Alex Maskara
Thoughts, Stories, Imagination of Filipino American Alex Maskara
Short Stories
~
### Measure of Success
“It is over,” he said.
As those words fell from his lips, the entire nation erupted into sorrow. "Apu," they cried, "don’t leave us! We are lost without you. You are our hero, our greatest writer, our leader, our philosopher…”
“Enough, you idiots!” he thundered, pressing his hands against his ears. His voice cracked like a whip, silencing their pleas. “Enough with your empty praises and hollow words. Stop speaking, you spineless, witless masses! Let me not hear another word from any of you.”
With that, he slammed the door, shutting out the world. From that moment, no one dared approach him. Whispers spread—had their hero gone mad?
He had not lost his mind. He had simply withdrawn to understand the measure of his life. Standing by the window, he gazed out at the city—his city, his country. His chin rested heavily on the cold steel frame of the very window through which thieves had crept countless times. A window that bore silent witness to the slow decay of his land and its people.
The streets were filled with the wretched poor. Divisions among the populace ran deep, sanitation was nonexistent, and the bridges were crumbling relics of a forgotten time. The fish in the ponds carried poison, infecting the minds of his people with dullness and apathy. Their weak thinking mirrored their poisoned state. Kindness was mocked; reform was futile. The only certainty in the land was uncertainty itself. Why, he cried inwardly, why had it all come to this?
He was revered as the greatest mind his country had ever known. He had ensured that no one else could achieve anything close to his brilliance. When confronted by political adversaries, he demolished them with sharp, unforgiving words, leaving them incapable of challenging him. His enemies conspired to kill him, but he outmaneuvered them, turning their schemes inward until they destroyed one another.
Through his daily newspaper columns, he sowed suspicion across the land. “Everyone is guilty of something,” he proclaimed, and the people, awed by his eloquence, believed him. His influence was so pervasive that the nation began to think, speak, and write as he did. To his followers, no one—whether politician, businessman, student, parent, priest, Catholic, or Muslim—was beyond reproach. Everyone was guilty until proven otherwise.
His philosophy was simple: to rise above others, tear them down. To smell sweet, ensure that everyone else reeks. To be superior, humiliate all who stand below. The philosophy was so easy to follow, it worked flawlessly. He became the best-smelling, most superior man in the country.
And so, everyone else failed. Failure became his country’s destiny.
By the end of his life, he was the most beloved figure in a nation of crooks. Yet he lived in constant fear of assassination. His home, fortified with the most advanced security systems, stood as a fortress against the desperate neighbors who had turned to theft and kidnapping to survive. His brilliant ideas, immortalized in writing, lay unread by an increasingly illiterate nation. He was celebrated as the greatest because he had silenced all who dared disagree. He was a philosopher in a country that no longer knew how to think.
On the night of his death, he reflected on it all—his victories, his philosophy, his legacy.
“It is over,” he said.
2024-11-30 12:58:08
shortstories
Disposing, Clearing
I will meet with a hauler I hired to partially empty my storage unit. The garbage inside my storage alone needs to go, some of the items had been there for 3 decades. I need to throw them out to gain extra space for the new items that are filling up my house. I could not even get inside my closet nowadays after I filled it with junk. I am rather a big procrastinator than a hoarder. I have the habit of promising myself to organize later. ‘Later’ is the keyword. My ‘later’ becomes days, weeks, months, years. The only time I think about my storage is when I need to store another thing in it.
The items I stored piled up. I did not have the time to arrange them to optimize the space. I threw things on the floor, new items got on top of the old forming a heap. After a while I didn’t even know the items I placed in the heap. Recently I noticed bits and pieces of loose papers, looking like they were chewed on by rats. Not sure how rats got into the storage unit - the only thing I suspect is that I brought them there.
Clearing my storage makes me happy. Especially the books I have stored since the 1990's. At one point, before the current technology and instant availability of information and data through the Internet, knowledge was concentrated in physical spots like bookstores and libraries. These were the places I hung out all the time, spending hours upon hours browsing, reading. I was so happy when the bookstores added cafes like some kind of mini-Mr Donut. But change became inevitable. Bookstores were slaughtered by the likes of Amazon. One by one, my favorite bookstores folded and those remaining did all sorts of modifications and product inventories to keep their foot traffic which did not pan out sadly.
During those bookstore days, I put a lot of value on books that I invested in and collected like jewelry with the thought they could be worth more than their original values in the future. Little did I know how devalued they would become. A newly printed book nowadays would have its best price but as time goes, when the interest on it wanes, it will just end in a second-hand store, thrown in a derelict bin, like the Salvation Army or Goodwill for less than a dollar each. The more entrepreneurial would start selling them through amazon or ebay. I once fantasized selling books through an online store which did not materialize due to my busy schedule. I worked full time and my work was very physical so I could hardly find the energy to attend to hobbies at the end of work shift.
Well, I might be able to fulfill my dreams that I am already semi-retired. I am able to adjust my work hours. I work roughly 12-15 hours per week nowadays, maybe 20 if I add driving time. There is a lot of time for me although my energy is no longer as good as it was before. I still prioritize my workouts, walks and jogs due to health issues. And I face many mini-crises everyday ranging from my rental business problems to an unexpected call from a home insurance company to inspect my current home, to finding mold in my rental unit. There is always something. In fact, I sometimes feel I have a busier lifestyle and ‘things to do’ in retirement than working full time.
That is life. I learned to pick and choose what I love to do.
---
I arrived approximately 2 hours before the hauler to sort out my stored items. I wanted to get rid of my book collection in the hundreds that are stacked up against the wall of the storage unit. Staring at them reminded me of all the grand plans I had with them when I was much younger. I thought of building a personal library in my room, assuming I got a big house somewhere. This never materialized because I lived in condos most of my life. Being single soured my desire to own a big house; it would have been different if I had a family, wife and kids. Condo was enough for me. So I kept the books that multiplied in the storage. I contemplated the idea of bookselling business, through Amazon or Ebay. In fact I sold a few when bookselling online was in its infancy. I thought it was fun initially until I got upset by a review posted by a pissed off customer who complained I wrapped the book she ordered too carelessly. Her order arrived wrapped by a flimsy wrapper that was torn. I immediately stopped selling. I was also working full time and overtime at that time and to stress myself with a business on the side for a pittance wasn’t worth my time and stress. But I did not give up my collection.
Later on, I found the books I valued so highly being sold by Amazon and Ebay for a fraction of their original costs. I did not see a reason to pursue the angle of bookstore online store from that point on. Instead, given how cheap second hand books became, I accumulated more and stored a lot of them in the same storage to read ‘later’. There was my procrastination again. Soon, the books got scattered all over the floor as I threw other stuff into the storage - bicycles, electronics, kayak accessories, bike racks, helmet, cables, lots of cables, clothes, linens and beddings, Christmas decorations. The heap soon prevented me from entering the storage without lifting heavy boxes to give me way. I got increasingly disgusted seeing the stored stuff. Until I could no longer find an available space in the storage and instead used my home as my secondary storage.
In no time my walk-in closet got filled with tools for gardening and tools for house repairs. Toilet snake, hammers, chisels, nails and screws, portable Ryobi tools for weed whacking and hedge trimming, long handled garden pruner, long pole tree branch trimmer, leaf blower, pressure washer, ladder etc. My house's closet got easily full and the next thing I know, even my laundry room started filling up. I could be turning into a hoarder. It did not help that I upgraded my living quarter from a condo to a small family home. It was a very small house no bigger than a condo, same limited space for too many accumulations, it never ends.
The trouble with single people like me is the benefit of doing things ‘later’. There is no hurry. I will order some cheap gadgets for exercises to start a home exercise program ‘later’. I will order a book that got me excited to read ‘later’. I will order curtains and dividers to assemble later. Oh I would get this exercise mat on sale so I can video myself exercising for my youtube account later. Bought a kayak to enjoy ‘later’. When my rental unit was empty and I was divided between converting it to AirBnB or regular rental, I bought cheap foldable chairs and a bed to use ‘later’. I bought camping equipments, inflatable bed to use ‘later’. My only consolation is my lack of class so most of the things I buy are cheap. And it goes without question that cheap things require space. And space is really expensive. I turned into a person who pays 200 bucks a month to accommodate junk worth maybe 50 bucks. That is how I can get stupid at times.
Aging becomes a friend. Especially when one realizes the illogical habits he has developed. I see how people’s accumulations are dealt with when they leave the earth. Discarded things they valued so much. Everything loaded in boxes and thrown into the bins. My father valued a special pen when he was still alive. I could still imagine him keeping that pen both as a teacher and principal and retiree. He kept it close to a small notebook that he carefully secured in his locked cabinet. The notebook has records of bits and pieces of information; birthdays of his children, phone numbers, addresses etc. After he died, they all were thrown away. My father kept old stuff as well. He was impoverished as a teacher and the little side business he had, selling gas stoves, profited him a stove for himself; the non working stove was still stored decades later, in one of the old house cabinets. On the shelves of the kitchen, I still saw the thermostat used for my siblings' instant milk decades ago. Unlike me however, my father was truly organized.
All our properties, valued or not, would all have the same outcome. Discarded and forgotten, just like our hopes, dreams, struggles, successes, fights, reconciliations. The only thing that matters are those with sentimental values.
I found one of the boxes I am looking for in my storage. I pried it open. My friend James’ box contained the remaining things he kept after he lost everything - his two houses, his wife, his car. He pleaded with me to keep his box for safekeeping until he came back. That was before the pandemic. He neither returned nor contacted me.
I paused at his box. It was a small box made of plastic, a container with a black top. He said he wanted to try his luck somewhere in Arizona, to find a job. He was an electrician by trade. I vividly recall him filling his duffel bag with his clothes, the meager things that would keep him going for the next few days on his trip to Phoenix. He said his mother was living there, and retired in her 70s. He was not happy to come back to her, she was too old to be burdened by a son who failed in his 40s. His life was alright until his wife got hooked on drugs, cocaine, heroin, you name it. He got into it as well and from that point on, their lives spiraled out of control, she got into prostitution, he sold one of his houses, burned all the proceeds to drugs, his other house was foreclosed. He tried to rent but they both got evicted in no time.
And before he left, he handed me this box that I am staring at now. I wonder if he would ever return to reclaim it. I opened it and saw all his papers, old certificates from his training on the job, back accounts that surprisingly still looked fresh and crisp as if they were just mailed to him yesterday. His wedding photos. How beautiful they were as a young couple, they looked like kids out of college full of potential. I carefully dropped the items back into the box and immediately closed its lid. I felt like invading his privacy, I have no business knowing another person’s personal affairs and businesses.
I finally got into the other box I was looking for. My old box of what I thought was personal. Unlike James, my box was full of things that I value but has no value for anyone else. Papers mostly, these were pages of the stories I wrote a long time ago when I still dreamed of becoming a writer. I had stories written in highschool, some notebooks filled with my jottings of pain and supplications and momentary bliss all through college. These pages don’t matter anymore. I have since digitized their content but for some reason their physical presence reminds me of the pen and paper I wrote them with, the faded pages seem to return me back to an earlier age when possibilities in life abound. Then in the same box, I saw some of my old pictures. Faces of my siblings’ children, most of them are already parents now. I saw our old home with my old parents pausing for the last time before their passing.
What do I get out of these stored objects? When I die, no one would care about these - no one would feel how I felt towards them. They represent my story, the accumulation of emotions that accompanied me throughout my days. There is a tendency for humans to work intensely for their legacy when they get old, they want to be remembered with fondness if not with more frequency, they work hard to leave a good footnote behind, but whether we like it or not, we still end up in the annals of oblivion, relegated to ghostly tale and spirits. So - really - there is no need to worry about anything. I get so worked up sometimes with the things I share with the world, always asking myself if these would be acceptable, appropriate, and won’t destroy my reputation. What reputation?
2024-09-04 08:43:25
shortstories
Measure of Success
### Measure of Success
“It is over,” he said.
As those words fell from his lips, the entire nation erupted into sorrow. "Apu," they cried, "don’t leave us! We are lost without you. You are our hero, our greatest writer, our leader, our philosopher…”
“Enough, you idiots!” he thundered, pressing his hands against his ears. His voice cracked like a whip, silencing their pleas. “Enough with your empty praises and hollow words. Stop speaking, you spineless, witless masses! Let me not hear another word from any of you.”
With that, he slammed the door, shutting out the world. From that moment, no one dared approach him. Whispers spread—had their hero gone mad?
He had not lost his mind. He had simply withdrawn to understand the measure of his life. Standing by the window, he gazed out at the city—his city, his country. His chin rested heavily on the cold steel frame of the very window through which thieves had crept countless times. A window that bore silent witness to the slow decay of his land and its people.
The streets were filled with the wretched poor. Divisions among the populace ran deep, sanitation was nonexistent, and the bridges were crumbling relics of a forgotten time. The fish in the ponds carried poison, infecting the minds of his people with dullness and apathy. Their weak thinking mirrored their poisoned state. Kindness was mocked; reform was futile. The only certainty in the land was uncertainty itself. Why, he cried inwardly, why had it all come to this?
He was revered as the greatest mind his country had ever known. He had ensured that no one else could achieve anything close to his brilliance. When confronted by political adversaries, he demolished them with sharp, unforgiving words, leaving them incapable of challenging him. His enemies conspired to kill him, but he outmaneuvered them, turning their schemes inward until they destroyed one another.
Through his daily newspaper columns, he sowed suspicion across the land. “Everyone is guilty of something,” he proclaimed, and the people, awed by his eloquence, believed him. His influence was so pervasive that the nation began to think, speak, and write as he did. To his followers, no one—whether politician, businessman, student, parent, priest, Catholic, or Muslim—was beyond reproach. Everyone was guilty until proven otherwise.
His philosophy was simple: to rise above others, tear them down. To smell sweet, ensure that everyone else reeks. To be superior, humiliate all who stand below. The philosophy was so easy to follow, it worked flawlessly. He became the best-smelling, most superior man in the country.
And so, everyone else failed. Failure became his country’s destiny.
By the end of his life, he was the most beloved figure in a nation of crooks. Yet he lived in constant fear of assassination. His home, fortified with the most advanced security systems, stood as a fortress against the desperate neighbors who had turned to theft and kidnapping to survive. His brilliant ideas, immortalized in writing, lay unread by an increasingly illiterate nation. He was celebrated as the greatest because he had silenced all who dared disagree. He was a philosopher in a country that no longer knew how to think.
On the night of his death, he reflected on it all—his victories, his philosophy, his legacy.
“It is over,” he said.
2024-11-30 12:58:08
shortstories
Disposing, Clearing
Disposing, Clearing
I will meet with a hauler I hired to partially empty my storage unit. The garbage inside my storage alone needs to go, some of the items had been there for 3 decades. I need to throw them out to gain extra space for the new items that are filling up my house. I could not even get inside my closet nowadays after I filled it with junk. I am rather a big procrastinator than a hoarder. I have the habit of promising myself to organize later. ‘Later’ is the keyword. My ‘later’ becomes days, weeks, months, years. The only time I think about my storage is when I need to store another thing in it.
The items I stored piled up. I did not have the time to arrange them to optimize the space. I threw things on the floor, new items got on top of the old forming a heap. After a while I didn’t even know the items I placed in the heap. Recently I noticed bits and pieces of loose papers, looking like they were chewed on by rats. Not sure how rats got into the storage unit - the only thing I suspect is that I brought them there.
Clearing my storage makes me happy. Especially the books I have stored since the 1990's. At one point, before the current technology and instant availability of information and data through the Internet, knowledge was concentrated in physical spots like bookstores and libraries. These were the places I hung out all the time, spending hours upon hours browsing, reading. I was so happy when the bookstores added cafes like some kind of mini-Mr Donut. But change became inevitable. Bookstores were slaughtered by the likes of Amazon. One by one, my favorite bookstores folded and those remaining did all sorts of modifications and product inventories to keep their foot traffic which did not pan out sadly.
During those bookstore days, I put a lot of value on books that I invested in and collected like jewelry with the thought they could be worth more than their original values in the future. Little did I know how devalued they would become. A newly printed book nowadays would have its best price but as time goes, when the interest on it wanes, it will just end in a second-hand store, thrown in a derelict bin, like the Salvation Army or Goodwill for less than a dollar each. The more entrepreneurial would start selling them through amazon or ebay. I once fantasized selling books through an online store which did not materialize due to my busy schedule. I worked full time and my work was very physical so I could hardly find the energy to attend to hobbies at the end of work shift.
Well, I might be able to fulfill my dreams that I am already semi-retired. I am able to adjust my work hours. I work roughly 12-15 hours per week nowadays, maybe 20 if I add driving time. There is a lot of time for me although my energy is no longer as good as it was before. I still prioritize my workouts, walks and jogs due to health issues. And I face many mini-crises everyday ranging from my rental business problems to an unexpected call from a home insurance company to inspect my current home, to finding mold in my rental unit. There is always something. In fact, I sometimes feel I have a busier lifestyle and ‘things to do’ in retirement than working full time.
That is life. I learned to pick and choose what I love to do.
---
I arrived approximately 2 hours before the hauler to sort out my stored items. I wanted to get rid of my book collection in the hundreds that are stacked up against the wall of the storage unit. Staring at them reminded me of all the grand plans I had with them when I was much younger. I thought of building a personal library in my room, assuming I got a big house somewhere. This never materialized because I lived in condos most of my life. Being single soured my desire to own a big house; it would have been different if I had a family, wife and kids. Condo was enough for me. So I kept the books that multiplied in the storage. I contemplated the idea of bookselling business, through Amazon or Ebay. In fact I sold a few when bookselling online was in its infancy. I thought it was fun initially until I got upset by a review posted by a pissed off customer who complained I wrapped the book she ordered too carelessly. Her order arrived wrapped by a flimsy wrapper that was torn. I immediately stopped selling. I was also working full time and overtime at that time and to stress myself with a business on the side for a pittance wasn’t worth my time and stress. But I did not give up my collection.
Later on, I found the books I valued so highly being sold by Amazon and Ebay for a fraction of their original costs. I did not see a reason to pursue the angle of bookstore online store from that point on. Instead, given how cheap second hand books became, I accumulated more and stored a lot of them in the same storage to read ‘later’. There was my procrastination again. Soon, the books got scattered all over the floor as I threw other stuff into the storage - bicycles, electronics, kayak accessories, bike racks, helmet, cables, lots of cables, clothes, linens and beddings, Christmas decorations. The heap soon prevented me from entering the storage without lifting heavy boxes to give me way. I got increasingly disgusted seeing the stored stuff. Until I could no longer find an available space in the storage and instead used my home as my secondary storage.
In no time my walk-in closet got filled with tools for gardening and tools for house repairs. Toilet snake, hammers, chisels, nails and screws, portable Ryobi tools for weed whacking and hedge trimming, long handled garden pruner, long pole tree branch trimmer, leaf blower, pressure washer, ladder etc. My house's closet got easily full and the next thing I know, even my laundry room started filling up. I could be turning into a hoarder. It did not help that I upgraded my living quarter from a condo to a small family home. It was a very small house no bigger than a condo, same limited space for too many accumulations, it never ends.
The trouble with single people like me is the benefit of doing things ‘later’. There is no hurry. I will order some cheap gadgets for exercises to start a home exercise program ‘later’. I will order a book that got me excited to read ‘later’. I will order curtains and dividers to assemble later. Oh I would get this exercise mat on sale so I can video myself exercising for my youtube account later. Bought a kayak to enjoy ‘later’. When my rental unit was empty and I was divided between converting it to AirBnB or regular rental, I bought cheap foldable chairs and a bed to use ‘later’. I bought camping equipments, inflatable bed to use ‘later’. My only consolation is my lack of class so most of the things I buy are cheap. And it goes without question that cheap things require space. And space is really expensive. I turned into a person who pays 200 bucks a month to accommodate junk worth maybe 50 bucks. That is how I can get stupid at times.
Aging becomes a friend. Especially when one realizes the illogical habits he has developed. I see how people’s accumulations are dealt with when they leave the earth. Discarded things they valued so much. Everything loaded in boxes and thrown into the bins. My father valued a special pen when he was still alive. I could still imagine him keeping that pen both as a teacher and principal and retiree. He kept it close to a small notebook that he carefully secured in his locked cabinet. The notebook has records of bits and pieces of information; birthdays of his children, phone numbers, addresses etc. After he died, they all were thrown away. My father kept old stuff as well. He was impoverished as a teacher and the little side business he had, selling gas stoves, profited him a stove for himself; the non working stove was still stored decades later, in one of the old house cabinets. On the shelves of the kitchen, I still saw the thermostat used for my siblings' instant milk decades ago. Unlike me however, my father was truly organized.
All our properties, valued or not, would all have the same outcome. Discarded and forgotten, just like our hopes, dreams, struggles, successes, fights, reconciliations. The only thing that matters are those with sentimental values.
I found one of the boxes I am looking for in my storage. I pried it open. My friend James’ box contained the remaining things he kept after he lost everything - his two houses, his wife, his car. He pleaded with me to keep his box for safekeeping until he came back. That was before the pandemic. He neither returned nor contacted me.
I paused at his box. It was a small box made of plastic, a container with a black top. He said he wanted to try his luck somewhere in Arizona, to find a job. He was an electrician by trade. I vividly recall him filling his duffel bag with his clothes, the meager things that would keep him going for the next few days on his trip to Phoenix. He said his mother was living there, and retired in her 70s. He was not happy to come back to her, she was too old to be burdened by a son who failed in his 40s. His life was alright until his wife got hooked on drugs, cocaine, heroin, you name it. He got into it as well and from that point on, their lives spiraled out of control, she got into prostitution, he sold one of his houses, burned all the proceeds to drugs, his other house was foreclosed. He tried to rent but they both got evicted in no time.
And before he left, he handed me this box that I am staring at now. I wonder if he would ever return to reclaim it. I opened it and saw all his papers, old certificates from his training on the job, back accounts that surprisingly still looked fresh and crisp as if they were just mailed to him yesterday. His wedding photos. How beautiful they were as a young couple, they looked like kids out of college full of potential. I carefully dropped the items back into the box and immediately closed its lid. I felt like invading his privacy, I have no business knowing another person’s personal affairs and businesses.
I finally got into the other box I was looking for. My old box of what I thought was personal. Unlike James, my box was full of things that I value but has no value for anyone else. Papers mostly, these were pages of the stories I wrote a long time ago when I still dreamed of becoming a writer. I had stories written in highschool, some notebooks filled with my jottings of pain and supplications and momentary bliss all through college. These pages don’t matter anymore. I have since digitized their content but for some reason their physical presence reminds me of the pen and paper I wrote them with, the faded pages seem to return me back to an earlier age when possibilities in life abound. Then in the same box, I saw some of my old pictures. Faces of my siblings’ children, most of them are already parents now. I saw our old home with my old parents pausing for the last time before their passing.
What do I get out of these stored objects? When I die, no one would care about these - no one would feel how I felt towards them. They represent my story, the accumulation of emotions that accompanied me throughout my days. There is a tendency for humans to work intensely for their legacy when they get old, they want to be remembered with fondness if not with more frequency, they work hard to leave a good footnote behind, but whether we like it or not, we still end up in the annals of oblivion, relegated to ghostly tale and spirits. So - really - there is no need to worry about anything. I get so worked up sometimes with the things I share with the world, always asking myself if these would be acceptable, appropriate, and won’t destroy my reputation. What reputation?
2024-09-04 08:43:25
shortstories