Six from Downtown by Dean Francis Alfar
protruding nubs where nipples would be; the thin
A WEEK AFTER I arrived in the city, I spent a day at
the wet market, negotiating my way down the slippery
floors and taking pictures. I was soon lost in the
brilliant rainbow of fresh seafood, laid out in ice,
suspended on hooks, swimming in plastic pails and
low metal drums, whose names brought back
memories of my childhood: palos, pating, alimasag,
pindangga, lapu lapu, apahap, sap sap, pompano,
tambacol, labahita, malasugi, pugita. At other stalls, I
found trays of lato, seaweed that resembled a
miniature bunch of grapes which my parents loved
dipping in a mix of crushed garlic and spicy vinegar,
as well as palm-sized oysters, their dull shells
encrusted with barnacles.
One stall's sign captured my attention and got my
taste buds going: Fresh Sirena. I smiled to myself,
surprised at how many years had passed since I last
tasted mermaid. When I was a child growing up in the
south, my grandfather would take me out mermaid
fishing. The boat of my memory was cramped and
seemed ungainly in the water, but none of that
mattered since I loved being out at sea with him.
"They think it's unlucky," he told me once, when I
observed that it seemed only men went into the sea.
"It does not matter to me that you are a girl. You're
what God has given us and that's all the luck we'll
need."
At a precise position whose exact oceanic location
was known only to him, my grandfather would drop
the makeshift anchor overboard and organize the
fishing lines, stretching across the span of his arms
the very fine filaments he purchased from American
soldiers before they fled the Japanese. When all the
preparations were done, he'd ask me to attach the
bait. This was one of the best parts for me because I
got to open the large biscuit tin with the end of a
spoon and select a piece of jewelry. I would scoop out
a handful of shiny trinkets and fuss over them,
showing off to my grandfather how seriously I took the
task. My favorite bait was a gold scapular embossed
with the image of the Virgin Mary. After I had carefully
attached the bait to the line, my grandfather would
always tell me to sit still, watch the sea quietly and be
ready with the net. Then he'd slowly lower the filament
into the water, one hand unrolling calculated
measures of length. Sometimes, it took forever for a
mermaid to bite, and I remember thinking that
perhaps they had all the jewelry they'd ever need.
While waiting, my grandfather would smoke a thin
cigarette between his teeth, flipping it into his mouth
when only the smouldering filter remained, checking
once in a while if I had a firm grip on the wooden
handle of the net that was my part in things.
"Be ready at any time," he'd intone, exhaling smoke
into the air laden with salt.
The mermaids we'd catch ranged from two and half to
three feet in length. Their tails, excellent steamed,
grilled or boiled with tamarinds, were an iridescent
green flecked with blue points of lights. Halfway up
was the bony flesh that was always cast away after
cutting: the torsos were mottled pink and grey, with
arms ended in four fingers, a filmy web of flesh
between each one. The egg-shaped heads were
crowned with pale stringy hair, like the ghosts of
seaweed, covering much of the face that was
punctured thrice by tortoise-colored eyes and a
gasping mouth lined with sharp tiny teeth.
"Here's one," my grandfather would whisper upon
sensing the line grow taut, before exploding into
action, standing up and reining in the filament, hand
over hand, until the mermaid broke the surface of the
sea, unwilling to let go of the shiny bait. At his signal
I'd quickly extend the net, making certain to trap the
glistening tail, and together we'd haul the mermaid
into the boat, where my grandfather would exchange
the string in one hand for a fire-hardened club and
strike at the mermaid's head until it stopped moving.
One was usually enough for our large family, but I
remember during the times of fiesta how the sea
would be dotted by little boats similar to my
grandfather's, and how they'd return hours later,
pitching low in the water, each with several mermaids.
I stood by the sirena stall and looked over what was
offered, fighting the rising disappointment fueled by
the memories of my childhood years. The mermaids
lay side by side and almost haphazardly on top of
each other, eyes closed and mouths agape, on a bed
of crushed ice, most of them barely a foot long, some
even smaller, and their tails had only the barest hint of
green. Sensing my disquiet, the vendor, a middle-
aged man with a red bandanna and a bulging belly,
explained in a lugubrious tone that it was the lean
season, and that all mermaids were that size
nowadays.
I purchased the freshest looking one, astounded at
the price per kilo, and asked if there was a place
nearby that could grill it for me. The vendor winked
and, for one hundred pesos, offered to cook it himself.
I suspected he was overcharging me but gave in
when he agreed to throw in a handful of sea snails for
free.
http://philippinespeculativefiction.com/alfar.html
 The Singer's Man
by M. R. R. Arcega
This song is one I have never sung. This song, I sing
from my heart.
I was the Singer's man. In my youth I was known as
Derezn. That name signified nothing, was nothing,
until the Singer came to our tribe.
She was a stranger to us, and in the way of the
Harun, we kept her at a distance. Wherever she
walked, there would be at least a circle an armstretch
wide between herself and the nearest of us, as is the
Harun way.
The Singer was tall, like the rock tribe, but slender,
like the silian tree. She walked on two legs, like the
rest of us. But it was clear she was a stranger; the
whole of her was like nothing that walked on this
earth.
She sang her greeting in the language of the
Lowlands, "I have come. I crave your welcoming." Her
lips made the words seem strange.
She asked if we had ever seen one like her - a man,
tall and slender and pale like herself, but with hair the
color of rulgit leaves. We said we didn't. She thanked
us all and made a request of us.
"I need to cross the Plains. I need a guide." She said
these simple words awkwardly, so new was she to the
Harun tongue. The elders listened. Then they
summoned me, still in my childhood years, and they
said to me: "You shall be her ears and eyes."
Like the Harun, the Singer had two hands, but hers
were soft and the fingers were long and cool and thin
like mist.
I was Derezn, signifying nothing, being nothing, until I
took her hand.
***
While she was distrusted among the Harun, she was
not hated. And when she sang our songs back to us,
her otherworldly voice had a pleasing sound.
She meant not to stay among us. She learned our
language and our songs, then it was time for her to
go. The first thing she told me was that she had been
roaming the world for two years, by Gandaran
reckoning. This meant eight full years by the Harun
way.
I was no stranger to the journey across the Plains, but
she walked carefully, as if she had never been in
another place in the world like it.
The Singer was not an easy ward. She did not yet
know all our gestures, and sometimes she thought
"danger" meant "come," or "stay away" meant "time to
eat." Yet I dared not call her foolish.
Of course I knew of her, I had heard the legends of
the Singer. But I loved her not, because her way was
change, and change was not the way of the Harun.
She knew even more than the wind-folk, or the monks
of Halam, or even the citizens of Idevat, of change.
She knew songs from many distant tongues, and
though I did not know the words, I listened.
The Singer slept at night. She was like the Black
Flower folk, who needed to sleep when the sun was
not in the sky. It was then that I could be alone with
my thoughts.
The Singer was known in Harun lore as a frightening
thing, a creature of magnificence and great magical
power. And yet, this strange thing I accompanied
seemed nothing like that. She was thin and frail and
strange. The only thing about her that rhymed with the
legends was that she was unafraid.
***
She said that she was searching for someone. She
said that someone had been very special to her.
"Sibling of the heart," she said in the Harun tongue.
But among the Harun the only siblings are the siblings
you have from your birth-father, or your birth-mother.
There is no other sort of sibling. So I asked her to
explain.
She sang, "I shall tell you a secret. I came from
another place," and she swept her hand across the
stars, "very far away." She sang to me of her people.
She sang that her people could change the world by
music. They fashioned instruments that could control
the wind, make the green things grow and the clouds
part. Everyone cared about everything, for if you had
power over everything, everything was your
responsibility.
Only children didn't care, she said. Only children sang
as if there was no consequence.
And she sang to me of a boy whom she had known
since he was born. While the other children went to
school and honed their musical talents in all earnest,
the Singer and this boy played together, dreamt
together, sang together. They made things move and
made things grow and made things die and adults
hated them for it; they said the two children were
bound to grow up careless.
He must be grown up by now, she sang to herself.
One day, he said he wanted to explore other worlds.
For they were aware of other worlds but they were
never allowed to wander into them. The adults of their
world knew that in other worlds their songs would be
powerless, and that some worlds were dark and
dangerous, not like their own. But the Singer's sibling
took her by the hand and told her not to be afraid, and
singing together they opened a door.
She continued to sing that where she came from,
there were people born of different sets of parents,
but were of the same mind about everything. They
sometimes found each other, then they never let each
other go. They were more than siblings, she sang,
they were more than lovers, they were more than two
different people. She needed to find the sibling of her
heart, because without him she would not be
complete.
But she had tried to use the Harun words and Harun
words were not enough to explain her.
"I shall tell you a secret," she sang softly on the eighth
day of our journey, "I see him in my dreams. In my
dreams we are children, and he says he will find me
soon."
***
I helped her cross the Plain. She was not made of
hardy stuff like the Harun and the journey made her
ill. "Let us rest," she said.
We came to a forest by the plain, and there we sought
shelter. The Singer was pale and silent. I had done
my part by the Harun way and I was ready to come
home, but I did not wish to leave her.
I had never explored this forest, though I had crossed
the Plain alone many times. This was known as the
woods of Ogyu among the Harun. And in those days
we believed that if you strayed from the path that
crossed it and ended at the domain of the Black
Flower people, you would be captured by the savage
folk of the woods, and you would never come home.
But there was no one on the path through the woods.
And I thought I heard sounds of a village from afar, so
I left the Singer and strayed from the path.
I was found by two savage hunters who had been
watching the Singer and myself. I said in the words of
the Lowlands that we needed help.
They said nothing. When they did not attack me, I
walked back to where the Singer was. The hunters
followed me. They silently observed her, and when
they decided she was no threat, they unfurled their
long limbs and twisted them together into a bed.
Cradling the Singer between themselves, they
walked, and I followed.
***
The Singer and I were treated well in the hunters'
village. When she had her voice again she walked to
the edge of our pit-cage and sang "I have come. I
crave your welcoming" in many tongues. It was only
when she used the Black Flower tongue that we were
set free.
They were nowhere like the Black Flower kin, these
kind and quiet savages. Their skin was thick like bark,
and leafy like the wood in which they lived. The
children like to surprise us by jumping up from the
green and winding round our bodies.
And they were all fascinated by the Singer, whose
limbs would not twist and unfurl... and they found me
amusing, because I was small and covered with hair
and my limbs were only as short as the bone pipes
their elders smoked.
They had never seen one like the Singer, and no man
with hair the color of rulgit leaves had passed through.
The Singer decided to stay for many days in that
village, learning the songs of the savages. I was free
to leave as I pleased, but I had no wish to leave.
I learned the songs of the savages as well; I learned
that their name for themselves was Gomergin, and
that they were slaves of the Black Flower people.
They showed us the holes on their hands as they
sang: the Black Flower folk came every year and
gathered the children who reached a certain age.
They marked the children by boring into their hands
and bringing home a piece of each of their bodies.
Then they kept those pieces as proof that they were
owned and could be taken away at any time.
Sometimes they took the children away. Sometimes
the children died from the marking. The Singer was
angered to hear this.
When she was done hearing she started to sing, "I
shall tell you a secret." Then she sang of a better life,
of freedom and peace and living well unto old age - of
places where children who had no holes on their
hands sang as if there was no consequence.
The Gomergin heard her, for she sang in their
language in an otherworldly voice, of change. Like the
Harun, change was not a familiar thing to the
Gomergin. But the Singer sang on and on and it
seemed the leaves froze and the wind hushed and
the whole world - even the cold and cruel Black
Flower nobles asleep in their high chambers - sat still
and listened.
In a few days, the Singer was ready to leave for the
Black Flower lands. The Gomergin warriors took up
their swords and spears. "They will follow us," I said to
her.
"I know," she answered.
"They will follow us to their deaths," I said.
She said nothing back.
***
In the long while that followed, I was with the Singer.
We witnessed worse things than the gruesome death
of a handful of Gomergin warriors - we saw cities
burn, temples crumble, gods weep and demons cry
out in fear.
But we saw births. We saw new kingdoms built. We
saw change.
I knew this was why the Singer was feared,
sometimes even hunted. Her singing changed the
world, even if she claimed that in this world, her
singing had no power.
Long before she was sought by the Black Flower
people for singing songs of freedom to their slaves,
who were scattered across the continent, she was
wanted by the Inbred of the South, a fallen tyranny
that was not without its machineries, or its madness.
Their mercenaries had caught up to us once, but we
were hidden by the Northern Kildrin, who had heard of
us - of a high, thin creature that walked on two legs,
and the small hair-covered companion always at her
heels.
The Singer wept, often and long - for her sibling, for
the Gomergin, for the Einyu and the Dallarel and the
many other races who heard her songs and sought
her out and wanted to know...
What else is there, besides this world? What could
they look forward to? What secrets did she have for
them?
I once came across a man who boasted that the
Singer was not long for this earth. The Black Flower
Wizard was searching for her, he said. And the Black
Flower Wizard was responsible for all the clan's
victories. I chose not to challenge those words then,
for we were among untrustworthy folk and I could not
have revealed myself.
For I was the Singer's Man, her ears and eyes. I was
her protector; I braved places we should not have
been able to enter; I gathered things and knowledge
that were helpful to us. When she was in danger, I
rescued her or sent for help. I found food for her and
kept her safe and watched her while she slept.
Soon only she called me by my infant-name, Derezn.
The rest of the world knew me only as the Singer's
Man.
***
One day she asked me why I had not gone home.
I answered, "I wish to learn your songs. All of them."
She smiled at me. "There isn't a way to learn all of
anyone's songs. Not unless that person is the sibling
of your heart."
She had said once, that if someone was a sibling of
your heart, you would know if that someone was still
dead or alive, and while that person was alive, you
would have songs to sing.
I did not wish to come home. Though I wanted very
much to see family and friends and familiar things, I
knew that if I came home then, I would be a stranger
to my own people. I would talk in song, in different
tongues and in strange music. The way I counted
time, the way I walked and the way I could meet the
gaze of strangers, were different. I would crave the
open road. I would wonder what had become of the
Singer.
The Harun would never take kindly to that. Change is
not part of the old way, and I had changed.
***
And for so many years, there was no one like her, tall
and slender, with hair the color of rulgit leaves.
Before my eyes she grew older and wearier and less
strong. Because of a lasting illness her sight became
weak, and she needed to hold my hand when we
walked while the sun was not in the sky.
She had long stopped counting time, and were it not
for me she would not know that we had been abroad
for four Gandaran years. "So long," she sang to
herself.
We were sought by the Black Flower Wizard, we
knew, so we hid and fled from the clan's dark-clad
hunters as if we were nowhere near the end of the
world. When we reached the Mistlands at the border
of the Black Flower territory, she said she wanted to
go in, though she knew there was nothing beyond it.
The sun did not live in the skies over the Mistlands, so
it never left, but still she held my hand. Strange
sounds and shadows flew by us at every turn, but
while we were together, nothing happened to us.
We seemed to walk on and on for many, many days. I
began to be afraid. I said we might not be able to
return home if we continued walking - for I
remembered the way out of the Mists, but my memory
could only go so far. She said she would understand if
I left, but she could not follow me back.
I did not leave.
One day while she slept I heard someone
approaching from within the Mists. She woke, and we
faced the footsteps, until they turned into a shadow,
then into a shape.
It was a man, slender like the Singer - taller and
healthier, though they may have been the same age.
His hair was not the color of rulgit leaves, though it
may have been once. The Singer stood and showed
recognition.
"I have come," she started to sing.
"You'll get no welcoming from me," the young man
said in the Black Flower tongue, gathering his
wizard's robes about him. "Whoever you are, you've
caused me a great deal of trouble."
She said a name. He said, "I know no one who
answers to that." His otherworldly voice, like hers, had
a pleasing sound. "Go home. Go back to where you
came from. You came here on your own - I know you
can return."
"We came here together," she soon answered. "We
sang the door to life, and we came here together, and
now the door is gone."
"Sing it back," he said to her sharply. "I know you can.
Go now, or you will not leave here alive."
He looked at me, and there was hate in his eyes. "Get
her out of here," he said to me. Then he turned, and
walked quickly back into the Mists.
She tried to follow him.
She ran on and on, until she could run no longer. I
was able to track her down by the sound of her voice.
For she was singing out his name until her voice was
hoarse and she could no longer speak.
I stayed by her and watched over her while she sat
silent in the Mist. I tried to give her food and water,
but she would not eat or drink. When she was tired I
helped her lay down to rest.
Later, in a daze, she rose, and walked off into the
Mist. I was able to follow her for a short distance. But
she had lost her voice, and all her songs, and when I
called she did not answer.
***
It took me two Gandaran years, four Spirit and four
Star by Harun reckoning, to travel back to my village.
If I were the Harun I had been, the many changed
paths would have baffled me... for in the four
Gandaran years that the Singer and I spent roaming
the world, so many new roads had been created and
old ones destroyed.
This was all the work of the Singer. The power of the
Black Flower tribe's Wizard was failing, and the tribe's
control over the peoples of the continent had started
to falter. All were busy building and rebuilding, joining
and splitting, creating in a time of destruction and
blood and war.
I came home with my new name, the Singer's Man.
And with this I traveled to many different places,
places I had never been, toward the other ends of the
world. I sang the songs I was taught and the songs I
created, and most often I sang of the tall and slender
Singer, whose secrets the world still craved to know.
They came to know me in some places as a bringer of
change, of new ways of thinking. And then I came
home for the last time, because I was old, and I was
done with change.
I knew I would not outlive the Singer's war.
This song, I sing from my heart. It is when I fall silent
that I dream. She has left me her songs, and within
them the many pieces of her.
And in my dreams, I listen to the wind. I hear her
singing, I shall tell you a secret.
http://philippinespeculativefiction.com/arcega.html
Keeping Time
by FH Batacan
The door of his hotel room is open; the porter has stowed
his bags and is now hanging up the contents of his suit
bag in the closet. Mike enters the room sideways,
sucking in his gut. It is an old habit; even though he has
shed more than a hundred and forty pounds, he still feels
like a fat man. Sometimes he catches himself doing it;
when he does, he backs out of the door and comes in
again like a normal person.
The porter closes the closet door, stands aside with a
deferential smile. Just like him, falling into old habits.
Mike takes his wallet out of his pocket, fishes out a large
bill, slides it into the other man's palm. The porter is
briefly stunned, then flashes him a broad smile. "Thank
you, sir."
Mike nods, says nothing. The door closes behind him
and he is alone.
He is bone-tired - six countries in seventeen days -- but
there's still work to be done. He unlaces his shoes, sets
them aside in one corner of the closet and pads around
the carpeted room in his socks. He finds his laptop bag,
plugs the machine into an outlet, begins undressing as it
boots up.
Having lost all that weight, Mike tends to take better care
of his clothes -- mainly because he now has better
clothes to take care of. Although his job has always paid
well, he never bothered much about his clothing or
appearance until the weight started coming off a little
over three years ago. He had started losing it later than
most, but then again he had so much more to lose.
These days he always dresses well; even after long-haul
flights, he arrives at meetings immaculately turned out,
as though making up for decades of self-neglect. On site
-- where weather, ground and even social conditions can
be unpleasant at best and downright treacherous at
worst -- he takes great pains to dress appropriately, to
remain as clean as humanly possible.
He hangs up his jacket, shirt and trousers carefully; he'll
have them dry-cleaned tomorrow morning. He strips off
his socks, roots around in the closet for a laundry bag
and puts the socks inside. He'll take a shower and brush
his teeth before buckling down to business.
In his bare feet, the transition from carpet to the chilly
marble tile of the bathroom is a bit jarring. He doesn't
particularly care for the paper slippers that hotels provide
-- there is something silly and ineffectual about them. So
he takes the cold floor like a man, without complaint or
fuss.
In the mirror above the capacious sink, he sees a
stranger.
For the better part of nearly five decades, the man in the
mirror was always overweight, ballooning to some 340
pounds around seven years ago. He was tall -- well over
six feet -- and he had a nice enough face. But he soon
grew used to the cutting refrain from even the most well-
meaning relatives: "You'd be so handsome if only ...".
He used to be married, but she left him when his sperm
count dwindled and he broke the 300-pound mark. This,
too, he took like a man, shrugging off the sympathy of
family, friends, colleagues, going about his work with the
same implacable precision, the same clinical
detachment. In private, he ate his way into numbness, a
lumbering giant laced with deep and invisible scars.
Now, at the ripe old age of 47, he is the man he has
always wanted to be: muscled and trim, save for some
residual fat around the belly and love handles, and under
the arms. With his looming physical presence, intelligent
eyes and silver hair, he looks distinguished, attractive, if
a bit icy. If his wife were here, he reflects, if they had just
met, she would be all over him; he is now the exact
physical type she would have found irresistible. She has
been dead several years now: one of the first to go.
He studies his image for a long time, not out of vanity,
but with mild amusement and a healthy sense of irony.
He might as well remember himself like this. It will not
last long.
***
BACK in the room he checks his office email. There are
fewer and fewer people left at work now, and his work
load seems to have grown exponentially over the past
four or five years. It's evident from the number of emails
he has received in just the past seven hours -- the time it
took to fly from one country to another, retrieve his
baggage, clear immigration and customs, get to the hotel
from the airport, check in, freshen up.
Inbox: 32 unread.
Most of the emails have to do with the same thing: the
water problem. It's always the water problem now.
Everywhere he goes, he always finds the same damn
thing. It's in the water, in the rain, in the rivers and lakes;
it cannot be dammed up, it cannot be stopped. The
inhibitor only slows it down, but its spread and its effects
are largely irreversible.
Always a different country, always the same story. Mike
feels like the angel of death, arriving on the scene only to
tell people what they already know, confirm what they
already suspect.
He reads the emails but decides the replies can wait. A
glance at the bedside clock: 01.51am.
He turns the lights off in the bedroom. Clad only in his
pajama bottoms, he steps out onto the balcony to smoke.
He has only recently taken up this vice; there's poison
enough in his system not to have to worry about adding a
little bit more.
He leans against a wall, lights up, takes a long, slow
drag, blows out the smoke in tiny, successive puffs. He
hasn't yet learned the slight contortions of lip, tongue and
mouth needed to blow smoke rings; this is as close as
he's ever come.
Beneath an inky sky, the city is quiet, its stillness
punctuated only by the occasional bleat of a car horn or
rumble of a train. The cities of his youth -- Manila, where
he was born, New York, Tokyo -- were bustling, noisy,
claustrophobic with their masses of people. Even Boston,
where he stayed while in graduate school, teemed in the
daytime. That's all just a memory now. The world's
biggest cities, and its smallest, its poorest and wealthiest,
all are in the same boat: half their populations decimated,
the other half just waiting. If not for the computers
running farms, manufacturing, logistics, transport and
communications, power grids, things would have ground
to a complete halt years ago. That'll happen soon
enough.
The sliding door to the adjacent balcony opens, and a
woman steps out. She has left a light on in her bedroom,
unlike Mike, whose balcony is shrouded in darkness. He
is happy to observe her, unobserved. With the hotel
virtually empty, she has not bothered to put much on
before venturing outside: she is wearing only a pair of
black satin panties. Her back is turned to him as she
talks softly into a mobile phone.
Mike catches fragments of her end of the conversation --
something about a funeral, about not being able to go,
how sorry she is. Her voice is low and raspy, as though
she hasn't spoken to anyone in days. Even from behind,
Mike notes that her body, bathed in the dim amber light
from the bedroom, is in very good shape. It does not
have the usual sag and droop that afflict fat people who
lose vast amounts of weight. He decides she must be
relatively young, her skin still elastic. He focuses too long
on her backside and does not realize that her telephone
call has ended.
When she turns around, the first thing she sees is the
tiny pinpoint of fire at the end of his cigarette.
Mike starts, his breath rattling out of him. He is
unprepared for the way she looks: darkly beautiful, with a
haunted face, her long hair only partly covering her
breasts.
A natural courtliness finally kicks in and he steps out from
the shadows; it would be better, he thinks, not to be
perceived as a peeping tom. He prepares to introduce
himself, to be polite, to shake hands, but his throat locks
just as he is about to say hello. He fails to reckon that his
imposing stature might spark some alarm.
She steps back, crossing her arms over her chest, her
mobile phone resting on her right breast. In an instant
she turns and disappears into her bedroom, the sliding
doors clicking shut, the light going off.
Mike feels an odd sense of disappointment and
something else -- a sensation of disequilibrium, like
stepping off after a harrowing roller coaster ride. He
retreats into his unlit room, closing the doors to the
balcony. He is not breathing right, and his head feels
suddenly too large, too heavy for his body.
He finds the bed in the dark, lies down, breathes slowly
and deeply; but the feeling will not go away.
He recognizes it finally as something he has tried not to
think about in years, buried far below the surface of his
hectic yet well-ordered life.
He has to touch himself before he can get any sleep.
***
MIKE is suited up for the morning's ministerial
conference at the WHO. He has all the briefing material
ready: photographs and footage, statistics, firsthand
accounts, lab results. Some of it is extremely technical;
all of it is horrifying.
As he is about to step into the hotel taxi, he catches sight
of the woman in the room next to his. In the daylight, she
looks to be in her mid-30s, although there is something
about her manner -- gravity, watchfulness -- that
suggests to Mike that she could be older. She is wearing
dark slacks, a matching jacket, waiting for a car just like
his. When it pulls up in front of her, she sees Mike,
recognizes him from the night before. A blush suffuses
her face, but she holds his gaze steadily for a moment
before she disappears into the vehicle.
At the conference, all the faces Mike sees are grim.
About a third of the people in the room are in the final
stages: emaciated, eyes bulging out of sunken sockets,
bellies distended, clothes hanging off their bodies. They
move slowly and with great difficulty, some hooked up to
parenteral nutrition drips. When this conference
reconvenes in three months as scheduled, many of them
will not be in attendance. The world's best minds in
public health, their ranks thinning inexorably.
When it's his turn at the podium, Mike spends a few
moments booting up his laptop, flipping through his
documents. The eyes that look upon him take in how
normal -- how good -- he looks. There is envy, and there
is also a certain mild derision: you must have been so fat.
He has learned not to let this get to him.
Always a slight flutter of nervousness before he speaks
at these events. Once he begins, it will go away. He
clears his throat, adjusts the microphone to suit his
height, introduces himself.
"Good morning. I'm Michael Tejada and I'm a field
investigator for the World Health Organization." He
switches on the projector, skims the audience with his
eyes before proceeding. "I'll be taking you through the
major findings of our surveys in the Asia Pacific region
for the last three months."
His words are thoughtful, measured; unnecessary, really,
to dramatize the awfulness of things. He paints a
sobering picture of the places he's been to, what he's
seen, tests he's run. The photographs, charts and tables
on the screen behind him cause the audience to lapse
into a stunned and dismayed silence.
It had all started in North America, and it should have
stayed there. But there was money to be made, and
Europe soon followed suit. It was a simple process, the
drug companies said, just like fluoridation.
Conventional wisdom held that Asia should only have
started feeling the effects of the problem much later. But
Mike's research shows otherwise. Many in the region had
clamored to have their water treated, citing rising rates of
obesity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes. Truthfully,
vanity was just as great a motivator. Given the demand,
some governments had secretly tested the enzyme on
domestic water supplies, only to find they could not
contain it. The problem spread, tainting supplies like a
ferocious algal bloom.
Children and the elderly are always the first to go.
Pregnant women pass the enzyme on to their unborn
babies, and they begin starving in the womb. If by some
miracle a child is born alive, its DNA is already hardwired
for starvation.
By the time the first wave of deaths hit the Western
hemisphere, much of Asia's water was already
irrevocably fouled. Soon, Mike tells the group, the entire
region will be grappling with the problem -- even
countries whose backward water systems had somehow
insulated them from the contamination so far.
After Mike speaks, other experts step up. One talks
about the legal ramifications of the crisis. Class action
suits continue to pop up all over the world, but the
company that synthesized the enzyme and licensed the
technology to the pharmaceutical giants has long been
bankrupted. And the governments that agreed to the
treatment have resorted to legislation to protect
themselves from claims, on the premise that financial
resources should be allocated to seeking a solution.
Mike is supposed to be part of the solution. But as one of
the lead investigators, and the one with the most
comprehensive knowledge of the situation on the ground
-- four continents, 63 countries and counting -- he knows
there is none. All that can be done is for the drug
companies to manufacture as much of the inhibitor as
possible, dump it into water supplies and hope it can
delay the inevitable. The scientists can find ways to boost
its efficacy, but not by much. At most, the planet has
seven years before all its water supplies are wholly
contaminated, either by the enzyme itself or by the
inhibitor.
Even in this, Big Pharma continues to make Big Money:
money no one will ever get to spend.
The ultimate joke, perhaps. But no one is laughing.
***
MIKE eats a solitary dinner at the hotel's Italian
restaurant. Loading up on carbs and protein helps to
slow down the decline, and he finds himself in the
ridiculous position of having to eat to keep his weight up.
The restaurant is nearly empty except for him and a
couple at the other end of the room, their plates also
piled high. He had hoped that his boss Peter could join
him; but he too is in the final stages and can hardly get
out of bed. Coming to the conference today was pure
agony for him. Mike had told him to go home.
The woman walks into the room: blue skirt, white blouse,
arms bare, hair loose. When she sees him, she stops in
her tracks. Mike senses she is trying to decide whether to
stay or leave. When she turns and goes back the way
she came, Mike wipes his mouth, throws his napkin on
the table and follows her. In several long, quick strides he
is close at her heels.
"Wait," he says.
She walks faster, turns a corner to get to the elevators.
"Wait," he repeats, louder this time.
She breaks into a run.
"Jesus," he mutters, "what the -- "
He's brought up short by a trolley half-laden with
baggage, being pushed along by his porter from the
previous day. The woman runs into one of the lifts. She
looks at Mike; considering that she has just fled from him,
she appears surprisingly unruffled. The lift doors close
before Mike can get to them.
"What's the point of running," he snarls. "I know where to
find you."
***
He does not see her anywhere in the hotel the next
morning, before he heads to Peter's home. He had
considered knocking on her door the night before, but
decided against it.
On the drive to Makati, where Peter lives, Mike sees all
the signs of contamination: the abandoned buildings, the
half-empty streets, their sidewalks populated by shuffling
skeletons that make any city look like Biafra in the 70s.
Peter Darrow has never been fat, but he has always
been tenacious. Even now he clings to life the way he
has always clung to his convictions; he has a job to do,
and he'll die doing it. With little energy to climb the stairs,
he has taken to sleeping in a room on the ground floor of
his two-story house. Only a nurse and a cook attend to
his needs now -- his wife and two grown children are
dead. He is sitting on the edge of his bed and just about
to have breakfast when Mike arrives.
"I'm sorry, would you like me to wait outside?" Mike asks.
"Sit, sit," Peter insists, waving him toward a nearby chair.
There is a plate stacked with pancakes on a folding table
in front of him, another plate of sausages on the side.
"The dietician keeps telling me to pack it all away. You
want some?"
Mike shakes his head, drags the chair over the floor and
sits across from Peter. "No, thank you. I did my own
packing away this morning." Even from this relative
distance, Mike can smell his boss's breath, rank from
catabolysis. A plastic tube snakes out from under his T-
shirt, attached to a bag filled with intravenous fat
emulsion. He's not yet at the point where the body begins
to reject any amount and type of nutrition, but he'll get
there within weeks.
The older man begins to eat: stabbing at the pancakes,
chewing with neither hunger nor pleasure. "Always
thought eating was a waste of time. Sleeping, too. Now I
hardly do anything but."
"You're joking, right? You still email me a dozen times a
day, riding my ass."
Peter flashes a puckish smile, and for a moment he looks
as he did seventeen years ago, when Mike first came to
work for him. "You're a good kid, Mikey. I had a great
team, and you were the best one in it. You were smarter,
worked harder than anyone else. And everybody on that
team worked damned hard."
He's already thinking in the past tense. A sound escapes
Mike's throat, unintelligible but unmistakable: a welter of
emotion trapped there. Peter recognizes what it is, wisely
decides to ignore it. Between the two of them, words
aren't necessary.
"So where are you off to next? Polynesia?"
Back on safe ground, Mike quickly regains his
composure. "Kiribati, Samoa, Tuvalu. The reports aren't
good."
"There haven't been any good reports since this whole
business started." Peter sighs. "The Age of the Enzyme.
Bigger than AIDS. Badder than bird flu."
Mike sits quietly for a moment. "Peter, I have to ask. Who
takes over when you -- I mean ..." It is difficult to
continue. The crusty old Brit is more than just his boss;
he is mentor, friend, surrogate father. He is also one of
the last surviving of the world's leading epidemiologists.
"When I croak?" Peter pushes the sausages around on
the plate; their oily sheen only sickens him. "Khairy from
the Eastern Mediterranean. Theophile Allegre -- he has
little enough to do in Europe, it's too late for them. Tan
Siew Kune from Hong Kong -- he still has a good two or
three years left in him. You, I have to keep on the
ground. You're not an administrator." This is typical
Peter, tough, blunt, unsentimental. "I need your sharp
instincts out in the field. While you're alive and able to
function, my friend, you're the timekeeper of the world."
Mike mulls this over for a while. The three men are
nowhere near as experienced or single-minded as Peter,
but they will have to do.
"The turnover's likely to happen before the next
conference. I'm sorry I won't be around to help you, old
boy. You'll do well, I know it."
Mike does not know what to say, so he says nothing.
Peter pushes the plate of pancakes away; he's barely
made it through a fifth of them. "Listen, Mikey. Can I give
you some advice?"
"Always."
"Don't be alone when the end comes. That's key.
Everything else is just noise."
***
RESTLESS in bed, Mike stares into the dark.
In the Bible, the Angel of Death is a messenger; the
Talmud says he appears when there is no further remedy
to be found, no other appeal to be made.
Timekeeper of the world.
Mike closes his eyes, tries to will himself to drift
away. Let this cup pass from me.
For years now, he has denied his loneliness, has refused
to even think about it. When his wife left him, it was easy
to blame the weight and move on. Certainly, the last few
years, with the demands of work and a global crisis, have
made it very easy to forget.
Tonight is different. Something, despair perhaps or hope
-- they can seem so alike -- awoke in him on the balcony
the other night. It has gnawed at him these last two days,
and it refuses to be stilled.
He hauls himself out of bed and ponders his situation for
a moment. It is possible she might call security; it would
be embarrassing, but he is unlikely to be thrown into jail
for simply knocking on a door. She could answer and
then merely close it again. That's all right, he decides;
he's used to doors closing on him. Would she open it, let
him in? Strangely enough, this seems the most
disquieting prospect.
Well, then. Here we go.
He glances up and down the hall to see if there is anyone
coming. He feels a bit foolish for doing so; he is a grown
man, after all, and the hotel is virtually deserted. He
pauses to collect himself, and then rings the bell. It is
nearly 2am, and she is likely to be asleep. He fights the
urge to scuttle back to his room and rings the bell again.
He hears shuffling on the other side. A sound he thinks is
the hum of the hotel's air conditioning turns out to be the
rush of blood to his head.
She does not seem surprised to see him.
"Hello," he says. She says nothing, waits. "I'm in the
room next to yours. My name's Mike."
The question, when it comes, is polite but somber. "What
can I do for you?"
He hadn't thought of an answer for that one.
"I'd like to talk."
"Because?"
"Because." He pauses. "Because I can't sleep. And
obviously, neither can you."
The door closes; for a moment Mike thinks it has closed
for good, but he hears the clink of the chain being
undone. When she opens it again, she is alert but not
wary; she steps aside to let him pass. There's only one
lamp lit in the room, framing her in its warm orange glow.
She is wearing a white tank top and jeans, her feet bare
on the carpet. When he brushes past her, he catches a
whiff of citrus, her perfume or shampoo. Her laptop,
blinking on the dressing table, is playing music: a woman
singing Ne me quitte pas.
"I don't know what to call you."
"Marisol."
"Hello, Marisol." He realizes that she is not so much
beautiful as alive, intensely alive behind the politeness
and reserve. He gains the sense that she really sees him
when she looks at him. It is unnerving, and he is
momentarily stumped. Say something, anything.
"Why did you run away from me last night?'
"You want the truth?"
"Truth's always nice."
"Not always." She looks away. "I suppose the same
reason you were running after me."
"Ah." Mike feels a rare stab of pleasure, but suppresses
a smile.
"I saw you yesterday morning," she volunteers.
"Outside the lobby, yes. I saw you, too."
She shakes her head. "No, at the conference."
"The WHO conference?" He is taken aback. "What were
you doing there?"
"I'm covering it for my agency. I caught your report.
You've been busy."
"Ah." Mike tilts his head slightly. "I didn't see you."
"I tried to stay out of your way."
"Because of the other night?" She says nothing. Mike
looks down at his feet. "I scared you that much?"
A beat. "You scare me now."
He clears his throat, suddenly dry. "That wasn't my
intention. Isn't."
"What is your intention, then?"
The laptop is now playing an Aznavour song. When he
recognizes it, he can't help smiling; it seems appropriate
for the occasion. "Par la contradiction de ma tete et mon
coeur," he echoes softly. "J'en deduis que je t'aime."
Surprise, delight flicker across her face, then are quickly
gone.
He walks toward the balcony, pausing a short distance
away from the glass doors. They're open a few inches,
and a mild breeze is stirring the curtains. He is aware
that she is still watching him closely; he hopes she is not
repelled by what she sees.
"My wife is dead," he says quietly. "Well, she left me first.
Then she died."
Without seeing her, he can tell she's moved a bit closer
to him. "In the first wave?"
"Yes." He chuckles. "The one that killed all the
supermodels."
A moment's silence. "Did she see you before she died?"
"No. I wanted her to. In the end, there didn't seem to be
any point." He is surprised to hear her laughing softly. He
turns to look at her. "Share?"
"There was a man once. I suppose you could call it a
mercy fuck. He whipped out a calculator after sex, tried
to figure out my BMI. Said I would be so pretty if ..."
"If only you lost weight," he joins her in finishing the
sentence. She blushes, somewhat embarrassed but not
displeased by this. Strange, how such a little thing can
seem so intimate.
"Well. I was doing a story on the water problem last year
-- about hospitals here not being able to cope. He was a
patient at one hospital. He was in the last stages. He saw
me."
Mike can't help staring at her. If she had looked anything
like this last year, Calculator Man would have been
beside himself.
"What did he say?"
She has a habit of glancing away before saying
something uncomfortable. "He said: 'The fat shall inherit
the earth'." Her tone is dispassionate, her voice steady.
Something tears inside him.
"He was an idiot."
She touches him first, unsure, her fingers lightly brushing
the hair on his arm. She does not meet his gaze,
concentrating instead on a point somewhere behind him.
When she withdraws, he quickly moves in: locking his
massive, powerful arms around her, pressing his body
hard against hers. He feels resistance ripple through her,
but he refuses to let go, brushing his lips against her hair,
breathing her in. He spreads one large hand over the
small of her back, lets the other drift to her waist, under
her top. His heartbeat quickening now; her skin is
smooth, smooth. He lays her on the bed, holds her firmly
in place beneath him.
"Listen to me," he demands, forcing her to look at him.
"There are no calculators here. Listen. He was an idiot,
okay?"
When she finally looks at him, she does not break eye
contact. "A dead idiot now," she says, and then neither of
them says anything for a while.
*** She bends, pressing her cheek to his, her fingers
LATER, she sits away from him on the edge of the bed: a brushing his silver hair. They hold each other a long
little island, her back to him. She does not seem moment.
interested in the customary post-coital cuddle. Perhaps "There's time enough to teach you how to blow smoke
that will change someday; he would like very much to rings," she whispers.
find out. Right now, he feels the need for a cigarette. He http://philippinespeculativefiction.com/batacan.html
has a few sticks and a matchbook in the pockets of his
sweats. "Do you mind if I smoke?" he says, reaching for
them where they lie on the floor. She shakes her head.
He lights up, takes a drag, does the choo-choo train thing
with the tiny puffs of smoke. She watches his reflection in
the mirror on the dressing table, in that same soft,
unblinking, mildly unsettling way, and he feels compelled
to explain himself. "I'm trying to blow smoke rings. Right
now they just come out like this."
"You don't like it when people look too closely at you." It's
a statement of fact, not a question.
"It's a fat person thing. You would know."
She laughs gently. "Yes, I suppose I would." He is
relieved that she does not find him offensive. She shifts
position on the bed. "At the conference you said the
clock is winding down."
Mike walks over to the sliding doors, opens them wider to
let the cigarette smoke out. "Seven years, give or take."
"So we're all screwed."
"Are you going to quote me?"
"Speaking to this reporter after a round of bone-rattling
sex," she intones solemnly, "WHO public health expert
Michael Tejada said the entire human race is basically
fucked."
"Bone-rattling. I like that." A pause. "You wouldn't be
misquoting me. Total contamination of water supplies will
take about seven years, but most of us would have
starved to death by then."
Even as the words come out of his mouth, he wishes he
could take them back. But she's tough; she chews on it
for a while, then shrugs. She beckons him back with the
merest tilt of the head. He grinds the cigarette into an
ashtray on a nearby table and climbs into bed beside her.
She touches his face with both hands, learning every line
and feature by heart.
"You're beautiful, for a dying man."
The kiss is deep: hunger drawn from bottomless wells.
***
HE IS roused from sleep by the sound of her moving
around in the room. She is dressed and done packing.
He speaks slowly, not fully awake. "What time is it?"
"8 o'clock." She is tying her hair back into a ponytail.
"You're going somewhere."
"Water riots in Istanbul. Flight leaves in an hour. I'm late."
He lets this sink in a moment, watching as she wheels
her luggage to the door for the porter. "I'm flying to
Kiribati tomorrow. And after that -- well, I'll be moving
around a lot." He hopes he doesn't sound desperate. Not
too desperate, anyway.
"Same here." She approaches him, strokes his cheek
with the back of her hand. "Are you trying to tell me
something?"
He takes a deep breath, bows his head and closes his
eyes. In his mind he runs through half a dozen
responses. He thinks about Peter's advice, about what's
key, about how everything else is just noise.
In the end, he settles on the simplest, the most truthful
answer. "There's little time left."
The Sugilanon of Epefania's Heartbreak
by Ian Rosales Casocot
"All of history--and all stories--eventually collide.
That is how the Great Laon creates new worlds."
--From an old script written on bamboo, found in Ilog,
Negros Island
In the old days, when the last of
the encantosand diwatas had yet to abandon our
everyday realm--banished first by an invasion of
Spanish cafres and duendes, and then by the sheer
forgetfulness of a people too fascinated by the pomp
and gilded guilt of Christian ritual--there lived a girl
named Epefania. She was rather plain-looking but
she was capable of the most romantic dreams.
Such was the occupation of her fabled life. There are
many versions (some would say chapters) of her tale
which incredibly spans centuries, all of them differing
greatly in detail and circumstances, but all sharing the
same tendency to dramatize her embroidered stories
of love found, and eventually, love lost.
In one ancient story, she was the young woman who
chided away the sun and the moon and the stars
toward the quiet safety of faraway firmaments, where
they were not deafened by her endless tales of woe
and heartbreak. The world then was a place of mist:
the clouds hung low to the ground, and the sun,
moon, and stars were all within easy reach--their heat
scorching the earth that, in most days, people took to
caves and underground crevices to hide from the
deathly oppression of the heavenly bodies. Epefania,
who had only her heartbreaks to talk about, eventually
ran out of willing ears to share her romantic
commiserations: in the end, she only had the sun,
moon, and stars to turn to for company--until they,
too, flew away from her tales, to the dark reaches
above, where they found the quiet humming of the
cosmos a more suitable residence.
In another story, she was an obscure village nuisance
whom most ancient storytellers believed to be an
insignificant twit serving no gravity to the epic
narrative she figured in; they subsequently purged her
name from their regular accounting of the tale, and
replaced with the passable mythology of a father-
figure. But the earliest surviving strands of the same
story spoke of Epefania as the woman whose
suffocating love finally drove the Manobo hero
Baybayan away into adventure around the
world, seven times, where he prospered in his long
journey by singing old stories from his ancient land to
the peoples of Bharat, the Middle Kingdom of Ch'in,
Oyashima, Ur, Egypt, Nubia, Hellas, Vinland, and
Mesoamerica. In his travels, Baybayan sang of Lam-
ang who was swallowed by the giant fish berkahan,
which became the Hebrew story of Jonah and the
whale. He sang of the kidnapping of the sea maiden
Humitau by Lord Aponi-to-lau, a depraved act which
unleashed the wrath of the sea god Tau-mari-u who
proceeded to let loose a great deluge on all the land,
which also became the story of Noah and the Great
Flood. He sang of the virgin birthing of gigantic
heroes, which became the Babylonian story of
Semiramis and her son Nimrod.
Back in the rugged mountains of Bukidnon, Epefania
sang of her love for Baybayan, until she became like
the dusk and disappeared into a mango tree.
Somebody once pointed it out to me that if you think
hard about these early stories, a young woman and
her unwanted heartbreak stories thus created a
livable universe out of heavenly chaos; and also
spurred the creation of world literature by sending
adrift, and armed with old stories, an unwilling
participant in her dreams for romance. Heartbreak, it
can be said, is the precursor to creation.
In this particular story, which I first heard in Negros as
a latter-day sugilanon from tipsy men made
loquacious by tuba (a drink for sturdy men) and eager
to share their gift of drunken hyperbole, Epefania falls
in love with the handsomest boy in town--and almost
destroyed the universe.
When the sugilanon begins, she was growing up in
Old Tolong, a town in the southern end of the island
of Buglas (which would latter be renamed Negros by
the conquistadores). The house she lived in was at
the very heart of the small town. It was a modest,
wooden box on stilts, though it had germelina planks
cobbled together in haphazard fashion to make a
singular staircase that rose from the powdery dust of
the ground to a small landing on one side of the
house. Inside the house, everything else was spartan,
and rotting: the small bedrooms--partitions, really,
separated from each other by cloth--had the musty air
of old wood and termites, and the kitchen sink beside
the apog--the table of hardened ash that was the
repository of all their cooking--threatened to give way
from the years of concentrated and constant wetness.
Epefania was born in this house many years earlier to
Bebang, who never once screamed, or changed
expression, when she delivered the child one night
without the usual aid of the mananambal, and with
only the nervous ministration of Old Woman Intan,
Epefania's maternal grandmother. Old Woman Intan
had hurriedly readied swaddling clothes, a jar of hot
water, and a kuling, a cutting instrument with diabolic
metal swirls used in the ritual of cutting a newborn's
umbilical cord.
It was also here, some years later, that Bebang, had
been "spirited away"--according to the storytellers--by
the encanto who lived in the big mango tree which
shadowed the old house. Bebang had been a
beautiful woman, chinky-eyed and fair, with long,
dark, sinuous hair. She had gone to feed the chickens
one late afternoon, and though it was a breezeless
day, the tree had swooned and stooped towards the
young woman. And then she was gone, leaving only
her bakya on the ground.
Old Woman Intan was bereft. She cursed
all encantosfor their romantic whimsies, and stared
with sad eyes at the young Epefania who stood mute
before her, absorbing the strange turning of the days.
Intan was already a widow in the waning years of life,
and Bebang was her only daughter. She looked at
Epefania, and thought, What happens to you when I
am gone? Who can take care of you?
Some storytellers insist that this point in the narrative
marked the first time magic touched Epefania--and
one particular version tells of the young girl feeling
something surging and growing at the back of her
head. Was it an echo? Was it a whisper? Then she
realized she was hearing her grandmother's thoughts.
She turned to the old woman, and with a firmness that
belied her young years (because it didn't seem fitting
for one so young), said: "I can take care of myself,
grandmother. And if need be, there will always be
love to watch over me."
In the story, Epefania was only ten when
the encanto had taken her mother. It was her first
taste of what abandonment felt like--like bitter gourd
left to rot in the hot sun. It unleashed in her a craving
for affection so great that it turned her eyes a deeper
black, and full of concentrated want. Epefania needed
to grasp and hoard whatever caught her fancy. To let
go of anything would leave her tasting abandonment
yet again.
The small family of the old woman and the young girl
managed to survive. They kept mostly to themselves
making and selling baye-baye, a local cake delicacy
made of sticky rice and coconut pounded to a
textured firmness which tasted like honeydew.
Their baye-baye was popular in Old Tolong, and kept
them from becoming beggars. The secret of
Intan's baye-baye, according to some storytellers,
was the dollop of tuba added to the mix before
grinding rice and coconut into a paste.
It was part of Epefania's daily chores to buy the
tumbler of oil to light the lamps in their old, dilapidated
house in the poblacion. At the end of each day, Old
Woman Intan would sit in her wobbly chair beside the
open window, the view of nearby banana stalks
obscuring the slowly setting sun. And when she felt
that the afternoon sun had from the way the shadows
fell on the banana leaves, she would call Epefania to
her side, hand her three silver coins, and say,
"Paning, here are three silver fronds. Hurry up before
Tiyay closes, or else we will not have light tonight."
And Epefania would walk to Tiyay's tiny shop around
the next bend, not too far away from the old house.
And during one such errand, something happened
that was to change her life forever.
Night always came quickly in Old Tolong, like iron
drawn by a magnet. Some storytellers said that the
town contained a mysterious force that pulled in
everything: the cool air from the top of Cuernos de
Negros that eased the unbearable humidity of the
endless summers; the friendly winds that kept at bay
the threat of the torrential monsoons called the walo-
walo(rains that lasted eight days or double that); the
puffy clouds that shielded the town from the sheer
weight of the sun which threatened to shrivel the food
crops to rotting yellow, and the soil to patches of hard
cracked earth; and the moon that kept the waves in
check, and prevented them from eating up in bits and
pieces the town's sandy beach. The endless exertions
of these friendly elements, of course, rendered the
town quite habitable.
One day, Epefania went on her regular errand to
Tiyay's store. But the middle-aged woman was not
there. In fact, the store was closed. And guarding the
door to Tiyay's small house was a youth of
breathtaking beauty: a tall young man with taut
muscles that rippled with every movement of his lean
frame. His face, while manly and angular, was not
harsh or rough; and his skin, though exquisitely
tanned, was not coarsened by too much sun, like the
boys Epefania knew. There was an innocence to him
that struck the young girl with a power that she could
not name. It was a force that bordered on the carnal.
And for the first time she sensed a tingling in her
armpits, in her breasts, in the delta between her legs.
She did not realize that, at fifteen, she was ripe as a
seasoned mango, ready to be plucked.
For a moment, Epefania could not speak. When she
dared to open her mouth, her own voice sounded
disembodied. "I need to buy oil from Tiyay," she
mumbled.
"Nanay Tiyay is not here," the young man said. "She
has gone to the next town to consult the rooster that
people say can foretell the future."
"But it is almost night-time, and I need my oil," she
insisted.
"What is your name?"
She was surprised by the question, and suddenly felt
shy. "My name? My name is Epefania."
When he did not say anything else, she thought to
ask him something, to gain time while she took in the
whole sight of him. "Who are you? I have never seen
you around here before."
"I am Tiyay's son. I've been away for a while, on a
journey through the seven kingdoms of the world.
People call me Bangbangin."
"That's a strange name for a boy."
"No more strange than Epefania," he smiled.
She felt her face turning beet red. "I still need my oil,"
she said finally. "My grandmother has given me three
silver coins so I may fill this small flask. Look, here
they are," and she opened her palms.
The boy hesitated, but when he looked at Epefania's
eyes, he was startled by the deep, unfathomable want
in them, and knew it could not be refused. "My... my
mother...," he stammered, "will be sure to reprimand
me--but all right, I'll open her store. Just this once. I
certainly do not want you or your grandmother to pass
the night in the cloak of darkness."
"Daghang salamat," she said, thanking him, and
offered him her flask.
Epefania gazed mutely at the young man while he
opened the store. She took in the tallness of him, the
beads of sweat around his nape, the tension of the
muscles in the small of his back. When Bangbangin
took the flask from her hands, he could not tell that
they were trembling. But when his flesh touched hers,
the very air that surrounded them quivered.
The people of Old Tolong would mark that night as
the first and only time they would see a (sudden)
manifestation of northern lights in the darkening
tropical skies: the alien aurora borealis snaked
through the night clouds in translucent green and red,
and wavered briefly through the atmosphere above
the town, descending soon into the trees near Tiyay's
house, disappearing just as quickly as it had
appeared.
But neither Bangbangin nor Epefania noticed anything
out of the ordinary. He simply filled the flask with a
generous helping of oil, and she took it back, offering
the boy the three coins, which he in turn refused.
Then she hurried down the road back to her house.
Before she disappeared in the shadows of the next
bend, she looked back at the boy, and knew that her
heart wanted him.
Of course, some townspeople took the strange
quivering light in the sky as a thing of immense
beauty, and went out of their houses to marvel and
gaze. Others took it as an omen for coming disaster.
Sometimes it pays to be a pessimist. For the light did
presage disaster.
***
That night, Epefania stood over her grandmother who
was sleeping in her wobbly chair beside the window.
When the young girl closed the windows the old
woman awoke with a start. She saw Epefania's face
and was troubled. There was something there,
spreading from the darkness of her eyes that did not
bode well. "Are you all right, hija?" she asked.
"I have found what my heart wants," Epefania replied
simply.
"Is it a boy?"
"It is my future."
Epefania said nothing more and went to fill every
lamp with her oil. Soon the house was bright with a
strange orange glow. The lamplight lasted through the
night, and into the morning. When dawn came, Old
Woman Intan woke up to extinguish the lamps, but
found that no matter how much she tried, and no
matter how much air she blew from her lungs, the
flames would not die. She quickly evoked Laon's
name, and went to see her granddaughter. Epefania
was asleep on her bed, but on her face, instead of the
innocence of slumber, there was the bright
determination of one who was willing captive to the
uncertain promises of the heart.
That day, when Epefania walked to Tiyay's house on
her daily errand, she found Tiyay herself, and not the
beautiful young man. For the briefest moment,
Epefania's heart sank. But soon, she was filled with a
resolve she herself did not recognize. "Manang Tiyay,
where is your son?"
"Bangbangin is helping his father till the soil for the
planting season. How is your lola? Have you come to
get your three silver coins' worth of oil?"
"Yes," Epefania said, "but I have also come to tell
your son that my heart beats only for him."
Tiyay did not know whether to laugh or to get angry at
such a pronouncement. Curiosity kept her rooted to
the spot. She recognized the plea behind the girl's
abruptness and frankness. The announcement--plain
and simply declared without even a hint of trepidation-
-sounded ridiculous but truthful. And coming from the
mouth of such a young girl! How old was she?
Perhaps only fourteen harvests? Perhaps not even
that? The young should not be allowed to speak with
such forcefulness, and especially about matters of the
heart! Tiyay thought. What does a young girl know of
the heart's secret wants? Does she know that Love
had a sinister twin, which is Heartbreak? Only the
wisdom of the years could prepare one for the gravity
that love demanded, or the grimness that heartbreak
caused.
"You shouldn't say such things," Tiyay finally said.
"But I speak the truth."
"Nonsense. Go to sleep, and perhaps you will wake
from this foolishness."
"I don't understand. I only know that I love your son."
Tiyay took Epefania's flask, and quickly filled it.
"Here's your oil, Paning. Now, go home."
Epefania had not gone two meters when she turned
around and looked back at Tiyay. "I love your son,"
she repeated. "And I will have him."
"Go home, before I take this broom, and spank you,"
Tiyay said. "Nothing will come of this. Not until
Cuernos de Negros stops sending its cool air over
Tolong. Not until the winds cease to chase away the
walo-walo. Not until the clouds disappear. Not until
someone steals the moonlight from the night. The
world has to stop spinning before I grant your foolish
romantic wish!"
And Epefania replied, "I shall come back, when I have
persuaded the world to stop spinning."
When she went home that night, the orange light still
burned.
***
Early the next morning, Epefania said goodbye to Old
Woman Intan and set out to the nearby mountains on
foot. It was a journey of only half a day because Old
Tolong was nestled in a narrow strip that connected,
or divided, the sea and the mountain ranges of
Cuernos de Negros. She did not feel tired, not even
when the thickness of the jungle pricked and scraped
her skin, nor when the stones were replaced by
monstrous boulders, and her feet and knees stained
the earth with blood. The cool breeze from the
mountain tops made the going bearable, and while
she sometimes stumbled, she only had to stand up,
regain her footing, breathe in the freshness, and feel
her body quickening with new resolve. She had
prepared simply for the trip, taking only a jar of water,
a small bar of the thickest baye-baye wrapped in
banana leaves, and a sturdy branch--no, a big twig--
from the mango tree that had swallowed her mother.
Epefania trudged on until she felt the noon sun high
above her, casting short shadows everywhere. When
the air soon became thin, she knew she was nearing
the foot of the mountains. She slowed her pace. Then
she poked gently at the soil here and there, until she
found a spot that was a perfect amalgam of clay and
stone. There, she began digging with her twig. And as
she dug, she sang:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Kan Laon, nga imong dunggon ang
akong pagbati.
Ingna ang bukid nga dili na sya mohuyop ug hangin.
(From where I am, my heart sheds profuse tears:
I implore Kan Laon, god of the mountain, to hear my
plea,
And tell the mountains not to send the cooling
breeze.)
There was a sigh from the hole in the ground, and in
her thoughts she heard the mountains grumbling and
shifting in the distance. She knew that she had done
what she came to do, and began to set out for home.
But the trip was different this time. The mountain
breeze no longer blew. In its place there was a
creeping, heavy humidity. Everything seemed steep in
sweat: trees, blades of grass, soil, insects, birds,
animals... Soon, Epefania, too, felt parched. Just
when she felt that she was about to pass out she
realized she was finally home.
Old Tolong sweated all day long. Soon the reports
came: some old people and small animals were
dying. "There is no breeze anywhere," someone
remarked. "Nonsense," somebody else said,
"Cuernos de Negros has always sent us a cooling
breeze. This will soon pass."
But it did not.
Epefania wearily set out for Tiyay's house where the
old woman glowered at her while feverishly fanning
herself. And yet, no matter how much Tiyay tried,
nothing came of her exertions. There was no cooling
air, even from the fan.
Epefania said to Tiyay, "I have done what you told me
I must accomplish to calm my heart. Cuernos de
Negros no longer breathes. And I love your son."
But Tiyay only glowered some more. Then she got up
in a huff, and threw away her useless fan, which
joined a heap of other fans on the ground. Epefania
turned to go home, where the orange light burned
even brighter.
***
The next day, she woke up early, and said goodbye to
Old Woman Intan. "Don't do anything more, Paning,"
her grandmother said. "We can barely breathe. Don't
bend too much to the will of an unreasonable heart."
But the young girl did not reply. She only knew that
there was a chasm in her heart that needed filling,
and that fulfillment came with a name. She set out for
the nearby seas, bringing with her another jar of water
and another packet of baye-baye to sustain her on the
short journey, as well as a small bag of mango leaves
she had taken from the yard, which she had grounded
into the finest powder.
She was tired when she arrived at the shore because
Old Tolong was still sweltering and no matter how
much she drank from her small jar of water, the
humidity clung to her body, and dried her throat.
When she reached the nearest beach, the sound of
the lapping sea waves against the stretch of sand was
hypnotic. They seemed to echo the strange beating of
her heart.
Epefania opened the packet that contained the
powdered leaves, and felt their coarseness on the thin
skin of her palms. She stared into the horizon for a
few moments, and when she felt the time was right,
she cupped them, brought her fists close to her face,
and then she began to sing softly into the cavern of
her hands:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Tau-mari-u, nga imong dunggon ang
akong pagbati.
Ingna ang mga hangin sa tibuok kalibutan nga dili na
sila mohunong sa ulan.
(From where I am, my heart shreds profuse tears:
I implore Tau-mari-u, god of the sea, to hear my plea,
And tell the winds from all around never to stop
sending the rain.)
Then she flung the ground leaves into the air.
There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere--certainly
not wind. The sky seemed to compress itself into an
indescribable denseness, and suddenly there were
torrents pouring everywhere. It seemed like a
malignant rain that fell in sheets, in cataracts. But the
waters did not rise. Nor was there any wind, only
driving rain. Everything in Old Tolong was drenched.
And still the heat and humidity clung like a curse.
The townfolk were unprepared for the strange
behavior of the world around them. "It's Laon!" they
shouted. "We must have insulted the old mountain
god with our devotion to the white man's saints!" And
so, each one knelt in the direction of the northern
volcano where the old mountain god slept, paying no
heed to the girl passing by. If they had seen Epefania,
they would have wondered about the strong, fearful
aura tinged with red that sprang from her face. She
was on her way back to Tiyay's house, and never
thought once over her skin crinkling in the unbearable
combination of wetness and humidity.
The old woman was waiting for her. Still she did not
speak. But now in her face was a kind of confusion.
Epefania said, "Cuernos de Negros no longer
breathes, and the walo-walohas come. I love your
son."
Tiyay did not say anything. She got up in a huff, and
went into her house. Epefania turned to go home,
where the orange light burned even brighter.
***
The rain had not stopped the next morning when
Epefania woke up. Her grandmother was nowhere to
be seen. Epefania went about her task with grimmer
determination. She went to the mango tree and dug
into the wet soil, and managed to grab a handful of
the tree's roots, soft tendrils still sticking out from the
pulpy mass. This time, she did not have to go
anywhere far. In a nearby nook--carved out from a
gigantic rock that stood beside the old house--she
found a dry spot where she could do her magic plea.
Epefania laid the roots on the dry ground shielded
from the rain by some rocks and waited for the
moisture in them to dry up. This took hours. When
Epefania felt the time was right, she took two stones
from the ground, and with just one smash, she
created sparks that flew from the point of contact
between the stones to the heap of roots. Suddenly
there was a blaze, and the roots turned black in the
consuming flame. Soon all that was left were embers.
When the fire died down, the remaining embers let
out a thick cloud of smoke. It drifted slowly upward,
and wrapped itself around Epefania like an embrace.
Epefania closed her eyes, and began to sing:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Lang-an sang Kadalayapan, nga imong
dunggon ang akong pagbati.
Ingna ang mga panganod nga dili na sila mohunong
sa kakusog sa adlaw.
(From where I am, my heart sheds profuse tears:
I implore Lang-an of Kadalayapan, goddess of the
sky, to hear my plea,
And tell the clouds never to veil the heat of the sun.)
A long, preternatural shriek pierced the air. The rain
suddenly seemed to buckle and pour from all
directions. There was chaos all around. And in the
midst of the rain, there was dazzling light. As the
brightness intensified, the rain sputtered and hissed. It
beat down in a rage.
Epefania remembered other days of sunlight and rain,
but those days were gentle, the sun mellow in the
sprinkle of soft rain. This time, there was only fury.
The sun began to drop its weight on Old Tolong with
such immensity that before one drop of rain could
touch the ground it would fizzle into nothingness,
evaporated by the ground's heat, so the earth stayed
parched and cracked. And even more incredibly, the
air remained humid. The people of Old Tolong were
not just bewildered but truly fearful. It was as if the
heavens and the earth had gone mad, as if natural
law and reason had given up. There was just this wild,
utterly abandoned dance.
On the third day, the crops finally failed. The people
had borne with some stoicism the deluge of the
previous day, but with the earth suddenly empty of
moisture, the farms of Old Tolong quickly became
deserts, while only inches above, the monsoon fell
hard yet never quite touched the ground to quench
the overwhelming thirst of Tolong's soil.
Tiyay was waiting for Epefania when she came, and
still she did not speak. But now her face was
shadowed by fear. "You do not know what you are
doing, little girl," Tiyay finally spoke. It was barely a
whisper. The girl stood there, weak but resolute.
"Cuernos de Negros no longer breathes, the walo-
walohas come, and the sun has allowed itself to rage.
I love your son."
Tiyay did not reply. She got up, and entered her
house. Epefania turned to go home, where the orange
light burned even brighter.
***
Old Tolong was quiet when the fourth day came. The
humidity had not abated, the rains had not stopped,
and the sun shone brightly even at night. It chased
the moon all night along, and finally, exhausted, the
moon hid behind Cuernos de Negros.
Epefania had started her task early. She did not
sleep. Her grandmother had yet to reappear, and she
was beginning to worry. Still, she knew what she had
to do--or else her own heart would overwhelm her.
She had taken note of the sun chasing the moon all
night along, and had gotten up from her bed,
proceeded to the mango tree that was now slowly
withering, and plucked the remaining fruit sticking out
from its shriveled branches. All the rest had yellowed
out of season and had fallen, rotten, to the ground.
Epefania took the fruit, laid it on a clay plate, and left it
where it absorbed into its yellowing fibers the beams
of the racing moon.
When morning came, the moon had settled into its
hiding place and the sun still glowered balefully in the
sky (growing more blinding by the hour). Epefania
walked sluggishly towards the spot she had left the
mango fruit, and saw that it was ready. She waited for
nightfall. The eighteenth hour of the day finally came,
and while there was no trace of twilight because of
the stubborn sun, she knew it was time. In the west,
she saw the moon peeking out from behind Cuernos
de Negros--uncertain whether it should rise, and
become prey once more to the ravenous sun. When
the first moonbeam peeped out from behind the
mountains, Epefania took the mango fruit, and sang
her song as she slowly peeled it:
Didto sa amo, ang akong kasingkasing gahilak:
Hinaot unta, Mayari, nga imong dunggon ang akong
pagbati.
Ingna ang bulan nga matulog, para makabakon ang
dagat.
(From where I am, my heart sheds profuse tears:
I implore Mayari, goddess of the moon, to hear my
plea,
And tell the moon to sleep so the sea may rise.)
She began eating the flesh of the mango, the
succulent juice slaking her thirst. She ate until all that
was left of the fruit was the bony seed, shaped like
the crescent of the moon.
That night, the moon died. Behind the mountains, the
moon just faded away like a dejected lover, its beams
weakening until there was nothing there except a
trace of its face. In the distance, where the waves
were lapping at the shores of Old Tolong, people
could hear the roar of the deep moving closer to the
land.
The people of Old Tolong, frightened and wearied by
the unnatural tumult, slowly made their way to higher
ground, wary of the encroaching sea. Though they no
longer had faith in Laon, they must have harbored
some sliver of hope, since they were patiently walking
to the mountains, though the soles of their feet burned
in the heat of what remained of the desert ground,
and their skin was peeling from the lashing rain, and
their throats grew dryer and dryer. They walked, and
Epefania walked with them. But soon she left them
and took the familiar path leading to Tiyay's house.
This time, Tiyay was waiting for her outside of her
house, her store in shambles, her husband and a
daughter ghostly shadows of their former selves. A
few feet away stood her son Bangbangin, looking
tired and weary, though still strikingly beautiful despite
the overwhelming disasters engulfing the world. "Take
him!" Tiyay said in a dull, harsh, defeated voice.
Epefania looked at Bangbangin, and her heart
trembled so hard that she feared for her life. The boy
looked at her, utter confusion on his face. He spoke Somewhere in Old Tolong, an orange light brightened
plainly, wearily. one last time...before it finally vanished in a wisp of
"But I don't feel anything for you," Bangbangin said. smoke.
Something caught in Epefania's throat when she
heard Bangbangin's words. Then she began to cry. http://philippinespeculativefiction.com/casocot.html
"I feel nothing for you," the young man said once
more.
But he had moved slowly towards where Epefania
stood, and when he reached her, he found himself
embracing the young girl, who went into his arms as
to a refuge she could never have.
In a softer voice which seemed to contain all the
world's lassitude, he whispered to her, "I feel nothing
for you, Epefania. And that is sad."
He felt the girl shudder against his chest. And then
she was very still. And everything within her was
finally stilled.
First, the sea receded and the land was whole again,
and the moon grew bright once more, slowly, like a
gentle flutter of new feathers. Then, the sun began to
set, and as the heat gradually waned, the rain which
had been unable to touch the ground finally fell, and
covered every inch of the cracking soil. There was a
deafening sizzle when water touched what had been
blistering earth, and the thick steam that rose from
everywhere quickly ascended to the heavens and
filled the skies as newborn clouds. Then at last the
rain stopped, and the winds returned, blowing away
the tempests from Old Tolong to the faraway corners
of the world. When the last of the howling winds had
swept past, only the breeze from the top of Cuernos
de Negros remained. And the people slowly trickled
back home. And for the first time in days, they finally
settled into truest sleep. They had survived the
universe edging towards collapse.
Bangbangin looked down at the woman in his
embrace, but Epefania was no longer there. All what
was left was a mango in the palm of his hand, yellow
and ripe and pungent with some indescribable need.
Out of the shadows came the figure of an old woman.
It was Intan, grown much older, her hair completely
white, and her skin gnarled like the bark of a withered
mango tree. "Eat it, boy," she told Bangbangin, "eat it,
and then plant the seed. Epefania would have wished
it so."
And so the boy ate the flesh of the mango fruit, and
felt its tender sweetness snaking through every inch
of him, spreading like contraband love through his
body to become an aching in his nipples, and a
surging cocksureness in his crotch. He ate, and he
swallowed, and he slurped the juice that now covered
his hands.
And after he had surrendered to the final fullness of
the magical fruit, he sank to the ground, and began
digging with his hands in the wet soil. When he had
dug deep enough, he gently laid the mango seed
inside, and slowly covered it with earth. Then he sat
back, and to his own surprise, began to weep. His
tears fell to the ground and watered the seed in its
cocoon of earth. And Bangbangin knew, deep in his
heart, that someday it would grow into a majestic tree.
The God Equation
by Michael A. R. Co
"The Captain Commander of the Pontifical Swiss Guard,
Colonel Alois Estermann, was found dead in his home
together with his wife, Gladys Meza Romero and Vice
Corporal Cedric Tornay. The bodies were discovered shortly
after 9pm by a neighbor from the apartment next door who
was attracted by loud noises. From the first investigation it is
possible to affirm that all three were killed by a firearm.
Under the body of the Vice Corporal his regulation weapon
was found. The information which has emerged up to this
point allows for the theory of a 'fit of madness' by Vice
Corporal Tornay." -- Joaquin Navarro-Valls, Papal
spokesman (Official statement on the May 4, 1998
Vatican murders), from City of Secrets by John Follian
I've been waiting at St. Peter's Square since dawn. From my
vantage point, near the central obelisk, the columns of the
two elliptical colonnades appear as a single row like silent
sentries protecting the faithful. It's a grand illusion because
the colonnades actually consist of four rows of sixty-foot
columns, each directly behind the other, flanking both sides
of the Piazza like the teeth of a giant shark waiting to
consume the pilgrims who enter, all year round, through the
Via della Conciliazione, to pray among the tombs of the
Basilica.
They've been coming in droves throughout the morning.
Some walk among the columns. And that's where I see
Gabby standing in the shadows.
"Shalom," he says. "Sorry I'm late. I've had a lot of errands to
run." He wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. "It was
good of you to come."
He wears a tailored suit and wire-frame spectacles. His
shoulder length hair is combed over his ears, revealing a
Bluetooth hands-free earpiece. "Walk with me."
I follow him among the towering columns. He speaks perfect
Hebrew, but with an Italian accent.
"Have you found a body?"
"Several," I say. "But my choice would depend on the
location of the mark."
"I understand. Fresh intelligence confirms that you need to
pay the mathematician a visit," he says, "in the Philippines,
where the anomaly was initially detected. I trust you're
intimately familiar with the area?"
I nod, but he doesn't see me.
"This will cause problems for all of us," he continues, "I do
not have to tell you that. What I can tell you is that we know
exactly who he is, where he is, and what he plans to do.
Your mission is to stop him ... by any means necessary."
He pauses as a group of nuns walk in the opposite direction.
"Buon giorno," he says, and I notice a young nun stealing a
second look.
We wait a few seconds for them to pass. He adjusts his
glasses. "Stop him, the way you know best. The order
comes directly from His Holiness."
We take the street alongside the Vatican Museum, away
from St. Peter's Square.
"You sure it's him?" I ask.
"I'm just a messenger. I tell you only what's told to me."
"Does he plan to use it as a weapon?"
"Possibly. Depends on your perspective. It involves
numbers. Lots of them. Transcendental sequences, non-
linear dynamical systems. Chaos. What's not certain is how
far he is from a breakthrough or who else he's told."
"And the other suspects?"
"Still under surveillance, including that physicist from
Belgrade and the accountant from Lima. However, it's this
Filipino whose theories exhibit the most interesting
implications. He calls it the 'God Equation,' can you believe
that? He's even writing a book."
"Who else knows the mark? Aside from His Holiness."
"Four of us. M's in charge, as usual. Then there's me, you,
and Raffy."
"Him?"
"Raffy's our man on the ground. He's been there awhile, and
he can lead you to the mark. He'll provide you with
everything you need. He's also the one who made the
positive ID and the source of our intel. Anyway, the question
isn't 'who knows?' but 'who's interested?' So far he's been
paying out of his own pockets, but he now seeks support
from multinational corporations, several governments, and
even the Church itself. In fact, with the limited kind of
information he's presented, the Work is quite keen to lend
him a hand."
"Do they know what he's really up to?"
"They think he's developing either a formula for predicting
the stock market, an economic forecasting model, or a
universal code breaking engine."
"But that's not the case."
"And that's why you're in the picture."
We stop at a small gelateria, which opens relatively early in
this part of the city. The young woman behind the counter
greets my friend with a charming smile.
"Cioccolato, per favore," he says.
She takes a flat spatula and fills a cone with gelato.
"Grazie," he says, handing her a few euros.
"How much do the Fallen know?" I ask.
"Now that is the question." He touches his earpiece for
show, pretending to be on his cellphone, trying not to be
conspicuous, and failing miserably. "As far as we can
determine, this guy's receiving some kind of protection,
though it might have been unknowingly provided by
someone from their ranks, without the official sanction of the
Enemy. That's why we had a hard time identifying the target,
and why we need to go through all this trouble."
"What kind of protection?"
"Magic."
He licks his gelato a few times, savoring the flavor. He winks
at the woman behind the counter who now has to attend to
another customer, a teenage girl, American, judging from her
accent: "Pisstahshow, purr favoreh." She is standing inches
away from me, oblivious to my presence.
"The Cold War hasn't ended," he says, "but in this operation,
we may have the upper hand. We think that the Fallen are
unaware of the impact that this kind of research can have on
our position. So we've kept them in the dark where they
belong, feeding them misinformation and false leads. M likes
to keep it that way."
The American girl feels a slight chill as she bites into
her pistacchio. Goosebumps form on her arms and she rubs
them with her free hand. She glances at my friend and walks
past me. I watch her slender back as she crosses the street,
straw blonde hair swaying in the autumn sun.
Gabby looks straight at me for the first time and shakes his
head. "No, no. She's much too young. Don't tell me you plan
to follow her and introduce yourself."
"It's not yet her time," I assure him.
"It never is, until you arrive." Gabby steps out to the curb.
"Raffy will tell you everything you need to know."
"So why did you have to meet me?"
"I'm here to give you the green light." He bites his cone and
with a mouthful of gelato says, "You have a long way to
travel and I heard that it's hard to book a flight this time of
year. Now go."
I adjust my black robes, and spread my wings, stretching
them like a giant pair of ethereal hands, shimmering
invisibly. I unfurl a second and third pair of wings, six in all,
like iridescent sails.
More customers arrive, a young man who wants a taste of
heaven, and a middle-aged couple living in sin. They
order nocciola and stracciatella.
I should order one of these flavors when I get back.
I take to the air, unheard and unseen, except by an
overdressed man who calls himself Gabby.
"Ciao," he says. He removes his earpiece.
I soar above the Eternal City, fascinated at the multiplicity of
souls below me: sightseeing, commuting to work, having
sex, killing each other. I head east.
+++
Soaking in a bathtub, with heroin coursing through his veins,
he lies naked with an empty bottle of vodka floating in the
water, and a .38 snub nose revolver in his hand. He
struggles to keep awake, struggles with his Russian roulette.
I had watched him load his pistol with a single bullet, spin the
cylinder, and snap it back in place. That was twenty minutes
ago. This is his thirty-seventh attempt. He takes aim and
squeezes.
Click.
Mechanically, slowly, he repeats the steps.
Click.
He cannot keep his eyes open. Click. His mouth starts to
froth slightly. Click. His hand tires and starts to shake. Click.
His chin dips the water, and he spins the cylinder again.
Click.
Then, without resetting, he squeezes the trigger ... thrice.
Click. Click. Click.
His grip fails him, and his gun falls on the bathroom floor
beside an empty syringe. He sinks further into the tub. His
body twitches, and he slips into a coma.
I watch him drown in lukewarm water, frothy vomit, and
bloody piss. I watch him die.
I whisper into his ear. Suddenly, his eyes open and for an
instant he sees my face.
My body convulses.
I can't breathe.
I inhale and foul water burns my nose and lungs. My face
breaks the surface of the water and I cough, gasp for air,
and try to get my bearings. I cough some more, and struggle
to take a real breath.
I throw up at the edge of the tub.
I am alone in the bathroom. In a body that isn't mine. With a
primitive brain that limits my perceptions, and a drugged out
bag of flesh that traps my true strength.
It's all painfully fun.
A cellphone rings. With wet fingers, I pick up the device from
the floor, and answer the call.
"Get dressed," says a voice. "Meet me downstairs beside the
pool."
Click.
I move to the shower area and rinse myself for a few
minutes. Like all bodies, I can feel this one dying on me. Not
from drugs, but plain mortality.
As I towel dry, I examine the body in the mirror. Tall. Heavy-
set. Lightly tanned. Spanish mestizo, mid-twenties, with a
pug nose, unibrow, bristle-cut hair, and a tattoo of a flaming
skull behind the shoulder. He has no muscle tone.
It's an ugly disguise, the nearest I can find, but the easiest
way to get hold of a weapon.
I pick up the revolver, wipe off the moisture, and check the
chamber. Two more trigger pulls would've fired the round.
Not exactly a flaming sword, but pretty damn close. I turn the
cylinder slowly, aligning the loaded chamber with the firing
pin.
I enter the bedroom and search through his luggage. He
didn't bring a change of clothes, just a bag of dope, booze,
and two pairs of handcuffs, one still latched to the bedpost,
and no condoms. I'm forced to wear cargo-style Bermuda
pants and a tie-dye shirt, the same clothes he had worn the
evening before. I check his wallet: wads of cash, several
credit cards, driver's license for "Diego Merced," and a
firearm permit from the National Bureau of Investigation. I
tuck the .38 against the small of my back, beneath my shirt.
I smell semen and blood on the empty, unmade bed, and I
detect the scent of two females, one human, the other--
The doorbell rings.
It's Raffy.
"P're, ba't ang tagal mo? What's keeping you?" He speaks
Tagalog, wears dreadlocks, and is deeply tanned. "We need
to go."
"I had to put some clothes on," I answer in the same
language. "This was all I could find."
"It smells bad," he says. "We need to get you a better shirt,
especially where you're going. I know where you can get the
best bargain. You have money?"
"Lots."
"Good. I want to buy some clothes, too."
We take the stairs down, walk past the reception area, and
step into the sand. It's off peak in Boracay, but the foreign
tourists are still up and about, trying to get a tan under an
overcast sky. I see some rain clouds in the horizon, bare
breasts bouncing along the shore, and a sorbetero standing
beside his ice cream cart. It's mid-afternoon.
"This will just take a minute," I say. I order a few scoops of
ube and cheese, while Raffy orders mango. We walk briskly
along the beach.
"What's the lowdown?" I say finally.
"I discovered the mark by surfing the Web, believe it or not,
when I came across a blog entry about a work in progress
called the 'God Equation.' Ever since Da Vinci, it seems
everybody's writing something about religion and science.
The Michelangelo Cipher, The Bernini Puzzle, The Fra Lippo
Lippi Paradox ... I made that last one up--"
"Maybe he just wants the book to get attention."
"Don't interrupt. Yes, I thought so, too. But the God Equation
isn't a novel. It's a project. The author makes the remarkable
claim that he has found a mathematical equation that proves
the existence of God."
"Men have been trying to do that for centuries. Anselm,
Descartes, Pascal. All have failed."
"You're a traditionalist, Az. Though you're practical, you still
cling to the old ways. You don't even like using firearms,
instead preferring swords and knives and plagues and
natural causes, and the rest to human folly. That's why all
the jobs that you did involving guns aren't very clean. How
can anyone compare JFK and the Vatican murders to the
Passover? The latter was your masterpiece. The others, just
mysteries."
"Your point?"
"Computers. None of the people you mentioned used them.
This guy does."
"So?"
"It isn't finished. He still needs computers to help him
generate the proof. I was intrigued enough to do a
background check on him, starting with his date of birth and
his date of death. And guess what: he's not in your section's
records. The guy doesn't have an expiration date."
"Hence the anomaly."
"We know he can't be immortal, because he's still human,
but we haven't got a clue on how long he'll be alive. So that's
where we're at. On one hand, we have machines that can
compute extremely fast, and on the other, a man who might
live an extremely long life. Awkward, isn't it?"
We pause by a stall and Raffy inspects some beach shirts.
He begins dictating the pertinent facts. "Matthew Cheng,
twenty-four years old, single, studied physics and computer
engineering in Manila, and mathematics in the U.S. His
family owns considerable tracts of land across the
Philippines, and significant petroleum interests abroad. Not
just rich, they're filthy. He doesn't even need to hold a real
job but won't get involved in the family business. Instead, he
occasionally lectures at his alma mater, pursues personal
research in higher mathematics, and spends most of his time
sailing solo around the world on board his 60-foot state-of-
the art yacht, the Lionheart Oil."
"Sounds like a pun on Leonhard Euler."
"He idolizes him. Maybe he wants to prove that Euler is God.
He made a business pitch to several alumni a few days ago,
on this island, and he mentioned 'Euler's Identity' in one of
his spiels."
"You were there?"
"I pretended to be journalist and interviewed him. How do
you think I got all my intel? I've arranged for a colleague of
mine to interview him today, for a feature story in Scientific
American, and he's invited him over to his yacht. It's
anchored off the opposite shore."
"Your colleague?" I ask.
Raffy hands me a photographer's vest that he pulls off the
rack. "You need to meet him in twenty minutes. We'll use my
jet ski."
+++
"Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover
some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have
reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human
mind will never penetrate." -- Leonhard Euler
We reached the Lionheart Oil just as Matthew Cheng was
weighing anchor. The sloop-rigged yacht had mainsail and
jib already hoisted. Raffy introduces me to Matthew, who
helps me board. He looks like Bruce Lee, only darker and
larger. We exchange pleasantries and settle down on the
deck. Raffy speeds off.
"I thought you might have forgotten my invitation," he says,
handing me a cold can of beer. A laptop computer rests on
the table beside a bowl of potato chips.
"I wouldn't miss this for the world," I say, with an American
accent. "Boats fascinate me, although I never learned how to
sail."
"It's a cinch if you have an autopilot," he says, and we both
laugh, knowing full well that it still takes a lot of manual skill
to circumnavigate the world solo. Physically, we're near the
same age, but he has the manners of an older gentleman,
not condescending, but definitely arrogant. He shows me his
laptop. "I customized the software for this rugged little model,
so I can monitor every activity on the ship. It not only tracks
weather information and GPS coordinates, but the status of
every line and tackle through a network of sensors. I can trim
the sails from anywhere. It's my remote control. And best of
all--" He toggles to a different screen. "I can connect to the
Internet."
He asks me to wait while he checks the status of an upload
and scans a few email messages. Meanwhile, I prepare the
mp3 voice recorder that Raffy lent me, and take snapshots
with a digital camera.
Matthew turns his computer around and shows me an online
chess game in progress. "What do you think the best move
is? White to play."
I examine the virtual board. It was the middle game, both
sides showing remarkable symmetry, a clear example of
grandmaster play.
"Pawn takes pawn," I say.
"Excellent call," he says, and enters the algebraic equivalent.
"It's wonderful that I can always find strong players online.
My opponent is from St. Petersburg. Of course, I'm not
always sure that I'm playing against a male, female, or
human being. I believe chess programs were the first to pass
the Turing test. You like chess?"
"I hold my own."
"Well, we should play someday."
"Certainly."
"So Diego -- can I call you Diego? -- what shall we talk
about?"
"I'm writing an article about the groundbreaking work by
theoretical physicists and pure mathematicians from around
Asia. I've already spoken to some folks in India and China. I
was surprised when Raffy told me that there's actually
serious work being done in the Philippines. I hear you're
writing a book."
"Not yet finished, but I've found a publisher. We Filipinos can
accomplish miracles if we apply ourselves. Do you have a
math background?"
"I'm a science journalist," I reply. "Stanford."
"Quick quiz then: how many sides does a circle have?"
"That's a trick question."
"Good answer. A circle can have zero, one, two, or infinitely
many sides, depending on how you define a 'side,' correct?
It's also a shape that exists only in our heads, a perfect
shape. The term 'perfect circle' is redundant. No object in
nature comes close to being a circle, but you see it
everywhere, the moon, the sun, all are crude approximations
of a concept. But what a concept! All circles, regardless of
size, have the same ratio between its circumference and its
diameter."
"Pi," I say.
"Leonhard Euler popularized the use of the Greek letter, but
it was known since ancient times. In fact, for centuries,
mathematicians would try to 'square a circle' -- to create a
square from a circle of precisely equal areas with nothing but
a ruler and compass -- until it was proven that this cannot be
done. Because pi, a quantity needed to calculate the area, is
a transcendental number. It goes on forever ... in a non-
random sequence, but with no discernable pattern. More
chips?"
"No thanks."
"A circle is often used as a metaphor for boundaries and
enclosures, and indeed, pi was used as shorthand for
'periphery.' With all transcendental numbers, one can't help
suspect that there might be a hidden message coded
somewhere in the sequence. Like what Carl Sagan
suggested in the last chapter of Contact."
"You think there's a steganographic message? Perhaps from
God?"
"Well, not the kind of message that you're probably thinking.
You can find any sequence of numbers in pi if you look hard
enough, even your telephone number. Look here." He types
'88888888' in his laptop, and he shows me that his pi
program found the sequence appearing at the 46,663,520th
decimal place. "The message is more subtle. In effect it's
saying, 'There is a pattern somewhere, but you'll just have to
look harder.' So it's no surprise that work continues on
unlocking the secrets of pi. Funny how the most complex
structures can derive from the simplest things. Human
beings from single cells, the entire universe from a
singularity. Seems a convincing argument against entropy."
He points to the mainsail. "See that pattern printed on the
sail's edge?"
I notice a colorful, paisley-like design, swirling toward the
center.
"It's called 'Sea Horse Valley' and I generated the image
using the simple function z equals z-squared plus c."
"The Mandelbrot set," I say, pronouncing the name in the
German-style, not French.
"A microscopic part of it. I sometimes refer to the Lionheart
Oil as the Mandel-boat. The entire fractal image was
discovered only in the 70's after the introduction of
computers. Breathtaking, isn't it? It goes on forever,
exhibiting self-symmetry as you increase the magnification.
Analogous to the revolutions of the planets or the movement
of atomic particles. Check this out." He bares his left
forearm. A well-done approximation of the M-set was
tattooed using several inks from elbow to wrist, like a
Rorschach blob, the disk and cardioid appearing like the
head and thorax of a large insect. "Like it? I did it myself."
This guy's hardcore.
Our conversation turned to chaos theory, deterministic
systems, Brownian motions, stochastic processes, random
walks and whether these walks were truly random.
"Randomness is conventionally accepted as true, but no one
has been able to prove it. Because if you think about it, it's
actually difficult to consistently produce a random number in
the real world. Humans can't do it because of our
psychological predisposition to create patterns, and
machines have to use pseudo-random generators for
expediency."
"What about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Wouldn't
that build a strong case for the existence of randomness?"
"Just because you can't predict the outcome doesn't mean
it's random. And what does 'random' mean anyway? Godel's
Incompleteness Theorem tells us that you can't prove certain
ideas using the rules within the formal system. You have to
go outside, out of the box. Take the case of prime numbers,
integers whose only factors are one and itself. Many
methods have been developed to obtain or check primes,
but it's still notoriously difficult to factorize numbers. It's
mostly trial and error. We math geeks actually call these
'hard' problems for lack of a better word. Indeed the world's
cryptographic infrastructure depends on the difficulty in
factoring prime numbers. However, although it's proven that
there are an infinite number of primes, it hasn't been proven
that there is not a general formula somewhere that can
factorize any positive integer of any size. When that
happens, current encryption systems will be rendered
useless."
He opens another can of beer, and offers me another.
"I'm convinced that there's a pattern in the sequence of
primes," he says. "Not a message, but something more
profound. Unlike the Fibonacci sequence, prime numbers do
not appear in nature. They were discovered because Man
played with this." He taps his temple.
He then taps a few keys in his laptop. "Have you heard
about the Prime Spirals of Stanislaw Ulam? His findings
were first published in your magazine back in the 60's."
"Heard but never seen," I lie.
"If you create a spiral of integers from one to infinity using a
square grid, and mark all the prime numbers, you'll find that
they tend to line up along the diagonal axis. It's amazing."
The LCD screen displays a dark field with white pixels
scattered like stars forming delicate lattices of slanted line
segments that remind me of city lights when viewed from
high above. "I sometimes wonder if this is part of the face of
the divine," he says. "Or maybe they're just the spots you
see when you close your eyes. Euler was completely blind in
the last seventeen years of his life."
"Do you believe in God?" I ask.
"Now that's a trick question," he says, chuckling. "I want to,
but I don't, which is why I've launched this project."
It starts to drizzle. "Let's go below deck," he says. "I've
something to show you."
His cabin is filled with electronic equipment. "There's an
apocryphal story," he began, "about Euler. During the reign
of Catherine the Great, Euler threw a challenge to the atheist
philosopher Diderot and claimed he had an equation for the
proof of God. Euler said, 'Sir, a plus b raised to n over n
equals x. Therefore, God exists! Reply!' Naturally, Diderot
didn't and was laughed out of the court. This story is bunk,
but when I first heard it, I was intrigued. Could it be possible
for God to be reduced to a mathematical equation?"
Matthew sat in front of a large flat screen. He launched a
command line window and began to type. "Euler didn't find
the God Equation but he did discover an equation that came
poetically close."
When prompted for his username, he types:
e^i*pi+1=0
"I've configured my system to accept certain special
characters. This is Euler's Identity: e raised to i times pi plus
one equals zero. It combines the three basic arithmetic
operations and five universal mathematical constants. But
that's just for starters." He types in his password, and hits
Enter.
The screen scrolls up with dizzying, unending lines of
horizontal computer code. "Behold!" he says. "The God
Equation, version 1.0."
I peer at the screen from behind his shoulder. He doesn't
bother to look at me as he speaks. I slowly draw my gun
from under my vest.
He watches the program scroll continuously. "Paul Erdos,
one of my other math idols, second only to Euler, would
speak about 'The Book' ... an imaginary tome written by
God, containing the most beautiful and elegant mathematical
proofs in the universe. My 'God Equation' is actually a
computer program designed to seek out these equations.
But it's more than an automatic proof generator. I believe I've
found an algorithm for the human soul."
"Artificial intelligence," I remark. I take one step back but
keep my gun low.
"There's nothing artificial about it," he says. "It's virtually
organic. It uses the idle system resources of computers
across the globe, much like the SETI screensaver."
"You've created a worm."
"I've created an answer. As word of this spreads, more
people will download the program and contribute to the
effort. Imagine the secrets of the universe revealed,
relationships clarified, pi, Mandelbrot, e, the sequence of
primes, the Riemann Hypothesis, perhaps even physics
equations like the Grand Unification Theory."
"When did you upload this?"
"About ten minutes before you arrived." The program
continues to scroll up. "It's not perfect, and I'm working on
the next version. There might be some bugs in this system,
but because of its complexity, it may take years to find and
fix."
I've learned enough.
"Suppose," I say, "God exists but is displeased with what
you're doing, and so He sends the Angel of Death to stop
you."
Matthew laughs. "Why would the 'all merciful God' do that?"
I aim my weapon. He sees my reflection.
"Because faith would have no meaning."
I squeeze the trigger.
+++
I return to Diego's hotel room, clothes still damp, body sore,
with dried blood caked around my collar.
A woman is seated on the bed, wearing nothing except a
bikini bottom and a T-shirt that reads Hi, I'm Lily across her
breasts.
Crap.
She looks too hot to be the cleaning lady. More likely the
guest relations officer, or the offspring of Carmen Electra
and Sophia Loren if the two had mated, neither of which
matters anyway because I think I know who she really is.
"Lilian," I say, "what an unpleasant surprise."
She's as bewildered as I am, but confidently remains seated.
Her wavy black hair cascades to her elbows. She takes a
stick from a half empty pack of cigarettes from the night table
and lights up to regain her poise. I didn't see her use a
lighter or match, but there she is, puffing away. The tail
section of a serpentine tattoo winds around her tawny arm
and disappears into her sleeve, which I know from
experience stretches down her back. It reappears along her
smooth leg to terminate in a tiny head with fangs locked
against her ankle.
"You have something that belongs to us," she finally says in
ancient Assyrian. "According to the Law, all suicides fall
under our jurisdiction. Why are you in that wretched body?
Surrender it now."
So she came to collect.
"He not suicide," I reply. "Him death, eh, accidental." My
Assyrian is rusty.
She switches to English. "He finds out he's HIV positive, he
shoots up junk that's ninety percent pure, and he tries to put
a bullet in his head. You don't call that a suicide?"
"An attempted suicide. Also, he wasn't aware of the heroin
grade and didn't plan to OD. So by the looks of it, his soul is
under legal dispute. You'll just have to wait until I release it to
Purgatory for the preliminary hearing."
She narrows her striking goat gray eyes.
"If you'll excuse me," I continue, "I need to drown myself in
peace. You can stay here if you want. Help yourself to the
minibar, take a nap, and enjoy the aircon. There's still some
junk left in the bag. It's a good hotel. We can continue our
conversation in the proper forum."
She takes a drag on her cigarette, and deliberately blows
smoke toward my direction. Her eyes widen in realization.
"You've assassinated someone," she says, "whose time was
not yet due. Because that's the only reason you'd be in town.
Otherwise, you'd just let things run their course. Your very
presence here means that someone up there has become
rather ... impatient with one of his children. Like the Vatican
job back in '98. What on earth are you guys all up to? Who's
the mark this time?"
I shrug.
"Tell me. For old time's sake."
"What brings you here? Collecting suicides all by your
lonesome seems beneath your station."
She snorted. "Diego's my pet. I'm his inspiration, his
temptress, his recruiter, his whore. I'm the one who gave him
the virus six months ago." She pauses. "Infected needle."
My turn to snort.
"He freaked when he found out," she went on, "and made
sure that he infected as many girls he could lay his hands
on, many of them high-class hookers with kilometric lists of
influential clients. Just last night, he banged one of my own,
a succubus from the Ukraine. She's very much in demand in
this country. Think of the exponential damage I've caused; I'll
be reeling in more souls within the next decade than
Beelzebub. Asmodeus doesn't know."
She excels at what she does. Although the Fallen try to run
their business like the mafia, they operate more like a
pyramid scam. A greedy, treacherous bunch of liars who
recruit through empty promises. Volume is all that matters to
most of them. But Lily likes to focus on a few key contacts,
using their money, sweat, and unique frailties. In some
twisted way, we're so much alike.
"I didn't violate the Law," she says, suddenly aware that
she's revealed too much, the way villains often do. "It was
entirely Diego's decision. I did not directly interfere. I merely
provided opportunities, suggestions if you will, for him to
choose from and act out."
"So," I say, "Asmodeus doesn't know you're here. The prick
doesn't know you're leeching his share."
She walks toward me. "I can't be dependent on him forever,
Az. I'm a career woman--"
I scoff.
"--who's just doing her part for the organization. You really
should consider joining us. We offer excellent dental
benefits." She exposes her needle sharp teeth.
She leans closer and pouts. "Aw, please don't report me. I'll
be quiet. I won't blow your cover if you won't blow mine.
Although--" she pauses to extinguish her cigarette with the
tips of her bare fingers, tossing the butt, "--I do know how to
blow."
Smoke dances around my face. She brings her lips near my
ear. "And if you want," she whispers, "I'll even let you be on
top... ."
I fire my single round.
The bullet pierces her human heart, stopping it instantly. I
had held my snub nose revolver against her cleavage, and I
guess her silicone-implants muffled the sound. I push her
limp body to the bed. A dark stain spreads over her chest,
trickles down her arm, and drips to the floor. The blood starts
to crawl toward my foot, and it rears its head like a snake.
Other serpentine blood trails flow out of the entry wound,
and they start to braid themselves into a large, black column.
Wings spread suddenly, engulfing the room, blocking the
window and the light from the fading sun.
"Sorry, it was an accident," I say to her. "Not a suicide. We'll
talk later."
She hisses and howls, but flies through the ceiling, leaving
behind a vapor of burnt flesh and dung. The bed is empty.
No trace of a body.
I walk to the bathroom and get undressed. Forensics will
examine Diego's corpse, and ask lots of questions. More
mysteries to ponder. But my job here is done.
+++
"The Internet causes billions of images to appear on millions
of computer monitors around the planet. From this galaxy of
sight and sound will the face of Christ emerge and the voice
of Christ be heard?" -- Pope John Paul II (Feast of Saint
Francis de Sales, January 24, 2002)
Mikhail and I meet inside the Basilica, beside the tomb of
Pope Alexander VII, under whose reign the colonnades of
St. Peter's Square were built. The figure of the pope is
flanked by Charity, Prudence, Justice, and Truth. Below
them, Death raises a marble drape brandishing an
hourglass.
Mikhail, in the guise of an elderly chap, had just returned
from St. Petersburg, and he wanted a full report. Raffy had
told him the result, but he wanted details from me.
"Lily's fuming," he says. "She claims that you violated the
Law by failing to release the soul of Diego Merced to her.
You've been subpoenaed to appear at a hearing regarding
this matter."
"I'll deal with her," I say.
"So tell me," he says, "how could you have missed your
mark at point blank range?"
"I had aligned the bullet with the firing pin," I began,
"forgetting that with double-action revolvers, the cylinder
rotates with each trigger pull. When I squeezed the trigger,
all I got was an empty chamber."
Mikhail scratches his cheek, rubs his eyes. "Go on."
"That click was the noisiest sound in the room. Matthew
spun around and slapped the gun from my hand. Then he
tackled me to the ground. We struggled but he had the
advantage because the room was cramped and I couldn't
maneuver well. Raffy should've mentioned that the guy knew
jiu jitsu. He was very skilled. Reminded me of the time I
wrestled Jacob."
Mikhail smirked.
"Hey, my physical form wasn't exactly in tip-top shape. So
there I was, flat on my back, with his forearm on my throat.
He planted his fist into my mouth, knocking loose my lower
incisor. I tasted blood.
"'Who sent you?' he demanded. He hit me again, and my
nose began to bleed.
"'His Holiness,' I said, struggling to regain some leverage.
"'The Pope?' he cried in disbelief.
"'No,' I said. I grabbed his wrists. 'I work for God.'
"I spat my tooth into his eye, and this distracted him enough
for me to flip him over. Blinded by the blood in his eye, he
landed on his shoulder and groaned in pain, but managed to
scramble up the stairs to the top deck. I spent a few seconds
looking for the gun since I knew he'd be going nowhere. More than two thousand years ago, the Word was made
When I found it, I checked the cylinder to make sure that the flesh.
gun would fire with the next attempt. I only had one round so He was persecuted, crucified, but promised to return again,
I tucked the gun into my vest pocket where I can reach it like a thief in the night or a stranger knocking at the door.
quickly. I had to get close enough, and that meant getting his He may return as a brilliant radiance, touch everyone, and
guard down. know everything, a Divine Being who will encompass the
"By that time, it was raining hard. I walked along the side- world. Alpha and Omega. Unity and Null. One and Zero.
deck toward the bow. It was slippery, and there was no sign I imagine a day when the world will receive a new message -
of Matthew. I cautiously head back to the stern and I call him - in an email, online forum, or blog -- from someone they do
out, thinking that he had returned to the cabin. My nose kept not know. Many will ignore the message, dismissing it as a
bleeding. prank, while some will respond. Those who reply to the
"I found him standing against the mast, between the mainsail message will receive a prize. Those who don't will pay the
and jib. He looked like an angel, with massive fractal wings. price.
An angel with a laptop. 'Fool!' he taunted. 'I have faced death In this way, the Second Coming would be most unexpected.
before! You cannot hurt me!' +++
"'I am not death,' I clarified, in a calm voice. 'Death is just my The day will come when my office will be abolished. I've
office. I am Azrael, an Angel of the Lord. And I promise you, been thinking about a transfer. But no one knows the day or
it won't hurt a bit.' I approached him, arms up to show that I the hour, not even the angels in heaven. So I have no choice
was unarmed. but to wait.
"That's when the boom of the mainsail swung against me, I leave St. Peter's Square, taking the street alongside the
throwing me overboard. I struck the water head first. Rather Vatican Museum, and I walk to the gelateria where a certain
embarrassing, really. young woman works. Today is her last day.
"Raffy found me floating unconscious. When I came to, there As I approach the counter, she sees my true form, but she
was no sign of the yacht." smiles bravely without fear or distress.
"So he lives," Mikhail says. I offer her three words of comfort: "Nocciola, per favore."
"Diego's body was HIV positive. I spat blood into Matthew's And her heart, which had been broken from the moment she
eye. He won't live long enough to complete his work. My was born, began to beat forever.
section confirms he now has an expiration date. He's not an -Fin.-
anomaly anymore." http://philippinespeculativefiction.com/co.html
"A sloppy job," he says.
I concede. "I know, but at least we've controlled the
damage."
"Something bothers me," he says, looking toward the ceiling
of the Basilica. "You don't usually make mistakes this sloppy.
Even with guns."
I remain silent.
"A pity," he says, "Matthew was such a good chess player."
He walks to the altar, leaving me alone, invisible, without
praise or thanks. I make my way out.
I made a choice.
And Gabby, Raffy, or Mikhail can't complain. They're too
attached to their human disguises, living among the flock.
But I don't like disguises.
One of the perks of my job is that I don't usually have to do
any actual work. People come and go, and it's all
predetermined by a mysterious formula that even angels
don't understand. But every time there's an anomaly,
someone who's simply not in my list, I have to do things
myself, and make things right, and I get to choose the
method. I get to choose the weapon.
I wanted to give Matthew more time. So I chose the plague.
There are limits, of course. I still have a job to do, and I still
need to follow orders. I know that we are all part of the
Divine Plan, fractal whorls in a complex design. But what if
things really were simple? Like the area of a circle, the
dimensions of a line, or the coordinates of a point. I don't
know what's worse: finding out that things are more
complicated than we've expected, or that all things are
elementary and dull.
I think about Matthew. Why didn't he have a death date?
What role did I play in his fate?
And I think about the Equation. It was released into the
Internet minutes before I got to the yacht. The mission was
doomed from the beginning. I was too late.
That's when it occurred to me.
At first, as Matthew described his ideas, it was clear to me
that he would never be able to prove the existence of God in
mathematical terms. His Holiness is too vast to be
contained. But that was before I saw the Equation.
Then I remembered.
The Family That Eats Soil
by Khavn De La Cruz
"Soil again," groaned Baby, who was turning one on
Saturday. "Soil for breakfast, soil for lunch, soil for
dinner. Soil for snacks. Don't tell me we'll be having
soil on my first birthday." "There, there, child," said
Mother. "I promise we won't have soil." "What then?"
"It'll be a surprise." The words were barely uttered as
Baby's face lit up while munching on stewed soil.
"Aaaah! Aaaah!" In a dark alley in Suburville, the
eighth teenager was having his way with Sister who
was as beautiful and frigid as a mannequin while
being recorded on video by the next kid in line.
"Aaaah! Aaaah!"
"Please pass the fish sauce," said Father. Someone
passed the fish sauce. Still, Father thought, he hadn't
gotten it. So he went to the sea and caught some fish
and fermented it until it because fish sauce. Father's
finally happy. No thanks to his good-for-nothing
children.
"So? Are you gonna confess or not?" Whoever
Brother was asking couldn't answer, confession or
not. Because his eyes were bulging, his mouth
gagged and his head was in a vise-grip.
"Motherfucker! You're really bullheaded!" Brother
whipped a metal pipe and crushed his chest.
Mother cut herself on a chipped plate while washing
the dishes. Blood mixed with water in the sink.
Mother's fingers continued to bleed as she remained
oblivious to the war between blood and water.
"Your cooking's really great, Mother! You're the best!"
said Brother, even as he stopped himself from puking
out latest dish of soil. He felt it wasn't cooked enough.
And too salty. But he couldn't find the strength to say
anything to hurt his mother. Not even during that one
time when she kicked him hard. However much bad
the cooking was. Because it was clear that he
wouldn't be there if it weren't for his mother. Brother
knew how to be grateful. Exemplary child of an
exemplary mother in an exemplary family.
Father was mixing up a new medicine concoction
from the dextrose bottles he had taken from children's
ward of Troma Hospital. During their break, the
nurses and doctors were whispering conspiratorially
at the canteen. Father had just come up with his new
brew in his basement lab early that morning and
named it "Gardener." Once it enters the bloodstream,
all the red blood cells turn red and plants will sprout
from every orifice: eyes, mouth, nose, ears, asshole,
etc. In other words, you're dead meat. The children's
ward of Troma Hospital smells lovely.
Sister still doesn't have an appetite. Is it because
she's on a diet. Is it because she's stoned. Is it
because she doesn't like stewed soil. Is it because
she's had too much spunk. Is it because she's
deliberately starving herself for her date later with
Prince Charming. Is it because Father always gets
mad at her for coming after her midnight curfew. It is
because she had a tiff with Mother about the new
curtain's color in the sala. It is because she thinks
Brother stinks to high heavens. It is because she's
grossed out by Baby who refuses to wear diapers or
any underwear, walking around in all his fresh glory. It
is because her soul is in another dimension and food
tastes better there. It is because her soul is next door
where the new tenant is a hot-looking bachelor. It is
because she has no more will to live. It is because
she doesn't like eating with her family anymore and
doesn't believe in the saying "The Family That Eats
Together Stays Together". It is because she really
has no appetite.
When Mother wasn't looking, Baby slipped out of the
house, went to the bus stop, headed straight for
Aparri, passed by Tawi-Tawi, stopped over at
Libangon, then went back home, all this before
Mother looked at the crib and cooed, "Kuchi-kuchi
coo, I love you!"
Mother still doesn't want to sit down. Hands over the
rice here. Gets a glass of water there. Since Father
forbade Mother to get a maid, Mother became the
maid. Father's a real class act. Imagine, your maid
has a PhD in Economics, president and founder of
Arkweist, graduated summa and valedictorian from
grade school until post-grad, aside from the fact that
she's your mother.
Sister's the best. Every hole in her body has a
"Welcome" sign. Be it a wound. Be it her navel. Be it
infected. Be it gets worse. Then again, what are her
doctor-clients for? She's a real pro.
"Please pass the soy sauce," said Father. He doesn't
really need soy sauce to complete his dinner. In fact,
just a drop would be enough to turn his stuffed soil
dish into a culinary delight and make him puke when
he sleeps. He just has his crazy fits. And he wants
you to have it, too.
The police are once more chasing Brother and his
gang. It doesn't seem to matter how much you pay
them off, their pockets are really deep. Ester got hit.
He's down. Brother can't stop to help even if they got
circumcised at the same time, de-virginized at the
same time at Bad Luck Club by a whore with FDT,
killed their first Chinese at the same time. Because he
knows a bullet is a bullet is a bullet. Because he
knows, the Chinese guy had paid the cops double.
Because he knows, things like this happen in war. Us
versus You. To hell with dead friends.
Baby's sleeping on Mother's bosom. Hungry as hell. A
bottle of powdered milk's stuck up in nose, a mixture
of cow and goat's milk is running on IV through his
veins, while he's suckling poor Mother's teats.
Business' still good at the wet market. Even for the
blind. Mother still gets three hundred for a blind
whore. A blind whore! This new drug, "Mice," really
fucks you up. Sells like hotcakes. Supplies snatched
up before you can even blink.
Father can't get enough. His hunger is insatiable.
Even when everyone at Troma Hospital's had their fill,
from fine patients to sickly doctors, he still can't get
enough. He's shivering in the shadows of the alley.
Like a cat starving for a week. Like an addict in a
basement. Waiting. For fish going flip-flop on dry land.
For a wayward hit. Drizzling.
Brother's plate is licked clean. You'd also clean yours
if you were beaten up as a child for not finishing
everything until your backside was sore. Then you'd
have nightmares at night: hunted by leftover rice that
would catch up and stick all over you, then turn to rice
paste, you turning to rice paste, until it's impossible to
even move, much less escape, until it dissolves, but it
wouldn't matter because you're part of it and you're
not sure if you had dissolved yourself.
Baby's gone AWOL again. The whole family's looking
for him. Where's their beloved baby? Finally, they find
him at the cockpit. The gamblers had mistaken him
for Christ. Oh Baby, what have you gotten into now?
Too bad though, he had bet on the loser cock that
offed the winning Texas breed.
Mother is wailing in front of her soil stew. She forgot
it's forbidden to cry at the dining table. Father stood
up and stomped out of the house. Mother's wailing
became louder. Sister and Brother followed. So did
Baby. When she was left alone, Mother abruptly
stopped crying and gorged on her favorite dish.
Father is one lucky bastard tonight. Guess who's
coming closer? The president himself. Why is the
president walking under the rain in the dead of night?
It's forbidden to ask things that aren't important.
Action speaks louder than words. And Father started
to do what he had to do. Even if it was late at night
and it meant risking pneumonia.
It's Sister's turn to lead the prayer. "Bless (I can't take
it anymore!) us (Please have mercy!) O (You
motherfucking cunts!) Lord (Aaaah!), and (Shit!) these
(Fuck!) thy (My God!) gifts (Help!), which (Let me out!)
we (Haven't you had enought?) are (Fuck you!) about
(Don't you have any soul?) to (Don't you have any
sisters?) receive (Don't you have a mother?) from
(Help!) thy (Jesus Christ!) bounty (Beasts!), through
(Just kill me!) Christ (I'll kill you all!), our (Lunatics!)
Lord (Assholes, all of you!), Amen (Fuck you!)." And
Sister had no more appetite left at all.
Mother is opening a new branch today. The ninth
Love Heaven at New Metropolis. Complete with every
new gadget for one's pleasure and satisfaction. The
winners of the Miss Love Heaven contest have just
arrived. Smelling sweet and fresh. Cutting the ribbon
at the opening ceremony is Domina, former Miss Love
Heaven International.
It's Baby's birthday. They won't be having soil. Not
barbecued soil, not carbonara soil, not soil stew.
There's no trace of soil on the table. Baby's surely
estatic. If only he was there. But Baby was there. Get
it? Hahaha! Served up on a silver platter. Hahaha!
Whathefuck... You got me there.
http://philippinespeculativefiction.com/cruz.html

"You're really delicious!" moaned the greasy stink-

turned-shit-turned-man pumping on top of Sister.
"You're the best!" Sister wasn't enjoying herself at all.
She wasn't high on uppers like Phoenix. She wasn't
crashing on downers like Germs. She wasn't getting
wet on her OST aphrodisiac. Wasn't horny. Wasn't
happy. But she's here. Not there. And all the doors
and windows have been sealed up.

Brother couldn't erase from his mind the final look of

Ester. The one with with pieces of brain oozing out. It
wasn't even decent image of Ester's, before the
tragedy. He's gone, so why's he still here? Ester is
Father. Ester is Mother. Ester is Sisters. Ester is
Baby. Brother gagged and rushed to the toilet. Even
in the mirror, Ester is Brother. But Ester's dead and
Brother's still alive, right? Right?