Cover Page

Acknowledgment

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract Souls ('a novelette')

Alone

Archipelagic Short Stories Would Lead Us Nowhere

At The Funeral

Before Lunch

Bus

Dionysus

Di-Pinamagatan

Eating Eagles And Monkey, We Fly Across And

Finding Books

Out Of Season

Pleasure, Film, What, Has

Psychiatrist

Sincerely

The Primitive

Vexed

Who Cares For Markets

Bus 2 (unavailable)

Psychiatrist (Reprise)

 


 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

 

The Primitive

 

Quite soon, the typewriter ribbon was running clean without blots on my papyrus. Smoke from my cigarette was hazing the non-political atmosphere in the comfy, compact room given me by her majesty, our queen Isabela of Spain, as a token of my corruption.

Obviously I am not in Washington today and won't be reporting on, say, America's impending policy towards Spain's new socialism. Nor indeed am I in Tokyo to seek assistance (aid, actually) from the Japanese government of Lady Murasaki, on Queen Isabela's behalf, for the flood victims of Catalan. No, sir/ma'am. I am in Manila to call on Mr. Marcos. And his daughter Imee. And Supreme Councilman Bob Hope, the American comedian turned Philippine Commonwealth Councilman who's the Chairman of the Council Commitee on Genetic Policy. I am to meet with these personalities armed with the hope of finalizing the papyri that would now truly create an independent state out of this doomed archipelago of a commonwealth "republic" which Spain continues to claim as hers.

Here's the catch. Daughter Imee is to be presented to the queen's sons Philip & Andres, and to the queen's daughter, Duchess Pearl Bailey of Basque (she changed her name to something English-sounding), for customary royalty perusal and observation prior to Mr. Marcos' daughter's marriage to the future king of Spain, Prince Philip. I must remind the reader that Prince Philip, when he becomes king, shall then be called King Philip the Thirteenth of Spain (an unlucky number by certain standards, but Spain's never been known to be superstitious).

The socialist monarchy announced yesterday, September 11 of this year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-nine (new controversy recently broke out among East European intellectuals on whether the Lord being referred to in the holy book was really always Christ the Prophet or involving someone other, due to a recent archeological evidence of a Someone alien to the Gulf, of the yellow race perhaps)

---announced that the Philippines (named after Philip III---Isabela's dead cousin---of old New Guinea, Portuguese territory before it was ceded to Indonesia) is finally to be granted full independence from the U.S. and Spain's claims within a year's time. Thus to end the rebellion here. With conditions, of course, that the daughter Imee of the Chinese-Filipino chieftain Mr. Marcos be given in marriage to the future king of Spain. With intentions on the part of Spain, I suspect, of being able to forever claim rights to this resource-rich archipelago, by virtue of an official blood compact between the two countries' recognised rulers (this is yet necessary, for the hundreds of intermarriages that have already happened were either of shameful motivations or simply symbolic of either the exploitation of peasants otherwise of lust-ingrained social-climbing by either Filipino males or females), which claim is then to be maintained by the best of Spain's geneticists, thus in turn purifying the Mohammedan tint of Spanish genes with the Filipinos' stone-washed kind of tanned spirit, stronger-willed than Levi's, more fun-headed than Coke. This decision or desire despite the recent ever-increasing series of mutinies in the local armed 'alternative councils' of the colony.

The above-mentioned insurrection within the insurrection rests on this reason: the sheer charisma of an "ambitous" (the ruling party's label on his person) but intelligent "rebel" who is campaiging with enthusiasm and a degree of success for the implied change of loyalties. This person is unidentified, however, and simply known by several names. People suspect though the influence of a certain Datu colonel of a new (though yet divided) reformist military faction (earlier tagged as an anti-Royalist RACP Company, now renamed in the files as the People's ARBA Revolt---nobody knows what these acronyms stand for) as the key to this rising, perhaps evil, success. (Reports continue to pursue the seeming certainty of this whispered news, this despite the intelligent contention among the Jesuits of Ateneo University that the pocket mutinies were really no more than ignorant reactions from within the rebels' autonomous ranks, showing nothing more than 'indiotic' dissatisfactions over recent new policies to do with the redistribution of the rebel islands' wealth to the rebel tribes).

So now you see, reader, that although I am not in Washington talking with a Superpower, nor in Tokyo talking with an Economic Power, I am not any less pressured by complexities. Complexities these are that befuddle our time, all this stress and intrigue---may the Lord forgive us our respective trespasses.

So. What now? Actually, I only meant to note here---this is just a note, after all, which, in case I die, from a bullet, a fire, or a tropical disease, someone may find and donate to a library---that, despite all the sad promises of new and bloody-awesome science fiction, the existing murkiness of our generation's ignorance and greed and being difficult to any form of management is yet however now and then caressed into calmness and moral awakenings, too, by---apart from the civilized machinations of the royalty's etiquette codes---at least the humble but sublime innovations of technology that keep such tiny and simple stuff as typewriter ribbons (among other consumer goods, novelties) from blotting; thus keeping us away from going through a ruined day as we all try to exist within our respective stretches of years, living our respective primitivenesses. Adios!

666


    

 


Cover Page | Acknowledgment | Abstract Souls ('a novella') | Alone | Archipelagic Short Stories Would Lead Us Nowhere | At The Funeral | Before Lunch | Bus | Dionysus | Di-Pinamagatan | Eating Eagles And Monkey, We Fly Across And | Finding Books | Out Of Season | Pleasure, Film, What, Has | Psychiatrist | Sincerely | The Primitive | Vexed | Who Cares For Markets | Bus 2 | Psychiatrist (Reprise) | AFTERWORD: Vicente Interviews Himself | About the Author


Copyright © 1999 V.I.S. de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this work for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission or distribution of this work, or of any excerpt, adaptation, abridgement or translation of same, may be made without written permission from Down With Grundy, Publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1