I thought he would be angry, or would at least turn his back on me once more, but instead he expressed a rich and hearty laugh. “You are a most uncanny people,” he then said, chuckling. “And you are an even more uncanny little girl.”
I did not find it funny, but nevertheless I laughed with him.
In the next few hours, I learned more and more about the alien. He was lost, and he had lost track of his convoy. They were on their way to a different place but they landed here accidentally. His boss commanded him to investigate and learn more about this place, so he did. But when he came back after a few hours, his people were already gone.
“So what did you find out?” I said, sharing my sandwiches and juices with him a few hours before sunset. “In your investigation, I mean?”
“Well, a lot. I learned that it’s hard to get a signal here, making it extra difficult to communicate with my convoy.” said the alien.
“Is there any way you can find them?”
“I think so,” he said, but not with much confidence. “At first, I thought they were just testing me if I would actually do the job. So I carefully observed your community, giving extra care to find out about everything. But after two days of doing that, there was still no sign of the convoy. And so I retreated here.”
“What do you think your boss wants with our village? Why is he giving you so much time to observe it?” I said, finishing up my juice. As I sipped the last remnants, I reached for another pack.
“The only time this happens is when we’re considering invading it,” he said. When he saw my mouth agape, he waved me off and continued, “It’s usually nothing to worry about. We’ve studied this place before and it never had much to show.”
“So you really are one.”
“What?”
“An alien,” I almost whispered.
“Of course, I am” he said, licking his hands after he finished his sandwich. “What else would I be?”
Since I did not know how to prevent an invasion—or a possible one, for that matter—I did the best thing I could think of. It was highly unlikely that anyone would believe me, so I brought the alien back to the barangay the next day to help with the preparations for the fiesta, hoping someone else would notice his unconventional ways.
The alien was able to immerse in our community well enough, offering a helping hand to anyone who needed it. Since the fiesta was but a day away, everyone—from little Tina to manong Joe—helped out in his or her own little ways and the alien was quickly joining their ranks. There were still some speculations and some unanswered questions, but no one pressed a case and the alien was welcomed graciously.
In spite of all that, I was the only one who noticed. Even with a human body, he spelled tell-tale signs of being from another world. The way he held a hammer was almost without touch, the banderitas he cut always came out perfectly, and he never seemed to grow tired or weary.
Even the sweat on his face glimmered more so than the average Juan, and the way he talked and looked people in the eye was an uncommon sight in our vilage. He still declined invitations of meal, and he offered none in return as well. And although he laughed a hearty laugh at some people’s jokes, he did not do so as frequently as my neighbors.
Yet people loved him, even though he was an outsider.
No one noticed his unusual features, and no one noticed any threat of invasion as well. It was well into the first day of the fiesta and everyone was having a feast and having a grand time. The alien finally accepted our invitation and took his lunch at our place, but afterwards, he disappeared into the crowd, and I saw no sign of him until that evening.
Someone was talking on our makeshift stage and everyone was applauding the line of guys who were also girls as they paraded elegantly in a perfect line. People were scurrying back and forth near the backstage, and the alien was one of them, although he was not doing so because of the pageant.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
He looked startled. “Nothing,” he said to me.
“You’ve been busy the entire day.”
“It’s the first day of the fiesta.” The last word he said had a slight twang to it.
“True,” I said. “I hope you’re not truly preparing for an invasion.”
He said nothing, so I walked away.
I saw him slip into the woods not long after. Amid the rambunctious applause and music, no one noticed him as he went in. So I disappeared in a similar fashion, carefully tailing him and trying not to be seen.
The alien stopped in the clearing that was my haven, and which was his as well. He was holding up some kind of transmitter device and he was looking wearisome, as if he had aged in just a few minutes. I crouched a few meters away from him, hiding myself in the expanse of foliage readily available to me.
The alien was muttering something under his breath and I noticed that he sounded angry. I inched a little closer to hear better, but what I heard next almost made me jump out of the bush and strike him down.
“Are preparations for the invasion well under way?”
He grew silent for a while after, listening to the person—or alien—on the other end. He nodded gravely and rubbed his eyes.
I half-expected some sort of hologram to appear before him, or even just a beam from the sky that will drop down and summon him from the grounds. But nothing of that kind happened, and he proceeded with just listening to his transmitter, looking more stressed by the minute.
“Are you sure this is the right course of action to take?” he said. “Because if I may appeal sir—”
I stood my ground, and prepared myself for any physical fighting that may happen. I inched even more closer to hear better.
“These people are a friendly race,” he was saying. “They pose no threat to us and they did not even hurt me in any way—”
He was forced silent again.
“Sir, if I may, may I speak to you face to face?”
I was bracing myself for a hologram, a face to appear out of nowhere, or even just a flash of light, but nothing happened. If any, the alien just grew wearier and walked further forward into the clearing.
I couldn’t follow any more without being seen, so I stayed where I was and strained my ears to listen.
“I disagree, sir,” he was saying. “They are a people worth ignoring because they pose no harm and—”
He groaned angrily and motioned to throw the transmitter to the ground, but decided against it in the last minute. He instead paced back and forth endlessly, quickening his pace more and more with every step.
Perhaps it was because of his helpfulness or because I felt sorry for him or because I thought there was still a glimmer of hope for my village, but I stood up without hesitation at that moment, leaving me vulnerable to any attack he might throw at me.
“Hello,” I said to him, moving gingerly into the clearing.
He did not seem surprised this time. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the fiesta?”
“You disappeared during the pageant,” I said.
He said nothing, and continued pacing, tightening his grip on the device.
“So you’re really going to invade us?”
“I’m trying to prevent it,” he said, a little annoyed.
“Why don’t you tell your boss that?” I said, approaching him.
“I’m trying to. There’s no signal.”
“Why don’t you tell him that?”
“There’s no signal.”
I sighed heavily. “Tell him there’s no signal here, so it’s hard to set up base or something. Tell him we don’t have electricity for a significant portion of the day, or that we don’t have banks or that our roads are barely passable. We’re practically useless to invade.”
He just looked at me. “But we could exploit you as a people anyway. We have the technology.”
“That would take a long time. We are a most carefree people, and we can get by with the simplest of pleasures, but it would take a lot of time and eff
ort to try to change us and use us for your bidding. I’m sure there are more fitting places to invade.”
He said nothing.
“Go on then, so we could return to the fiesta,” I said, nudging him.
“You are a child and you know nothing,” he said. “But I will do what you said. It is worth a try.”
The alien disappeared into the trees to talk to his boss, and I waited for him to come back for many hours, but he never did. Even as I returned to the celebration in the village, I could not see an alien face, or any sign that he was there. My mother was worried about me, but she hugged me and sent me home. And as I slept that night, I tried not to worry about the invasion that was about to come, yet I somehow knew that it was never happening, at least not for a long time.
The next few days were a blur. People were wondering where the alien went, but they did so happily and in high hopes that he would reach wherever he needed to be. The fiesta proceeded extravagantly, with lots of good food and good music and good people.
I tried to enjoy it all, but at the end of the festivities, I grew tired. The alien was nowhere in sight, and that should lessen my worries, but the world was now open to the possibilities of more aliens and more invasions and that stressed me.
My mother noticed this. She tried to soothe me and comfort me, but I grew lazy and I ignored her. On a rainy day a few months from the fiesta, she sat down with me on the terrace and brought me some hot milk.
“Are you okay?” she smiled that motherly smile and it made me warm inside. I nodded.
“What’s the matter?” She looked worried.
I looked at her and sighed. I could not hold it in any longer. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes, I can,” she said as she smoothed my hair.
“You remember that man that arrived here a few days before the fiesta, the one who asked directions to the city?” I looked at her squarely in the eyes. “He was an alien.”
My mother chuckled and motioned for me to drink the milk. “Of course he was, child.” She said, looking out into the rain. “He was not from this place.”
Little Italy
by Isa Lorenzo
She lives with her grandparents in a town of pastel houses, with fanciful towers and turrets. Lolo tells her that this is how houses look in Italy, where Mayang, her mother works.
She has never seen Mayang, because Mayang has never returned to Malibay. There are weekly phone calls, Mayang asking “Anak, kamusta?”, always telling her that she longs to see her. But the one thing that she has never said is when she’ll be coming home.
Sometimes she traces a finger over the single photograph that she has of her mother. Mayang’s face is slightly turned from the camera. She is looking at something outside the frame. Her lips are drawn up a little, though it is difficult to tell whether it is smiling or frowning. Lydia tells herself that she has Mayang’s eyes, or lips, though she has to squint in order to see any resemblance between them.
Lydia knows that there are bills to be paid. There is the house they live in, bright pink with a red tiled roof. Inside is a dizzying array of tiles: terra cotta for the living room, green for the kitchen, pink for the bathroom. The tiles are matched by the paint on the walls. Lydia has a bed with a deep, soft mattress. There is a big blue rug in the living room, and a toilet that flushes in the bathroom, complete with a bidet.
Most of the other houses in Malibay are like Lydia’s, painted in dazzling colors with fancy arches and columns. They have gold vines twining around fake pillars, corners adorned by cherubs, doors flanked by sham stone lions. There is ornamentation in every possible place. The residences of Overseas Filipino Workers tower over the houses that do not belong to OFWs, the ones that remain gray, unpainted, and still have corrugated zinc roofs.
The money that Mayang sends pays for Lydia’s tuition to Bagong Pangarap school, where most of the class is made up of OFW kids like her. Many of her classmates have the latest phones and gadgets, sent to them by their parents from abroad. They use them to show off to each other, to see who has the most apps, or the latest hit song by One Republic.
Just last month, Bruce Mejia threw a fit when Ms. Manguisi tried to confiscate his iPhone because he was texting during class.
“I could buy you,” he told her, at the end of his tirade.
“Just try,” she said. A week later, Ms. Manguisi resigned. Some said that she was forced to do it—Bruce’s parents had given a hefty donation toward the construction of Bagong Pangarap.
Along with Bagong Pangarap, OFW money has paid for the road that winds through Malibay, as well as the water that comes out of the faucet in Lydia’s home. There is no running water in the neighboring town of Tiil, because few OFWs live there.
Inside Lydia’s house, there is imitation cast-iron furniture, cheap black metal with worn cushions. Mayang says she is still saving up for wooden furniture, which she will have to ship from abroad. Why buy narra when you can have oak?
Lydia’s clothes are all from Italy. Benetton and Zara—classic shirts and skirts with whatever fashion knockoff Mayang deems fit to send her.
After all these years, she still doesn’t know her daughter’s taste in clothes. Lydia prefers simple, muted colors—navy, khaki, olive green. She gives the yellow ruffled miniskirts and the blinged-out spaghetti-strap tops to the labandera, who wears them on her day off.
“Are you happy?” Lolo asks her sometimes. Lydia always nods her head, even on days when she would rather stay in her room, lie on the bed, and stare at the ceiling. Lolo’s happy, that’s for sure. He goes to the sabong arena almost every night. He wagers fantastical sums. He almost always loses.
“That’s why Mayang can’t come home, because you’re always gambling.” Lydia overheard Lola scolding Lolo after a particularly bad loss.
Lolo hung his head. “I’ll just go to watch the roosters fight. I won’t bet any money, I swear.” But after only a few days, he slipped out of the house to watch the latest cockfight. He came home cleaned out.
Lola no longer scolds him. Instead, she busies herself with work, as if to make up for his indolence. She cleans the house, or weeds the garden. They have a 42-inch plasma TV that is gathering dust—Lolo has no other interest aside from cockfights, Lola would rather say the rosary in her spare time, and Lydia prefers to roam outside.
The ugly pastel houses weigh in on her, and a neighbor is always belting “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, out of tune, on her videoke.
Lydia can’t stand the noise, so she escapes. On her way out of town, she passes many covered cars. There is the Leaños’ white Ford Fiesta, the silver Volvo that belongs to Mrs. Bagatsing, the red Mazda that is Mr. Robledo’s baby. All of them are filthy. Their owners all live abroad. They only return to Malibay once every two years or so, during which the cars are cleaned and polished. In a few years, the cars will be replaced by new ones.
Now that she is in the hills surrounding Malibay, she feels a measure of peace.
Lydia walks to the forest. The weight that seems to be perpetually on her chest eases.
The trees have been there before Malibay was transformed. There is nothing fake about them, nothing garish. She likes listening to the trees nod their heads and whisper with the wind. They form a protective canopy around her, and the birds chirp a welcome. She follows the flow of water to a stream, and plops down on a grassy spot near its edge.
Why won’t Mayang come home?
It’s a question that she has asked constantly, out loud at least every year, more often in silence. She can’t figure it out. If Lola could somehow stop Lolo from going to cockfights, if Mayang stopped sending her to Bagong Pangarap and buying her brand-name clothing, could she come home, even if it was just for a couple of days every year?
Most of the kids see their OFW parents at least once every two years. The lucky ones have gone to Italy to live there. When they come back to visit, they turn their noses up at Malibay, even if they have only been gone for six months. “How crude, how chea
p,” they say, speaking of the houses. “How ugly.”
Malibay was an OFW’s dream, if that dream took the form of absurd houses and ostentatious vehicles. It was a quiet town—too quiet—because most of its inhabitants no longer lived there. On the days when the neighbors weren’t abusing their videoke, Lydia could hear the conversation going on in the Lopez’s house, which was three houses away. As usual, Mrs. Lopez was nagging Mr. Lopez to find a job in Italy, so that they could renovate their house and send Jon-jon to Bagong Pangarap. Next to the towering pastel houses that surrounded it, the Lopez house looked gray, unfinished. It was made only of concrete blocks. It wasn’t even painted.
Jon-jon went to the public school in Tiil, along with the other kids who weren’t fortunate enough to have OFWs for parents. He was sixteen—Lydia’s age. When they were younger, she thought that she had found a playmate, but Lola always called her inside as soon as she saw her playing with Jon-jon.
“You shouldn’t hang around with him,” she said. “He has no future.” By which she meant that since Jon-jon’s parents didn’t work abroad, he was doomed to stay in Malibay, to work as a tricyle driver or, if he was lucky, a clerk at the hardware store.
When they were children, Lydia and Jon-jon used to run around Malibay together. They would go to the forest and climb trees. “Your mother will come home soon,” Jon-jon would say, and Lydia would nod, even though she didn’t believe him.
But as months passed by, Lola began finding things for Lydia to do whenever Jon-jon asked her to come out and play. Her room had to be cleaned, or she had to help Lola weed the garden. Lola even made her study Math, even though exams were more than a month away.
Lydia tried to explain all of this to Jon-jon, but he began to avoid her. Now Lydia is reduced to waving and smiling at him. She never gets close enough to talk to him. Her money, and his lack of it, had become an unbridgeable chasm. It wasn’t really her money, though. It was Mayang’s.
Lola never tired of telling her the story, how Mayang had left home at the age of eighteen to work as a domestic helper in Italy. Since then, she had returned home only once, to deliver Lydia into their bewildered arms. She had never said who the father was, or that she was married.
OUTPOURING: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology Page 44