Dead Reckoning - A Gregorio del Pilar x Reader story

XIII - The Tilt Shift

n. a phenomenon in which your lived experience seems oddly inconsequential once you put it down on paper, which turns an epic tragicomedy into a sequence of figures on a model train set, assembled in their tiny classrooms and workplaces, wandering along their own cautious and well-trodden paths—peaceable, generic and out of focus.

* * *

Fourteen Mauser rifles and other armament supplies had been hoarded from that brief encounter at the church in Paombong that forced the Spanish soldiers to retreat and abandon their own guns. Apparently, that's how easy it had been to liberate the town of Paombong. Before a Sunday Mass, with men in disguised as women, with rifles aimed and shot at the enmies, and an instant fourteen rifles.

After that, with everyone celebrating the great success, I head straight to the safe house and lay back on the bed. I don't know why, for some reasons, I can't remove the tremor and shake on my body. Perhaps because of the sound of gunfire that still makes me cower; after all, compared to the rest of the people here, they've been living with that sound next to them on their sleeps. And it sparks a sudden memory within me.

In my own world, gun enforcement is for the wealthy. It means that even if it is implemented, the wealthy still has access of owning such. Then, the general public starts to own one, too. I was young when I first had an encounter with guns. Along with my cousin, when I was seven years old, we've witnessed a public murder just twenty meters from where we were. I underwent theraphy and the psychiatrist deemed me "healed" after seven years.

Today, with me just too close to Goyo firing his rifle earlier, I realized that I was never truly healed. It was just a short moment of forgetfulness to remove the fear that something like that happened. In this point of time, in our history, I understand the neccessity; and yet, I can't help asking: perhaps, if we try harder, there could be an alternative despite all of this. But, what is it?

I can hear the celebration from outside the house through the open windows. It isn't only the soldiers, but also the townspeople who've been celebrating. I heard one asking what will be the food to cook and prepare for the feast of the Paombong success. I fight the urge not to perch outside the window to find everyone happy and enthusiastic after the exchange of gunfire that happened in the church earlier. I sigh heavily as I focus on looking at the slightly ajar door, and then I notice a shadow pass from the outside.

Multo? I shiver at that initial thought. I instantly shake my head, neglecting that thought since it is impossible. I don't even believe in ghosts, in the first place, so no, I will not entertain such idea.

I hear footsteps against wood from the outside of the room that led me to push myself away from the bed and draw closer to the door, peeking through the space to see who it is. I notice the familiar figure of his back as he enters in another room just two doors down from mine. And like I did, he didn't close the door. Apparently, he has the door much wide open as if to just let anyone in. To invite anyone.

Akala ko, nandoon siya sa labas, nagsasaya gaya ng iba.

I am in the middle of internal struggle when I've finally decided to check on him. I leave my room and silently, with all my might, draw closer to the room he had entered in. It is like that of I've stayed in, fully furnished, but smaller.

And I see Goyo all alone, sitting by the window ledge. He is no longer wearing the matching blouse and saya he'd been wearing earlier; he is now wearing some polo and pants. His eyes are drawn afar than to the commotion of celebration going on outside, inviting him, for sure. Like the last time that I've seen him in deep thought as this, he has his journal on one hand and a pencil on the other, as if to write what happened today.