bohymnia

09/28/10

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“you know what makes him sexy?”

 

“he does not have a gym-toughened abdomen but…”

 

 she semi-circled her left hand around the hot mug of Viejo Barako.

 

Class Salutatorian of 1981, she left her parents’ portal of academic excellence and pursued humanities. it has been her most orgasmic choice eversince. she hid all her mother majorette photos not because she turned plump now, it’s because she erect goosebumps everytime she recalls the feel of pantyhose stockings on her thighs. it’s a commercial kind of sexual harrasment.  after a decade, she fancied on posting all her self-portraits in a website with her full name as domain. she calls it art. nobody argues with her. 

 

“he’s the most human person i’ve ever touched…and for me, that is way too sexy. very human, sultry on my fingertips.”

 she glanced around Bohymnia. it has been her favorite place. she knows everyone: the cashier at 6am, the wife of the coffee farmer, the manic-depressive woman pretending to read the old komiks displayed in the wooden rack (when in fact, rumors tell that she does not know to read a thing or two). what she likes about Bohymnia is that: its kitchen speaks to her. once, the kitchen gave her a poem:

 kettles whistle, you wake me up

in the cold September morning

foggy eyes and scattered pillow cases

i kiss your morning tongue

fiber marks on your cheeks, 

i could see the trees.

 

 truth is: she wrote that in behalf of the kitchen. painted beautifully, it has the hues of Cuba. it has been her dream to be there, backpack and fuck back, around.  Bohymnia is a little artsy indie nook in Zulueta Drive, Barotac Viejo. the place used to be a dried goods store owned by the Aunt of the municipal post master. the owner liked snail mails so without any deeper reasons, she purchased it and paid in cash, the money tied with lastiko. some bills even had fish scales (the post master’s Aunt believed they were from the hands of the fish vendors).

 

on a blackboard, the menu for the day stood proud. written in colored chalk: “Barako Viejo kag Pan de Bohymnia”. Barako Viejo is the most reputable organic coffee ever. there’s a wide coffee farm in Sitio Hambad owned by a family of folk dancers. the parents used to be outstanding Sayaw sa Bangko dancers. they were dancing partners turned lovers and they made up in the dark corners of the school CAT-1 field. Both in their late 40s now, all their 4 children are folk dancers in school. the two are really great in their craft. the other two think they are wonderful. what made the coffee beans one of the best: they are handpicked with Dandansoy and Ili-ili tulog anay hums and some broken Lady Gaga or Justine Bieber or April Boy Regino songs. the tale of foot stomping and a magical grinder to produce the powder has been flying around the town for more than a decade now but nobody has ever proved it. that makes Viejo Barako, organic, mysterious, delicious and…affordable. Pan de Bohymnia is a piece of bread that gives you a feeling of the Lennon Wall in Czech Republic and the Joplin “high”. since most people in the town except for her cannot poetically express how they feel (and given that they got no knowledge about Lennon and Joplin), they just enjoy the exquisite-magical-dumbfounding taste of the bestsellers. Both are so delicious that you feel like people exaggerate the after-taste.

 

 ”you know what makes this little cafe so special to me?” 

 ”because it’s sexy as him?”

 ”no.”

 

“i feel like the kitchen is talking to me. have you ever felt that? i really think same is true with houses. a house can only be a home if it can speak to you.”

 

“you’re a marvelously odd woman.”

 

“hey seriously, from where i sit sometimes, i see empty eyes of people staring at the depth of their coffee cups as if they were looking for answers. the diabetics cautiously pour some brown sugar. the cockfighters loud and politically-malta educado sometimes. the gay parlorlista quiet and perhaps thinking of how tough his job is: making people think and feel and look that they are beautiful. young lovers sitting in front of each other fighting and cheating in their minds. old men enjoying the warmth of age and wisdom, some recalling the youthful glow in the hips of their wives.the sadness absorbed by the ceiling. and i could go on and on…”

 

“you have great eyes. do you like the sessionistas here too? they sing some honest music.”

 

“of course. i once offered to write lyrics for them but they seemed skeptical. so i did not push any harder.”

 

she stood in front of  Bohymnia. the place smelled old and it smelled something like curious sexcapades. it has stopped narrating stories to her. it has been six years since she last sat there, having such a hearty converstaion with a stranger who happened to drop by the town due to a flat tire. two years ago they broke up. now, he’s married to a former beauty queen (who always disappoint the audience everytime she stammered in the interview portion). he liked her for that, for being disappointingly human like how one morning,

 a budding poet described to him over coffee how she fell in-love with a man who did not have gym-toughened abdomen.

 

 

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