Dangaiuo: Home of Short Stories

Dangaiuo

               When I was a lad of some ten summers, there were rampant cases of what I call ZOMBICISM among animals, especially among dogs, ESPECIALLY DOGS. Dangaiuo (däng-GEI-oh) with other stray dogs would gad about our fenceless compound like patrol. He had an inch-long, black fur, attentive, pointed ears that stood erect when he had to respond to external stimuli, and a short tail he often wagged. He’s one dangaw above a foot tall, with four short yet sinewy legs sufficed to run after wild felines, snakes and  any other possible threats lurking and lingering in the thickness of woods around our place. He barked at the sight of people he’s not acquainted with, smiled at trespassers (and played chase-and-tag with them at times but in an aggressive manner) and walked me along the kahon, an elevated narrow way that parts one paddy from another, as I embraced every dawn of my rural life, and supposed clouds to be the sole thing that comes and goes. He’s round about the half of his life span, seven to eight years old. Despite his age, he never got exhausted catching up when my walk hastened up, or at times I was a sloth, he waited up until I made out to gain back my sinews to go on.

             Came the time when a certain circumstance brought in the idea of death – there are dusks that promise no dawn and only they are unquestionably to come. A ZOMBIE dog locally known being an ayam-buang, came by violent and wild, and tended to harm anyone within its reach. Its figure was barely perceivable to have been an appearance of a dog. It nearly had thrown off all its fur; its body, roughly furnished with dried yet somehow ashen pink abrasions which perhaps conceivably resulted from prior fights he had had or from his own scratch, dwindled in starvation as limned by the ribs cropping out its  scarcely nourished trunk; its loin was perceptibly thin. It had eyes that were noticeably red; its mouth seemed to have not had strain although it was all the time open since it stepped in our place.

             My tio, having descried the eerie behavior of the pitiful distorted creature, particularly the involuntary, irrequisite reflex of its body, hurried to alarm us. Hence, we were ordered to lie low inside our respective houses. The dog per se couldn’t kill us nor could it chill us had it not been owing to the fact what’s in the bite could be fatal. My close relatives, all were my tios and cousins and some of them being adept in hunting, went after it with empty rice sacks and wooden staffs. Dangaiuo, his two ears erected, hesitated not; all he had was sense of danger and intrigue, and with my relatives he withal went.

              The pursuit had not been subtle. Through the window pain of our house and with half of my head pressed on it facing westward, I ran my eyesight to where they were heading. The sky didn’t loom to pour out rain nevertheless, it wasn’t clear either. The atmosphere boded not well. The bamboo groves were teased by vicious winds and fallen leaves whirled to the air like clouds of grasshoppers. The rustling sound of the outside scared me, it cringed me. After several minutes of running after the dog, they at long last cornered it somewhere far of where the chase had began. Dangaiuo grinned out his fangs to the dog. He didn’t take any chance of its escape when he actually took a plunge towards it. He seized its lean neck with his jaws then rolled it down to the cracked floor of the fields. The once nearly dead wound on the dog’s withers, loin, and muzzle became alive again when from pale pink now it’s red with life. The dog clawed him in return, its slobber swung to random directions like wild pendulum. It soon had buried its teeth in Dangaiuo’s shoulder. He whined – I know it was his; for the high-pitched cry of pain pierced through me who had not yet experienced the apogees and nadirs of emotions. When my uncle found a hole to plunge in, he dived toward the busy monster. At length, the once empty sack had the dog inside, wiggling and trying to escape. They beat it to death – so fast that the pain didn’t last long.

               Dangaiuo was twisting and turning in pain and he could hardly walk. The clouds were thick, appearing like a mass of somber cotton. They seemed to hover away, too gradual to perceive it was moving at all. My tio repaired to him with sadness he was trying to mask with masculinity. He spoke to him, his words showing care and flowed creeping as the floating clouds above. ‘Flee.’ He said in Hiligaynon. ‘Go to the farthest place. Far from us. Safe from us.’

Dangaiuo managed to walk after fivesome of hours. He went home to the front porch where he had always been. After which, he was no where to be found. He really did so.

Zombicism – a real-life condition where affected dogs become eccentric, have unusual behavior and end up harming people in my case, emotionally – is contagious through bites. I walked my thought along the fields, towards the east two days had already past since the incident. The day wasn’t different than what it was before – but it now meant differently for a ten year old boy. The bloody sky, the cloudless sky, the afterglow boded something.

That night, the third night of being without Dangaiuo, the sky released what it had for how many weeks without rain. My thought asked of Dangaiuo: Is he okay? Has he food to eat? Shelter?

               My grandmother was opening the door on the front porch before dawn – that day was unusual. The first light of cockcrow travelled through the window, the cocks trumpeted, and daytime noises stirred up when she opened the door then she was dumb for a moment. Lying on the front porch was Dangaiuo. Still. Cold. Lifeless. That day Dangaiuo walked me another dawn that meant different than what we used to walk before. I could have not accepted the fact about waving hands as people go far away places, but I think that’s what I was walking for, for so long – a realization – to embrace the setting sun just how I rise with it