized traditional dishes and went on to speak about the "Filipino uneducated tongue". The third dish never came through, but the actor did, luckily, some 20 minutes after Jeff had knocked him unconscious with the dull edge of a butcher's knife. Of course, violence was never an acceptable spice in the cooking show business so, two episodes later, the show was cancelled. Fortunately, there were several people who thought that he simply did the right thing; in fact, someone thought that it was heroic although violent, and that explains why in the dead of night, at the farthest side of the channel spectrum, he has his own reality show.

That night, I came home late from my construction job, boiled myself some water for coffee; and as it was like a reflex, turned on the television. The Girl from Makati and Jeff were on at channels 78 and 79, respectively.

It was ten minutes past 9 o'clock in the evening of Saturday so I was a bit surprised to find that the girl form Makati was just staying home reading a thick novel by Neil Gaiman, the one with his face on the back cover. I had expected her to be out with her girlfriends in a bar or a shop in Malate, which was always the case. She had three very close friends who all worked in separate call centers. Saturdays were the only days they could stay up really late without having to worry about their next shift, so they made it a point to meet up. They would start with dinner somewhere in Greenbelt, chat all the way to Malate, where they take a few drinks before heading to a club, and finally cool down in a café. They did the same things on the same order every time: it was creepy, like a cult ritual.

She was wearing a thin blue herbench cotton sweater over a set of pajamas. Of course, even 24-7 reality shows aren't free of advertisements. There were no pauses and the camera never stopped rolling, but sponsors always found ways to advertise; in her case, they leave huge shopping bags in the picture or a poster on her wall aside from zooming in on the products every now and then. Sometimes, a stranger, most probably a sales agent from one of the sponsors would come visit her and take her out to dinner and barhopping.

That night, she just sat there on the floor right next to the window, her eyes intently gazing over her book. As it seemed, she had turned off the lights in her room and opened the window to invite the light from a nearby street post which was nothing more than a diagonal projection that poorly illuminated one side of her face and some parts of her body. Also the camera seemed to be mounted on the floor, enlarging her pink sole out of proportion in the center of the picture.

Every now and then, she smiled, presumably out of a witty turn of event in the book, lasting only about five seconds but leaving some of it hanging by the corners of her lips, which eventually drowned in the next smile.

Flipping the channel, I found that Jeff had just arrived from somewhere; the sharp clank of colliding metal keys and glass tore through the speakers.

He was awkwardly groomed, as usual, with his ever-disheveled hair that no mother could accept as a style. He wore faded penshoppe denim, a black and red Nike Presto, and a black corduroy jacket over a rather oversized plain white Hanes. Unlike the girl from Makati, his advertisements were explicit. Whenever he entered a room or put on a new piece of clothing or apparel, a text on the lower left side of the screen would appear indicating what he was wearing or eating; as in a video role-playing -game wherein whenever the character picked up something, a label of what it was would pop-up on the screen. Something like that.

He was stretched on a burgundy couch, wearing a sedated expression as he was looking over some pictures he had picked from a side table. It was the same set of pictures that he looked through almost every night since Monday but the cameras never showed what the pictures contained.

Like the girl form Makati, he had one source of light: an incandescent lamp with a long bending stem clamped to the side table; also, the camera was leveled to the center table where he had incidentally put his feet, exposing the wavy contour of his rubber sole and a filthy old gum.

With nothing happening, I turned my attention back to the boiling water, poured it on a cup, and then switched the channel back.

She was not beside the window anymore, nay on the screen, but the soft thump of her feet was audible. There was also the sound of water flowing from a wide-mouthed funnel followed by what seemed to be twisting of plastic cups, clanking of metal and porcelain, crumpling of plastic, then brief silence before another set of thumps.

Seconds later, she appeared on the screen with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of Ricoa flat tops, and the book in the other. Gently, she sat on the floor; her feet curling under her legs, and lifted her book back close to her face.

Jeff on the other hand was rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. He too had a made for himself a cup of coffee that was sitting on the counter, but he was looking for something else. At first I thought he ran out of sugar or cream. Five minutes later, looking disappointed, he picked up his cup and brought it with him on the couch.

"I wish I had some chocolates," he said, and then sighed heavily.

It was at this point that I had started taking interest. Was it really a coincidence? Or could someone be as bored as I am to be instructing them to do things that were somehow in synch? Fumbling with the remote control, I searched for the command that would spit the TV screen. But since I was bad at figuring out commands and reading manuals, I took an old TV out of the basement, and placed it beside the other TV, allowing me to watch both shows at the same time.

Slowly, she peeled a flat top chocolate as if she was trying not to make a sound with its plastic wrapper. It must've irritated her, I thought, for her to open it in that unusual gentleness. Then chewing halfway, she took a moderate sip from her cup.

Strangely, she put two chocolate flat tops on the window frame similar to the way a small child would arrange or put food in line to be eaten.

Perhaps there really was a child inside her; not the one the preacher talks about whom "alone can enter heaven", the child that is present in everyone. No, not that. I think I've seen enough episodes to recognize the child that was uniquely her, peering from behind her eyes with so much excitement every time she learns something new. Her eyes gave the hiding child away- dilating carelessly at every trick and discovery the world had under its sleeves. Then there was her clapping. She clapped every time she saw something nice: a new billboard that she thought was "some neat artwork", the improving stats of her market share, or the silly antics of her friend's suitor; and upon hearing her favorite band on the radio although she had bought herself cds of them and listened to them over and over for two straight weeks. She could also go on and on talking about sharing her whole life with her "brave, spirited, noble-minded prince." The girl from Makati was, I thought, a girl.

Inside Jeff's apartment, Rivermaya's "A Love to Share" was blasting through a Sony component, the specs of it appearing on the left side of the screen, the album cover flashing across with the credits.

"'A love to share but nobody dares.'" he sang along, softly.

He was stretched out again on the couch where he, during the entirety of the song, remained still, his eyes glued to an invisible star on the ceiling. Though it was not a very popular thing to do, the camera frame had slowly zoomed out. Now, in the whole picture was the couch with him on the lower left side, a side table with the lamp farther left, and a large wall photograph behind every knickknack on the room. The photo was that of a candid scene in busy Divisoria taken with a wide-angle lens; and as the picture occupied the whole wall space, it had seemed as though he was lying on a couch on the street while a crowd of people walked past his feet with far away stares.

He had been an activist in his college years, or so he said in a previous episode, fighting for cheaper tuition fees and labor rights of workers in several sugar farms before he moved his attention to helping an organization better the educational system; but after finding that there was more corruption there than in the farms, he took a step back and refocused all his efforts to understanding the people he had been trying to fight for all those years. He too was like a child, naïve of the system that overwhelmed him so much that he turned to cooking dishes to earn a living. There couldn't be corruption in cooking, he said, if there was, it was only a matter of taste.

Nevertheless, his previous activities, now that he was a bum with no other job than to have a couple of people follow him around with cameras, indicated a subtle desire to find something to fight for. Last month, he was followed around talking to strangers, people from the urban working class, small-scale business folks, and fish vendors. When asked about this, he said that he was simply searching for colorful people to add spice to the show. Apparently, he knew how the entertainment system works and what it keeps on the air.

"Let me tell you something, Jeff," the producer confronted him on an episode last week. "You can't save a whole class of people. It's an old riddle: the general and the specific. And here's the answer: You save a group and all you really have are names and numbers. Abstracts, Jeff. Save one and I assure you that you'll sleep well at night." From then on, the show seemed to turn to a different direction against the taste of his own friends but much to the appreciation of teenagers: one man's search for true love, or at least, a princess in distress.

Just as the song ended, his phone rang. He picked it up and began a monologue since the other party's voice was inaudible through the set microphones.

"Hello."

"Yes?"

"Who is this?"

"Yes."

"Pardon me?"

"Is this a joke?"

"I'm sorry."

"Now?"

"Are you serious? No, I was just-"

"Where is this?"

"How do I get there?"

"Okay."

"I'll be there."

He hanged up and took a moment to think, his eyes directed somewhere beyond the contents of the room.

The nice thing about 24 hour reality shows in terms of plot was that most of the time you'll have to figure it out. Unlike reality shows that feature real tv personalities or movie stars, they don't tell you what they're about to do or where they intend to go. They simply go on with their activities as if the camera was not there.

He got up from the couch, walked into a room, and the next minute, came out with a camera strapped on his shoulder- a big black Nikon. There was no fade-in description at the bottom of the screen indicating that the camera manufacturer was not a sponsor of the show, but it looked like an F5, a full-metal camera he carried around in place of a gun. "For protection," he once explained.

The video camera shook and followed him down to a garage.

She yawned like a newborn kitten, flipping the book towards the end as if counting the pages she has yet to cover. She glanced at a digital-clock on the floor: 9: 30 pm-12-03-04-f, and returned to Neil Gaiman. Several shadows crossed her face. A hustle of footsteps followed. It was light as if it was from tiny feet or a nearby flapping of insects, but certainly of people, perhaps of small stature or swift movements. It made her peer through the window, her eyes widening in either excitement or shock; through it, the camera remained still, covering only her expression and a giant pink sole that had come to view once again.

She tore another plastic wrapper, and toyed with the chocolate in her mouth, her tongue glistening like a small puddle of pink blood under the moon. It was during this childish act that her cell phone rang.

"Hello."

"Yeah."

"Oh. Hi!"

"Me?"

"I'm fine. Just reading a book."

"What was that?"

"Really?"

"Now?"

"In Makati?"

"That's not very far from here."

"Oh."

"I don't know."

"Should I be worried?"

"Oh my."

"Don't worry; I'll be fine. I'll just lock the doors. Besides, the guy from the tv station's here. He'll protect me."

"Okay."

"You too."

"Bye now."

"Could you please lock the doors," she said looking straight at the camera. "There's a robbery just a few houses from here. My friend was worried the robbers might run and try to hide in my apartment. What are the chances of something terrible happening to me?"

A low chuckle reverberated inside the room, accompanied by the sound of locking bolts.

"You know, I've always thought this street we are on was one of the safest there is in Makati. I sure hope the cops have the situation under control," she said. Resting the book on the laminated wooden floor, she leaned to the wall next to the window, and cleared her throat.

"When I was young I dreamt I was being chased by muddy monsters." She let out a faint laugh. "Actually, it wasn't a chase. I take that back because the monsters that were following me were huge and very slow. They moaned too as they walked, like zombies. It was very funny. I had all the time to run to the house and lock all the doors before they got there. But of course, when I was younger that really sacred me because I was often left home alone."

Her eyes narrowed as if trying to recall the title of an old song that kept playing in her head. "My mom said that there actually were bad people around the house that day I had that dream." Turning her head to the window, she went on, "It was a robbery too. There was a mansion five houses away from our place whose owners kept a grocery in town. Anyway, some of the workers tried to steal from them, running off to a vacant lot, which at that time was teeming with tall grass and a variety of fruit-bearing trees. At the back of our house, there's this huge crack on the wall. They probably went through that."

"Now that I think about it, it's funny. I was scared of something in my dream that had actually already happened." She picked and opened her book, flipping through the pages, searching where she had stopped reading.

There was something quiet about her, or perhaps it was the way the light hit her face, turning her into something like an old portrait. It was something that influences you with its calmness, causing all your systems to shut down, sucking all your thoughts. It makes you want to stare forever. She's pretty alright, but it's not that. You could be pretty and look like the North and South Korean border. Some faces are like that; they worry you away. Hers was different. It radiated kindness but it was also very different from those of saints or martyrs that seem to read your soul as you look into their eyes, no, not like that. Hers was just simply peaceful.

Loud horns and running engines served soundtrack in the other screen. Jeff was speeding through EDSA, overtaking taxis and provincial buses in his old Honda 100 cc motorcycle; the Nikon catching and reflecting glares from his back.

"Faster," said a husky voice, most probably the cameraman's.

"Where are we heading?" the driver said.

"I don't know. Just follow him."

"You should've asked."

"Listen, our voices shouldn't be in this, so just drive. We're losing him."

"He's on a bike and we're on this old piece of trash."

"Quiet. Are we forgetting something here?"

"I didn't start this conversation, did you?"

"Sshhh."

"Wait, where did he go?"

"In front of that Victory Liner bus. Go overtake it."

"Shit."

"What?"

"That Corolla cut me. Damn yuppies."

"Let it go. Just follow him."

On the screen was the Victory Liner as they overtook it, sleepy faces staring at them. In front of it was a white Ford Explorer; no motorcycle in sight.

"We lost him," said the husky voice.

There was a beep and the static of a portable transmitter.

"Station. Come in." A new voice, a man's, spoke through the unclear line.

"Sir, we lost him."

"That's alright. Keep it straight. And oh, keep rolling, we'll take it from here."

There was a pause and a beep. On screen, the traffic thickened almost instantly.

"Holy God, where are all these people going?" the driver said in a tone that didn't sound like he was addressing God.

"Nowhere," the husky voice replied. "We're all just chasing senseless-ness. We might as well bite our tails."

Just then, the men's voices were abruptly lost, so were the horns, sirens, and everything else that made up the sound of traffic. There was a brief eerie silence until the sound of turning paper tore through it. The girl from Makati didn't seem conscious of it, and perhaps everything else that was happening in the world. She read on.

Slowly gaining volume, Dido's "Here with Me" played over Jeff's screen, turning it into a low-budget music video featuring the bright lights and contrasting dark corners of EDSA, the MMDA art, with the special participation of a beggar who didn't waste any of his fifteen minutes of fame, hogging at the camera until the traffic cleared.

Above the cityscape, grayish dark clouds were merging, threatening to pour. From afar, the city looked like a scene from a gothic movie- black, almost surreal and depressing.

When they reached Buendia, they spotted Jeff turning to a street, and followed him. The Music went on drowning the noise from the engine. By that time, Dishwalla's "counting blue cars" was playing.

After another sip off her cup, she returned to her reading, holding her book in one hand. The other was tapping the floorboard beside her coffee. Using her middle and index fingers, she drummed a lively beat coinciding with the Dishwalla song.

At that point, I started wondering again. Was it a gimmick? Was there actually a plot being played out? Or was it pure coincidence? I get that these are reality tv shows, but if they could put in advertisements in many creative ways, putting a plot shouldn't be so difficult for them, I thought. On the other hand, If a déjà vu could happen, why not this? After all, these series of events started with the THREE of us fixing coffee. Nobody gave me a script for that.

Jeff slowed down to a corner and stopped. Behind him was a mini-grocery with several LPG tanks piled up on the front. Beside that was a Police Outpost that was lavishly decorated with Christmas lights, but no shadow of a cop in sight. His phone had been ringing inside his jacket pocket. The camera moved close to him, more like on his face, causing him to swing his head to one side. He took his helmet off and answered the call.

"Hello."

"Yes."

"I'm not sure where I am."

"Yes."

"Okay."

"Uh-huh."

"No. I didn't mean that."

"No cops."

"Yes, that's clear."

"Yes."

Immediately after hanging up, he turned to the camera with a worried expression. "Turn that thing off," he said.

The screen didn't move.

"We can't do that," the husky voice said.

"Somebody's life could be in danger!" he yelled. He paused for a second to catch his breath, and before he could start to explain, the ringing of his phone interrupted him. He looked angry as he turned away from the camera to answer it. The camera kept rolling but the words were difficult to understand.

The threat of rain became more immanent: lightning struck across the bruised sky; followed by a heavy growl that sounded like a giant bowling ball bouncing and rolling, and hitting nothing, and a gust of wind that debatably fixed his unkempt hair.

After hanging up, he gave the camera a sorry look then heaved a sigh. "Alright," he said. "Let's go."

"Will you tell us what's happening?" asked the husky voice, trembling. They were walking briskly through alleys of residences, passing by people with questioning stares, and some walking away. People were always either attracted to or disarmed by cameras. Unable to get a response, the husky voice said in an imperative tone, "We can't go too far from the van. If we do, we won't be able to transmit. We are the only station with this technology, Jeff, let's not push it."

Still, Jeff paid no attention to him, walking faster, his phone ringing, unnoticed.

They reached a curve that was filled with people, all facing the same direction- towards a 7-11 store. The Police had picketed the surrounding area to restrict people from crossing to the perpendicular street. Directly in front of the store was a black F-150 parked carelessly, its windows half-opened. There were four uniformed officers at the scene, two of them were chatting on one corner, one was working the radio, and the other was warding the picket line, ordering the curious people to step farther back.

Turned away from Jeff, the camera zoomed through the glass door. Inside there were five people, two female cashiers and three tall men, probably in their early twenties, two of them carrying 9 mm handguns each, and the other, an impressive Desert Eagle. Clearly, the assailants were not ordinary homemade pistol-packing punks. They looked too clean for it, and in classic standards, were handsome. One of them wore a varsity jacket of one of the country's most prestigious universities. As it turns out, they were indeed rich kids with a twisted idea of fun, or so the man with a high-pitched voice closest to the camera said. They had taken nothing from the cash register and have not demanded anything. In fact, they didn't seem bothered by the situation they have gotten themselves in. The two boys with the 9 mms were drinking coffee and seemed to be sharing a chat and the Desert Eagle guy was on his cell phone with a triumphant smile running across his face.

At that moment, the word: LIVE appeared on the upper right side of the screen in red blinking letters.

"That over there- that's the congressman's son," said the high-pitched unfamiliar voice. "Would you believe it, this 7-11 was robbed yesterday too!"

The officer manning the fence spoke through a megaphone, bossing the people to go home, one hand raised with what seemed like tear gas.

"Oh, shit. They're going to let them escape!" shouted the high-pitched man.

Going back to Jeff, he had squeezed his way through the crowd to the direction of the police officer who was warding the line. They were now talking, with very expressive faces. He had seemed to be asking the officer something, then explaining, and finally begging. On the other hand, the officer kept a grim pout, shaking his head like it was connected to his body with a spring.

A bright lightning exploded nearby, illuminating the whole scene for a brief moment. Then the sky gave out a loud growl. Finally, it rained, beginning with fat drops and almost instantly turning to a heavy downpour.

The camera showed a graffiti-covered waiting shed drawing closer in a dizzying manner, several streaks of water across the frame, and motion-blurred men running towards the shed. When the dizzying sequence was over, the frame was steadily focused on the front of the 7-11, more specifically, the steam rising from the asphalt road which looked like spirits escaping from the under the earth, forming several human-like figures before reaching a few feet above the ground and completely vanishing.

"Your phone is ringing," the husky voice said.

"Hello," said Jeff. At this point, the steam had been overpowered by the gravity of the rain. There was nothing to see but the white pour. It looked like a view from a cave behind a wide waterfall.

"Yes!" Jeff shouted, as the sound of the rain took much of the audio.

"What?"

"No."

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

"What?"

"I need more time."

"What?"

"Five minutes?"

"Or what?"

"Okay. Okay."

"Oh God."

"Don't hurt her."

"Damn it!"

The camera had swung and was taking a worm's eye view of Jeff, giving his chin and nostrils adequate exposure, when he swung his arm and hit the lens, shaking the picture.

"Won't you tell me what's going on?" the husky voice said.

"There's this woman," he began. "But we don't have time."

In what seemed like a quarter of a second, he was out of sight. He had dashed into the dense rain and through the picket line to the next street.

"Shit!" the husky voice exclaimed. The camera tipped. There was a soft thump, then a piece of clothing appeared near the top of the screen- perhaps, the edge of a collar of a polyester jacket. And then the frame moved swiftly into the white heavy rain.

With the darkness, the fast motion, perhaps coupled with slow shutter speed or high aperture, and the precipitation over the lens, there was nothing to see. At first, it seemed that the program had gone off the air with the familiar whoosh, but apparently, the sound of the rain wasn't very different. This went on for about ten minutes or so.

When the screen had cleared, Jeff was spotted on his knees at the doorstep of an elegant apartment, exhausted and soaked. There was a number 79 intricately carved in a 2 square-foot reddish stone in the style of Mayan Art. It was just as the caller had told him, he said.

Still catching his breath, he got up, and after gathering whatever strength he had left in his body, forcefully knocked on the door.

The girl from Makati was startled by the knocking on the door, clutching the book close to her chest; fear spelled itself upon her expressive eyes- a fear that was long-forgotten like a lost kitten, making its return, now grown and untamed. She crouched to the floor, waved at the camera, and pressed her index finger to her lips, imploring the cameraman not to make any sound.

Jeff stopped and pressed his ear to the door. His eyes narrowed, and knocked again with all his strength.

The wooden door trembled and so did she. She covered her ears with her tiny hands but kept her eyes glued to the door. Just in case, she probably thought. After a little less than two minutes, the knocking ceased. Slowly, she pushed her upper body to a sitting position.

When she turned to the window, the frame caught a shimmer at the corner of her eye. She remained silent; her wide eyes scanning the street outside like two large spotlights.

"It's gone," she whispered, looking back at the camera. "The muddy monster is gone."

Her cameraman chuckled. It sounded like ice cubes turning inside a glass. She countered it with a warm smile, showing her perfect teeth.

"The trick in dealing with trespassers when you're alone," she went on, "is to pretend that you are not home."

Jeff stopped knocking, and with his energy depleted, dropped on his knees again, and sank in his soaked clothes. The frame turned to his bleeding fist. Fat drops of rain bouncing from the floor diluted the flowing blood.

She moved herself to the other side of the window just outside the spot where the light from the street lamp landed, and glanced at the digital clock display: 11:30 pm 12-03-04-f. Then she heaved a sigh and went back to her reading.

"Why don't you check under the mat?" the husky voice told Jeff.

"What do you mean?" he replied.

"The key?"

"Oh. It's probably not there," he said, shaking his head and still catching his breath.

"Probably."

The husky voice's last word put a determined look in his face, something that explained that he had to try all options.

He slid his hand under the floor mat and found the key, almost miraculously. Holding his breath, he slid the key into the hole and turned.

It was dark inside but the open window, which allowed some amount of light to come through, gave him hints of a tall lamp, some boxes on one side of the room, but remarkably, no couch.

Both screens of the separate TVs now shared the same lighting condition.

He walked across the room and stopped when he got to the other end, his muddy prints trailing behind him. There was an eerie silence about the room like somebody was there watching him with wide invisible eyes. He felt the cold rush up his spine, making him quiver.

"Hello?" he said, trembling.

There was no reply, just dead silence.

Looking out of the window, he pulled out a plastic cigarette case from his pocket. Slowly, as if in a sacred ritual, he took a stick, and placed it in between his lips. The soft sound of combusting match ushered a small spark in the darkness. The Marlboro logo flashed across the screen.

He picked up a tiny chocolate cup
that was marked: ricoa
from the window, then
he sat on the floor,
choosing the part where
the umbra of the shadows lay.

She didn't notice him.

"Faint, short, quiet rains
don't come easily these days," he
said, smoking a cigarette while she read on.

They were probably less than a foot away from each other with their backs turned. And with both TVs set side by side, although both were on their own frames, they looked like they were almost leaning on each other like soldiers watching each other's back during a night watch. They remained still and quiet for a good minute or so.

"Will you tell me now what this is all about?" the husky voice said.

With his hands covering his face, the cigarette carefully tucked between his middle and index finger, he answered, "Maybe we're late."

"Late for what?"

The floorboard creaked.

"The caller earlier said that they would do something to the woman who lived here. He said he thought it would be nice to watch me save her."

There was a sigh, then brief silence.

"And you believed him?"

"Yes," he replied, pressing his face into the stream of light from the window. The whiff from his mouth rose to the light, making human-like forms, and eventually disappeared.

"And who is this woman?" the husky voice asked.

"I don't know her name."

"We might as well call her the girl from Mandaluyong, no, or wherever this place is. The girl who wasn't home to be saved by her prince-"

"Makati," he interrupted. "This area is still Makati. Mandaluyong is across the river." He puffed again; the words: Marlboro Lights Gold flashed across the screen.

They were silent for a while, and then the husky voice said, "Let's go before anyone finds us here and arrests us for trespassing. It's a prank, Jeff. We've been had. We both look stupid now but it might raise our ratings a bit."

"A prank?" He stared at the camera, his eyes speaking a strange language of worry and disappointment.

"It's Saturday, she's probably out drinking with her friends somewhere. Come on, Jeff, if you were kidnapped, would you leave your keys under the mat?"

Jeff let out a faint laugh, whiffing smoke to different directions.

The husky voice chuckled, which burst into a laughter that Jeff caught on. Soon, they were laughing like a couple of stoners. They laughed so hard the camera shook until the cameraman thought better to put it on the floor, or perhaps he couldn't carry it anymore.

I didn't get the joke that easily so I didn't laugh until I saw Jeff fall on his back, stretched on the floor- his head on the exact spot where she was seated, reading a book, undisturbed. And, fueling the joke, beside his head was the digital clock that read: 11:30 pm 12-04-04-S; while on her screen, the same clock read: 11:30 pm 12-03-04-f.

I laughed so hard at myself, remembering all the incongruities that I have overlooked, most especially the rain that never occurred on her show. So, my instincts were right after all; the girl from Makati episode was taped yesterday, and tonight, as in all Saturdays, she's out in Malate having a good time with her friends, keeping their creepy cult-like routine.

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