Philippine Speculative Fiction 9 Read online

  Magpanabang

  As I write, I find that I curl the twists of my alibata for some reason, their finish somehow elegant to the eye. That satisfies me greatly. I never usually write like this. By the second new moon, my bearcat and the hornbill have become good companions. I tie the missive to the hornbill’s leg and strap the clay pot to the bearcat, and together they travel and play their way through the banana thicket, through the forest, over the rages of the great river, into the village just across the divide.

  OUR CORRESPONDENCE—MAAYAPUT’S and mine—soon grows deeper over many moons.

  Every few days, Makatagad—which is the name of Maayuput’s hornbill—returns to my village with Makahagad, my bearcat, in tow, and with them are exchanges from Maayuput in pieces of beautiful jewelry, or finely-ground spices in elaborate abaca pouches, or cashews and pili nuts in hand-carved stoneware. In turn, I send out with the departing hornbill and bearcat the freshest saltwater catch or pearls or seedlings, all stored in small earthen jars.

  Our villages are soon delighting over the exchanges and the friendship forged across the great river.

  When I write to Maayuput, I sometimes sneak in with my missive a stash of bulad—delicious dried fish with the aroma craved by the gods. When Maayuput writes back, I find tumbling into my hand from its hidden cache in Makatagad’s pouch a spool of handsome hand-spun piña.

  Maayuput writes with a sharp tongue, but to my mind, her language spills over to me with stalwart grace. I find it uncommon, and not at all unpleasant. Maayuput writes:

  Thank you for the compliments, and I am, in fact, the jeweler of my village. Your kind words deserve this pair of golden cuffs.

  I begin to treasure Maayuput’s gifts. I begin to imagine her, what she looks like. I make her a bow carved from the sturdiest lauan, and arrows split with my sharpest blade. “To aid you in your hunting,” I write. I craft for her several palayoks, decorated in intricate geometric patterns. The village people soon tell me that I have become very generous with my time crafting all these gifts for Maayuput—and I give them the merest shrugs. “It is my time,” I tell them, “and the rest of the world can always wait.”

  One busy harvest season, Makatagad the hornbill does not join Makahagad the bearcat in the frequent trading of messages and gifts from across the great river. This distresses my bearcat with unbounded unease, which I find endearing. One evening, I see Makahagad scurrying into the darkness, and after an absence of five days, the bearcat returns with a message from Maayuput, to which I make my immediate diligent response—which Makahagad soon delivers back to the village across the great river with the anticipation of the besotted.

  A few days later, the two animals make their return from Maayuput’s village, in the surprising company of four small hornbill-bearcats, waddling around their parents with furry wings.

  The sight delights me, and I write to Maayuput of my surprise. “I did not expect your hornbill and my bearcat to have in mind this unusual union!” I write.

  “Makatagad is like family to me,” Maayuput writes back. “For this, I shall consider Makahagad family as well.”

  I write to Maayuput of similar affectionate considerations, and it feels for a moment that there is no great river to divide us. I dream afterwards of village music by the bonfire where Maayaput and I can dance to the rhythm of ganzas. In my dream, the details of her face slips in and out of a haze—and yet I know, with the sincerity of a quiet heart, that it is she. I wake sometimes with a curious throb on my right foot I cannot shake off.

  In the mornings when I wake from such dreams, I find myself crossing the banana thicket from the village, through the forest, to get to a small lip of rock that drops with precarious grace into the great river. From the top of that small protrusion of rock, I could see the glorious top of the great banana plant growing in the distance, somehow still inching its way like a beautiful giant towards the reaches of sky. I could see its gigantic heart pumping away in the full knowledge of its blooming. I catch my breath, and feel my own heart pumping with it.

  I behold as well the raging waters of the great river before me, and I think of the delirious nothingness of air and distance. But distance, most of all.

  ONE NIGHT, I find myself still awake even as the moon nears its terminal point across the sky. The day is already threatening to invade with its furtive lighter shades of blue. I find my hands caressing the smooth bamboo slats of my banig. I think of my Maayuput’s hair when I hear the crash.

  It is sudden and loud. For the moments it takes for the sound to last, the earth shudders with it. The crash strikes me like a long groan, which is followed by the sound of a slap, like an object fallen face-wise on water.

  And then there is silence.

  The curious, risen now from sleep, hurry to the great river. I run with them. When we cross the banana thicket, we soon notice the absence of the great banana plant from edges of the brightening sky. From where it had grown in the middle of the banana thicket, we see instead its great stalk uprooted, the ground around it churlish in the sudden violation.

  “The great banana plant has fallen to its side!” I hear people shout.

  “What happened?” some cry.

  “It was the banana heart,” the mangkukulam finally says. “It had grown too large.”

  We race to the great river, tracing the length of the gigantic banana plant all the way, across the forest, to the edges of the river. When we reach the great river’s banks, we find to our amazement that the length of the fallen banana plant still seems to surge away from where we were, straight on into the distance, into the horizon. And in the middle of what had been once the river’s depths, the banana heart lay sleeping on muddy soil—once the river’s unmeasured bottom—pumping still, gorging in the waters of the great river.

  It has drank away our distance.

  Maayuput, I think suddenly.

  I run back to my hut to look for an arrowtip and an empty bamboo slate. Beside me, Makahagad waits in anticipation as I write.

  Maayuput,

  It seems the gods wish for us to bear separation no longer. The river between our villages has gone, swallowed by your gift of a pumping banana heart. I shall visit you and Makatagad and her offsprings—and your people, of course—with your agreement. I cannot bear the excitement any longer.

  Magpanabang

  My binturong snatches the bamboo slate as soon as I finish, quickly crossing the branches of the trees with an agility I have not seen of Makahagad for some time. He races to the banks of what has been once a great river, and with a single bound, the bearcat flits through the air, past the swirling mud and past the distance, bounding once in a while from the great banana stalk that now bridges it. Makahagad misses his children, I think, and he misses Makatagad. Such boundless energy is to be expected.

  I wait for Makahagad’s return two days later by the banks of what has been the great river. By then, the sun has dried away most of the mud that had once been the river’s bottom, and in their place are scattered patches of green grass, fledgling in their growth, and cut every which way by generous streams—the only traces left of the raging waters. In the middle of it all, the gigantic banana heart still pumps, its stalk now a bridge across distances, hardening in the gentle sun.

  And it is then that I hear a sharp sound from somewhere near, not unlike the cackling of a cruel fire. Has another gigantic banana fallen? I think quickly. But there is no other gigantic banana plant such as this one!

  I suddenly hear crying—loud, painful, somehow familiar. A growl that mellows into meowing. The sound quickly wrenches my heart for some reason—and I grapple with it. Only then does it dawn on me that it sounds like Makahagad in pain.

  I quickly grab my spear, which was a gift from the village across what had been once a great river, and I trace the crying to the far edges of the former river’s banks. I swallow the lump in my throat when I see Makahagad breathing shallowly atop a flat, dry river rock. His whimpers are long and concentrated and
I know quickly that he is dying. I run to the bearcat’s side, and I see a large wound down his torso, blood everywhere. I bite my lips to keep from crying out loud, and when I try with some noble futility to examine his wound, I hear a rustling that signaled dark danger.

  I hide quickly behind a nearby boulder, carrying my limp binturong with one hand, my spear in the other.

  Two figures gleam from across the muddy divide—strange creatures that look human, but towering in their gait, and monstrous in the way they sniff the air with an arrogance that angers me. Are they gods of another tribe? I think quickly. And yet they are completely unlike the depictions of gods I have known. They wear billowing clouds where their arms are supposed to be, and there is a silver shell where their torsos should be. They have heads of what looks like stone, and they carry with them oddly-shaped spears. They are demonic creatures, I decide.

  I stay behind the rocks, cradling my beloved bearcat.

  I hear the demons—these pale creatures—talk in a language I cannot decipher. I sit in restive silence as the sound of their sloshing footsteps in the mud moves towards me. I have no time to think, to plan. I lay Makahagad down on the ground, and his flickering eyes perhaps see me for the last time. I rein in the need for tears, and quivering, I place two fingers where his wound is. I feel the heat of his blood of iron on my fingers, and quickly press them on my lips. His blood tastes sweet and strong, and I feel an energy rush through me. I kiss his forehead, and I whisper to him, “Makahagad, do not die just yet. Your blood is made of iron. It will keep you alive. I will return to avenge you.”

  I rise slowly and turn my head to see where the demons are.

  I spot one of them, but he has spotted me first.

  I try to hide again but a loud explosion shatters the top of the rock I am hiding behind, narrowly missing my head. My ears ring like a thousand high-pitched kulintang. I tell myself not to panic. So I close my eyes, and from the ringing, I surge to listen to the sound of sky, tree, breeze. I suddenly hear sloshing closer to my right, and I clench my spear.

  My heartbeat races, and then I release to thrust my spear.

  A flash of red splashes across my vision. And then I see him, his eyes bloodshot and blue, the whole of him lying down in a stain of blood on the mud. I retract my spear from his side.

  Bang.

  There is that, and I quickly dodge the invisible blows from the other demon’s spear from hell. I hide behind the boulders again. I can smell the stench of the other demon’s anger, his words seemingly curses to Magwayen. I gulp in fear as I hear him drawing nearer and nearer.

  I hear two strong plucks coming from a distance, then two dashes of breath. A strong muddy splash comes from behind the boulder where I am hiding. I look at my shivering ankles, wading in the watery mud. I wait, but there is nothing more. There is no sound.

  Slowly, I peek out from where I am hiding, only to see the tranquil scene of dried-up river, bereft of the demon. It is face down instead in the mud, two arrows sprouting from the crevices of its silver shell.

  “The gods watch over me,” I mutter to myself.

  And so it was. I see one of them now, a tall figure with a bow, emerging from the lush thicket. The gods have come down from the mountains, I think. This one is bronzed like an eagle. His toes are like talons that clip over river stones. He looks radiant. The godly figure now lowers his bow and arrows, and draws nearer towards where Makahagad is.

  The god kneels at the side of the dead bearcat, and starts to weep. This god seems to have known my binturong, I think. He grieves with tears of lead. I fiercely hold back my own anguish, unable to understand what I am seeing. But my tears give way, and I too soon cry. Makahagad is gone.

  The man, the god, drops his bow in the mud and seems to have lost his strong stance. He crouches forward with the weight of loss, just as much as I.

  We both grieve.

  In our shared agony, I find that the god is nothing but an ordinary man. He is scarred in places, his hair is in tatters, his presence is shaken. He approaches me, still distressed but carried it off with stoic composure. He clears his throat.

  “My village has lost an ally,” he says.

  “My village has lost family,” I tell him.

  Silence.

  The man looks me in the eye, his mouth tense. And then he speaks:

  “Do you know Magpanabang? My name is Maayuput.”

  Victor Fernando R. Ocampo

  Panopticon

  Victor Fernando R. Ocampo is a Singapore-based Filipino writer. His work has appeared in publications like Apex Magazine, Expanded Horizons, Lakeside Circus, Strange Horizons, and the World SF Blog, as well in anthologies such as Fish Eats Lion: New Singaporean Speculative Fiction and Philippine Speculative Fiction (Volumes 6 and 9). His story “Here Be Dragons” won first prize at the Romeo Forbes Children’s Literature competition in 2012. Visit his blog at http://victorfernandorocampo.wordpress.com/ or follow him on Twitter @VictorOcampo.

  I WOKE UP in a dirty public toilet, white noise fogging my head. The stink of urine and cigarettes choked the dead air. A broken sink in front of me lay thick with organic crust, ashes and ancient spittle. Overhead, an incandescent bulb flickered uncertainly.

  “Mr. Salazar?” a voice behind me asked. “Try not to move so much, you’re not complete yet.”

  I glanced up at the mirror and saw the reflection of a woman in a tight white jumper, slender and tall like a huntress. I knew immediately that something was wrong. Her face was familiar, too familiar. It was a face that I had seen hundreds of times before, the 1970s screen siren Marrie Lee. She looked as if she’d stepped out from the movie They Call Her Cleopatra Wong.

  I balled my hand into a fist. I knew she couldn’t possibly be real.

  “No need to fight Mr. Salazar. Your reaction is all the confirmation I need,” the strange woman replied. “Cigarette?”

  “Who are you?” I asked, gagging at the assault of cesspool smells. “Where am I?”

  “It’s me, Pai Kia,” the woman said, her voice dropping suddenly to a baritone. “Let me adjust my HI.”

  “H… HI?” I stammered, as her body morphed into something more androgynous.

  “Aiyoh. H-I, Haptic Interface, It allows you to touch me,” he/she explained. “Anyway, we spoke at Golden Acres. I’m your caseworker, at least for the next few minutes. Sorry for the rough landing, this is my cheapest loading program. You did travel by steerage after all. Welcome to New Tundon.”

  I threw up.

  “Isn’t it wonderful? That’s your system getting rid of unnecessary information,” Pai Kia said, as he/she took a drag from a long Djarum Black. “Feels so real, correct or not? This place is almost the real universe. You won’t see any pixilation, not even on the quantum level. This hack is that good. You gone case uncle. But soon, very soon, you won’t even remember transitioning.”

  I kept throwing up until my knees gave way. My face slumped onto the dirty sink, straight into the puddle of my own vomit.

  “Listen, I’m paid by the second, so listen and listen closely.” The strange man/woman said. “Your algorithm’s still unfinished, but she wants you to find her. This time there’s no bullshit, no restraining orders. Find her. She’s waiting for you.”

  Pai Kia fished for something in their pocket and tossed it to the floor. It was an old Casio Data Bank watch.

  “Tundon’s a Hacker Town, a galaxy of parasite Gimokud hidden beneath one of the New Cities. Since you’re not in the 1%, you have to wear one of these. Your identity and your credits are inside until you’re re-skinned. Don’t lose it or you’ll be purged. If you need more credits you’ll have to sell something. If you got nothing, sell yourself. Good luck.”

  “Wait…” I whispered hoarsely, struggling to get back on my feet. “Please wait.”

  When I finally managed to stand, the strange man/woman was gone. Only the smell of clove cigarettes remained, pungent as rotting fruit.

  I moved to a clean sink and washed my face. When
I looked into the mirror, an impossible face stared back. Somehow I was young again, probably 20 or 21. That was about how old I was when I first met Esperanza. I was sure it was no coincidence.

  Damn it. Why is she torturing me? Why now, after all these years? I asked myself, feeling a familiar flood of pain and self-loathing. Why did I even come?

  In my old age I had tried my best to forget about her, to erase what had ripped my heart out. It took a very long time, but over the years I honestly believed my nightmare was behind me. I thought that time had dulled my heart, like alcohol dulled the mind.

  The thing was I never told anyone that I still loved her. How could I? Not after what we had, not after what we went through. I guess I’d always be stupid that way.

  But life continued, oblivious to pain, oblivious to heartache. It simply lumbered on, despite our personal damage. Our love broke me to the point where I couldn’t deal with relationships, not anymore, perhaps not ever.

  Eventually I came to terms with growing old by myself. It was more comfortable that way. Being numb and alone was safer, especially at the end of all things. Yet in my heart of hearts, all I wanted was to lock away the memory of our last perfect day, fragile as the dawn, when youth and love seemed infinite.

  I opted to misremember everything else. Memory was never perfect anyway, and false memories were just as good as real ones, if you wished hard enough.

  I dried my face on my shirt of piña cloth, a luxurious barong Tagalog reserved for weddings. The telltale static of Nanotex fabric on wet skin told me it wasn’t a real shirt. I put on the watch she’d left me and checked its digital signature. Every single thing I was wearing was pre-owned. They were her husband’s hand-me-down downloads.

  A message scrawled across the calado embroidery on my shirt cuffs, a helpful reminder of my indigent humiliation.