Babae o Lalake? "The Conversion" by J. Neil Garcia

Our midterm project in PHILLIT ABMA75 class, Asia Pacific College

Directed by: Shobert Hallig and Ferdinand Altavano
Edited by: Shobert Hallig
Written by: April Lacson
Production Assistant: Nadia Sebudandi
Cast:
Nico De la Cruz
Paolo Caducio
Katrina Aurea Umawing

"The Conversion "
by J.Neil Garcia

It happened in a metal drum.
They put me there, my family
that loved me. The water
had been saved just for it, that day.
The laundry lay caked and smelly
in the flower-shaped basins.
Dished soiled with fat and swill
Piled high in the sink, and grew flies.
My cousins did not get washed that morning.
Lost in masks of snot and dust,
their faces looked tired and resigned
to the dirty lot of children.
All the neighbors gathered around our
open-air bathroom. Wives peered out
from the upper floor of their houses into our yard. Father had arrived
booming with his cousins, my uncles.
They were big, strong men, my uncles.
They turned the house inside-out
looking for me. Curled up in the
deepest corner
of my dead mothers cabinet - father
found me.
He dragged me down the stairs by the
hair
into the waiting arms of my uncles.
Because of modesty, I merely
screamed and cried.
Their hands, swollen and black with
hair, bore me
up in the air, and touched me. Into the
cold
of the drum I slipped, the tingling
too much to bear at times my knees
felt like they had turned into water.
Waves swirled up and down around
me, my head
bobbing up and down. Father kept
booming,
Girl or Boy, I thought about it and
squealed,
Girl. Water curled under my nose.
When I rose the same two words from
father.
The same girl kept sinking deeper,
breathing deeper in the churning void.
In the end I had to say what they all
wanted me to say. I had to bring this
diversion
to its happy end. If only for the pot of
rice left burning in the kitchen. I had
to stop
wearing my dead mothers clothes. In
the mirror
I watched the holes on my ears grow
smaller,
until they looked as if they had never
heard
of rhinestones, nor felt their glassy
weight.
I should feel happy not that Im
redeemed. And I do. Father died
within five years.
I got my wife pregnant with the next.
Our four children, all boys,
are the joy of my manhood, my proof.
Cousins who never shed their masks
play them for all their snot and grime.
Another child in on the way.
I have stopped caring what it will be.
Water is still a problem and the drum
is still there, deep and rusty.
The bathroom has been roofed over
with plastic.
Scrubbed and clean - my wife knows I
like things,
She follows, through sometimes a
pighead she is.
It does not hurt to show her who is the
man.
A woman needs some talking sense
into. If not,
I hit her in the mouth to learn her.
Everytime, swill drips from her
shredded lips.
I drink with my uncles who all agree.
They should, because tonight I own their souls
and the bottled they nuzzle like their
prides.
While they boom and boom flies whir
Over their heads that grew the.
Though nobody
Remembers, I sometimes think of the
girl
who drowned somewhere in a dream
many dreams ago.
I see her at night with bubbles
springing like flowers from her nose.
She is dying and before she sinks I try
to touch
her open face. But the water learns
to heal itself and closes around her like
a wound.
I should feel sorry but I drown myself
in gin before
I can. Better off dead. I say to myself
and my family that loves me for my
bitter breath.
We die to rise to a better life

\

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• asia
• pacific
• college
• multimedia
• arts
• abma
• midterm
• project
• phillit
• the
• conversion
• vidprod
• short
• film
• philippine
• literature
• apc
• 75

[chrystaljovel]

astig naman shobz!!!

[itshobertday]

salamat chrystal. mwah!

[taffyboyish]

sa may gawa naman po nung vid,,penege nmn po nung complete text nun tula..included po kasi sya sa midterm namin please po..thanks..:(

[TheUnspokenWordsx]

This one is so good.

[knoxville13bhd]

,eron po ba kayo nung copy nyan?paki send po sa akin, yung poem po mismo

salamat

hirs my email

glaynyz_9gaia@ymail.com

[knoxville13bhd]

@chrystaljovel ♥♥♥

[dezereimei23]

@trip2ewan kuya aqouh lng din po mg isa gagawa kakapalan na nga lng mukah ;para makabuo eh

[dezereimei23]

kuya anong video editor gamit nyo... pls pki answer kc project din po nming freshmen student ang short filming eh.... pls...

[xdeiri]

wtf is this crap?

[nokiaboo4231]

ayus!

[trip2ewan]

buti senyo group project..sakin ako lng ang pinag gawa eh,,,nice,,,mahirap gumawa ng gn2...

[cupalnya]

wow you are really good sir:)

amazing