Ordinary World: Stories from Worlds Wide and Small

The Lower Half (Excerpt)

It's been two hours since Greg Angeles let his stupidity get the better of him and snatched the lower half of the woman he had been stalking for six months. The lower half was now inside one of his closets, bumping around, looking for its upper half, while Greg sat on the floor of his room, trembling all over, his mind shattering at his discovery. He could smell the stench – blood, urine, feces, coconut oil - emanating from the closet. It was true what the old people said. Once you see what's inside people, you realize how much of a mess they are.

But not like this, Greg muttered to the phantom voices. He had finished a pack of cigarettes just a few minutes ago, and was now halfway through his second. He had never smoked this much in so little time. The nicotine kept him sane, he believed. And he needed every ounce of his sanity if he hoped to get through this night. Suddenly, all the desire he had for the woman who owned the lower half was gone. It had been replaced by a mix of self-loathing and fear - two emotions which he barely acknowledged before.

He now regretted everything in his life. Ever since he saw her profile picture on Facebook, he had been smitten with one named Ericka Malapit. The darkness of her skin, the silkiness of her hair, the depth of those dark eyes...everything about her screamed raw, wanton sexuality. She aroused emotions within him which he had long banished through his constant masturbation to the ever-evolving and ever more shameful pornography he downloaded from the internet. She was, in his best words...pure. He had imagined her in his power - in chains and leather, in every position imaginable. To a certain extent, he did believe that he loved her, for sometimes love and want are quite similar, and people with very few interactions with the outside world often confused both.

And thus, Greg had begun stalking her online. It had been easy. After all, his job was to stalk people online. His call center had been hired by a sitting senator to be part of a "troll army." His job was to find accounts and news sites which criticized his boss and flood the site or the page with inflammatory comments through his many fake accounts. He had something like a hundred accounts all with the same friends that he sometimes became confused. When he attacked one site with his accounts, the others would swarm it, and if they were lucky, the site or the page would be shut down. It had been especially fun during the elections when he launched full-scale attacks on even very innocent posts. One time, he spotted a teenager's account saying that she hoped so-and-so candidate would lose. He launched a vicious attack on her account, which was picked up by other trolls like him. He later on discovered that she had committed suicide, unable to fend off the harassment she underwent. But Greg did not feel even a twinge of pity. This was cyberspace. If you didn't have the stomach for it, then you shouldn't be on it.

But Ericka Malapit was something else. He tried using his multiple accounts to befriend her, but his numerous requests remained unanswered. He then thought perhaps that she had scrutinized those accounts and found all the hallmarks of the internet troll. So he had created another account and even placed a picture of his more attractive brother as his profile picture in order to make himself seem more legit. He started friending even long-forgotten high-school friends and started posting more of his brother's pictures. Still, she took no action on his friend request. It enraged him that she would ignore him. And perhaps, had Ericka engaged him, it would have satisfied him. But the seeming rejection inflamed him more. She was playing hard to get. And if there was something Greg was not, it was a quitter. So he took it to the next stage. He began researching on her life. For Greg, the internet was the best invention of mankind. At the tips of one's fingers was power - the power to know everything about other people (especially those who were quite lax with their security settings as Greg knew enough about computers to get around such barriers).

Ericka worked as a nurse somewhere in Quezon City. So he painstakingly went through each of her photographs in order to determine the hospital she reported to. When he had figured that out, he had spent the better part of three days at a coffee shop in front of the hospital just to determine her shift. On the third day, just when his body could no longer take any caffeine, when he was about to quit on this latest project, he finally saw her.

Formany people, seeing the object of their affection for the first time wouldbring about embarrassment, manifesting as a blush. But for Greg, he had paled.She was even lovelier than her numerous pictures. The whiteness of her uniformmade the chocolate color of her skin more enticing. Her eyes glittered with rawsensuality as she chatted with the male nurse who walked with her (whichsubsequently brought about pangs of jealousy in Greg's heart). But most of all,watching the object of your desire, as she swished and swooshed a few metersaway from him, with full hips, long, nice legs, and ample breasts - it awakenedthe lust in Greg's nether regions. He knew he desired her. But now, seeing her,he knew he needed to have her. To own her body and do with it whatever hewanted. He could feel himself shaking at the very thought of undressing her.Perhaps he would leave that nurse's cap on as it looked cute on herperfectly-shaped head.