He laughed at her, unable to admit to himself the possibility that she was right, that the unease he had begun to feel after first seeing the fireflies in Manila translated into something more real than what he could accept. Sarah said nothing else. When he left her apartment the fireflies greeted him outside and followed him out of the projects to the main road, where he boarded a jeepney home. Not once did he look back.
For a couple of months after, things between him and Sarah went on as normally as before: regular dates, phone conversations that lasted through the night, mushy messages that crowded their cellphones’ inbox. He found solace in the light of his phone, because he had started to develop a fear of the dark, of shadows, so that even in his room at night he slept with the light on, afraid even of the darkness that came with closing his eyes. He dreaded the sight of the fireflies, feared the vision of their faint light stark against the black. He sought out Sarah, taking comfort in her company, trying to believe the fireflies did not wait for him at night. He made her explain to him all that she knew about the lore of fireflies, so that not a day went by that they did not talk about it: Dennis, begging to understand what was happening to him, Sarah, eyes downcast, answering as best as she could. One day when he told her about his worsening fear of the dark, she broke into laughter, loudly and prolonged, as if he had just delivered the funniest joke in the world. And as her giggling subsided she began to cry, startling him even more than the laughter did, because all of a sudden she was telling him about the nightmares she was having, of the beautiful woman whose hair was studded with fireflies. Only then did he see how thin she had grown over the past several weeks, how the eyebags wore her face down. But he did not know how to help her.
So he continued to spend time with her, finding easy consolation in how she knew and understood his troubles, until he realized, finally, that he wanted to know more of her too. He wanted to consume her, to find intimate sanctuary in the grace of her build, to have her smooth, brown hands soothe the fear in his mind. One night her housemates went on an excursion, leaving the apartment in her care, and he asked her if they could go up to her room to watch a movie on DVD. She agreed, but when Dennis’ hand reached out for hers she shook her head vehemently. He decided to give it time. An hour into the movie Sarah began to shiver, and gladly he put an arm around her. She bolted away and rushed to the window, but before she could pull down the drapes he felt it, too, a jolt down his spine, and then something moved out of the corner of his eye. Sarah froze, and he followed her gaze.
There was a tall, long-limbed woman outside the window. The mass of her hair filled the night sky behind her. He didn’t see her face, probably he wouldn’t have remembered it anyway, because all he could think of at that moment was that they were on the second floor, and how could that graceful, beautiful woman with the fireflies crowning her hair be walking past?
It was then that Sarah told him she couldn’t see him anymore.
That was a month ago. He’d tried reasoning with her, standing for hours outside her house, sending endless text messages to her phone, but all she would say was that he needed to make the woman go away. And then all he could do was joke about not being able to decide whether to call a priest or a village exorcist.
He didn’t know what to do.
A custodian had turned on the light in the lobby behind him, but the light from the building melted in the night outside. The fireflies came. They floated some distance away, among the tall, slender trees that surrounded the building. The street was quiet save for the occasional passing of a tricycle, and the trees loomed over parked cars along the sidewalk. His cousin had told him they were having a conference again, a seminar; she had promised she would take Sarah to him no matter what. Neither he nor Sarah had told his cousin anything. The burden was theirs alone, he thought, as he tried to stare down the shadows around the building. The fireflies stared back at him with their pulsing, glimmering lights, and he wondered about what was really happening between him and Sarah. He needed to see her, to ask her. He glanced at his watch, then realized that sweat was forming along the lines of his palms, threatening to drip down his wrist. He wiped his hands on his shirt and wished the conference would end soon.
He had to make the woman go away, Sarah had told him, in her goodbyes. But he was no psychic, he had no gift, and that was why he needed her desperately. Only she could drive away the fireflies.
The echo of voices and footsteps drifted to him from inside the building. The conference was over, and in a few minutes the people would come out. One of them would be Sarah, trapped by Dennis’s cousin with whom he had pleaded for help. He wanted to talk with Sarah, see her large flashing eyes and hear her voice because he knew that even her anger would taste sweet, but instead of rising to meet her he stood and went around the side of the vending machine.
Her laughter came to him first. When he heard it he remembered how she had laughed at him, and how the last bursts of that laughter had changed into little sobs, just before she’d told him about her nightmares. Her laughter now sounded the way it should, the way it used to during their first few months together: young, relaxed, and best of all, happy.
She stepped out from the lobby, together with Dennis’s cousin, whose gaze wandered around looking for him. Sarah was in the middle of telling a story and didn’t notice her friend’s restlessness, but from where Dennis hid behind the vending machine he saw her clearly, and she was beautiful.
He watched the lines of her face grow taut as she saw the fireflies. They were still there, floating like lost stars among the pale and slender tree-trunks. She stood staring at the tiny lights so uncertainly that she couldn’t have realized that she had placed her hand under her friend’s elbow, the way she used to with him. And a sadness overcame his desperation, because he missed her, and her anecdotes, and her laughter, and all her little qualities, but he could not approach her because the little lights followed him wherever he went and he didn’t know yet how to defeat them.
A slight wind sent a rustling above him. He glanced up but the light from the lobby was too faint to make the treetops visible. As he stared at Sarah he had the feeling that the fireflies had done him some good, but he couldn’t quite figure out what. They had been both a curse and a blessing, he thought, so he thanked them, and cursed them back.
His cousin made up some excuse to get Sarah to go back with her inside, thinking perhaps that he might have gone in to use the washroom. When the two women re-entered the lobby, Dennis took the opportunity and stole away into the darkness, taking the fireflies with him.
The Man Who Came Home
Robert JA Basilio Jr.
WHEN DANTE REACHED for the remote control by the table on his left, quickly, casually, naturally, with almost no effort at all, just as any man watching a boring game of tennis on cable would, he felt a gust of cold wind blast through the wide-open living room window. It got so cold that he, who had been waiting for his wife to arrive for the past half hour, had felt it in his bones and began to shiver.
In fact, for no reason at all, he experienced a cold chill creep up his back when he saw the thin blue curtains sway vigorously in the wind. He felt that there was something mysterious about that wind, coming in like that on a hot night like this one, catching him by surprise. Since he liked to believe that he was a logical man, he quickly dismissed the thought, although he could not ignore the chill he felt when the wind rushed in. Perhaps, he said to himself, the wind could have meant something; a sign perhaps, or an omen. Because he was averse to entertaining such ridiculous notions, especially one about the weather having a significance in his life or about the chill down his spine, he put the thought aside. Instead, he tried to think of what Jimmy told him on the way up. Jimmy was the guard on nightshift who stayed at the reception area of their modest residential tenement. He told him that he was the first one on the seventh floor to come up that night.
“Mrs. Santa Ana still out, huh?” the guard asked with a smile, as he scribbled an entr
y in his logbook. “Well, that makes you the first one on your floor to arrive.”
Dante nodded and said that the reason he came home early was that he was the only one who didn’t care about his job as much as the others would. But this wasn’t entirely true. He cared about his job too and that being a bank manager already gave him a full plate at dinner, what with small- and medium-scale enterprises in his area sprouting like mushrooms after a rainstorm and each of them asking for loans and letters of credit.
Dante told Jimmy that he was already out of the corporate game, the rat race, the desire for promotion and recognition, but he wasn’t sure if the guard understood what he was talking about. He only stayed long enough just to put a word in edgewise about his wife catching the last full show at the mall with her officemates. He just didn’t want Jimmy to get any bright ideas, especially since Dante knew that Mrs. Victoria, who lived two doors down to their left, was having an affair with one of her husband’s subordinates. Or at least, that was according to Leah, his wife, who said that she got it from one of the Victorias’ maids whom she once met at the hall and who was later fired.
Thankfully, Jimmy didn’t bother to ask him what movie it was they say because it was a cheap bold flick starring Richard Gomez, Pops Fernandez, and Joyce Jimenez. Dante didn’t want him to think that his wife was baduy because she really wasn’t. Leah and her friends only saw it for kicks. She and her friends did a lot of stupid things which he didn’t bother to understand.
After saying good night, Dante walked to the elevator.
He pressed the button and waited for a few seconds. Upon hearing the chime, Dante went inside as the doors opened.
As he went up, he thought once more about what Jimmy had told him. He was the first one on the floor. Dante looked at his watch—it was an old Omega he bought nine years ago from one of their clients who owned a watch store—and learned that it was already quarter to ten.
“What’s with these damn people, staying up all night and refusing to come home early?” he asked himself, remembering the break-in a couple of months ago on the third floor. He recalled that it was Jimmy who was on duty at that time. He looked up at the panel of indicator lights and felt uneasy about the prospect of staying alone on a whole floor. It was simply not a good idea, especially since this was his first time to be so.
What if something happened? A fire, for instance? Or a murderer waiting in the dark for his next victim? Or something less criminal: what if, for example, he choked on his food and barely had the time, much less the strength, to reach the intercom to call up reception? Or what if there was a ghost which roamed their halls?
But he never believed in ghosts anyway.
With his fingers, Dante pinched the loose flesh just above his Adam’s apple and swallowed nervously; his fingertips feeling the smooth ripple in his larynx. He didn’t want to choke to death. It was one of the worst ways to die, much like having a fatal heart attack after seeing a ghost. Although he didn’t believe in anything even vaguely supernatural, he was nonetheless disturbed by the thought of spending the whole time waiting for his wife alone in their unit, let alone the whole floor. He was mildly irritated at Jimmy for telling him that piece of utterly irrelevant information. He was the only one on the floor for the night, and so what? He could handle himself; he was a man; that was the whole point of spending a couple of hours every week in the gym.
Usually, when he arrived, Dante would exchange courtesies with Jimmy and nothing else.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, they actually chewed the fat, exchanging bits of useless information about each other. It was, to him, the height of sheer irrationality. Next time Jimmy tells him something utterly insignificant, whether it was about the weather, about him being alone, about residents having illicit affairs, about his wife not coming home with him, Dante promised himself that he would tell him off. “The problem with these people is they can’t keep their mouths shut,” he said to himself, as he looked at the panel of indicator lights above, thinking once more about that break-in.
Although there was no one hurt, he remembered that the robbers got away with everything, including the 40” TV.
When the doors opened, he was greeted by a cold wind, almost the same kind of wind that would be entering the unit that night, through their wide-open living room window, as he was sitting alone, watching a boring tennis match on cable, waiting for his wife who would be coming from a late-night movie.
Although the hall was well-lit, Dante didn’t slip out immediately for reasons he himself could not understand. This was the first time he was ever alone on the seventh floor, and on any floor for that matter, and therefore, he said to himself that he had to take some precautions.
He remained in the elevator, pressed the “Door Open” button, and held it for a moment. He peered to his right, where he saw what he expected to see: a potted plant that looked like it was in dire need of watering, its leaves frayed and brown at the edges since it played the convenient ashtray for smokers like him.
He then looked to his left and immediately, a thin, tubular, silver garbage can caught his eye. It seemed vaguely out of place, as if it had just been placed there a minute ago, just before he arrived. He stared at it for a moment, right thumb still holding the button, and entertained the suspicion that it was not there at all when he and his wife went to work that morning.
The silver garbage bin was about three feet tall, covered by a receptacle for cigarette butts, and had a circular opening just beneath. He was sure he had never seen it before, because if he had, he would have remembered to have put out his morning cigarette on the receptacle, and not into the potted plant, just before he marched into the elevator.
He peered to his right again, saw the plant, and noticed the brightness of the hallway lights. Somehow, he felt a sense of relief, thinking that well-lit areas were a bane to criminals everywhere. With this small satisfaction, he ignored his wish to go down to reception to ask Jimmy about the stupid trash can.
His right thumb released the button.
Quickly, noiselessly, looking to his right and left and right and left again, you can never be too sure, he said to himself, Dante slid out of the elevator, still unconvinced that he was all alone on the seventh floor. He walked briskly, every step a difficult effort to conceal the sound of his feet pounding on the hard concrete floor. If there was somebody here, he thought, that person better not know about me.
As he approached their unit, almost running on tiptoe as he did so, all the lights in the hallway went out.
A strange and powerful feeling almost swept him away; his heart was pounding as he thought of being alone on the seventh floor with the lights out. There was nothing to be afraid of, he said to himself, more of a consolation than a confirmation of his faith, it was not logical to be afraid during this time. He hoped that it was just a temporary power problem, one that the building’s generators would be able to solve.
He wanted to call Jimmy. He wanted to tell him that it was not necessary to have told him that he was all alone on the floor because he didn’t need to know that. He wanted to tell Jimmy that it was perfectly natural for someone to stay on a whole floor, a whole damn floor, alone. Next time, he said, just one more time, and he would tell Jimmy off. He would give him a piece of his mind.
Dante stood there calmly in the darkness while berating Jimmy in his mind. From afar, through a window down the hall, he could see the flickering lights of the metropolis but these were not bright enough to guide himself by.
He dug his hands through his pockets to get to his lighter. There were car and apartment keys, a parking ticket, some coins, but no lighter. “Fuck,” he said, almost out loud, suddenly remembering that he left the disposable Bic lighter on top of his desk, “fuck,” he said, blaming himself for such stupidity. There was nothing else to do but to wait. He didn’t want to go around the hall, a bit afraid of his reaction should he happen to run into somebody.
Slowly, he went towards h
is right and grappled for the wall.
Not long after, when he heard the whirr of generators, the lights went back on and he allowed himself a nervous smile. He got off from the wall and arranged his composure. He smoothened the wrinkles of his barong.
This was enough excitement for one night, Dante was telling himself, as he urgently doubled over to their apartment, like a man trying to run away from an avid pursuer. The very moment he got to their door, he thrust his key into the doorknob and forcefully pushed it open. He turned on the lights, made a cursory examination of the place, and let out a sigh of relief.
He was home.
He found their apartment just the way they left it, newspapers on the couch, remote control on the sidetable, makeup kit by the mirror. The utter familiarity of it gave him some solace; a restful, soothing sensation that everything, after all, would turn out to be all right; it was a world removed from the chaos he had experienced just outside their door, along the halls of the seventh floor.
Dante unbuttoned his polo barong as he walked to the TV and turned it on.
He sat on the couch and saw that André Agassi was pummeling Pete Sampras, who obviously was having one of his worst games ever. The tennis match bored him and he wanted to change the channel.
And so, when Dante reached for the remote control by the table on his left, quickly, casually, naturally, with almost no effort at all, just as any man watching a boring game of tennis on cable would, he felt a gust of cold wind blast through the wide-open living room window. It got so cold that he, who had been waiting for his wife to arrive for the past half-hour, had felt it in his bones and begun to shiver.
In fact, for no reason at all, he experienced a cold chill creep up his back when he saw the thin blue curtains sway vigorously in the wind. He felt that there was something mysterious about that wind, coming in like that on a hot night like this one, catching him by surprise. Since he liked to believe that he was a logical man, he quickly dismissed the thought, although he could not ignore the chill he felt when the wind rushed in. Perhaps, he said to himself, the wind could have meant something after all, a sign perhaps, or an omen of the things that he had just gone through that night.
Ghosts of Infinity: and Nine More Stories of the Supernatural Page 6