1991 (work in progress)

6: Matte

The terrible hurricane Diding challenges the colossal eruption of Pinatubo to claim the history of the Philippines; torrents of rain and tons of ash battle creating a heavy and coarse hailstorm. Turning the land ripe for the spirits and the dead they who scorn us for life is wasted on the living for they are too foolish to live. Punishing us by making the simplest task as arduous as the last. With every step my weight is being pulled down as if to lull me to walk as the dead does; never to touch the grace of the land always hovering inches above this muck or mud, no this reminds me of cement badly mixed with sand. A sudden jolt of pain buries into my left eye I cover it with my grime filled hands the more I scratch it out the more it digs deeper so I keep it close as the other squints to the borderless beyond. I hide half my face into my blouse trying to catch my breath as the piercing stench of this brave new wonderland sips throughout. The darkness feels alive hunting all that bring lights into his domain.

I tried time after time to return where I came from to get back to my family but I do not know where 'back' is. All reminders of where I've been is gone. I stare with one good eye at one spot and chase it, a tree with its branches bend from the weight, a small bush turned to a mound, patches of grass clump together petrified white, leaves of tall coconut trees dangle down like Eternals afloat admiring the conquered.

DUM, a distant sound as the ground shakes slightly every few moments the final reminder to my senses how foreign it all has become. I take a turn on a whiten fallen tree, the rain thickens. I slip on a sinking paddle, strong gust of wind with small stones pound my back. I stumble around a dead Carabao frozen like a boulder, DUM the ground trembles constantly as if Mt. Pinatubo has started to rise and walkabout. In the bleakness, I grope what feels like logs covered in half-dried cement I follow its stretch further to where I should have been. I'm stopped by an irregularly shaped blockade adjacent to the wall under a large tree draped in layers of grey-curtain. ISUZU, written on its caked front grill. Sitting on the wide front bumper pain on my lower back drilling and tears steadily seep out of my closed left eye. In the misery of this living blackness; it does not give me time to weep nor give me the opportunity to shout for people as the dead are. A very low grunt sends shivers to my body only did I notice that the pounding on the ground has grown louder and closer.

The sting in my left eye has lessened so I peel it open remembering how a recently closed eye creates a natural night vision, that's why pirates wear eye patches to see the dark cabin of their ships better as 1001 Factbook would state it. I focused around the twilight there are only darkness and grey outlines. DUM the ground shakes, against the rain the air is strangely stifling. I feel it is just beside me I look at my back and only the perpetual obscurity of the land and sky as one. The ground shakes yet again. I notice that abruptly the rain has stopped as murky silent engulfed all not like the silence of calm but of grim with no mark. The mud on my skin begins to dry and crumble as the temperature rises significantly. A sudden dart of pain from my left eye force it close then there it stands, ominous and darker than the land itself. I can see only one of its legs a gigantic trunk as tall as a radio towers wide as a warehouse its edges ragged and sharp with faint steam waning out of hidden cracks. I strain to stare up obscured by the slow dancing ashes I can not see further than its lower torso yet I can feel it, miles above me turning both land and sky dimmer.

Slipping off the bumper of the truck I cover my mouth over my blouse holding back a gasp and scream. A long low pulsing bellow. "It breathes" I murmured. The ground quivers as the immeasurable stump of a foot raise up kilometers; cracking and releasing heated air before disappearing in the darkness, then the abounding rain falls all around drenching the feverish area. DUM the resonating footfall echoes and trembles the land again, it is walking away continuing its path to the abyss.

The growing pain in my closed left eye shocks me back to reality. I look about from one tree to the truck all stony and solidified wondering if it was a hallucination, the unfamiliar seeking solace in imagination to make it familiar still why would I conjure a giant? Staggering about the wet clay like a potter readying his medium for his masterpiece. I notice a flickering light ahead. The rain has slowed again when I reach the row of stalls. These stores are built beside the major road where most cars pass but this is not along where we passed on Abad Santos, Where is this? only one of the stall has its shutter half open with a yellow glow from inside. I bang on the white-painted grates and shout but no one answers.