Labels: 2017, aiko lactaotao, aiko-lactaotao, demons, dostoevsky, fiction, flash fiction, fyodor dostoevsky, short story, suicide, the sorrows of young werther

Nothing is more lethal than the combination of fear and sex. The rush of adrenaline pumping in my veins brings me closer to the zenith of euphoria unlike any I’ve experienced before.

Her name was Amaranta, like the flower. Timid yet graceful, she lit up the room on the day I first met her; thin waist, wide hips, ample derriere— oh she was the stuff that drove men crazy. She glided across the room like a lone feather in the wind. The hypnotic rhythm of her hips in sync with my breathing brought forth a familiar tingling south of the belt. When she sat beside me and uttered those words- “May I borrow a pen?”, I felt something primal to all rational beings, namely, the need to satisfy one’s lust.

That night, I decided to play my cards right.

Classes ended at half-past nine. It was dark outside the building what with only a few lights scattered around the area; there were no people around save a handful of students. Amaranta was nearing the exit and I had to move fast. She was walking towards her car as I eased my way behind her, I took out a penknife from my pocket and put an arm around her neck. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.” I declared, whispering into her ear. She didn’t struggle and from where I placed my arm around her I could feel the slow heaving of her chest. Instead, she let out a soft, breathy laugh. “I knew you’d come for me.” Her breath was cold and it sent a chill up my spine.

We got in her car and drove to a nondescript motel. We lost no time in conversation, tearing up our clothes in the heat of the moment. My lips grazed her alabaster-like neck, fumbling with her bra as her supple fingers sought the buttons of my pants.

She was laid out on the bed, in all her naked glory and my eyes hungrily feasted on her body. I stared straight into her eyes and she returned the gaze with equal intensity.

Again, I grabbed the penknife from my pocket. I didn’t take my eyes off of her. I let the blade skim down her chin, her neck, the valley of her breasts, her belly, stopping to hover the knife on the tuft of hairs just below her navel. It was during this time that I first caught a glimpse of something akin to fear on her eyes. A slow smile creeped up my features.

“Allow me to show…the wild in me."

It all happened the day before. I now sit on the dining table, reading from my iPad the latest headline on the news:

                                       VAGINA SLASHER STRIKES AGAIN

I could still hear her muffled cries beneath my hand. Her blood, it tasted sweet. But nothing could be more sweeter than the fear in her eyes. In their eyes. Virgins making love to a knife.

I felt the stirrings of heat in my groin and knew I needed it again. Lust, like all addiction, must be sustained at all costs. But this isn’t just lust, it’s my nature. The thrill of it all is knowing I’m being hunted down but never getting caught. I doubt it that they’ll ever catch me. I'm free as the barrenness haunting a wasteland, and I linger like a scavenger waiting for the next prey.

After all, to the wilderness, the wild belongs.

Labels: aiko lactaotao, fiction, filipino writers, flash fiction, short story

The house was as dilapidated as the soul of its owner. Rust permeates the roof, dirty unkempt windows with finger-stains of urchins who dare venture the territory gave away what the townspeople knew all along: that Mr. Gragasin, seventy-eight years of age, is slowly dying of an unnamed malady.

Inside, walls which were once white now have a rotting yellow hue to them and the sound of the floor creaking was like the knell of a church bell announcing the impending funeral of a man in the throes of death.

A flight of stairs, the room on the farthest left, I enter Mr. Gragasin's room; an emaciated figure turns his head towards me, nodding weekly to acknowledge my presence. His nose was blackened and the rest of his body was covered with wounds from which secrete pus. "I've come to administer the last rites." I said, not without flinching a little at the stench of decay coming from his sores.

He seemed to have noticed my predicament for he jerked his arm a little to reach out for a blanket to cover himself. Then a shaking finger pointed to the little altar above his head. "Those didn't help, what makes you think you can?" He told me with a hint of sarcasm. I was taken aback and didn't have an answer for him. "Let's put it this way, you will be the last man to ever see me alive so let's cut the fat and get down to the meat. You want my story? I'll tell you my story." He said. I grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it closer to the bed to hear what he had to say.

"This town is abandoned. Dead. The fields are barren and the ponds dry. Livelihood is nada. I was a believer like you so I prayed to God that rain may come but it never did. Once, when the heat was so strong, a dry leaf started a fire in my backyard but I didn't put a stop to it, for some reason I was mesmerized. I watched closely until I heard a voice. Thunderous and loud. But I wasn't afraid, in the back of my mind I knew what it was and I had to make the deal." Here Mr. Gragasin stopped to let out a series of coughs. "What was it?" I urged him on. Finally, he spoke again, "It was the Devil himself. He told me that rain would come. I brought this curse upon myself. In exchange for rain, my body would deteriorate until I die and," he trailed on. "And what?" I said, half-shouting. "And the curse would simply live on." Again he started coughing. He covered his face for a while and I leaned closer to him.

There was a humming in my ears and suddenly all was silent. I looked down at his sorry figure. Dead. His face twisted with fear. I licked my lips. As long as there is sin and men falling to sin, I shall subsist. My belly is full. I am Lucifer. And you who read this, beware, for the wages of sin is death. I will come for you, there is no escape.

NOTE: Later that evening, for no apparent reason, Mr. Gragasin's house burned down to ashes. His remains were recovered,  with the witnesses seeing shock plastered on what remained of his face. There were no signs of other individuals within the vicinity.

Labels: aiko lactaotao, fiction, fire, flash fiction

The house was as dilapidated as the soul of its owner. Rust permeates the roof, dirty unkempt windows with finger-stains of urchins who dare venture the territory gave away what the townspeople knew all along: that Mr. Gragasin, seventy-eight years of age, is slowly dying of an unnamed malady.

Inside, walls which were once white now have a rotting yellow hue to them and the sound of the floor creaking was like the knell of a church bell announcing the impending funeral of a man in the throes of death.

A flight of stairs, the room on the farthest left, I enter Mr. Gragasin's room; an emaciated figure turns his head towards me, nodding weekly to acknowledge my presence. His nose was blackened and the rest of his body was covered with wounds from which secrete pus. "I've come to administer the last rites." I said, not without flinching a little at the stench of decay coming from his sores.

He seemed to have noticed my predicament for he jerked his arm a little to reach out for a blanket to cover himself. Then a shaking finger pointed to the little altar above his head. "Those didn't help, what makes you think you can?" He told me with a hint of sarcasm. I was taken aback and didn't have an answer for him. "Let's put it this way, you will be the last man to ever see me alive so let's cut the fat and get down to the meat. You want my story? I'll tell you my story." He said. I grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it closer to the bed to hear what he had to say.

"This town is abandoned. Dead. The fields are barren and the ponds dry. Livelihood is nada. I was a believer like you so I prayed to God that rain may come but it never did. Once, when the heat was so strong, a dry leaf started a fire in my backyard but I didn't put a stop to it, for some reason I was mesmerized. I watched closely until I heard a voice. Thunderous and loud. But I wasn't afraid, in the back of my mind I knew what it was and I had to make the deal." Here Mr. Gragasin stopped to let out a series of coughs. "What was it?" I urged him on. Finally, he spoke again, "It was the Devil himself. He told me that rain would come. I brought this curse upon myself. In exchange for rain, my body would deteriorate until I die and," he trailed on. "And what?" I said, half-shouting. "And the curse would simply live on." Again he started coughing. He covered his face for a while and I leaned closer to him.

There was a humming in my ears and suddenly all was silent. I looked down at his sorry figure. Dead. His face twisted with fear. I licked my lips. As long as there is sin and men falling to sin, I shall subsist. My belly is full. I am Lucifer. And you who read this, beware, for the wages of sin is death. I will come for you, there is no escape.

NOTE: Later that evening, for no apparent reason, Mr. Gragasin's house burned down to ashes. His remains were recovered,  with the witnesses seeing shock plastered on what remained of his face. There were no signs of other individuals within the vicinity.

Labels: 2016, aiko-lactaotao, fiction, flash fiction

He loved using the Chatly app because as he himself admits, he’s too shy to meet girls in real life. The anonymous interactions that the app provided excited him even more than the possibility that somewhere in the world there is the right girl waiting for him. It was not an addiction he insists, but more of a basic human need for communication. “Then why don’t you ever go outside the house?” his mother frequently asks him and always, the replies are variations of how they live in a small town that boasts no excitement whatsoever. “Plus the girls in this town are either taken or ugly- and I’m not about to settle for personality!” he’ll say. The principle of the app is simple, you sign up, type in facts about yourself (gender, etc), and it automatically pairs you for chatting with someone whom the algorithms of the app determines as your perfect match. Whether or not it works for the both of you is outside the app’s control; it’s up to the people involved if they decide they liked each other enough to stick around. Otherwise, you can simply opt out by ending the chat.

He’s had instances when the girl on the other end would abruptly end the conversation without saying goodbye. He hates to confess it, but when they do that it stings on the inside as all rejections do, even anonymously. It was during the nth time playing around with the app that fate brought him to a girl named Jen. “I love Dystopian fiction.” This for some reason was Jen’s introduction. “1984?” he immediately typed in and Jen replied with “Totally!” It was love at first chat. The conversation went from books to the personal, spanning topics from favorite ice cream flavor to their shared Atheism. “There is no substantial evidence to prove that there exists a God. Man created the concept of a god as an excuse for his imperfections.” This was according to Jen and in his mind, this was a sign that he found a potential friend. Jen is a self-confessed introvert like him; she says she prefers staying at home as she’s “allergic to other people’s bullshit.”. And this information was the go signal for him to move to the next step.

“So, Jen, are you seeing anybody at the moment?” He typed on his phone, hoping that it didn’t sound too obvious his intentions. “Hmm…I’ve had some from the past, but at the moment? No.” Jen replied. He almost gave himself a high-five. Now having more confidence, he uploaded on the screen the best picture he could find in his photo album. He captioned: “This is a fairly recent pic of me. See, I’m not some pervert living in his mom’s basement, I’m just a regular guy albeit on the skinny side.” Again, he hoped that by uploading his picture Jen would be encouraged to do the same. “You kinda resemble David Foster Wallace when his hair was short, glasses and all…cute!” Then a pause. After a few awkward seconds Jen told him that she needed to run errands for her mom and that she had to end the chat. “Goodbye for now. You’re a cool dude to talk to. We’ll chat again. Bye!” Disappointed, he typed in his goodbye. However, there was no doubt in his mind that they will talk again through the app the next day.

When tomorrow came, he waited all day for Jen’s online status to light up. He ceased from his normal daily activity of sitting on his bed reading books just so when Jen does appear online, they’ll be able to chat. He waited all afternoon until his mother called him for dinner. At the table, his mom noticed that he won’t stop checking his phone instead of eating. “Mind your manners young man!” She told him in a sing-song voice. She only took her eyes off him when he tucked his phone in his shirt pocket. “By the way, your Grandma Janis and Uncle Ted will visit us tomorrow.” His mother informed him as she mushed her potatoes with a fork. He gave her a slight nod but it was obvious he wasn’t interested in any of that. Later on, lying on his bed at midnight, he patiently waited for Jen on the app. It was about an hour later when the screen showed him that Jen is finally online. Immediately, he tapped her name and typed in “Hey!”. Several moments passed before the word “SEEN” was displayed underneath his message but no reply came. He tried another approach: “I hope you’re not having any trouble with whatever. Even if you have, I’m here to listen.” Again, the word “SEEN” and nothing. He sighed. Did he come off as too upfront about his intentions? Perhaps the glasses made him come off as too nerdy? But she loves reading books and staying at home, surely she won’t mind hanging out with a nerd? Such are the questions that whirled inside his mind. In the end, he gave up. She was probably one of those girls who pretended they did the same things as smart people do so boys would take them seriously. And by boys, he meant the good-looking ones. He took it as a slight against his person but his defence mechanism retorted that by not uploading a picture, it was obvious that Jen was ugly. “And possibly fat.” He thought to himself, nursing his inner hurt by thinking the worst of the girl who hurt him. In the end, he got over it and slept in the wee hours of the morning.

He dreamt about a girl named Jen. In his dream, Jen was a pretty brunette with big breasts and a small waist. They stayed on his bed all day reading books and mocking religion with the occasional sex here and there. As he pounded her from behind in his dream sex scene, he kneaded her butt cheeks and slapped them hard until they turned red. In the dream, Jen stopped gyrating on his penis to turn her head to look at him; without warning, she transformed into a giant burrito. The dream ended here. He woke up to his mother’s voice and an aching erection.

His relatives visited them that day. Grandma Janis was lively for her age and as usual, uncle Ted was weird. He can’t help but imagine his uncle eating glue at a young age, uncle Ted certainly looked like someone who’d do that. With his uncle obese, balding, and smelling like moist fart, he had every evidence to assume so. Uncle Ted ignored him for the most part. While eating, uncle Ted made porcine sounds as he gorged on the meal prepared especially for their visit. After their lunch the four of them went to the front porch to have tea. Grandma Janis reminded his mother that she accidentally left a scarf on their house on a prior visit. The two women got up to go inside the house to look for it. Which leaves him alone outside with his uncle Ted. A bunglesome silence passed between them for neither would break the ice. More silence passed until the air suddenly smelled like rotten eggs; he looked sharply at Uncle Ted who shot him a glance before clearing his throat and looking up at the sky. He was about to cuss about uncle Ted’s unethical farting when his Grandma called from inside the house: “Ted! We’re leaving, say goodbye to your nephew and sister!” But uncle Ted did nothing of this. When uncle Ted got up from his chair, his nephew saw that he had left a phone behind. Still pissed off, he decided not to tell his uncle about it.

Later, when the visitors left, he got curious about his uncle’s phone. There was no passcode in it (he sort of expected it that a buffoon like his uncle would not think twice about security) and he could freely navigate all of its contents. Suddenly a familiar blue logo caught his eye. It was the Chatly app. He gave it a tap and inside were the details of his chatting history. He scanned the names until he saw HIS.

We all have our quirks. Some put the milk first before the cereal, and some like cats more than humans. If you think about, it’s pretty normal to be unique. But even if you are self-proclaimed nonconformist, there are simply standards we have to maintain when dealing with society such as not breaking the law for example. While it is not wrong to have that bit of weirdness in you, too much of something is never a good thing. Especially if you’re a fifty-eight year old obese, balding, smelly, virgin pretending to be a young woman half your age to lure unsuspecting boys on the internet.

Uncle Ted’s chat history showed that he is pretending to be a girl named Jen and that he has engaged in what they call nowadays as “sexting” with several young men. It suggested that he started the chats off with bold statements about himself to gain the attention of his victims. On one of these chats he introduces himself as a redhead with Irish heritage- “Kiss me I’m Irish!” uncle Ted says. He felt his stomach turn upon reading the threads wherein some of the young men uploaded pictures of their private parts for uncle Ted’s predatory eyes to claim. Some of these boys are not even older than fourteen according to what he has read.

He recalled the dream. The brunette. The burrito. The balding oaf who still lived with his mother. HIS uncle Ted.

Then he thought about himself. Rarely going outside the house. Living with his mom. No friends. Lurking the interwebs for potential sex-partners.

He put two and two together: what if I become like HIM? He lost it and went to the bathroom to throw up.

The very next day, he applied for a job that had the most possibility of human contact with it. Not that all the introverted and awkward are like uncle Ted, but still.

With anonymity being a key feature in most online experiences, one can never tell who is who these days. He needs to log off now, and likewise, the hour is nigh for a proper introduction of himself— this time to the real world.

Labels: 2016, aiko-lactaotao, fiction, flash fiction

Basic

Full Name : Aiko Lactaotao

Birthday : April 1990

Country : Philippines

Gender : Female

Religion : Christian

Occupation : Law Student (LAWYER soon!)

Hobbies : reading, writing, learning languages, collecting obscure words, and traveling when I have the budget!

Interests : books, law, philosophy, and linguistics!

Favorite Books:

1. "Being And Time" and "On The Way To Language" by Martin Heidegger

2. "The Book Of Disquiet" and "A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe" by Fernando Pessoa

3. "Philosophical Investigations" by Ludwig Wittgenstein

4. "Collected Fictions" and "Selected Non-Fictions" by Jorge Luis Borges

5. "Against Nature" and "The Damned" by Joris-Karl Huysmans

6. "Demons", "Crime And Punishment", and "Notes From Underground" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

7. "The Complete Poems" by EE Cummings

8. "The Complete Poems" by Emily Dickinson

9. "Maldoror" by Comte De Lautreamont

10. "The Complete Stories" and "Agua Viva" by Clarice Lispector

11. "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Against The Day" by Thomas Pynchon

12. "Molloy" and "More Pricks Than Kicks" by Samuel Beckett

13. "Confessions Of A Mask" by Yukio Mishima

14. "The Savage Detectives" by Roberto Bolano

15. "Infinite Jest" and "Fate, Time, and Language" by David Foster Wallace

(MORE TO BE ADDED AS I CONTINUE COLLECTING MORE BOOKS!)

Legally Blasé

I don’t aim to use this blog to assert myself, nor to engage in political debates; all I would like is to promulgate the simple philosophy of accepting the world as it is, irrespective of its absurdities. Given that we are all teleological beings, hence the need for self-definition, still it is inevitable for the absurd to rear its head every once in a while. This is something which is futile to fight against and at the same time absurd, even inhuman, to do otherwise.

It might be viewed as one big damn it if you do, damn it if you don’t type of scene, although truth remains that none of these will ever stop man from striving to move forward- it’s our nature.

There are two ways to view the world, but I choose to stay in the middle to get a better view of either.

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