Sunday, November 7, 2010

Di na Ako Gaya ng Dati

By: Marlon C. Alves
email: marlonalvesc@yahoo.com.ph
---------------------------------------------------------

Di ko lubusang pansin na iba na pala ako
hindi na gaya ng dating ako
maraming tao na ang nakakapuna nito
pero ano ba ang tanging magagawa ko

Una hindi ko choice na maging ganito ako
naglaho nang di inaasahan ang dating ako
kung ako man ay tatanungin mo
mas gusto kong manatili ung dating ako na nakilala mo

Hindi ko lubos maisip na me natatabla na pala ako
sa chat, sa text o kahit sang usapang meron tayo
siguro ay sadyang di lang ako aware na nakakasakit na ako ng tao
pero kung iyon ang napuna niyo salamat sa pagiging totoo

Hanggang san pa ba ang pagtuklas ko sa sarili ko
ilang taong paglalakbay pa ba ang bibilangin ko
hanggang ngaun ang isip ko ay gulong gulo
pero ang tanging masasabi ko sa mga sandaling ito
salamat sa nag iwan at  patuloy na nanatiling nasa tabi ko

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Monday, October 4, 2010

Barang Part 1

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Barang Part 2

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Sunday, October 3, 2010

Barang Part 3

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Barang Part 4

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Barang Part 5

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Barang Part 6

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Barang Part 7

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Barang Part 8

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Barang Part 9 Ending

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Thursday, September 23, 2010

UNDER THE MANGO TREE by Hugh Aaron

ONE would think we were a couple of returning heroes. “Americanos, Americanos,” the naked children shouted, zigzagging like circus clowns in mad circles around us as Billiard Ball and I ambled abreast down the beaten path through the shade of the green canopy. Heavy duffel bags hanging from our shoulders were laden with gifts: bottles of beer, cartons of cigarettes, cans of fruit juice. Repeatedly sweeping past us like zephyrs, each child snatched a bar of sweet chocolate from our extended hands. We were no less boisterous than they, shouting along with them, asking their names, having a good time ourselves, caught up in the infectious joy of their freewheeling abandon. Such was the character of our entry into Lubao time after time.
As we walked down the village street, people waved from their houses repeating our names, people we didn’t recognize from our earlier visit. “Hullo Beelyard Ball,” and “Al. Hullo. Comusta.”
Anita emerged from one of the houses to greet us. “You must both stay with my family,” she said. Then Alejandro appeared and said to Billiard Ball, “I have been waiting all week. Please, if you wouldn’t mind some metaphysical discussion I would be honored to have you as my guest.”
“How can I resist metaphysical discussion?” said Billiard Ball with a smile. As the two walked off, I heard Alejandro say, “And I imagine you have read Man’s Fate in the original French? How lucky! Malraux is right. For our time the answer lies in courageous action.” Had Billiard Ball found himself a revolutionary?
I followed Anita up the ladder to her family’s one-room house, similar in its simplicity to Rosalio’s but larger. Both had the same style cooking hearth near one wall, the split bamboo floor, the same immaculateness. Squatting before the hearth, Anita’s mother, looking in her fifties (but only in her thirties, I learned later), was preparing the noon meal. She acknowledged our entrance with a nod and a warm smile. Sitting cross-legged on a floor mat in a corner, Anita’s wispy maternal grandmother, her skin wrinkled like an elephant’s, grinned, showing toothless black gums. She mumbled something incomprehensible to me in Spanish. Shortly Mr. Quiboloy, wearing a wide-brimmed hat woven of jute, came in from the hot fields. We shook hands warmly. “Thank you for having me, Mr. Quiboloy,” I said.
“You may call me Lucio, now that we are old friends,” he responded. We all sat on the floor in a circle and ate brown rice and chicken from clay bowls while Mr. Quiboloy spoke of their lot in Lubao.
“I am only a small tenant farmer,” he said—to clarify his role, not to complain. “The family in the hacienda on the Bataan highway owns the land.”
“The fancy place we passed on the way?”
“Yes, the fancy place,” he said, and everyone laughed at my odd description. “I keep fifty percent for myself and fifty percent is for the landowner. The incentive is small, but what choice do we have?”
“The Hukbalahaps think we have one, Father,” said Anita.
“How dare you speak of them in our house,” Mr. Quiboloy said in a flash of anger. Turning to me, he explained. “The Huks are radicals, communists; they know only one way: violence.” Then, addressing Anita, he said, “Where do you get such foolish thoughts? Is that what you are learning in school? Is that what Alejandro teaches?”
“Where are the Huks from?” I asked.
“From everywhere,” Lucio replied. “Some dwell within our own barrio, but since I am not a sympathizer, I cannot be sure which ones they are. You see, I believe in Philippine democracy. I believe we should be like America, where everyone has an opportunity to succeed and live well.”
“But that’s not always true. You remember our discussion last weekend?” I said.
“Oh, yes, I have not forgotten. Still, you have not had to live through our poverty and pain. You have never had that in America.”
How could I argue? I knew of no pain first-hand. I never saw anyone starving. Through the desperate thirties there was always food on our table and ample clothes to wear and a snug apartment to sleep in. Although my father had lost the wealth gained during his most vigorous years, and he had lost his daring and capacity to dream for the rest of his life, he never lost his belief in America. In its worst times the nation somehow provided opportunity for survival.
When the meal was over, Anita handed me a sleeping mat, which I unrolled on the floor beside those of my hosts. It was too hot to be out in the high sun of the early afternoon. What could be more sensible than to have a cool siesta? In two hours Anita awakened me from a soft sleep. Lucio had returned to the field, her mother was elsewhere, and her grandmother squatted quietly in a corner weaving a mat. “My father has asked me to show you the mango tree,” she said. “Will you come with me, please?”
We walked down the path to the highway, at first side by side, but soon she fell behind. “Am I going too fast for you?”
“No, no,” she said, urging me to keep on ahead. She continued to linger behind.
“Are you tired?”
“No, no,” and she giggled in amusement. “It’s the custom in Lubao that I walk behind.”
Since the concrete highway was blistering, we walked along the narrow dirt shoulder, which was less hot but still burned through the soles of my GI boots. Anita, barefoot as usual, didn’t seem to mind. Nor, in her white dress and wide brimmed woven hat, did she seem bothered by the afternoon sun beating down on us, while I perspired heavily and had to stop to rest now and then under a tree. Although several passing ten-wheel army trucks offered us a lift, she refused them. Grudgingly I submitted to her wish. “We have only a few miles,” she said, a promise of small comfort. Soon we passed by the grand white stucco hacienda, a stark contrast to Anita’s house.
“So this is where the rich landowners live,” I said.
“Oh, but they are no longer rich, Hal. They have the land, but that is all. The Japanese took all the crops. The land is of little use without seed. And the Japanese removed all their possessions, leaving the house bare. They are mestizos and very proud, but the Japanese took that away too. A commander occupied the hacienda and humiliated the family, making them his servants. He hoped that by doing this, the rest of us would be pleased and that we would cooperate with him.”
“And weren’t the people happy to see the selfish landowner get what he deserved?”
“Oh, no, the Santoses are good people; they are always very kind. When we have malaria, they bring us quinine. When a typhoon ruins our crops, they give us rice to eat and new seed for the next planting. The Japanese commander had mistaken how we would feel. We knew he was cruel.”
At last we reached our destination, the small solitary thatched house on stilts beside the sluggish stream that I had observed on our first trip along the highway. We climbed the ladder to the house and entered its cool, dim interior, where I saw a mostly naked old man seated on the floor. “This is my grandfather,” said Anita as she uncovered a basket of fruit, vegetables, and rice that she had brought for him.
He reached for my outstretched right hand with his left; his other arm hung limp by his side. “Comusta ka,” he said in a clear, high voice.
“Comusta,” I said, returning the greeting. He then spoke to Anita in dialect, pointing to a small woven box beside his hearth, which she retrieved for him. From it he removed a GI dog tag, which he held suspended for me to see.
“It is an American soldier’s necklace,” said Anita.
“May I look at it closely?” I asked, astonished that he would have such a thing.
The dog tag bore the name Roger B. Anderson and his serial number and blood type. “Where did your grandfather get this, Anita?”
“From Lieutenant Anderson,” she replied plainly.
“I don’t understand. GIs don’t give away their dog tags.”
“Let us sit and I shall tell you about Lieutenant Anderson.” She peeled a banana for her grandfather, and handed me one with a dark green skin. “It is quite ripe even though it is green,” she said. It was, and tasted sweeter than any I had ever eaten. “He is there under my grandfather’s mango tree.” I followed her gaze through the doorway. Symmetrical and spreading, a low tree stood between the house and the stream, creating a cool, grassy oasis beneath its graceful branches.
Baffled by her indirection, I tried to deduce her meaning. “Buried? In a grave? Under the tree?”
Anita’s grandfather, having sense my sudden comprehension, broke into excited dialect, and struggled to rise. “My grandfather says that you may keep the necklace,” said Anita. She addressed him sternly and he sat down again. “My grandfather’s bones give him much pain. They never healed correctly after the Japanese broke them. He should stay with us in the barrio, but he refuses. My grandfather is a stubborn man.”
Later I learned that Anita made the trip to her grandfather’s house several days a week to bring him food and often to stay and cook for him. I could sense an unspoken bond between them, a mutual appreciation. Anita once confessed that she felt much closer to her grandfather than to her own father. The old and young are on common ground: Both are concerned only with the fresh simplicities of life, the very business of being alive.
Anita began her story: “The Japanese marched hundreds of American prisoners through Pampanga from Bataan, giving them no food or water, and whipping them when they fell behind. They made them walk on the hot concrete so that they left bloody footprints from their scorched and wounded feet.” I winced, recalling my recent distress walking under the sun, even along the cooler shoulder of the highway. Anita spoke with a chilling earnestness, as if she were describing a scene in progress, making no comment, stating only facts. “Some were already weakened from wounds in the battle on Bataan and could not keep up. Lieutenant Anderson was one of these. When the men fell and did not rise after being kicked and beaten, they were shot, and their bodies were collected on a wagon pulled by carabao that followed the marchers. Lieutenant Anderson was shot there at the edge of the road.” She stared out at the glaring white concrete. “But my grandfather and grandmother saw him move; he was still alive. So before the wagon passed they dragged him from the road and hid him under the trees by the stream in the field behind the house. They nursed his wounds for many weeks.” She interrupted her account to consult with her grandfather in dialect. “Yes, my grandfather says it was more than a month before the American opened his eyes and spoke.”
“Did you meet him?” I asked.
“Much later in the barrio,” she said, “but I was only a child.” I had failed to realize immediately that she had become a woman in the intervening four years.
“It was very dangerous for my grandparents. The Japanese often warned us not to help the Americanos or we would be shot. When the monsoon came and the land was covered with water, Lieutenant Anderson was moved to Reverend Mr. Corum’s house in Lubao. But soon the Japanese returned to search for the Americano, saying they had heard we were hiding one of the marchers. Someone, maybe from the barrio—we shall never know—had betrayed us. They entered my grandparents’ house and asked my grandfather to give them the Americano, but he would admit nothing. They broke his limbs and he passed out from the pain.” Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of his suffering. “Then they took him and my grandmother to the barrio where all the people were gathered and they showed what they did to my grandfather and they threatened to kill us one by one until we gave them the Americano. My father and Reverend Mr. Corum replied to the Japanese commander that killing us would be useless.” She faltered; the words came hard. “The commander ordered a soldier to stand my Nanay by the wall of the church.” With tear streaked cheeks, she went on. “And he shot her. Oh, I loved my Nanay so very much.” She had to stop, and her grandfather reached for her with his one good arm and took her into it and comforted her with the soft words of his dialect as he, too, cried.
Her story was too appalling. I was speechless. I wanted to take on her pain, to share the suffering of her memory. But regaining her composure, she resumed. “After the commander killed my Nanay, the Americano, Lieutenant Anderson, appeared from Reverend Mr. Corum’s house. He had witnessed the commander’s cruelty and understood that others would also die unless he was found. The soldiers took him and flung him to the ground and beat him with their rifles. And then the commander ordered his soldiers to stand him by the wall of the church where my Nanay had stood. Blood was pouring from his head and they shot him. Then they left us.”
“What happened to the bodies of your Nanay and Lieutenant Anderson?”
“We took them and prepared them and, after a deep mourning, buried them side by side under the mango tree, as my grandfather wished.”
The sun appeared like an enormous orange balloon balanced at the apex of a faraway mountaintop. The heat of its slanting rays was now comfortably diminished in the late afternoon. “We must return to Lubao,” said Anita. Embracing her grandfather, she bid him good-bye and I shook his hand again. “Let me show you the graves.” Together we stood beside them, each marked by a simple boulder, nothing more. “The rounder rock is my Nanay’s grave.” The next few moments we shared in silence. Soon she raised her eyes and asked, “Do you like mangoes?” Taking one from the tree, she gave it to me. It was sweet and moist.
“Absolutely delicious,” I said.
“It is by far my favorite fruit,” she replied. “And don’t you think it is a beautiful tree? See how it spreads its branches like the arms of dancers; see how it shades the earth and makes it green.”
It was in the flash of that instant, transcending all feelings of desire, that I understood I had fallen in love with Anita. It was then I knew I had found someone who surpassed all I could ever hope to be. “Yes, it’s a beautiful and rare tree,” I answered.
During our walk back to Lubao we hardly spoke, save for one short exchange. “I have never been alone with a man, never with an Americano,” she said. “But my father said I could be with you, for he trusts you. At first I was very frightened, but now I am happy that we have spent this time together.”
“What are you afraid of? That I would bite you?”
She laughed. “No, no, of course not that.”
“What then?”
Delaying her reply, she slipped farther behind me as she pondered how best to express her thoughts. I stopped, waiting. “That I am not worthy,” she said. “That you would be ashamed of me. That we are like monkeys.”
“Oh, my God, Anita. Don’t you realize how beautiful you are?”
“Americanos are beautiful. Mestizos are beautiful.”
“No, you are.” I gently enclosed her hand in mine. It was the first time we touched.
“I hope you will come back often,” she said, hesitatingly withdrawing her hand.
“Nothing can stop me,” I promised.
That evening Billiard Ball and I had supper at the reverend’s. Anita, like soft music, was ever-present in the background, assisting Mrs. Corum. Afterwards we retired to the cozy living room, joined by Lucio, Anita’s father, and Hando. The gathering, being more intimate, dealt with both controversial and heartfelt matters, ranging from Shakespearean drama and symphonic music (Bartok no less), extolled by the uncommonly erudite Hando, to local politics and agrarian reform. Lucio, farmer and mayor, was a graduate of an agricultural college, a respected expert. “We must not be impatient and greedy,” he said, referring to a program he was promoting among his fellow farmers. “Rather than harvest all our rice for today’s consumption, we must set aside a portion for seed even if it means we will be hungry a while longer.” But few were paying heed to his recommendation. “It is not easy to believe in the future when the present is still so hard,” he sighed.
“Yes,” Hando agreed, “we must take the necessary steps now to become masters of the future. And we must be concerned with more than rice seedlings. Reform, dividing the haciendas and distributing the land, is essential.”
“Isn’t that what the Huks are striving to do?” I asked.
“But they are trying to do it by violent means,” said Lucio. “That is wrong.”
“Our people have been exploited for more than three hundred years,” said Hando with vehemence, his smooth, feminine amber skin taut and glistening. “The hacienda system is too firmly implanted. It will never submit to being destroyed peacefully.”
“But violence never knows where to stop. The innocent end up being victims,” Lucio countered with equal insistence. “If we expect to be independent, we must also have stability.”
“Perhaps America should be our model,” said the reverend, addressing Billiard Ball. “Unlike us, you do not kill your politicians over elections. You do not have our corruption. Sadly, we have few patriots and everyone is for himself.”
“But Roxas will unite us,” said Lucio, referring to the new presidential candidate in the elections to take place less than a year hence.
“Roxas was a collaborator; he betrayed us,” Hando said dourly.
Finding their intensity contagious, I listened, unable to decide who was right. With independence near at hand, at a crossroad in their history, they were contemplating the formation of the new nation and how best to correct ancient, firmly established inequities and injustice. Would their hopes and arguments ultimately be meaningless?
Would Billiard Ball and I care to attend church in the morning, asked Reverend Mr. Corum. We politely begged off, and he took no offense. “I have never met a Jew before,” he said. “but your religion and the history of your people are a part of my education as a clergyman. Do you attend your church?”
“Well, the truth is I don’t practice a religion,” I said sheepishly. “But I was born a Jew and I insist on belonging. The Jews have been a scapegoat ever since their exile from Babylonia over two thousand years ago. I can’t escape the past and I feel a duty to accept its consequences.”
“That’s very noble of you.”
“I don’t see it as noble. It is necessary for my self-respect.”
“But as a Jew you have nothing to fear in America,” said Hando, who was listening intently.
“Probably not. Tolerance is part of the American tradition,” I replied, “but I sometimes worry when I’m singled out and despised by prejudiced Gentiles. When I was a child I was often victimized by my schoolmates.”
“I see,” said Hando, “then you are a Jew first?”
“Hando, you are being discourteous to our guest,” said Reverend Mr. Corum.
“Please forgive him,” said Lucio. “He often oversteps decent bounds.”
“Really, I’d like to answer the question,” I said. Having ignored the reverend’s rebuke and Lucio’s apology, Hando kept his clear, penetrating, catlike eyes fastened on mine. “No, Hando, I am first an American.”
“Ah, what a lucky many you are. If only I could first be a Filipino.”
“And you, Billiard Ball, do you have a faith?” asked the reverend.
“I suppose I’m an atheist,” he replied, “but I don’t disapprove of religion, although it’s the major cause of war and misery throughout the history of civilized man.”
“Not religion itself, if you will forgive me for contradicting you,” said the reverend, holding up his finger pedantically, “but man, in the name of religion.”
“Yes, Reverend,” said Billiard Ball, nodding vigorously. “I stand corrected.”
Such were our conversations. They were of a depth and seriousness and range I had never experienced before. We discussed political systems, communism versus democracy, psychology, man’s startling discoveries of his hidden self, his search for meaning in life (There is none according to Billiard Ball), the crisis in physics, the pessimism of contemporary philosophers, the shocking renunciation of tradition in modern art and music, the truth of literature, and on and on. Billiard Ball and I found, in this comparatively primitive village, a gold mine of astounding sophistication. And who was the principal force behind all this magnificent cerebration? Reverend Mr. Corum, of course, supported by two lesser and opposing forces: Lucio and Hando.
The reverend was on an endless voyage in search of life’s truth. In an unobtrusive, self-effacing manner, he subtly enticed us to follow him, to think aloud without fear of criticism or reproof. But attacks on those personalities present or close to us were forbidden. Despite his extraordinary sophistication, there was a deceptive simplicity, a childlike quality, an innocence about him. His gentleness was saintly. I was always eager to be in his presence, to hear his views on any subject, to hear his questions. His quiet power was the source of the barrio’s pride in itself. It was he who made the barrio an enclave against alien influences. Admiring America, he distrusted Americans and their careless style. Loving God, he rarely invoked his name. And not once in conversation during the time I knew him, an all too brief five months, did he mention Lieutenant Anderson’s name, or speak of the cruel Japanese commander or refer to Nanay’s untimely death.
On a subsequent visit I vividly recall a discussion on the nobility of sacrificing oneself for another. “It is natural to the human spirit,” the reverend stated. “Don’t we place our children and all those we deeply love before ourselves? Hadn’t we practiced this spirit toward the prisoners of the Death March? And didn’t we bear witness to the highest form of sacrifice by the Americano? Yes, I believe that in the end our goodness will prevail, for it is the most universal human trait.”
“All of history disputes your thesis,” Billiard Ball retorted.
“May I say, if you wish to call up history, then we shall find support for any view of man’s nature,” replied the reverend.
“Checkmate,” I whispered to Billiard Ball.
That night Billiard Ball slept at Hando’s house, and I at Anita’s with three generations in a single room. Being a product of a comfortable urban middle class environment, certain practical questions came to mind. How did one have sex, unless perhaps very quietly; where did one find privacy, and where was the bathroom? I never found the answer to the first; wherever one could, and rarely, was the answer to the second, and to the third the answer was a question: What is a bathroom? One bathed in the local stream and went out in the field to defecate. I found this hard to cope with, but in the nick of time I learned that there was an outhouse behind Reverend Mr. Corum’s.
In the morning Anita served me the traditional rice, from America, she said, and eggs and some goat’s milk, a menu similar to that at Rosalio’s. On a like occasion during a later visit, to my awkward chagrin, she served me a bottle of Budweiser. Since beer was available only on the black market, it must have cost Lucio a large sum. Thinking back to our prior group discussion comparing the Filipino and American diets, I recalled mentioning that America’s favorite drinks were Coke and beer. But I did not explain that I cared for neither, particularly beer. The magnanimity of these people was unbounded. I could not fail to come to love them.
After church, which Billiard Ball and I did not attend, a volleyball net was set up across the width of the dirt street. One side of the street was bordered by banana trees and the other by the white stucco wall of the church, which still bore the chips and holes of spent bullets when Nanay and Lieutenant Anderson were murdered. The volleyball game, in which Hando, Billiard Ball, and I and other new friends participated, was an exciting, happy event, full of joking and laughter, and watched by everyone in the barrio. The prize for the winning team was a carton of Camels, donated by Billiard Ball. At one crucial stage I accidentally hit the net, costing our side the loss of the ball and, quickly, the game. My mortification at being responsible for the loss was so evident that the winners insisted upon splitting the carton of cigarettes equally with the opposing team. Their sensitivity to the feelings of others was beyond me.
Again, as on the previous weekend but more so, we departed that Sunday afternoon with unbearable sadness. But our hearts were also full of fresh pleasurable memories, and the prospect of more such visits. Tears filled Anita’s eyes as we said good-bye, and Hando embraced Billiard Ball. Reverend Mr. Corum held my hand in both of his, reluctant to let it go.
On the ride to Olongapo in back of an army truck, I told Billiard Ball Anita’s story of Lieutenant Anderson. “Poor devil, Anderson,” said Billiard Ball. “It was a heroic act, and it shouldn’t go unacknowledged. As soon as we get back to the base, I’ll report our discovery.”
“No, don’t,” I said belligerently. “Don’t you see he’s a symbol to the barrio people? They took an enormous risk in saving his life and keeping him. Christ, it cost them Anita’s grandmother’s life, and they were ready for anything rather than give him up. I’d hate to think what could have happened if Anderson hadn’t surrendered himself. He represents a victory to them. He gave them cause for self-respect while being humiliated by a cruel enemy. Look how Anita’s grandfather watches over and cares for the grave.”
Billiard Ball weighed my argument for several minutes. “I understand what you’re saying, Hal. You look upon these people as being like your own, don’t you?”
“It’s true, I’ve never felt so at home, so much a part of them, as if I belonged.”
“I can see that, but that isn’t what I mean.” Puzzled, I waited for him to continue. “They are like the Jews against the world. You, your people, and they have suffered and still suffer and refuse to submit. It is, I think, what attracts you to each other; it’s what you have in common.”
Confused, surprised, I stammered, “Maybe you’re right. I’m not sure. I have to think.”
“Getting back to Anderson, consider this, Hal,” said Billiard Ball. “Don’t you think Anderson’s family would like to have his remains? Shouldn’t they also know about his meritorious act of heroism, what a special individual he was? Maybe he left a wife or son behind to feel proud of him for the rest of their lives were they to know. And wouldn’t we also deprive our country of a chance to honor its best?” I stared at Billiard Ball in silence. By the time we reached the dock at Olongapo, we were no nearer to a resolution. “Okay, Hal,” he said, “I’m going to follow my own conscience. Like you, I think Anderson was first an American, and should go home. I’m going to report Anita’s story.”
He did, and I didn’t hold it against him. Ω

By Jayson with No comments

THE LITTLE PEOPLE by Maria Aleah G. Taboclaon

THE elves came to stay with us when I was nine. They were noisy creatures and we would hear them stomping on an old crib on the ceiling. We heard them from morning till night. They kept us awake at night.

One night, when it was particularly unbearable, Papa mustered enough courage and called out. "Excuse me!" he said. "Our family would like to sleep, please? Resume your banging tomorrow!" Of course, we had tried restraining him for we didn't know how the elves would react to such audacity.

We got the shock of our lives when silence suddenly filled the house--no more banging, no more stomping from the elves. Papa turned to us smugly. Sheepishly, we turned in for the night, thankful for the respite.

When dawn came, the smug look on Papa's face the night before turned into anger for shortly before six, the banging started again, and louder this time! We got up and tried speaking to the elves but got no response. The banging continued all day and into the night, and stopped at the same hour--eleven o'clock. And at exactly six a.m. the next day, it started again.

What could our poor family do?

Papa tried to call an albularyo to get rid of our unwelcome housemates but the woman was booked till the end of the week. Meanwhile, the elves had become our alarm clock. When they start their noise, we would get up and do our errands. Papa would start cooking, I would start setting the table, Mama would sweep. The whole house--my older sister and my cousin would water the plants, and my brother would start coloring his books. (We really didn't expect him to work, he was only four.)

After a week, we got hold of the albularyo. She spent the night in our house and by morning, she told us to never bother her again. The elves had already made themselves a part of our life, she said. Prax, the leader of the elves, had spoken to her and had told her that his family had no plans of moving out. They liked things as they were.
We eventually settled down to a comfortable coexistence with the elves. They woke us up at six, they let us sleep at eleven, and in return for the alarm service we would leave food on the table. By morning, the food would be gone and the table cleaned.

All in all, it was a very good relationship.

After three weeks--the first week of May--I met Prax, the leader and oldest in the clan, and I met him literally by accident. I was climbing the mango tree in our yard when one of its branches broke. I fell and broke my ankle. The pain was so great that I just sat there numb, staring at my ankle which had begun to turn blue. I could not move or cry out. I went to sleep to forget the pain. My last conscious thought was that the ground was too cold to sleep on.

I woke to a hand touching my foot. It belonged to someone--somethingnonhuman, for his hand radiated warmth that seemed to penetrate to my bones. His hand was small, wrinkled and felt like dried prunes.

Although I was curious, I kept my eyes closed. I imagined a hideously deformed face, with long and sharp teeth. Would he disappear when I open my eyes? Or would he devour me? I pretended to be asleep.

After several minutes, I could pretend no longer; I was too curious to remain still. When I opened my eyes, the horrible sight that I expected was not there. Instead, there was this old, wrinkled creature, even shorter than I was although I was the smallest in my class. He wore overalls unlike any clothing I knew of. Its texture was a mixture of green leaves and earth. It clung to his skin and writhed with a life of its own. Its color continually changed from deep to light green, to dark to light brown, and to green again. It was fascinating to look at. I felt a sense of awe and respect towards the elf.

He was good with his hands. My ankle already felt better. He was massaging it with an ointment that smelled nice. Before I could stop myself, I sniffed deeply, bringing the healing aroma of the ointment deep into my lungs. Detecting my movement, the elf turned to me and smiled kindly. Although I didn't see his mouth moving, I could hear him talking.

"Don't be afraid," he said. His voice was so soothing that I had to fight my urge to snuggle and sleep in his small arms.

I shook my head slightly. What was I supposed to say? Hello, elf? How are you? I could not. I didn't even know if I was supposed to call him that or just say Tabi or Apo.

As if knowing what I was thinking, the elf smiled again. "You call our kinddwendes or elves, no?" I nodded. "I actually don't mind if you call me an elf, but please call me Prax."

Seeing my astonished look, Prax laughed. His laugh sounded like the whistling of wind through the trees and a bit like the breaking of the waves on the seashore. I thought it nice and longed to hear more. And I wanted to know more about his kind. Did they have children? Wives? Did they play games like patintero? Habulan?

But Prax was not in the mood to chat. He told me that I should have been more careful. I could have been seriously hurt.

I nodded absently, thinking that I liked his clothes, his laugh, and his voice. He reminded me of my grandfather who had died a long time ago.

I closed my eyes, letting Prax's healing massage lull me to sleep. Thirty minutes later when I woke up, the elf was gone. Only the lingering fragrance of his balm remained.

When Mama and Papa arrived, I told them what had happened. It was really frustrating seeing their reactions. They became pale, then collapsed on the sofa. I had to douse them with water before they revived. Why couldn't they be like other people and be glad that I had been befriended by a supernatural being? I had told them about my first encounter with a real elf, and they fainted on the spot! I sulked for the rest of the evening.

Mama told me to never, never talk to elves again. Or did I forget the countless tales of elves taking people to their kingdom after killing them? I just shrugged. After all, the elf had saved my life!

I thought no more of it and, indeed, began to enjoy the banging and stomping on our ceiling. I almost wished to be hurt again just so I could see Prax. But nothing happened and I passed the rest of my summer days dreaming about playing with elves.

I met my second elf in school. I was in Grade 3, a transferee to a new public school that had a haunted classroom. My classmates related tales about dwendes, white ladies, and kapres in our school. I believed their stories readily.

I tried to tell them about Prax but since they were skeptical, I decided to let them be. As it was, I was excluded from their games.

In the classroom, I chose the seat I felt was the most haunted, the one farthest away from the teacher's table. Nobody wanted to sit near me. Behind me was a picture of the president. Without the company of my classmates, I expected elves to make their presence felt. So I waited.

By the third month in class, it happened. We had a very difficult math exam. Our teacher left us and went to gossip outside and all around me my classmates were openly copying each other's work. I looked at their papers from my seat, hoping that their scribbles would mean something to me but the answers to the blasted long divisions eluded me. I looked at the ceiling, trying to see if my brain would work better if my head was tilted a certain angle. It did not. I looked to my right, nothing there. And finally, I looked down and saw this tiny little elf, smaller than Prax by as much as six inches, sitting on the bag in front of me tap-tapping his foot impatiently.
"What took you so long to notice? I've been here for hours!" he said.

What gall! Did he really think that his race would excuse his bad manners? I ignored him and frowned at my test paper. What was 3996 divided by 6?

Immediately, he apologized and told me that his name was Bat. He had seen me play outside and thought that I was beautiful, sensitive, and romantic. Did I want him to help me in my test?

Me beautiful? I enthusiastically agreed to let him answer the test. I showed him my paper, and he snorted. "For us elves, this is elementary!" he said. I wanted to tell him that to us humans, these problems are also elementary, third-grade in fact, but I changed my mind.

Bat and I became friends. He helped me with my homework and gave me little things such as colored pencils and stationery that were the craze in school. He cautioned me strongly against telling my parents of my friendship with him. After all, he said, some people might not understand our relationship. They might forbid us from seeing each other.

I thought nothing of it and kept silent about my friendship with Bat. I enjoyed his company, for he was very thoughtful. He was a good friend and I thought we would be friends forever.

The time came, though, when he declared that he loved me. He wanted me to go with him to his kingdom and be his princess. I refused, of course. For God's sake, I was only nine! I didn't know how to cook or do the laundry or do the other things that wives are expected to do. And he was an elf! Short as I was, he only came up to my knees. What a ridiculous picture we would surely make. He pleaded with me for days but out of spite I told him that I had already confided to my parents, and that they were very angry. It was not true, but Bat didn't know that. He got angry and launched into diatribes about promises being made and broken. Then he vanished.

That night I dreamed that Prax talked to me. He told me that I should have never offended Bat outright. "That elf is a stranger in our town," he said. "We don't know his family. He might be violent."
But I had already done what I had done and there was no use wishing otherwise. I told Prax I'd never worry. After all, he'd always be there for me and my family, right?

"Wrong," he said. His gift was for giving good luck and for healing minor, nonfatal injuries. "What good is that for?" I asked. He couldn't answer, and left me to a dream of falling houses and shrieking elves.

The next day, I got sick and did not get well even after the best doctor in town treated me. My parents had grown desperate so the albularyo was called once more. She told my parents to roast a whole cow, which they did willingly. The albularyo and her family feasted on it. When I was still sick after a few days, she instructed my parents to cut my hair; she told them that elves liked longhaired women. The problem was Bat liked my new look, and in my dreams, he was always there, entreating me to go with him. I got sicker than ever.

The albularyo, getting an idea from a dream, then tried her last cure--an ointment taken from the bark of seven old trees applied to my hair. It cost more than the cow and nobody could enter my room without gagging. The smell was terrible. That did the trick. Apparently, Bat was disgusted but he would stop at nothing to get me, even if it meant getting my family out of the way. I told him again and again that I didn't love him and would never go with him, but the elf's mind was set. In the end I just ignored him, for who could reason with an elf, and a mad one at that?

He did not turn up in my dreams the next few nights. In a week, I was up and running again and I thought that all was right. My parents decided that I should transfer to another school, this time a sectarian school.
Then something happened. My mother had a miscarriage. People blamed the elves and talked about it for a long time. I remember the sad and fearful looks of my parents every day as they heard the banging on our ceiling. Were they friends or were they responsible for the accident? I had never told them about Bat, who Prax said was the one behind all these incidents.

Years passed, and since nothing untoward had happened since my mother's miscarriage, we began to let go of our fears. The alarm service continued, and our belief that my mother's miscarriage was the elves' doing was discarded. It was simply the fetus's fate to die before it was born.

"Bat left town, probably to look for some of his kin to help him," Prax said.

It was a chilling thought, and with Bat's words the last time we talked, I was terrified. I laid awake at night thinking of a way to protect my family. I had Prax, but what about them?

When I was twelve, the banging on our ceiling stopped. We were having lunch, feasting on the pork barbecue my mother had bought after her experiment with chicken curry failed. The sudden cessation of the noise we had been living with for years was jarring. The silence grated on our ears. For the first time, we could hear ourselves breathe.
No one moved. Even my brother, who was now seven, stopped chewing the pork he had just bitten off the stick. Papa stood up and called to the elves. Nobody answered. Gesturing for my cousin to follow him, they got the ladder and prepared to climb to the ceiling. They took with them an old wooden crucifix and a bottle of water from the first rain of May. My cousin brought along a two-by-two and a rope. I didn't know what they wanted to do but we looked on, our barbecue forgotten.

Papa went inside the ceiling and my cousin followed. Moments later, they came back running. My cousin descended the ladder first and I don't know whether it was because of fright or just because he was careless, but a rung broke and he fell to the ground, back first, hitting the two-by-two he had dropped in his haste. He lay there, unmoving except for his ragged breathing, his back bent at an angle we never thought possible.

Mama fainted, Papa stood still, my sister called an ambulance, my brother wailed, and I sat in the ground, laughing. It was not a laugh of gladness, just my nervous reaction to what happened. But they misunderstood and locked me in my room. I cried, shouted, cursed, but remained locked in. From inside my room I could hear them talking, the medical help coming in, and relatives pouring inside our house. I was ignored. I slept and dreamed that an elf was laughing. When I woke up, the whole house was filled by elven laughter. Then my cousin died.
After another year, my little brother followed. He was run over by a postal service van. I can still hear the anguished wail of the driver as he asked for forgiveness. He claimed that a tiny creature had run in front of his van and he had swerved to avoid it. My brother was unfortunately playing by the roadside and the van ran straight into him. Witnesses say they had heard laughter at the exact moment the wheels caught my brother.

The driver was imprisoned, but the deaths did not stop there. Barely six months later, my father drowned while fishing. A freak storm, the fishermen said, but for us who were left alive there was no mistaking that our family would die one by one.

There were only three of us left: my mother, my sister, and I. We tried to seek help, but the policemen laughed in our faces. We were branded as lunatics. And Prax was gone, defeated by Bat and his family apparently on the day the banging stopped. Even the albularyo could not help us. What use were her potions and ointments? What the elves needed was a good dose of magic, and the albularyo was primarily a healer and an exorcist. She had no training when it came to defending a whole family against vengeful elves.

And poor Mama! A mere week after my father died she followed. Extreme despair, the doctors said but we knew better.

My sister and I left home and went to live with our relatives in the city, hundreds of kilometers away. We told them about the elves but they laughed and told us we were being provincial. "It is the 90s," they said. "Belief in the little people died a long time ago." We knew they were wrong, but how could two orphaned teenagers convince the skeptics? Perhaps, we should have insisted on talking more but, as things were, our aunt had already scheduled counseling sessions for the two of us The fear of being sent to a mental institution stopped us from further trying to convince them. In the end, we just hoped that the distance from our old home would keep us safe from the elves.
But they followed and, one by one, our foster family died. Car accidents, food poisonings, assassinations through mistaken identity--there were logical explanations for their deaths but we knew we had been responsible. We could only look on helplessly, and despaired.

We traveled again, haphazardly enough to let us think that we could outwit the elves. But they finally caught my sister about a year ago. We were on the bus bound for another town when a tire blew out. The bus crashed into a ditch and although most of the passengers including myself were injured, the only fatality was my sister. I realized then that there was no escaping the fury of the little people.

After my sister's death, there was a period of silence from the elves. I decided to continue studying and enrolled at the local college. I had no problem with finances. I had inherited a large sum from a relative I had unwittingly sent to death.

After I got settled in the school dormitory, Prax appeared in my dreams again. He told me about a chant that he had dug up in the enormous library of a human psychic he had befriended. It was a weapon against any creature--effective against those with malicious intentions, whether towards humans or other creatures. Prax thought it would he better if I could defeat Bat myself. After all, hadn't Bat done me great harm already? I agreed and prepared myself for the battle that would decide my fate.

It was not long after my conversation with Prax that Bat tracked me down. It was a weekend and I had the room all to myself. I looked up from my notes and saw him--much older, his once clear complexion now marred with dark, crisscrossing veins. Hate screamed from him, and he stooped and walked with great difficulty. I pitied him.
He gave me an ultimatum: go with him or die on the spot. I pretended to look defeated and worn out. My act was effective and Bat looked pleased. He wanted us to go immediately but I dallied. At the pretext of packing my few valuable possessions, I told him to wait outside and count to a hundred.

When he was gone, I took out the ingredients I had prepared and the mini-stove I had borrowed. I boiled a small amount of sweet milk. I unwrapped Bat's image made in green and brown clay, with strands of his hair given to me by Prax, and started blowing and chanting words that meant nothing to me.

Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat.
Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat.
Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat.

Outside the room, Bat's count reached 70. I put aside the image and into the pan I poured hundreds of brand new pins and needles that had been blessed. The count reached 80. I repeated the chant and immersed the image in the boiling liquid. I waited.

Bat's count reached a hundred but I did not worry for it had become faint and weak, just as Prax had told me. Then Bat dissipated into a mist--shrieking, I might add--to where, only God would ever know.

Prax appeared again in my dreams that night and told me that they--Bat and his family--would never bother me again. He himself would move his family away from humans to avoid similar incidents in the future. It was too bad he didn't discover the old book with the vanquishing spell earlier for I could have saved my family. I could not bring them back, he said, but I could build a good life of my own. With the luck he bestowed on me, I would never be in need for material things the rest of my life.

I kissed the old elf, knowing that we would never see each other again. I watched him fade away, seeing the last of my family go.

When I woke up, I went to my desk and studied math, remembering where it all began. 

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