OUTPOURING: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology

by Dean Francis Alfar

  However, Grant accepted any book; his library would house them without complaint, and they would reside in the building with the rest of their brethren.

  As he walked past the bookshelves, Grant could not help but reminisce about his life. His whole life was dedicated to books, as they were the only comfort he had. He could remember his mother reading him Alice in Wonderland when he was a child. Then as he grew he would take on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to fuel his own dreams and nightmares with battles fought with swords and magic instead of guns and atom bombs. He would treasure his tattered copies he managed to buy so long ago as the most worthy pieces in his private collection.

  Grant knew even in his youth that he would wind up in a job that had to do with books. Every day he would be seen with a book in his hands, his eyes glazed over in concentration as he focused on the words. He gained the nickname “Grant the Bookkeeper” by his fellow students, and it was a nickname he proudly held throughout his schooling. Unfortunately he was seen as easy prey to those who wanted to pick on him, damaging or even ripping apart a book he was reading. Grant had endured many black eyes and scabs, but he wasn’t a coward. Those who dared to target him received a blow for a blow; it was only fair.

  When he came across the reading area, Grant paused as he looked at the man at the table. A book was in front of him, normal-sized hardcover instead of leather bound. One hand held the book open in front of him; the other was pressed against his face, scrunched up as if he was in pain, tears running down his cheeks as a small gasping squeak was emitted from his mouth.

  “Sir?” Grant’s voice caused the man to turn his red face toward the librarian. Another noise was made, this time of surprise, as he forced the chair back, almost slamming into the shelf behind him. Grant was glad the man had some restraint. He would have been quite upset if any of the books fell to the floor.

  “Sir, are you alright?” The question did not have the effect Grant was looking for: The man placed his face in his hands again and made another noise. But this time Grant heard something, and when he moved a little closer he could hear, “It’s not how I remember…”

  The head librarian raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  The book was pushed across the table, open to the beginning of a chapter. The man quietly said, “The first paragraph….”

  Grant, still puzzled, walked up to the table and took the book. Eric raised his fist, looking down at the woman who was lying at his feet, her eyes wide in fear as she knew what was going to come next. Without another thought the fist came down, striking the woman across the face; a hollow crunch could be heard when his knuckles met cheekbone....

  “Page two-hundred and two….” was mumbled, and Grant flipped to the page.

  “Get out of my house, you faggot!” Eric screamed as a man in his twenties walked out the front door with another man, hand in hand.

  “Eric, please...”

  “No, Natalie, I will not accept that sick crap; he is not my son anymore!” Eric could not hear the sounds of his wife’s pleas over each breath he took, his fists tight as he could feel his heart thudding hard against his chest.

  And finally, “Page two-hundred and ninety.”

  Eric sat quietly at the bar, his head bowed slightly to his chest as he held the mug with one hand. His eyes quickly glanced up to see himself in the reflection of the bar mirror: a mesh of wrinkles, light grey stubble, and dull hazel eyes behind a pair of thick plastic glasses. A moment passed before he turned back to his drink and took it all in one gulp, and when it settled firmly in his stomach, he called the bartender for another.

  Grant settled the book on the table as pity graced his thoughts. He knew there was more, but he didn’t need to see the rest. “Sir, it’s time for you to go.”

  The man raised his face to Grant, but instead of asking for the book, instead of pleading to stay, the man mumbled, “alright” and slowly rose from his chair.

  Soon Kelly saw both men return to the checkout desk, yet the man continued on, leaving the library without hesitation as he pushed open the doors and walked out into the sunlight. Grant, on the other hand, sighed as he made his way back to his seat and sat down, putting the book aside before picking up his pen once more.

  Moments like those came and went for Grant. Despite having been the owner of a bookstore, then being a librarian after he gave his store to a friend, he could say it was never completely peaceful. Books could bring many different emotions to the surface, and Grant refused to treat the people who let their emotions get the better of them like a scolding parent. As long as the person did not damage the book, he would let the person rant to him, or he would at least try to talk to them. The reader was just as important to Grant as the books themselves; if it weren’t for those interested in reading in the first place, then all of the well-crafted stories by those like Asimov, Lovecraft, Wells, and others would go unheard and unappreciated.

  His feelings toward books and those who cared for them were the reason why he was offered the job of head librarian. At one point in his career as a librarian he and another co-worker wanted to add Huckleberry Finn to the shelves; the others did not want to because of certain words and themes within the book. Grant argued that their points were stupid and said that Twain’s novel is wonderfully written, and despite what kind of language was used, it’s a novel that deserves to be respected. It was never added to the shelves, so he took the book and left for the day, frustrated.

  A week later a man came to his home and asked if he wanted a job. The man, who was dressed in a sharp black suit, saw him arguing with his co-workers over the nature of Twain’s novel while checking the book sale at the library. The man explained that he liked Grant’s passion for books, and he could give him a job as a caretaker for a library that was important to him.

  So after having a long discussion about what the job would offer him for pay, two days later he found himself sitting behind the front desk, looking over ledger notes with narrowed eyes.

  “Why do they do it?”

  Grant paused, pulling out of his thoughts before turning to Kelly. “Do what?” he asked quietly. She was looking at the book the man had, her fingers running over the title imprinted on the cover.

  “Why do they choose the books that would bring them pain when they have others to choose from? I mean, we have plenty of books where the reader could find out the reasons for choices that people had made in history and wonders of which they’ve always dreamed!” Kelly stared at the shelves that littered the building; all Grant could do was sigh.

  Kelly was like him: a person who loved books so much that she dedicated her life to them. She was a bookbinder, rare book hunter, and overall a reader whose love for books made her travel to any place she could to spread her passion. The day he met Kelly, Grant asked her what her favorite book was, and her response was, “H. G. Wells, The Time Machine.” And she showed him the book, a first-edition copy, which she had repaired herself, then she wrapped it up and stored it away in a safe deposit box.

  The reason she was working with Grant was that he did not want to have his successor be left in the dark like him. On the first day of work he had asked his employer what happened to the person who was in charge before him. The man replied that the person moved on; Grant was the new boss. That left Grant with no one to ask questions and a lot of backlog work to sift through. So he talked to his employer, and suddenly he was going through applications of people who were well-known in the literary world. None of the names he read were writers; they needed to be left alone to work on their craft. No, all the people were like Grant: those who managed to make the written word the sole purpose of their life.

  Grant did not mind what the person looked like or where they came from, as long as they met his standards. Which was that the new employee had to care about books—just because one sold rare novels did not mean that he or she actually cared. After all they were working with a well-sized collection that needed to be taken care of.


  That was how Kelly came to work for Grant. He knew from the application and from meeting her that she was the person he was looking for. He felt that when the time came for him to retire, Kelly would be able to take over and keep things in check. So her questions were always welcomed, and he never kept her from asking them.

  “My guess is they want to remember, to see if they can find any meaning. But their hopes are usually dashed when given the truth—that they are now only words and pages, shelved among many others, and no one cares about them anymore.”

  Kelly frowned as she looked down at the book; the words Eric Lockerby, February 7th 1944 – October 1st 2010 were stamped on the cover in gold print. “I’ll go put it back.”

  Grant nodded as he turned his back to Kelly, who was leaving the desk with book in hand. “Remember, it goes in the new wing.”

  Kelly’s answer came in her footsteps that echoed through the building. She knew it wouldn’t take her long to find the 2010 – 2020 section. At least she had the wonderful view of all the books before her, and the rows of shelves that stretched on into infinity.

  Silverio and the Eidolon

  By Vincent Michael Simbulan

  Grave Tidings

  Autumn, it is the season of madness and melancholy. The world prepares for winter sleep while unspeakable horrors begin to stir in their forgotten prisons and sunless tombs. Beneath the sickly yellow glow of a gibbous moon, Silverio works the shovel, turning the heavy flattened head against unyielding cold earth.

  He pays no heed to the wispy fog that slithers across the empty field, swathing his legs in a cotton shroud, or to the continuous chirp of cicadas announcing their return to life. Wholly focused on unearthing his prize before the cover of night is pulled away, he has no time to spare.

  His breath comes in short gasps, each exhalation adding mist to the early morning air. The light from his lantern is bright enough to limn the weathered contours of his face, a determined mask of world-weary wrinkles glistening with perspiration.

  Exhaustion hinders his every move. Silverio’s youth is a distant memory and he has come to accept the inexorable degeneration of old age, his bones and muscles bent and twisted under the burden of half a century. It has not been an easy life, but not even the weight of the world is enough to crush his optimism.

  Silverio cares for the world, even if the world never cared back the way he wanted it to. His mother once said that his problem was that he cared too much, but only about himself. Silverio thought her mad. He reminds himself that he is a hero, that he will save the world one day.

  Silverio is convinced of his enlightenment. He has accepted the painful truth which no one else can bear to face—that the world is a place of suffering. Any sane man would understand that the best way to stop the suffering is to defer to the whims of powers greater than humanity. A simple and eminently logical plan to achieve this had formed in his mind. It is a plan so close now to becoming a reality.

  There were many esoteric texts in his past that led him to this night. Every spare moment spent hunting down obscure references has yielded him an impressive list: the Liber Ivonis, the Oracles of P’an T’ang, the seven cryptic books of H’san, and numerous other forbidden tomes that would have easily reduced any man to madness.

  Any lesser man perhaps, but Silverio believes he is above that. The righteousness of his cause is a shield that has never failed him. Silverio would never countenance the possibility of insanity.

  Of course if he had been sane, he would not have learned of the hidden secrets that crawl in the chaos equations which govern the universe.

  If he had been sane he would not have glimpsed the vision brought to him by a faceless emissary of the Black Goat With A Thousand Young. A vision that revealed the terrifying truth of an uncaring universe that simply waits to swallow all.

  If he had been sane he would not have been chosen by the fish-headed tribes of Piscenos to discover their secret message written in the stars. A message he had received and deciphered barely a month ago, of the ancient alignment that would make this night possible, when he, Silverio de Guzman, would attain his rightful destiny.

  The sudden thump of metal on wood tells him that his prize is within reach. With renewed vigor, he increases the pace of his digging, casting earth and stone aside until a small wooden coffin finally reveals itself to him. Clearing away the remaining soil with his hands, he exposes an odd star-shaped seal of melted wax.

  Barely pausing to catch his breath, Silverio scratches the seal while ominous clouds gather above him, threatening rain. For a moment the seal seems to glow faintly before he finally manages to scrape it away. Silverio is assaulted by a sudden attack of vertigo, as if he were staring down an impossibly high precipice. He shrugs off the dizziness and uses the shovel to pry the coffin open.

  He wrenches the lid aside with surprising ease and the world holds its breath; even the cicadas are silenced as Silverio looks upon the coffin’s contents—the mummified body of a woman, though he can only tell by the tattered remains of what must once have been an elegant gown.

  Her face is an undulating mass of maggots, and clutched to her chest by worm-eaten hands is the eidolon: an exquisitely carved, vaguely anthropoid figure with prodigious claws protruding from each appendage, long narrow wings curved upward from behind, and a loathsome cephalopod head bent forward, its multi-faceted ruby eyes glinting with the promise of damnation.

  Silverio is aware of the eidolon’s mysterious and colorful past. How it first traveled beyond the desert wastes in the hands of a mad Arab, and how it changed hands repeatedly, each of the previous owners having lost their minds or their lives in quick succession. He also knows that many years later it wound up in the hands of a writer of some renown before vanishing from history as mysteriously as it had appeared.

  Silverio is no longer concerned by these details. The remaining motes of sanity flee from his mind even as he reaches for the eidolon. The figurine is cold, almost icy in his hands, and a wave of nausea threatens to overwhelm him. He suppresses the urge to vomit, struggling against every instinct that screams in his mind to get as far away from it as possible. Instead, he pries it loose from withered hands and holds it aloft triumphantly.

  A powerful tremor shakes the ground beneath him. The earth’s expression of revulsion nearly knocks him off his feet before ceasing abruptly. Silverio steadies himself, still clutching his hideous prize as rain begins to fall in frenzied torrents. The furious downpour threatens to drown him where he stands.

  The wind howls a wordless warning as Silverio races away with the idol, a herald of the end of all things. He makes his way across the field, slipping across the mud that clings to his every step and barely reaches his car as a bolt of lightning strikes the ground where he stood mere moments before. The ponderous motor grumbles to life and he makes his escape.

  An angry red moon refracted by raindrops glares through the gathered storm clouds, and the skies weep blood, promising dire tidings to the world.

  Portents of Doom

  The following day is a Monday and Silverio calls in sick for work. His boss at the library barely listens to his excuse and hangs up without a reply. Silverio is too preoccupied to notice. There are more pressing things on his mind. He contemplates his grim trophy, and the carved obsidian figure leers back with sullen malevolence, casting a pall over the entire house.

  He is used to living alone, in a house that has never really been a home, at least not since his sister disappeared from his life. Silverio has never found anyone else to share his life with; no one ever seemed to meet his standards, or he theirs. He knows that it will be different when the world ends. Solitude will soon be an obliterated anachronism. Nothing brings people together like death.

  There is only one person that Silverio calls regularly and he lifts the phone to tell her the good news.

  “Hello, I’m about to begin. You should get ready.”

  “Who is this?” The woman’s voice is annoyed and vaguely threaten
ing. “What do you want?”

  Silverio patiently goes over the intricacies of his plan.

  The buzzing on the other end sounds like flies or mosquitoes. Silverio has heard it before, and it gives him the strength to continue. He knows she understands what he is trying to do.

  He settles down in front of the idol. It unnerves him but he remains steadfast. It is now perched over the mantelpiece and he considers draping a towel over it but decides not to, opting instead to place a series of candles in a circle around it as he starts reciting the ancient invocation. The sibilant words are difficult to pronounce but he speaks them slowly, gaining confidence until his chanting fills the house like the angry drone of bees.

  The weather, as if in continued protest against the abomination in his possession, remains stormy for the better part of the day. Dark clouds that look like heavy ink blots unleash an endless stream of chilling rain that turns into hail the size of small stones. Silverio ignores the relentless clattering on the roof and bundles up under a blanket to keep warm. He stuffs his ears with cotton and falls asleep under the unwavering gaze of the idol.

  Sometime during the night, Silverio is roused by the deafening stillness. The weather has finally cleared and the night sky glitters with the ephemeral brilliance of dead suns. A shard of moonlight cuts through the window to shine on the eidolon, casting tenebrous tentacles that coil and curl on the walls.

  A mysterious melody fills his room. He can hear it through the cotton in his ears. Silverio cannot tell if it emanates from the moon or the idol. It vaguely reminds him of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, but he knows it is the music of alien spheres, symphonic strains from worlds undreamt of by humanity.

  Tuesday morning brings an infestation of fire ants in their numberless thousands. A violent red carpet that covers his lawn, picking it clean of life. The mailman is quickly and efficiently stripped to the bone as he steps up the walk.