With Mind Bullets!

I am not afraid, I can hardly wait.
- The Juliana Hatfield Three

Stuff You Gotta Do Before You Croak
1. Go bungee jumping.
2. Have a room in your house where every wall is lined with books from the ceiling to the floor. Not an inch of space spared.
3. Ride the most awesome roller coaster, wherever that'll be by 2030.
4. Establish contact with extraterrestrial life forms.
5. Walk from Ortigas Center to Katipunan Avenue. Alone.

So, then. Walk from Ortigas Center to Katipunan Avenue. Alone.

Check.

Now I know that I can whip out some pretty watertight lies if I wanted to, and that I tend to kid around a lot, but this time, I am dead serious. I am so dead serious, I can feel myself decomposing on account of the sheer power of my own seriousness. I AM SERIOUS! I AM REALLY SERIOUS!

I did walk from Ortigas Center to Katipunan Avenue last night. Alone! From 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.! With the cars zipping past me and the smoke from the tailpipes hovering dumb in their wake!

All right, since we're in a serious mood – since I'm in a serious mood – I'm going to talk about how it all began. It all began last May, when the notion to walk all the way home from Ortigas began to grow tentative shoots in my head until the concept itself hardened into a mighty tree trunk, stout branches, heavy globed fruit. And the idea persisted all these months, but I kept on dismissing it and furnishing excuses for myself, most of which were pretty valid.

For instance: you can't walk the entire distance between Pasig City's business kernel and Quezon City's university area if you're wearing a skirt, particularly if said skirt happens to end in any region above your knees. Which is the case with most of my skirts. Also: if, by any chance, you are wearing three-inch leather pumps, you are dead meat. You are carrion and the hyenas will slink out of the roadside bushes to rip you apart.

Those hee-hee-Hyenas.

So the feat demands the satisfaction of certain conditions.

1. Be certain that you are at your frumpiest state so that drugged-up perverts will find you a questionable target. Not that drugged-up perverts will care if you look like shit, but you're pretty much inviting trouble if you execute the act while you're dressed to the nines. Bad idea. The trick is to look as though you're too poor to subsist on anything but bread and water.
2. Be certain that there is nothing else you want to do but walk all the way home. The impulse should grip you by the throat and refuse to let go.
3. Be certain that no other true options exist, and that you can't commute home because you were an absolute bonehead and you forgot to withdraw money from your passbook account while the banks were still open and you have no cash at all and are too proud to borrow money from your officemates.

That is exactly what happened. Monday found me looking like a wart with arms and legs, a dowdy wart masquerading as an office employee in Ortigas Center. Peachy the Wart. I'd also forgotten to withdraw money from my passbook account and was too concerned about my ego to borrow a few bucks from officemates. And for some reason, hiking back to Katipunan seemed like a ridiculously good idea, a brilliant opportunity I would be a fool to turn away from.

At exactly 9:30, I began walking from our office building, wove my way through the sparse traffic and over to Meralco Avenue, then up the Valle Verde area. I'd already decided to forgo EDSA altogether and picked the White Plains route for the sake of efficiency. So there I was, hurrying energetically down the sidewalk, coasting along on my feet with the rhythm of omnipotence thrumming rich beneath my skin.

I climbed up to the long stretch of road between Valle Verde and White Plains, where Corinthian Gardens sat smugly and the houses rose from the ground with their forbidding faces. A few cars roared by while the streetlamps gasped out their slow, feeble light. The night crept on further in its menacing pace, the darkness a hungry animal with jaws swung wide open.

Isn't this fun? Hehe. Wait till Ate Monique finds out that you walked all the way fr--

Shit, I'm getting scared.

Shut up.

Okay, seriously, this is getting scary. Is anybody following me? Fuck!

Nobody's following you. You believe in the basic goodness of people.

Basic goodness my ass, what if somebody leaps out from behind that tree with an ice pick and asks for my wallet and my cellphone??

You don't have any money. And you don't have a cellphone, you dolt.

OH MY GOD, HE'S GOING TO KILL ME BECAUSE I'M POOR!

He won't! Nobody's there! All right. Listen. You believe in the basic goodness of people.

I believe in the basic goodness of people. I believe in the basic goodness of people. I believe in the basic goodness of people. Oh dear God, if you're there at all, pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleas--

Calm down.

All right. Okay.

Good girl.

But then the busy artery that led from White Plains to Katipunan Extension took me into its stream, and a gale of relief swept me up and carried me down to where the flyover dipped its concrete head into Katipunan Avenue. I was almost hysterical with happiness, snickering to myself as I made my way down to Aurora Boulevard, feeling lightheaded under the sodium lamps.

It was already 11 when I swaggered up the apartment building and swung open the door to our flat with a triumphant flourish. Ate Monique, who lay curled up in bed, stirred from sleep and frowned against the light.

"Turn off the light," she grunted.

"Guess what!" I said, stretching my arms up for effect. "I just walked all the way from Ortigas! Swear to god!"

"What? "

"Yeah!!!"

"WHY??"

"Well, I, ah, felt like it. You know, for kicks. And, ah, I didn't have any money, I forgot to withdraw from the bank—"

"That's just stupid. " She drew the blanket up to her neck and shut her eyes. "You gotta plan your day and make sure you withdraw early enough before the banks close. What if anything happened to you yakkety yakkety yakkety mumble mumble."

All right, forget it. Don't listen to my sister, even if she has a point. I mean, holy damn! How many folks do you know have walked all the way from Ortigas to Katipunan by their lone selves? I'm ready to bet that nobody in my immediate circle has even come close to doing that. Nobody! I know I've done a lot of foolhardy things in my life, oh, I've lost count of them, and maybe this takes the cake, maybe I was stupid, but look! I do not have an ice pick lodged between my ribs. I am still in one piece. Unassailably so.

Away with you, Ice Pick.

Is anybody willing to take me up on that bet? At stake is fifty pesos. Which is just about enough for an FX ride from Megamall to Katipunan! Because honestly – the whole excursion was a huge thrill, but I have never been so fucking scared in my entire life. And I am not doing that shit again, unless I run out of money once more and fall victim to my own sense of bravado. Tangina.
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