love in the time of bird flu

a guy i took for his own lover--a hottie who cruised me before--asked me to meet him in some place i least expect gorgeous to chance upon in. but there i found him, and i was caught so off-guard that the only choice left for me was approach him, for it was quite a while since i saw him last. he was equally surprised, naturally, for why in the world would i be there except the usual reason he pointed out: to hunt? i tried to bring myself to explain why i was there to begin with although that's rather futile: i'd just sound concocting a silly alibi whereas the truth is, the two of us are not entirely miscasts in such a place as notorious as my colleague hellorafraf and her homophobic court would like to think. half of me indeed decided to want to flee, but in the long run the escape to the bronx might be irrelevant, because he must have made out my smallish profile despite the darkness. it was like college math days when i'm groping for algebraic expressions, with gorgeous for a terrible hunky professor who could lovingly mock me with my "aaa..." supported by his subsequent vowels "...eee, iii, ooo, uuu..." in the face of the person i adore, i fumbled for things to say, but he helpfully excused himself to save me the shame of becoming like a torpedo suitor. it didn't help that someone texted me a well-meaning advice to be careful with cruising lest i incur bird flu, pun intended. i shrugged off that i can always die for someone i love, so much the better if the cause should be my beloved's bird--err, bird flu strain, i mean. before i slept that night, i made sure to send him weblog-long text messages to express what may be accepted as post-mortem reactions of the chance encounter. they're a motley of moronic stuff, from the interest he generated in hotqthunk the moment the latter saw the former's pictures in my wallet, to my persuasion of him to read the book i gave, to my apology for texting a novella of a message just because it's the last opportunity in one month that i can distract him before he proceeds to a work-related training. in the end, i told him things like "i exist in your absence but you are my very being" and "i miss you, i can't get enough of you, you are my personal miracle." finally, tears stood in my eyes upon remembering that right that moment, he was tucked somewhere i ceased visiting in order to avoid getting trapped in the curse of platonic affection.
as a therapy for the romantic anguish, i turned to reading the long-neglected novel by my favorite author, love in the time of cholera. however, having opened the latin american masterpiece into the initial episode wherein an octagenarian guy poisoned himself to escape miserably the torments of unrequited love, i had to drop the book altogether. i forced myself into a dream wherein i found myself in my tiny hometown in nueva ecija, holding on to fizzling hope of catching a last-trip ride back to the city in spite of the crawling dusk. i woke up drenched in sweat, attempting to figure out the archetypes representing the journey, the twilight, the hope for a miraculous ride. time to move along, my barely conscious self egged on, the world's interspersed in a current of revolution, stop being cocooned in the web of oblivion. i took my camera phone and altered my mms wallpaper of a scarlet heart with gorgeous' name for an imprint, my mms screensaver of a superman logo which he sent me, the house/trance/chillout music being played in the blue bar where i met him, everything that may serve as a sharp reminder of gorgeous having ever penetrated my sad, sordid life. i also changed the phonebook entry bearing his name into gabrielgarciamarquez, after my favorite author whom i desire to marry if only he were gay.
the following day, i was with hotqthunk at the beauty shop looking for a burgundy hair color when madonna's upbeat borderline wafted in the air, and it suddenly came to me that this mp3 was now my ringtone. i checked my inbox and wondered for seconds why my favorite latin american author decided to transmit a text of a lifetime. then reality sank in and hotqthunk's face (not his gymbuilt muscles, too bad) contorted in bewilderment why i seemed to have incurred epileptic fits. mr. boyfriend materialistic, your brain may not understand things beyond barbells and 15% body fat, but your heart will when you're under the pangs of that wicked thing called love. for a full minute, i never got to catch on what gorgeous told me in his friendly message, but the world seemed wider unlike his contrary claim, people in it do not succumb to animal illnesses such as mad cow or bird flu, and my solitary planet that's gorgeous is never quite far away.