“Generation WWW,” she typed, “is just one step behind Generation X but thrice as lost: curious, unabashed, and deplorably gullible. The irony is that the law had in effect punished those it sought to protect. Should the law act as the stern hand of a father or the watchful eye of a mother?”
Congress seemed to be favoring the stern hand over the watchful eye. Amid bribery scandals and marathon hearings, lawmakers were attempting to pass the so-called “First Stone” bill. She hated the phrase; it sounded like a medical condition. But the media embraced it even if the analogy was a bit off, much like the way “color coding” once referred to a vehicle traffic reduction scheme that had nothing to do with colors, or how “charter change” and “constituent assembly” were shortened to “cha-cha” and “con-ass.”
The bill was named after an incident in the Gospels. Just as Jesus challenged anyone who has never sinned to cast the first stone at the woman caught in the act of adultery, the First Stone bill, if passed, criminalizes anyone who would use Ogle to look into other people’s lives. Alexis knew its enforcement was impossible; it would be easier to prosecute everyone who downloaded pirated music. King Canute would’ve fared better fighting the sea.
Alexis was working in her living room, clad only in a negligee, trying to integrate these ideas for an upcoming symposium aptly called, “Society of the Shameless: Ogling Our Future.”
“Although the end of privacy did not, in all cases, spell the end of security, safety, and shame, the greatest impact to the next generation may also be the least obvious. In a world of absolute transparency, how will our children rise above the mediocre middle? With everybody watching their every move, will they still be able to compete, innovate, lead, and create change without shame? Or will they form the ultimate social kaleidoscope, reflecting the reflected, following the followed, reduced to pretty shapes and colors but nothing else?”
“Darling, it’s late. Come to bed.”
“Give me another minute.”
“That’s what you said ten minutes ago.” Jon placed his hands on her shoulders, gently massaged them. He whispered something into her ear.
“Hmmm,” she cooed, “now that’s creative…” She tilted her head, kissed his hand. He kissed her neck. She adjusted the strap of her negligee. “Let me just shut down, okay?”
Satisfied with her answer, he returned to their bedroom. Alexis returned to her computer.
“The experts have been too preoccupied with how privacy ended,” she typed. “The question we should be really be asking ourselves is, ‘How did privacy begin?’”
She saved her file, closed the laptop, and joined her husband in the master’s bedroom. He was lying in bed with one arm behind his head, his pale torso above the sheets, looking pleased with what he saw. She was not concerned about the multitude of strangers who might be Ogling her fleshy figure; she only cared about the eyes of the man she loved. But she was also a sensible woman and insisted that the most ancient, the most human, and the most beautiful act of love should never be shared with others.
“Close your eyes, darling,” she said. As soon as he did, she tiptoed to her side of the bed, gingerly climbed in, leaned over her lover, and turned off the lights.
At that moment, across the city, the screen of an immaculately white laptop, branded with the silhouette of a partially bitten apple, suddenly went dark. Attorney Laura Ignacio, a.k.a. kittycutie15, decided it was also time to go to bed.
“In the Eyes of Many” copyright © 2007 by Michael A.R. Co. This story was a Gregorio Brillantes Award Finalist for prose fiction. First published in The Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards Prose Anthology, 2010.
THE SWEET STRANGER
“This spirit seeks the love of men. If they refuse she is their slave; if they consent, they are hers and can only escape by finding one to take their place. Her lovers waste away, for she lives on their life. Most of the Gaelic poets, down to quite recent times, have had a Leanhaun Shee, for she gives inspiration to her slaves and is indeed the Gaelic muse—this malignant fairy. Her lovers, the Gaelic poets, died young. She grew restless and carried them away to other worlds, for death does not destroy her power.”
- W.B. Yeats, “Irish Fairy Tales,” 1891
“When the snake vanished, in her terror she tried to pray. But language failed her. She could find no tongue in which to speak till at last she thought of some children’s verses in English and then found herself able to pray in that language.”
- Breuer and Freud, “Studies in Hysteria,” 1895
The Ides of March, 1896.
He should have used a bigger spade or selected a better spot.
He stands alone beneath a tree, deep in the forest. But after digging for almost an hour, the top of the hole barely reaches his knees.
“To your waist,” his master told him earlier that afternoon. “The hole must be deep enough for you to crouch in.”
The boy wanted to question the wisdom of the order but like an obedient servant he merely nodded and assured his master that the job will be done before nightfall.
“Sooner,” his master said. “You mustn’t wait for the dark to catch up with you.”
I wish you could have told me earlier, he thought.
“It will be done this afternoon,” he said.
“But do bring a lantern,” said his master, “just in case.” The boy nodded, and thanked him for his concern. Satisfied, the master dismissed him with a wave of the hand, revealing the black tips of his thumb, index, and middle fingers. That his master’s fingers were stained with ink was not surprising to the boy, but this time they were darker than usual as if his master had been in the middle of writing a rather difficult letter.
The boy stops digging. His own fingers are not as delicate as his master’s but they, too, are stained. Not black but red.
He stabs his spade into the pile of earth outside the hole, and leaves the spade’s handle standing like the hilt of Excalibur, while he inspects his calloused hand. Somehow, he had cut his ring finger. Blood flows down to his nails. The wound is minor; he doesn’t feel any pain. But seeing the first drop of blood strike the ground is disconcerting enough and he instinctively wraps his fingers with the hem of his tunic to stanch the flow.
Only then does he feel the hurt. The cut had opened a vein along his inside knuckle and it stings when he stretches his fingers wide. More drops fall.
The surrounding forest begins to look more menacing despite his familiarity with the area. In a cold moment of reflection, on a hot and humid afternoon, he feels as if he is really digging his own grave.
As an act of contrition, he recites the words his mother taught him long ago before she left him, and which he, having seen only sixteen summers, had forgotten to say before disturbing the ground at the foot of an ancient tree.
“Tabi tabi po,” he says. “Tabi tabi po.”
The tree’s roots stretch across its patch of forest floor like gnarled fingers; they clutch the ground like a stubborn old man hanging on to old habits. Its wrinkled bark and twisted trunk reminds him of Mang Melchor, the local medicine man, whose right leg is shorter than his left yet refuses to walk with a cane because it is, according to the old man, “unbecoming” of his status as a healer. His awkward stance resembles the semi-bent appearance of this tree. Most of the large leaves are still green although some have already turned orange-red since the dry season began. A few of the red leaves lie about him as if the tree had also been bleeding.
What did his master call this tree?
Terminalia catappa.
To everyone else, it is known as the talisay.
“Tabi tabi po,” he repeats. He doesn’t expect the talisay tree to answer because he doesn’t direct his apology to it. He speaks instead to the unseen spirits that might be dwelling beneath the roots. The nuno. The duende. Or the larger creatures hiding among the low hanging boughs. The kapre. The tikbalang.
The previous year, his master had done a survey of the superstitions prevalent in
the island, including the belief in faith healers like Mang Melchor, and he wrote down his findings in what he called the Practicas de los Curandos. But what was intended to be his technical masterpiece was also a work-in-progress, the Descripciones de Plantas Medicinales, Maderas de Contruccion Especies Olcoginosas o Resinosas y Algunos Metales, Heteropsidos y Antopsidos de una Coleccion Naturalista, which the boy and the other students had assisted in compiling. His master advocated the scientific method, and he wanted to bring European technology and ideas back to his homeland. As his master once lamented in an early letter from Germany, “Everyone here talks of barometers and thermometers, the way we talk about San Agustin and San Procopio, of whom we know more than the saints themselves.” In spite of this, the boy was still interested in his master’s views about malignos, and asked for his opinion.
His master admonished him never to believe in such creatures. “They are relics of our pagan past,” he said. “Impossible for intelligent men to even consider.”
“But maestro,” the boy said, a bit impetuously he realized too late, “I am not an intelligent man. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Pilosopo,” his master said in mock annoyance. Then, before the boy could respond, he added, “Which proves my point, young man. You are a lot smarter than you think.”
The boy was confused, as he did not want to anger his master. In his mind, the nuno are dark and wear no clothes, while the duende wear beards and colorful hats and shoes. He repeated his original question: “So what is the difference between the nuno and the duende?”
His master sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve never met any. But if you see some, ask them. When it comes to research, you should always turn to the primary source.”
Before the boy could ask him to elaborate, his master offered his best answer.
“I would surmise they are the same magical being,” his master said, in a tone both incredulous and sincere. “The nuno are the natives, while the duende arrived with the Spaniards.”
“I see. The nuno are Indios like us, while the duende are Kastila.”
“No, no, no. I did not say that. But now that I think about it, if they were real, perhaps they came from Spanish Galicia. Or from France, which was once part of ancient Gaul, a land once steeped in Celtic culture before the Romans took over.” His master was a genius with wide intellectual and creative abilities. He loved to use strange words.
His master turned to him. “Do you know what ‘duende’ means? It’s short for dueño de casa. The ‘lord of the house.’ If the little buggers aren’t Spaniards, they sure would talk and act like them. Haha!”
The boy had never thought of the Spaniards as small people before. It was refreshing. So he laughed as well. “And what about the nuno, do they live outdoors then?”
“Fresh air, clean water, I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”
“Are they Tagalog or Visaya?”
“Neither. Political boundaries wouldn’t mean much to them.” Then in a low voice, his master said, “But it would not be farfetched to think that they may soon be Filipino. Just like us.”
Rumors of revolution and a new secret society have been quietly spreading among the village folk. His master would casually discuss politics with farmers and fishermen, but he seemed to avoid the subject with his students, preferring that they focus their energies on language, literature, mathematics, botany, zoology, and physical exercise. Sometimes, however, he made an exception in one of his lessons.
“I have my doubts about the tikbalang,” his master said. “The common people consistently describe the tikbalang as a monster with the body of a man and the head of a horse. Can you believe that? A horse! But horses are not indigenous to these lands. They arrived with the Spaniards aboard their ships. Pues, we don’t even have a native word for the animal! Their ‘caballo’ became our ‘kabayo.’ Now think, young man, if the horse came from Spain, where does the tikbalang’s head come from?”
The boy wanted to suggest that maybe the tikbalang’s long ugly head was unique in itself but merely mistaken for a horse’s head by witnesses lucky enough—or unlucky enough—to see one. But he kept quiet and, because he didn’t have the vocabulary to explain his idea anyway, he allowed his master to continue.
“Exactly ten years ago,” his master continued, “when I arrived in Paris en route to Heidelberg … via Strasbourg, you see” —his master loved to share detailed stories about his travels— “I shared a table with a young gentleman at a café near the train station. Although his French was better than mine, his thick accent revealed that he was either from Germany or Vienna. He name was … let me think … santisima! I can’t remember that man’s name... escapes me at the moment... Freude? Freud? No wait … Freund I think he said his name was. Yes, since he paid for my coffee, I might as well call him Freund, which, rather apt as I now discover, happens to be German for ‘friend.’ So this man Freund told me he was in Paris to study under the great Jean-Martin Charcot, the mesmerist. His feats were legendary and so were his public performances. He could make anyone do his bidding by waving his hand like so. Charcot, I mean, not Freund. Now this gentleman shared with me a wonderful theory he had been developing. A theory of the mind! According to him, our mind has several levels. Several minds, if you will. And some minds are active when we are awake, others when we are asleep. One part is logical, verbose, thoughtful, and wise; the other, wild, unrestrained, infantile, and passionate. Ah, if only I can get hold of the latest medical journals! I must write to Ferdinand.…”
“Like dreams?” the boy asked. It was the only thing he comprehended from his master’s soliloquy. He didn’t quite catch the rest. After all, what do fronds and charcoal have to do with dreams?
“Yes! Yes!” his master said. “Dreams figure prominently in Freund’s theory! Clever boy. Some dreams are good, others are bad.”
“Like the bangungot,” the boy said.
“In English, it is called a nightmare. You try it.”
“Night-mare,” the boy repeated.
“Bad dreams in the West were thought to be evil spirits. Artists have represented them as horse demons. Notice the horse again … and not just any horse but a mare … and the seductive, almost sexual, connotation of riding … now, now, don’t blush … sex is as natural as eating. Perhaps the tikbalang is a similar manifestation of one of these in-between minds, just below our waking thoughts, the part of the mind that fuels our dreams. That if we dig deep enough, we’ll discover that the tikbalang was created by our ancestors out of fear, effectively transforming a pagan god into a maligno, effectively mating horse and its rider, to represent—and to demonize—colonial oppression. Why the horse, you say? The horse belongs as much to the haciendero as the sugar and tobacco plantations he owns.”
“Maestro,” the boy said. “So like the duende, you are saying that tikbalangs also come from Spain?”
“Ay naku,” said his master. “Have you not been listening? There are no such things as duendes or tikbalangs or kapres or aswangs or manananggals or tiyanaks. I am giving you a scientific answer to these fairy tales! If horses come from Spain, why are the tikbalangs—” He paused, looked at his ward’s confused, inquiring face, and patted him on the head. “Nevermind. I have an even better question for you. If tikbalangs really existed, large creatures as they are said to be, where are they now?”
Where indeed?
There is nothing in the talisay tree’s branches. Nothing to be afraid of. No birds, no snakes, no lizards, and certainly no cigar smoking creatures with Spanish faces.
Nevertheless, he continues his incantation. “Tabi tabi po. Tabi tabi po.”
He makes the sign of the cross, recites three Pater Nosters, and he goes back to the task before him.
After paying his respects, the ground becomes more yielding. Part of him knows that this is because he had gone past the rocky layer and has reached more sandy earth. Another part of him knows it is because the encantos are satisfied with his bloody libation.
; He works in silence and tries to ignore the small wooden box he had set next to the unlit lantern.
His master was very specific with his instructions: “Dig the hole but do not open the box. Was it not Pandora who unleashed the troubles of the world because she could not follow orders?”
The boy does not know who Pandora is. But uncharacteristically of him, he did not bother to ask.
The box is rectangular and unadorned. It is as long as his forearm, and as wide as the length of his two hands. The box reminds him of a Chinese treasure chest without the jade inlay and intricate carvings. There is no lock. The lid is held in place by braided leather straps, tied in exotic knots, the likes of which he had never seen before. The boy was given the noble and fearsome honor of burying it. And he was specifically told not to tell his master where.
He shifts his eyes away from the box and pretends it does not exist. For now, it would be just him and the hole. Nothing more.
“Tabi tabi po,” he murmurs. “Tabi tabi po...”
Inch by inch, layer by layer, the hole grows deeper. The cicadas begin their mating calls and he realizes he needs to work faster if he is to finish early. He is careful not to sever any roots so he tries to dig around them. The talisay tree does not seem to mind.
A strong breeze blows in from the west, enough to scatter the fallen leaves. The air tastes salty but he could smell something sweet. It lingers elusively, blending with the earthy fragrance of the forest. At first, he thinks it smells like rose water, then decides it is more exotic than that. Nutmeg perhaps. Cinnamon, maybe. The cicadas continue singing.
The God Equation and Other Stories Page 8