The Color of My Fears [COMPLETE]

Chapter 2 - Dead Bird in the Closet [#8]

Ismael brought a small bamboo chair and went to one corner of the room. He stood on the chair on tiptoe and raised his hands, groping for something hidden in between the layers of thatched palm fronds (nipa) that made up the roof. He was ever careful not to accidentally loosen the deteriorating planks hastily nailed to the corner posts. He recovered a small, rusted key tucked inside the layers. When he had climbed down the chair, he told me once more, "Don't you tell my father."

As if the penalty is death by Damocles' sword falling on his head.

Finding the keyhole, Ismael silently inserted and turned the key. Humming to himself, he opened the double door. I smelled the odor of ripe bayabas wafting in the air, obviously coming out from the closet. The wooden cabinet was full of curiosities, its narrow shelves cramped with queer things, both mundane and magical.

The moment of truth at last. The contents of the mysterious closet were ours to behold in exchange for Tony's precious marbles.

Ismael turned to me. "You know what these are?" he said in a whisper, his voice becoming hoarse. "Pearls of green shells. You swallow them and you'll become strong and agile." His tone was serious with nary a hint of doubt. He held up a small milky orange medicine bottle half-full of water.

Tony leaned closer to take a peek at the bottle. "I don't see any pearls," he said, his lips curving into a wry smile. Suddenly, he seemed to be less inclined to believe. Perhaps Tony decided not to part with his marbles after all.

"No? Because they're floating," Ismael answered back, obviously irked by Tony's seemingly apparent mockery of his words. He wouldn't want to be easily trifled with.

"Ah, I see, let's open it." I attempted to grab the bottle from him.

"No," Ismael turned away without letting go of the bottle. Slowly, he untied the black rubber band which held the plastic cover. When done, he offered me the bottle. "Take a look."

I peeped into the bottle. Indeed, the pearls were there, but they're not the kind of pearls I had in mind. Where I expected to see shiny round things, I saw tiny irregular stone-like objects the size of salt grains. I wondered whether these 'pearls' bestowed upon Tio Berto and Ismael the peculiar ability on the use of hoes and trowels. During the off-milling season when sugar cane plants were still young, we worked in the cane fields by tilling the soil and pulling off grasses which grew profusely between the rows. They were so fast that father and son easily finished the tasks (pakyaw) assigned to them. We just scratched our heads at how fast they did it. They floated over the rows, one moment they were at one end of a row and in another instant I saw them at the other end. And yet when the watcher of the farm workers (cabo) inspected their tracks, all the grasses were pulled out or cut neatly and laid down on one side of the rows.

"What's this?" Tony asked Ismael as he picked a loose bundle of papers from the partly open cabinet. He couldn't contain himself from touching any object in the shelf. Ismael grabbed them quickly from Tony's prying hands. He wouldn't want Tony to read the words on the pages as if Tony could read them. After choosing one item, Ismael handed over to me a thin book for a quick look.

It was a small, thin worn-out black book bound in leather the cover of which was full of sketches crisscrossing a central figure of a man. I browsed the pages and my lips followed the words but the meanings escaped my understanding. The letters were English but the words were not.

Seeing my contorted face, Ismael explained. "This book is full of enchanted prayers (oraciones). The oraciones can make your enemies weak. The hermit of the creek, on his deathbed, gave it to father. The old man said he saw the book floating downstream in the creek. He almost lost his life swimming for it. You know what he did to get it? He swam upstream." Ismael's hands waved in the air. He was acting what he was telling us.

It's not the story that was incredible to me; it's how easily he spoke and delivered the words. They came out from his mouth as if they were there a long time, simmering, waiting for the right moment to get out. And this was the moment.

Unable to follow what he meant, I turned several pages and a queer drawing of a man on page seven caught my attention. Below it were strange handwritten words which I began to read aloud. "Dix-it-do-mi-nus." The words sank deeply, for me meaningless. But words have power; they can move mountains if used as prayers or incantations. As soon as I spoke the words, I felt a tingling sensation up my spine and an unseen hand tapped me cold by the shoulders. 

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