Ghosts of Infinity
and Nine More Stories of the Supernatural
Copyright © April Timbol Yap and Lara Saguisag 2005
First published in print as ‘Nine Supernatural Stories’ by University of the Philippines Press 2005
Cover art by Adam David
ePub design and production by Flipside team
eISBN 978-971-9942-04-7
This e-book edition published 2011
by University of the Philippines Press
and Flipside Digital Content Company, Inc.
Quezon City, Philippines
www.uppress.com
www.flipsidecontent.com
Contents
Introduction
The Impossible Life and Loves of Doc Dwende
A Ghost Story
Beggar of Description
Firefly
The Man Who Came Home
Street Corner
Ghosts of Infinity
Sea Change
Stella for Star
Isabel, the Damaged
Bionotes
Introduction
THE TERM “SUPERNATURAL fiction” generally calls to mind ghost stories; in particular, those that intend to frighten. Many are familiar with the characters from the Western world, from Shakespeare’s restless spirits to Dracula and Frankenstein to the vampires and witches of Anne Rice.
Philippine oral fiction is loaded with its own supernatural figures—the aswang, manananggal, kapre, dwende, and, of course, the ghost, multo. The scientific advances of the last decades have done nothing to diminish the popularity of the ghost story. Almost everybody can narrate an account of something strange, something inexplicable. A loved one seen loitering around her own funeral, a telephone call in the middle of the night from somebody already dead, a hazy figure walking in a deserted hallway.
Science and technology have done very little to dispel the belief in the supernatural. In fact, current technology has already been appropriated in the telling of the supernatural such as The Ring and other Japanese and Korean horror movies.
Given the popularity of the ghost story and the abundance of supernatural characters in our local lore, it was expected that there would be a considerable body of work containing such elements. But this was not the case. Supernatural fiction is surprisingly sparse in the body of written works in English and Filipino. In fact, most of the stories in this book have not been previously published.
Perhaps it’s because the ghost story is still best related orally, in dramatic whispers. Maybe many of the modern fictionists are part of the minority of Filipinos who do not believe in the supernatural and therefore have trouble making it ring true in their work. In any case, finding supernatural fiction was not a simple task.
But though they were not very easy to find, they did exist and existed in variety. There were stories that showed the supernatural in an uncommon light. Certainly not uncommon to our experience, for the supernatural accompanies people through their daily lives. Uncommon in the sense that these are not the typical ghost stories associated with “supernatural fiction.”
This anthology hopes to tell a different sort of supernatural story to show a wider spectrum of the genre than is generally known. The nine short narratives here cast the supernatural in different lights: action-packed story, mystery, love story, comedy, and, of course, those that will make you look over your shoulder as you read just to make sure.
Supernatural Anthology
The Impossible Life and Loves of Doc Dwende
Angelo R. Lacuesta
WE LIVE UNDERGROUND, hoarding food, gold, and trinkets. Often they are playthings forgotten or outgrown by little boys and girls, left in the corners of their houses or gardens. We dwell peacefully among humans, staying quiet and lying low, borrowing things only when they are left behind, visible only to a very gifted few.
We travel on gabi leaves, at great speed, flying only at night when no one will notice. While Aling Marta was on the boat to Manila, I used the two days’ lead time to say good-bye to family and friends and pack a few belongings. Even for us, a change of clothes is recommended when taking long trips. But in general, we like to travel light, bringing only the essentials: hat, shirt, pants, high boots with pointed toes.
In the city there are precious few of us, rarely venturing far from our plots of earth, the empty lots of subdivisions or abandoned dumpsites. And so, for the most part, while Aling Marta was busy looking for a place to rent, I found myself alone, aimlessly walking the streets.
There is something about the city that has always engaged me. There is the excitement of being able to watch without being seen. There is the thrill of being anonymous, of being invisible twice over. Here, the jeepneys and the streethawkers make no distinction between daytime and nighttime. Monotonous, unimaginative music blares from the bars and the nightclubs. The skyline is made entirely of billboards, where men and women are larger than life.
We set up shop in Quiapo’s busiest corner, a cheap up-and-down apartment that opened to the street. We live upstairs and work downstairs. It is busiest on Wednesdays and Sundays, when the patients are fresh from church. There is no indication on our door, other than a small sign describing Aling Marta as a powerful medium who is able to communicate with a healing “spirit,” and that’s good enough for me.
People of all ages and persuasions come to the clinic. Our receptionist receives them and they pack the waiting area, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the long benches, waiting for Aling Marta to call them in.
I stand on the white monobloc chair and she tells them to stand in front of me and do a little turn. I see heart, lungs, liver, skull and skeleton, ovaries and prostate. I sense leaks and blockages in their systems and I work without touching their skin, operating on the aura that surrounds them, tweaking lymph levels, managing blood flow, drawing away the evil substances.
Aling Marta stands close by, murmuring prayers, or turning them slightly this way and that, to reassure them that I am here and that the operation is in progress.
Cancer is among the easiest to cure. It is like uprooting camote. The malignancy is physical, palpable, a single growth, or spread out in the tissue, to be collected and discarded like a troublesome stone or dirty sand.
Some of them want to speak directly to me, or ask for the chance to see me, of course, but Aling Marta declines for me, telling them I only spoke through her. Although humans interest me, I’m not much of a people person. Which is why we only take few patients in a day and charge a substantial consultation fee. But five hundred pesos gets you the full treatment: a diagnosis, invasive treatment, if required, and a little book of prayers you can take home.
Still, our income allows us only a simple life. There are bills to pay and money to send to her relatives. Aling Marta is also saving up to migrate to Canada, where a spinster aunt is staying and will welcome the companionship.
Upstairs there is room enough for a small bedroom for Aling Marta and a little landing for me. She converted a small cushion into a bed and bought a 9-inch TV from a traveling salesman. At night I like to relax and watch reality shows and the news.
It is a Sunday when the congressman comes to see me. He arrives in a big black van, led by a police escort. He jumps the waiting list and fills up the clinic with his coterie of bodyguards. I’ve seen him on TV and hear about him at barbershops and cafés. He is always under suspicion for corruption or tax evasion. His face is thick and pockmarked, and his neck bulges at the collar. I can see the blood cells squeezing through his arteries with every pulse. Through th
e white veil of his barong I can see his organs straining in the heat and the pressure. He speaks to Aling Marta in that low, deep voice that immediately commands respect. She apologizes for the shabby clinic and tells him she understands he has a tight schedule.
But it is not him I am seeing. It is his daughter, a young, thin, pale, beautiful girl of twelve, with large, still eyes that sparkle with sadness. The congressman presents her to me, pushing her gently toward the chair so that I am face-to-face with her, and we are aligned, eyes to eyes, nose to nose and mouth to mouth. And while she cannot see me she looks straight at me. I wonder if she can feel my breath on hers, I wonder if she can smell me. Some have said we smell like wildflowers, or spices, or freshly cut ginger.
“Turn around,” Aling Marta murmurs to her. The congressman steps back and looks at Aling Marta uneasily. “Sige, hija,” he tells her, his voice turning soft and tender. The little girl makes a turn and I see what the doctors have been unable to see, dark thin tendrils that begin at the base of her neck and trickle down her back, to converge again in a pool of blackness in the center of her body.
Aling Marta looks at me for my diagnosis but I am silent. Doctors must look at every encounter as a first case, and also as the end of a long series of cases, each interconnected with the other. This way, they can see with eyes both fresh and experienced. But I have never encountered this, neck and shoulders so delicate they’re like glass, and in their flesh, blackness so alive it pulses with every heartbeat.
I tell Aling Marta I am tired and cannot make a proper diagnosis. It is a half-truth. The little girl’s disease is exhausting to behold, and may require intensive treatment. Aling Marta tells the congressman she is having some slight difficulty communicating with me. She advises him to return the next day, Friday, which, being the day of the Sorrowful Mystery will be a good day for healing.
THE NEXT MORNING, Karina is visibly paler and sicker. She is dressed in white and her curly hair is tied with a ribbon. She takes her place in front of my chair, loosens her blouse and turns for me. With a finger I lightly caress the layer of air around her neck, down to where it envelops her gentle shoulder. I trace the invisible line down the center of her back, barely touching her skin. Her organs are probably of the same size as mine, but hundreds of years younger. I see her tiny heart, her small, clean lungs, her innocent little kidneys, all in danger of being smothered by the black cloud.
“I have taken my daughter to all the best doctors in the world and they tell me nothing,” the congressman tells Aling Marta.
More of the black smudge has collected in the small of her back, and the smoky tentacles now reach all the way to the tips of her fingers. Not good, I tell her.
Aling Marta tells him that if the patient came to the clinic everyday for two weeks, there might be a chance of recovery. The congressman flashes her a suspicious glance, and she gives a flustered answer, explaining the difficulty of the procedure that must be undertaken. To do it all in one or two sessions would almost certainly cause more damage.
“You are our only hope,” he says, looking nervously at my chair.
Doctors must be, to a certain degree, cold-hearted. While their patients will readily lay open their bodies, minds, and histories to them, they must remain distant and painfully honest.
Recovery is difficult. The prognosis is not good. Yet I keep my silence and convince myself that my continuous treatment will put the patient on the road to recovery.
WE ARE AN impossible race, for we are an invisible race that lives in a world overrun by only the most visible of things. Where we have built ancient cities and monuments, humans see only tracts of open land. Upon it they build houses and buildings and factories, where they must live and work. We must abide by these, the visible things, for we are largely powerless among them.
Sometimes I miss the cool air of home, the open, undisrupted roads, the quiet places above and below ground. If you know where to look, there are fields and caves untouched even from ancient times. We gather there, to discuss issues both human and our own. We are, after all, quite the realists, trusting gold and rock, keeping our feet firmly planted on the ground. We know how much human affairs can affect our own.
I catch the congressman on TV. He is exposing corrupt police officials who are making money off smuggling and prostitution rings. I cannot see his organs through the TV but I know he is under great pressure. The reporter asks him if he is not scared of retaliation, especially from the high-ranking policemen. He says he is scared, but that it is time for him to make a change, anyway, “for the good of the country.”
For all my doubt the congressman gives me his. Every time he comes for a visit, I see him looking over Karina’s shoulder at the empty space above the chair. He has made Aling Marta a promise: “If my child is cured I will owe you a debt for life.” While Aling Marta, of course, has learned never to trust politicians—no matter what they looked like, whether they were once basketball players, movie stars, or TV news reporters—she knows that they tightly hold debts of honor.
But even three weeks later, Karina’s condition does not show any signs of improvement. When she shows her back to me, all I can do is stare at the dark clump growing inside her. Her aura bears the shimmer of youth, but its inner surfaces have begun to turn dull and spotty, like an old man’s. When I touch its outer shell, cottony with static, I almost touch her skin and feel her physical warmth. But that would be unthinkable, impossible. While some might think Aling Marta a con-artist, or myself a figment of faith or the optimistic imagination, there are borders even we must not cross. After all, I am a physician.
I have begun to feel a heaviness in me, a sorrow that is only deepened when she turns once more and greets my invisible form with that shy smile. When I look at her searching eyes, tears immediately come to mine.
Tonight, Aling Marta is silent as she prepares dinner, but she turns each small effort into a labor, washing the fish with exhalations of mock fatigue, chopping the tomatoes and onions with a heavy hand, slamming the lid down on the pot. We eat silently, hers the salted food and mine the plain, hers the bowl and mine the teacup. This is the way we have done it for years, she seems to be saying. I did it for my father, and I did it for you. And when I found you, we had an understanding. This time I am the medium, gathering the message from her small expressions.
She finally speaks. “This should be easy for you, no? You’ve handled parasites, cancer, meningitis. You’ve dissolved tumors, you’ve widened arteries, you’ve purified kidneys. Even inborn things like Mang Lupe’s hearing!”
Aling Marta dares me to ask her how much money the congressman is offering for her recovery. I roll my eyes at her when she tells me it is enough to fix us for life, for us to go to Canada, where a new life is waiting. “Look at where we live! Look at us!” She makes an exhausted sweep of the room with her hands, indicating the water-stained ceiling, the chipped dishes, her worn clothes, her homely and tiresome face.
This is usually how the blame game begins. She tells me her state of affairs, and I remind her of where she came from. She tells me she provides food and shelter, and I tell her how I have willingly subjected myself to exploitation. She bows her head and weeps, knowing I can see her pressure rising in her arteries, the bile surging in her stomach, and that I will take pity.
This time I take part in the melodrama, that human specialty, and weep as well, and tell Aling Marta the truth, that the little girl might be beyond curing, beyond hope. My skill—or anybody else’s—cannot perform the extraction her disease requires. And even if I were foolish enough to try, it would most certainly kill her. The blood would ebb with the black, the punctured aura would be tainted, and Karina would be drained of all life.
She bristles at the mention of her name. I can see the jealousy trembling in her. The blood rushes to her head. “I think you’re prolonging it, Doc. I think you’re enjoying all this! You pervert! You’ve lost your integrity, your ideals. Or maybe you have lost your touch. All these years away
from your kind!”
And then it is my turn to be angry. I hop off the chair, leave the table and step out into the city, walking unseen among the crowds, where everyone is sick and dying.
THERE HAVE BEEN stories about people being taken for a visit to our homes. When they return they speak about mountains of gold and precious stones. They are disoriented about the time, not knowing if they’ve been away for months, or days, or hours.
They are not used to different notions of time and of things. They become lost in our world, as I have been in theirs.
That was how our friendship began, in their world, Aling Marta’s old home, where boredom and loneliness were found in great amounts.
It is no secret that we are conservative types, keeping close to our place of dwelling, staying among our kind and taking no unnecessary risks. Perhaps that’s why we live to be centuries old. But there are those among us who have found their world fascinating and intriguing, a world of exotic delights.
When it was dark at night, I often stayed in Marta’s room, exploring the surroundings and playing with her toys. In time her room became a familiar place for me, and she a most familiar companion. But seeing her one night, curled upon her bed, legs entwined around her favorite pillow, foot sticking out from under a blanket, I simply could not resist the temptation. I ran a finger lightly along the long, soft sole of her exposed foot, listening carefully to her breathing, ready to pull myself back into the shadows.
We are mostly harmless, and if we are mischievous it is only because we are curious, or bored, or lonely. After all, it was going to be another long, uneventful night. Her father had fallen asleep at his usual post, bent over bottles of gin in the living room. She had turned in early, as it had been a tiring day, with a long, uninterrupted stretch of work and an afternoon of water games at the river with her friends. They had been playing habulan-taya and she was taya for most of the time because the others had conspired against her.
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