Prepubescent

Growing up as a prepubescent in the Philippines, I read a lot of American-style comics, which fortified my liking for science fiction. I remember stories about an abandoned Martian civilization, the Green Lantern superhero, The Incredible Hulk, and many more.

On the 1st of November of 2021, I joined Hans the Netherlander at his table in the cafe. The day after Halloween was rainy outside. Whilst I was drinking iced green tea, Hans gave me a piece of brown candy. He took out a jar of peanuts and offered me, but I said that I get pimples from peanuts. As a child in Quezon City, my family had a peanut farm near our lot; we boiled them, and I ate, as I was not allergic as a prepubescent. We then talked all about astronomy: exoplanets, asteroids, and the moons of the gas giants. Titan, a moon of Saturn, is specially stunning with its black methanic rivers, lakes, and seas. Hans said that the next fifty years will be exciting for astronomy. As we talked, a big handsome man with a muscular build came in, ordered coffee, and left.

I started conlanging as a prepubescent with words like "múninghay," "brábintai," and "numnumbúbit," which respectively related to the full moon, dragonflies, and drinking vitamins.

The belief in evolution was taken for granted, as I was a prepubescent in the Philippines and North America. The popularity of the sci-fi franchise Planet of the Apes reinforced this idea.

Prepubescent children are only allowed to socially transition; at about puberty age, they are given completely reversible puberty blockers if they have persisted in their identity.

I have been studying Japanese aesthetics consciously since my teenage years on Lulu Island, or maybe even before, as a prepubescent somewhat unwittingly in the Philippines. In Quezon City, we kids watched Japanese samurai shows and cartoons. We made Zero fighters and Messerschmidts as cardboard airplanes to hang from the ceiling of our library, where we had collection jars of crab-like spiders with thick exoskeletons. On Lulu Island, I studied autodidactically the basics of Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, the components of the Japanese language, during vacation as a teenager, whilst I did also watercolour painting and sculptures from DAS air-dry clay. I then took Japanese language in university. In my twenties, I actually lived in Japan for some time. Later, for years on my Social Media, I have been observing exquisite Japanese images. And I become a fan of anime. To me, Japanese aesthetics allude to Finnish, Eskimo, and Polynesian artwork. Japanese art can contrast the ancient with the ultramodern.

I tripped in the alleyway in the darkness, as I crashed my knees on the asphalt. There was a wooden board that covered a wire between houses across the alleyway. It was very dark there at night. My eyeglasses fell off my face. Luckily, a Cantonese labourer with a flashlight helped me. My knees just got scraped. I remember another time when I crashed on my knees. It was at Don José Heights in Quezon City in the Philippines. There was a vastness of Martianesque red soil, wherein the "talahib" grass grew. Sometimes, workers intentionally set the grass on fire. My brother and I were still playing, even then, outside. We were still prepubescent. Near burning grass, I stumbled on my knees. My grandmother, Lola Bebe, was so angry. A maid washed my legs in the big tiled sink behind the garage.