Isa

Isa!

Yes, she purchases mechanical brushes at highly unaffordable prices and uses them as back scratchers.  No, she doesn’t know why boys are so undeniably, psychotically weird.  Yes, she is Noola (yes, from Zog World).  Yes, she will uncharacteristically be a fairy in their upcoming Florante at Laura play.  Yes, she is half human and half mermaid.  No, she cannot gyrate her body to the soulful groove of any of the SexBomb Dancers' songs.  And yes, she herself said all these things to me in the few conversations we had.  I never knew which of these statements were imaginary and which were real.  Tough luck for both the reader and the author.

Funny when you think that you have known a person for so long, even though you’ve just met her.  That’s exactly how it is with screwball Isa, one of the most twisted and hilarious minds in this side of the Philippines.  Armed with the biting wit of Jessica Zafra, the self-deprecating humor of Woody Allen, the vocabulary of a crossword puzzle, and the combined stunning beauty of… Mahal and Mura, Isa sets off into the written world.  And I feel blessed (if it was right to use such a term here) to have been road kill in her blaring Dorkmobile.

(Author’s note: I am extremely apologetic for having used some words that do not really exist.  It’s just that valid words could never explain this emplastonic girl.) (I am sorry, but I made up the word “emplastonic”. I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.) But let me leave the fantasy world behind, and try to shed some light on how such absurdity could be found in a single person, an infinitesimal speck in the earth.  Her real name is Isabel Maria Flores Garcia, which is “too telenovela-ish,” in her opinion (I’m afraid I’ll have to stab myself in the back once she finds out I told someone else her name).   And, like every normal teenager, she dislikes “The Establishment” – pertaining to the hellhole they euphemistically called The School (again, I quote her).  She was a friend of a friend, and I met her through the Internet – the thing is, we both didn’t have a life, so we clicked off then and there.  And since I only know her digitally, I don’t know what she looks like at all (“fortunately for you,” she tells me).  But from every little thing she says, one can’t help but form a mental image, it being human nature to associate a face with a name.  And since this a PG-13 essay, I will not describe my mental image.  So sue me. (I am kidding, of course.)

There is always this certain glimmer in my eye, one that no one else has ever seen in me, when I talk to her.  I am challenged to think out of the proverbial box and be absurd (as if I am not absurd enough).  Even the dullest affairs become a hodgepodge of random quirks and smirks.  Whomever it was that said that “opposites attract” certainly has never seen the interaction Isa and I have, where mirrors reflect everything we say to each other.  Compliments and criticisms overflow from our fingers (that is, because we are typing), and those “haha ” smilies become real-life peals of laughter.  Once, she said that “she likes pissing boys off,” and me, being a boy, sent her a cartoon graphic of a man urinating.  With the two of us ranting and raving we are an unstoppable bite-your-head-off force.   Nothing ever escapes the clutches of our rabid monkey paws, lambasting everything, from dead and decaying plants to Britney Spear’s politically incorrect passion show.

But of course, muffled laughs also would be willing to give way to philosophical points of view on love, life, and God.  Being the intelligent and cynical Isa that she is, she would say that humans, as mindless idiotic creatures, need their superior God to give them other equally mindless idiotic humans to spend eternity with.  Though quite blunt, it made an impact on me… “And are you the mindless, idiotic creature He gave me to spent my time with?” The question poured out of my fingertips. “Perhaps,” she said with an e-smile, “for now.”

With only a handful of chat transcripts between us, Isa has proven herself worthy of her name – unique, individual, the only one of her kind.  Beyond doubt, this young woman (“I'm just a girl!” she’d contradict) is definitely God-sent.

And yes, she is fifteen years old.  “Exactamondo.”

The Name’s Bond… Jared Bond.

Jared Nathan G. Cristobal

IV Israel