Nail marks

" What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?" - Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 125

It felt like I woke up in a scene from Twilight Zone. I checked my watch a couple of times. 10 AM. Where the fuck are all the people?

You see, my brother and I haven't had breakfast yet so, i decided to go out and look for food before we started cleaning the apartment. It isn't unusual to see virtually no people on our street because though we're actually located in the town proper, we were two blocks away ( or is it one block away?) from the main road.

No tricycles so I started to walk. And walk. And walk. I was already beside our old, forsaken mall and there were NO shops open. and NO people. i was expecting to see five-legged non-entities swarming over me any minute.

Then I remembered, "Oh yeah. Good Friday."

I managed to buy breakfast from a small hole-in-the-wall carinderia. After that, since we had nowhere to go (could you believe that even SM and Pacific Mall were closed?), I used my convincing powers and perusaded anthony (after two short hours) to help me clean our apartment.

Despite the fact that our landlord seems to be competing (with no one) for the title World's Most Persistent Money-Grubber, we have no complaints about our current living quarters. It's spacious enough. But it kills to clean it. Let me rephrase that. It's a killer for me to clean it. It's one of those old, provincial apartments where its half- cement, half-wood.Termites are gaga over at our place. On weekends, they throw pool parties.

I come home only one weekend a month. And my brother NEVER cleans the house when I'm not around. With his long hair and gung-ho attitude, I think all that's lacking is a mousterian flint blade, and he can be a bonafide caveman. I do not know where he got this notion: " women, clean house. men, stare tv." Our father didn't clean the house because he was old, not because he was a chauvinist.

That's what i would like to believe, anyway.

Anyway, I wasn't raised to condone that kind of behavior so I laid on the guilt and made him scrub the floors and sweep the backyard. I am no one's Cinderella.

My aunts dropped by last Thursday and asked if we'd like to tag along to this church event. I truly did not know what I was in for so after we cleaned the apartment, we dressed and scurried along to the proposed meeting place.

I really thought we were just going to church or something. I was dead wrong.

We just walked to Miramart, which is like three blocks away from our apartment. The shops were still closed but there were SO many people. Oh, so we're watching the wooden statues' parade, I thought.

This actually happens every year in Lucena. A large group of the well-meaning folk of the city walk from the town church and 'round to the park, all the way to the Catholic school (which was about 12- 15 blocks away from the church) and back again. This usually doesn't only include the purported 'holy clique' of the city but the circus is also joined by some of our more misguided citizens, freaks who dress in their party favorites to show them off.

A friggin carnival, if you ask me. My mother would turn over in her grave if she knew that my brother and i were going to watch the year's 'parade of lies.' ( Her term, not mine. mine would be more colorful. the shit carnival. rural waste line-up. i can think of a lot more. )

It turns out that my aunts decided that this year, we weren't just going to step aside and be bystanders. This year, we were going to participate.

Imagine the utter horror I felt at the suggestion! I, who scrubbed walls and tiles and floors all day was going to walk 12 blocks. and back again. But since I was there and since it would seem very suspicious if i slipped away now, i didn't have much of a choice but to get it over with.
So there i was, feeling so crappy because i was too tired and didn't need religious drivel at that moment. So we walked, my cousins and I, carrying candles. Really, the candles were not helping at all. Almost 40 people were carrying candles. And they all sounded like zombies, endlessly repeating their prayers into their hands, hoping for who knows what. Hail Mary Full of Grace... Our Father who art in heaven... I believe... I believe...I believe...

More than anything, it was like a walk in hell.We were all smoldered by the heat from the candles and the sheer volume of strangers. And the monotonous incantations made me want to cover up my ears and run to see my therapist. I felt far from pious. Nor did I feel like i was suddenly cleansed. Payed for. Died for. Loved.

My cousins walked with us so I didn't feel that ridiculous. When we got bored, we'd just watch the people walking in front of us. There was this unbelievable young girl, dressed in an insanely short skirt, laughing like a horse with her friends, walking with the crowd. If I ever see Jesus, I'd like to ask him if he died for her too.

By the time we were near the church, i almost wept from fatigue. It was a long, fruitless walk.

Before I slept last night, my only thought was, why should I suffer for someone who has reportedly suffered for me? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of what he has done?

Truth be told, I was the only one who could see the nail marks on his hands.