Ghosts of Infinity: and Nine More Stories of the Supernatural
Read Ghosts of Infinity: and Nine More Stories of the Supernatural Online
Authors: Lara Saguisag,April Yap
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
The Impossible Life and Loves of Doc Dwende
T
HE 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
Angelo R. Lacuesta
W
E 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 the 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.