ISKRIBOL (Mga Suka ng Isang Bored na Otistik)

Suka #100

I travel for almost two hours everyday. Inside that span of time are stories. From a woman who wants to be shot dead by a gun to a man who offers a packet of shabu. From an old lady who rides a jeep then jumps out in a whim in the middle of the street to a man asking what he should name his new baby. I write them all down. Some I fictionalize, some I give the real account. As I travel I meet my monsters. I transmute them to words and keep it in a box. My monsters are there all piled up. Tonight I need a new box. The fifth one.

Ten percent of my stories I post online. Most of them I put inside these boxes and that's it. Nothing is far more gratifying than writing for yourself. This is where I am truest. This is where I find myself natural. I write for my own and for no one else.

My monsters are a part of me. They are like flesh cut out then transformed to words. In my travels I see a lot of them but they are big monsters. Some I can fathom and some I cannot. Some are modest monsters and some are wild. Some are eccentric and some are out of this world. Nonetheless they are monsters that I somehow managed to discover inside the span of a mundane two-hour travel.

I still don't know what to do with these monsters all piled up in my boxes. Maybe someday I'll burn them. Maybe I'll totally forget about them and somehow my grandkids will discover them and burn them all the same. I don't know what to do with them. By the time I finish transforming them into words, all I could think of is "That's it", and nothing follows. Like the end of my stories are these boxes and that's it.

These are silent monsters I created. Each with its story I captured during my travels. Each a silent story not waiting for someone to read it. My monsters don't need much attention from readers so I keep them inside.

But maybe someday they decide to get out.

I don't know.