WAR!

War is brewing in our neighborhood. You can feel the oppressing miasma all over the place, blanketing everything with its evil stench. Even nature is rendered powerless over this intangible force of other-worldly presence: the winds seem to stand still, or else refuse to blow in this direction; summer nights turn cold, then humid, with no regard to barometric readings. The sun's summer rays seem blunted and incapable of giving heat. And all the while, an unnerving uneasiness has laid claim to the populace.

Wartime is nigh, and all about, preparations for the slaughter to come are being made. War drums have been released from their hallowed place of rest as advanced guards make ready their war paints and feathered armors. Banners of the various warring clans are hung all over the place, signifying an areas colors and affiliation. And inside the various households are a myriad of preparations of secret weapons that would, inevitably, lead to mass destruction.

War is near, and its name is Fiesta.

The first blow has been struck: psychological warfare through videoke-terrorism. A neighboring baranggay closed off a section of a busy thoroughfare to make room for the platform where the town's most prized terrorists will perform their renditions of hits, past, present and future, and sometimes in medley.

I can only squirm in terror as they let a banshee let loose over The Cranberries' "Zombie" and Regine Velazques' "Shine," followed by another terrorists' rendition of The Calling's "Stigmatize." Anytime soon, I'm expecting them to deploy their coup de grace: an unending medley of April Boy Regino "hits." Such vile, twisted actions are more than enough to render anyone in a state of hopelessness and utter terror, prompting anyone to reach for an icepick to gouge their eyes and shatter their eardrums in order to end the misery.

Coming home late and tired from work, I haven't the emotional fortitude to weather such viscious attacks on my psyche. The walls of my room seem infantile and ill-built to protect me from this cachophonic assult, as the voices seem to penetrate, and permeate from the very walls. Soon, the last remaining drops of my self-control would vanish like evanescent mist on a desert afternoon and render me immobile, irrational and insane; a dead husk of mutable flesh. I do not know how much more of this inhumane assault on my eardrums I can take.