Maia's Deck

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Seriously, I have been racking my brain just to find a near-decent theme for my Creative Writing 110 (Fiction). I don't want to write a "quiet" story. I want something hilarious. So I try. I write about this family who goes to a house on a Christmas morning and watch the HBO docu-fiction Asteroid. The family panics upon watching it, frightened for the lives of their relatives in the US where the Asteroid first hit. The family calls up relatives who then calls their other relatives LONG DISTANCE. The mother pages the father who was not there, and she tells pocketbell about the breaking news. Pocketbell, frightened that they might be the last to send the news out send it without confirmation. After 1 hour, the mother gets a message from the friend they just visited that the show has ended and what they were watching was HBO.
Its hilarious, really. The problem is, it only has one level. So now, I don't know if I'd go with the quiet version of the story which is:

A Carnival owner in Pangasinan buys a new cable ready TV using the Christmas bonus of his carnival workers. He confides with his favorite, the motorcycle man, and the motorcycle man told him that no one would buy his reasons for buying the TV unless he allows the workers to watch for another two hours before the carnival opens and after everything is set for the night. The owner agreed. Previously, the setup was that the workers were allowed to watch the first part of Wowowee for siesta. Now, the workers were allowed to watch from 12-1:30 and 4-6, depending on whether all rides and booths are ready for the night.
The day after christmas eve, at noon, motorcycle man comes into the owners office to watch. Everyone came in late, one by one, lazy after such a long midnight celebration. They were shocked at what they saw: Motorcycle man had not changed the channel because he chanced upon the docu-fiction ASTEROID. He thought it was true. He did not know what HBO was.
Each person's perspective changes because of the show. The snake woman runs home to her family to tell them of the news. The family goes to the carnival to watch.
The mermaid who was cleaning her mermaids tail, throws the brush to the wall and realizes that she shouldn't play people for fools. The carnival owner hands out the christmas bonus, admitting to everyone that he had bought the television for a measly P1,500 from a member of an akyat bahay gang. The motorcycle man recalls how once, he had a chance to study in Manila, when his father was still working as a barber and his mother was a cook at a school cafeteria but he decided he wanted to become a motocross racer like monching de leon. He never got that far so he ended up as a motorcycle exhibitionist at the carnival.
Lenita, who has been bothered by a lump near her groin finally summons the courage to tell her son and to retire from working at the ticket booth.
Makoy, a burly man of 53 cries for the first time since she lost his wife and his daughter who died in a fire almost three years before. Both had been maids in a house at a subdivision. He regretted being unable to support his only family.

At the end they find out that it had been a docu-fiction but none of them, even Makoy the clown could laugh. No one ever thought that such a possibility existed and now, on Christmas, the possibility gripped them by the shoulders and shook them.

At the end, everyone walked away from the Carnival, and decided they should have enjoyed life.
The irony that I want to send out is that all of them worked at a carnival but none of them truly enjoyed life. The carnival symbolised what a factory symbolised to a factory line worker: A deeply dug hole with no way out. The Asteroid was their only chance to walk away, realizing that no matter how secure they become with the routine of their lives, they still walk through it blindly.

posted by The Lonely Joker who stares too deeply & too much at 11:38 PM

The Lonely Joker who stares too deeply & too much at 11:38 PM

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