Diaspora Ad Astra (21 page)

My father is actually an American who once visited the Philippines and hooked up with my mother. It was the usual story of a rich and sheltered westerner who came to the
tropics looking for romance and adventure, but found my mother instead. And so, I was born out of that cliché story. Of course, another part of that tale involved my father not marrying my
mother but agreeing to pay for everything as a consolation. I even got to keep my Filipino surname.

But it’s not all bad. Even though I see him only once or twice a year, at least he gave me great skin. Not to mention he also bought me this condominium unit as a
graduation gift.

I hear the doorbell ring just as I finish rinsing. Still dripping wet, I take my navy blue towel from the rack and wrap it around my waist. I put my slippers on, walk towards
the front door, and push the “OPEN” button.

“Uh, hi! Mozzarella seven?”

“Yeah. Thick crust?” I answer, slightly embarrassed. He slowly looks at me from my face down to my trunk, waist, legs, and feet. He must find it odd that I would
answer the door like this.

“Aren’t we supposed to eat first?” he winked.

“Yes!” I laugh, “I didn’t know you’d be here so soon. Come in.”

He sits down at the couch and I hand him the remote to my hologram generator.

“I’ll just take a minute. You can watch some shows first.”

“You don’t have to change. I like what you’re wearing right now,” he teases.

“Very funny.” I feel my ears ignite. Not five minutes had gone by and I’m already blushing.

Going back to the bathroom and changing only takes half the time I promised. For some reason, I want to go back as soon as possible. He is standing when I return, fully
clothed. He wasn’t exaggerating about his height, or anything else for that matter. His tall and muscular physique hinted at a love for sports and other extreme physical activities. His face,
well, let’s say he looks like a very young version of Joem Bascon. His sun-kissed
moreno
skin is only highlighted by the white tank-top he is wearing. And the fact that he is wearing
only that and a pair of shorts reveals a casual and relaxed air that instantly makes me bring down my defenses.

The burning in my ears now spreads to my cheeks because of his half-smiling gaze. He is confident that I am surveying his appearance. More importantly, he is sure that I am now
starting to desire him. This is a person who is sure of himself and what he has to offer. Good. That’s how I like it. This is not the time to diminish his ego and come out as the superior
one. Tonight, I want him at his best.

“Where is the pizza you promised?” he utters, breaking the silence.

“Right here,” I lead him to my dining table. “So, did you have a hard time getting here?”

“No. Don’t worry about it. I just took the train and walked straight to your building.”

“It’s a good thing the train station is open 24 hours now.” After all, robots don’t need sleep.

I watch him take his first bite of pizza. My mother once said that nobody looked attractive when eating. The motions of biting and chewing with a full mouth do not really
qualify as seductive behavior. But for some reason, I feel even more drawn to him as I watch him take enormous bites out of the triple cheese special. Or maybe I’m just hungry myself.

“Aren’t you going to have one?” he points to the carton of cheesy goodness.

“Not yet. Maybe later.”

”I’ll leave some for you then,” he smiles. He understands why I won’t be having dinner tonight—at least not before he’s done here. After
all, both of us wouldn’t want to have to clean up any unnecessary mess later.

“I’m Lance, by the way.”

He looks at me and hesitates for about three seconds.

“It’s John Paul, J.P. for short.” He reaches out his hand to me and I grab it, a gesture that might have been more appropriate back when he was still at the
front door, but who cares about technicalities?

“You really live by yourself here?”

“Yeah. I work at an outsourcing company a couple of blocks away, so I stay here during the weekdays. I’m actually from Pampanga. What about you?”

J.P. then proceeds to tell me about how he once worked as a cashier at a major burger place in Manila, even with a degree in restaurant management under his belt. But when the
big guys decided to replace the crew with androids, he was one of the thousands of patty-flippers that got the axe. His only chance at work now is to apply to those high-end restaurants that
promote old-fashioned human waiters in full costume as their advertorial hook.

“These days, you need to study computer science, too, if you want to be a restaurant manager,” he remarks. “Even janitors and street sweepers are being
exchanged for machines.”

I merely nod in agreement. Politics and economics are the farthest thing from my mind right now. What I am paying attention to is the fact that he’s almost done finishing
his half of the pizza. Three bites more. Two. One. He gulps down a glass of water and then he’s back to looking at me.

“Can I go to the CR?” he asks.

“Sure. There’s a bottle of mouthwash inside the medicine cabinet if you need it.”

“Alright, thanks!”

After he closes the door to the bathroom, I walk to my bed and arrange the sheets… though I don’t know what for at this point. Perhaps it is just an unconscious
way of calming my nerves down. Seeing him emerge from the comfort room and leisurely walk towards me melts those nerves away. I rise up to meet him.

J.P. doesn’t waste any time. He rapidly reaches around my waist and before I know it, his lips are pressing against mine like there’s no tomorrow. I feel his hot
breath and immediately, I wrap my arms around the back of his neck and reciprocate. He bites my lower lip just as he takes my shirt off and throws it aside, his eyes taking a few seconds to examine
the slim figure standing before him. Pushing me down the bed, he practically rips off his
sando
, revealing a well-defined chest and six-pack abs that girls and gents would willingly kneel
in front of. Compared to him, I probably look like a strip of lean chicken beside a quarter pound of beef. But I’m certain that’s the way he wants it, otherwise he wouldn’t have
come.

He looks at me with such intensity, thirst, and rage, as if he were about to pounce on me and devour every last inch of me. Already, I know how this will turn out—with
him forcing his way inside, pushing and pounding in full force, splitting me in half, tearing me apart, bellowing curses until we both reach the point of no return. A cold chill rushes all around
my body, not out of fear but out of sheer excitement. Not waiting a moment longer, he climbs on to the bed and pins me down.

****

It is early in the morning. I turn my attention to the window and rub my eyes. The sun hasn’t even come up yet. I look around the bed and feel my sheets, all ruffled and
wet. J.P has left; probably sneaked out while I dozed off. I try to get up and it is only now that I begin to feel the pain, like someone had dropped a load of bricks on me. Well, I was definitely
hit by something hard tonight!

Standing up, I stagger my way to the mirror and check my appearance. Some scratches, a couple of bite marks, a few drops of dried blood on my inner thigh—nothing too
serious. I’ve gone through worse in the past. Besides, a few tablets of water-activated, cell-repair nanobots and I’ll be completely healed in a few days. Hopefully.

But then there’s the issue of the pungent scent hanging heavily around the room, emanating from the sheets and my own body. The smell of sweat, saliva, and semen all
mixed together and invaded my sensitive nostrils. For a while, I contemplate on taking a bath at once and scrubbing it off myself. But I decide against it. I want the odor to stay with me for now,
at least during the few hours I have before I go back to work. Besides the obvious disarray that exists on my bed, it is the only proof I have that last night happened. It was real—not just
some holographic simulation I bought from the film pirates of Quiapo.

The box of pizza is still on the dining table, half-opened; its contents half-eaten. It seems I won’t need to have breakfast delivered today. I sit, open the box, and
munch on the cold slice of pizza.

Outside, dawn is already breaking. The robotic street sweepers swiftly line the streets with their brooms in hand.
-###

By Raven Guerrero

I never thought I’d be this lucky.

It was a cool afternoon in the sunflower fields. I was there, and she was with me. Although to be honest "sunflower fields" is an overly sentimental way of putting it. It was
more like a plot. A sunflower plot. There aren’t any sunflower fields, not anymore. Not since the
Bisitas
burned Baguio to the ground.

"What do you think it’ll look like?" she wondered, staring up. The sun shone straight in her eyes, but she hardly squinted. She was always like that, staring into things too
bright for the rest of us. Nothing ever fazed her.

"I’m not sure," I answer, "glory, angels singing, loud thunder, stuff like that, maybe. Wasn’t that what they’ve always told us in church?"

A crooked smile bent her lips. How ridiculous is it that she actually has the dimples to go with it? "I like that, angels and thunder. It’s a very
provinciano
way of
thinking."

"How
do
we ‘
provincianos
’ think?" I asked, slightly offended.

"Like you’re stuck. Stuck in this old place, this old time. Like the Purges, the Second and Third Enlightenments, or Prime Contact never happened. Like none of that mattered,
and just got brushed aside and forgotten. Like you’re still playing with the old rules instead of the new ones. Oh don’t look at me like that. I’m not insulting you. Sometimes I wish
I
were stuck somewhere else too."

That didn’t really help. But she took my hand in hers and all was forgiven. Her hand is soft. Not
too
soft though. Not like the hands of the beautiful women who walk
Manila at nights. The women who really weren’t women but cheap rubber copies we’ve decided to trick ourselves with. No, her hand is soft, but I could feel the bones underneath her flesh, the faint
pulsing of her blood. I’m sure if I tried hard enough, I could feel for the microlesions in her tendons, the miniscule abnormal growths she has at the base of her wrist. But I didn’t. There’s no
sense trying these days. Either you knew or you didn’t.

"So tell me, what would you do on your last day on Earth?"

I never thought about that until now. But the answer was easy. "I’d commit a crime."

"Really? Why do something you’ve already done a bunch of times..." she paused, her eyes widening in disbelief, "wait, you’ve
never
committed a crime?"

I shook my head.

"Never? Never ever?"

"Never ever."

"Oh my god." she let her shoulders fall, a stunned look still on her face, "I just met my first felony virgin. I didn’t know there were any of you left!"

"Well you should hang with more
provincianos
then."

"Seriously." She conceded. "I committed my first when I was sixteen."

"Oh?"

"Yep. It was ‘Defacing Property’. The cops got a real kick out of that one."

"Why’s that?"

"Well, because I actually took the face off of one of those plastic walkers that I caught my boyfriend with. I think it’s kind of funny how they’re programmed not to fight
back, you know? It just lay there, looking confused while I tore its disgusting latex face away. It wasn’t too sexy when I was done with it, just a bunch of gears and wires and icky, gooey stuff.
Apparently expensive stuff, too—they gave me four months for that." she smacked her lips, like she’s just eaten something really tasty. "I’m sorry, did I scare you?"

"No, no, no, It’s just that you probably should have torn
his
face off instead."

"Ha!" she slapped her leg. "Wanna know something funny?"

"Yeah?"

"I did. I did tear his face off. For that I got a month."

A chilly breeze swept by, shaking the tall stalks softly. "So what outrageous act of deviousness are you thinking of doing, Matteo? Murder? Arson? Robbery?"

I stood up, broke a sunflower from its stalk, and gave it to her. "Here."

"Oh, thank you." She looked genuinely surprised as she accepted the flower. She twirled it around her fingers, before muttering "Felony virgin no more." She seemed to say it
more to the flower than me.

I settled back beside her. “I guess I’m done then. So what about you? What would Theresa Castro, woman of cosmopolitan tastes, pure-blooded Manileña and
lover of
provincianos
, do on her last day on Earth?”

She laughed. A small sound like little bells. "I would climb a hydroponic tower and sit beside the boy of my dreams. He’ll be a perfect gentleman, just like I’ve always
imagined, and keep me warm and hold my hand. He’ll commit his first crime, the illegal picking of a practically extinct plant, so he could hand me its flower. I would scratch one last thing off my
‘to-do-list’ and hang with a
provinciano
. So I guess I’m done, too."

I must’ve kissed her. I must have because I felt her warm breath, and saw the little details of her eyelashes. I must have because my heart stopped beating, when only a second
ago it was a mad pulsar, pounding away in the hollow of my chest.

She said nothing. I said nothing. I stared into her chocolate eyes and drowned. It was there that I caught the first glimpse of the fireworks.

Only it wasn’t fireworks, it was lightning. Strange, globular ones that sparked white and blue. There was a hiss. Really faint at first, but gradually nearing, like a snake
gliding through grass. It brought with it a low thunder that progressed into a frightful, tearing noise.

And then silence.

A silence so absolute it made my ears ring. For a moment I thought maybe it had all been a joke; maybe this intelligence that has toyed with us for so long was bluffing, all
bark and no bite. That the people below, running wily-nilly, crying, praying, begging, singing, would wake up tomorrow late for work and feeling very silly. And so would I, for having picked that
sunflower in reckless disregard of the law. Maybe tomorrow, all of us would stop worrying about the mighty presence hovering above us, and once again busy ourselves with our age-old problems.
Traffic, garbage, poverty, little things like that.