the rain licks the skin of our house. people around me have been blogging, texting, talking like crazy about being down by the gutter. it seems it's that time of the year once again.

stash the hankies and pull the cord off of that "all by myself" you're using as mood music. steer clear from your window panes and the misted glass. i'm not about to add a digit to the statistics. been there, done that. god bless celine dion.

maybe it came with age. maybe it came with experience. maybe i've demystified "solitude and loneliness" long enough that i'm getting the seven-year itch. i'm swinging over to "happy". i'm now too bored to be depressed.

sadness used to be a good friend. back in high school when love was a fad that every kid had alongside his jansport and nokia 5110, i was a sheep that languidly walked with the herd. i would drown myself in "i love you goodbye", "friend of mine" and "if i'm not in love with you". i asserted that david pomeranz was rubbing it in, sprinkling salt on the wound, when he went about the airwaves announcing that two strangers falling in love is magic. i used to practice synchronizing tears with every memory which i labeled "painful".

now, everything seems redundant. i don't have someone who treats me special. if i go on sulking about that, i won't do anything i haven't done before. i've done all the conceivable and irreverent ways of wallowing. it feels foolish having made them a routine. it feels useless going all through that trouble just to get the point across to the powers that be.

i'm a worn and torn pair of shoes.

but every so often i still whisper a wish. i still utter a prayer, that all these will lead me to you.

a few minutes ago, my nieces and i were running around the house. they were shrieking like crazy while i was quietly scampering around the furniture, hiding and praying that i won't be its victim.

it's a damned flying cockroach!

i'm not really scared of roaches crawling about. even if it makes my skin its wonderland, i just shrug them away (like a rejected lover?) and swat them flat, their innards and insect juices oozing into our floor. but when that damned insect makes use of its wing and hovers near me like a wild firecracker, that's another story.

acting composed all throughout, i just motioned at the roach and told my nieces that our adversary lodged at the corner of the ceiling was preparing for flight. after a few seconds, we were transformed into soldiers in the midst of a fierce battle, sans the courage and chivalry of course. the three of us ran for cover--one took the nook behind the sala set, one went running into the kitchen and one sought refuge at the main living room door.

it was like a raucous symphony. amidst the yelling, there were seconds of silence sandwiched--an homage to the fear and anticipation: "where will that vile multi-legged flying abomination of nature swoop to next?"

this was answered quite promptly when the most scared of us three, my younger niece, let out a grotesque melody of crying and shouting. the cockroach directly flew to her head, aiming for the face!

after being spared, what echoed within the walls of our house was infectious laughter. we caught a snaphsot in our heads of what my niece looked like as her life flashed before her, courtesy of the airborne culprit. her face turned white and her mouth was ajar! it was the funniest impression of a face i've ever seen!

i literally got an instant asthma attack (truth be told, i just took a spoonful of guaifenesin) from laughing my lungs out. the three of us were beet red as the image of my niece played on and on in our heads. that was a freak show!

when things mellowed down, i stole long glances at my nieces. i felt that time was catching up on me really fast. it seemed like only years ago when they were infants and i cradled them in my arms. now, the older one has turned to some some sort of a popular heartthrob at school and the younger, into a government scholar who has the talent with numbers.

this thing that happened with the cockroach is something that we'll talk about when we're all wrinkled, maybe. in that moment, i felt a warmth in my chest. this is the stuff of age-old anecdotes.