Life and Death

It was the onset of the '90s, and in our aquarium of a workplace, I was the youngest. I was slowly building up a library of sorts, and the guys at the office had their recommendations. From Nini, it was Kurt Vonnegut; from Achilles, Joyce Carol Oates. Mr. Moss introduced me to the works of Saul Bellow and Nadine Gordimer; Tata to Michael Chrichton.

But it wasn't an introduction to the Michael Chrichton of dinosaurs, deadly strains and scientist-as-God plots. That would come later, when I needed page-turners to stay awake on days (and nights) that I needed to be awake. Instead, it was to a metaphysical, and equally engaging Chrichton. In Travels, he wrote of journeys made and taken: journeys that went beyond the physical.

Michael Chrichton is dead, and this isn't meant to be a tribute. I am hardly a sci-fi fan, after all. It's just that with his passing, I remember Tata, she who gave me Travels. I worked with her again in two other publications, during which she progressed from colleague to commuting buddy to confidante. We took journeys physical and spiritual, journeys that took us from Edsa to Banahaw, from the conference room to past lives and lost loves.

Alas, the road would soon end. Tata lost out to breast cancer almost ten years ago, just as Christmas was setting in. As I blew the dust off the book that could very well have been the story of our friendship, a yellowing piece of paper fell. On it is a verse the source of which I had already forgotten:

Death is the passing of life
And life
Is the stringing together
of so many little passings

Skipping Christmas

I've been trying to put off John Grisham's Skipping Christmas for when it's a lot "colder," in keeping with my quirk of conjuring the perfect atmosphere for my readings. The sweltering heat--the kind that turns my face into a giant oil field--made me want to have that Christmas feeling in June, though. And so...

With their daughter flying off to a Peace Corps stint in Peru, the Kranks are facing an empty Christmas. When Luther, a tax accountant, does a Scrooge and cranks out numbers from the Christmas just past, he is appalled to find that they spent $6,100 on, among others, an ugly ostrich skin wallet, unwanted presents and calendars and Christmas cards and Christmas cookies "that no one ate."

And on such materialistic premise, Luther convinces his wife to skip the holidays altogether. Which means no giant snowman on the roof and no fruitcake that gets passed around and ends up in the trash anyway. Instead they will go on a ten-day cruise starting on Christmas Day.

But the (obviously snooty) neighbors get wind of the plan, and skipping Christmas soon becomes a contrived plot that involves anonymous "Free Frosty" cards, the whole neighborhood singing Christmas carols and the press clicking away at the only undecorated house on Hemlock Street. The Kranks are also reduced to talking in whispers in their own home, which is downright crazy.

In feel-good fashion, the Christmas spirit eventually creeps in. Although to compare it with Dickens' A Christmas Carol is, well, humbug. After all, there is something off-putting about the way Christmas is sort of forced into the Kranks. And who crunches numbers when it comes to Christmas, anyway?

In all, it's a pleasant enough read, one you would normally read in transit or in terminals. Or to pass off the time on hot, humid days. Not really classic material, though, and in the long run, its claim to fame is the fact that it was written by John Grisham.