I Am Buraot

Gone was winter, and summer’s almost here. But despite the southern warmer weather, the northern cold still remains…

Once again, the slightly greenish haze went down the cascades of the everglades, its humid vapor condenses slowly and its frozen tentacles reaching across the hills and straight right through me.

When it’s warm it can get warm, which I am really fond of. But when it’s cold, it gets really cold, carrying an endless shower of bitter arctic breeze and oftentimes shooting those thunderous kinds of bland sarcasms. Continue Reading…

During the entire course of my life I have faced the most formidable things there can be: choices. I have had to face it, not once, not twice, but so many times I could hardly remember.

Why do we have to choose? Why do we have to ponder deeply, and waste so much time, effort and precious energy to such a lamentable task?

Why can’t we just be the fabled Filipino slacker and wait for the apple to fall off a tree and straight into our mouth? Why can’t we let things go on its natural course and wait? Continue Reading…

On top of this magnificent hill I whimper.

I was lying on my back, on top of the cool green mass of freshly cut grass. Parallel to my view was the city I have begun to love. So laid-back and quite friendlier than the city of angels, the one I used to call my second home.

Its lights were beginning to fade under the shade of the midnight sun, its vibrant glow started to dim under the enveloping glitter of the early morning fog and the rise of the stars and galaxies directly above it. Continue Reading…

I decided to leave work early. Being a night owl myself, I work graveyards. But today I can’t wait ’til seven in the morning.

I don’t feel sick. I just kinda feel like I was in a trance due to fatigue. My mind was like in auto mode. Everything I see looked like it was hazy and wrapped in cold water-carrying clouds.

My body was so stiffed I thought this must be how it feels when you get injected with formaldehyde. I guess if somebody asks me a question, my only reply would be, “say whaaat?”. Continue Reading…

Looking from the inside of my comfortable hotel room, I could sense the North American winter cold. I gazed at a few snowflakes stacked in the window pane and tried to imagine a million different kinds.

I couldn’t quite place where the west meets the east. Except perhaps that I do know that it is daytime, I couldn’t see where the sun was.

I decidedly went out the balcony to enjoy the skyline and lit a cigar. On the roof of the next building I saw a lone bird sitting on top of what looked like a mechanized chimney. I thought it was a bit funny because most birds do hang out together. I guess this one’s a loner.

Being a night owl myself, I hate the desert heat but I do welcome the winter cold. But not the winter freeze. So my coming here in Vancouver on perhaps the coldest time of the year was both a relief and a curse. Continue Reading…