ALL OVER THE WORLD by Vicente Rivera, Jr. ONE evening in August 1941, I came out of a late movie to a silent, cold night. I shivered a little as I stood for a moment in the narrow street, looking up at the distant sky, alive with stars. I stood there, letting the night wind seep through me, and listening. The street was empty, the houses on the street dim—with the kind of ghostly dimness that seems to embrace sleeping houses. I had always liked empty streets in the night; I had always stopped for a while in these streets listening for something I did not quite know what. Perhaps for low, soft cries that empty streets and sleeping houses seem to share in the night. I lived in an old, nearly crumbling apartment house just across the street from the moviehouse. From the street, I could see into the open courtyard, around which rooms for the tenants, mostly a whole family to a single room, were ranged. My room, like all the other rooms on the groundfloor, opened on this court. Three other boys, my cousins, shared the room with me. As I turned into the courtyard from the street, I noticed that the light over our study-table, which stood on the corridor outside our room, was still burning. Earlier in the evening after supper, I had taken out my books to study, but I went to a movie instead. I must have forgotten to turn off the light; apparently, the boys had forgotten, too. I went around the low screen that partitioned off our “study” and there was a girl reading at the table. We looked at each other, startled. I had never seen her before. She was about eleven years old, and she wore a faded blue dress. She had long, straight hair falling to her shoulders. She was reading my copy of Greek Myths. The eyes she had turned to me were wide, darkened a little by apprehension. For a long time neither of us said anything. She was a delicately pretty girl with a fine, smooth. pale olive skin that shone richly in the yellow light. Her nose was straight, small and finely molded. Her lips, full and red, were fixed and tense. And there was something else about her. Something lonely? something lost? “I know,” I said, “I like stories, too. I read anything good I find lying around. Have you been reading long?” “Yes,” she said. not looking at me now. She got up slowly, closing the book. “I’m sorry.” “Don’t you want to read anymore? I asked her, trying to smile, trying to make her feel that everything was all right. “No.” she said, “thank you.” “Oh, yes,” I said, picking up the book. “It’s late. You ought to be in bed. But, you can take this along.” She hesitated, hanging back, then shyly she took the book, brought it to her side. She looked down at her feet uncertain as to where to turn. “You live here?” I asked her. “Yes.” “What room?” She turned her face and nodded towards the far corner, across the courtyard, to a little room near the communal kitchen. It was the room occupied by the janitor: a small square room with no windows except for a transom above the door. “You live with Mang Lucio?” “He’s my uncle.” “How long have you been here? I haven’t seen you before, have I?” “I’ve always been here. I’ve seen you.” “Oh. Well, good night—your name?” “Maria.” “Good night, Maria.” She turned quickly, ran across the courtyard, straight to her room, and closed the door without looking back. I undressed, turned off the light and lay in bed dreaming of far-away things. I was twenty-one and had a job for the first time. The salary was not much and I lived in a house that was slowly coming apart, but life seemed good. And in the evening when the noise of living had died down and you lay safe in bed, you could dream of better times, look back and ahead, and find that life could be gentle—even with the hardness. And afterwards, when the night had grown colder, and suddenly you felt alone in the world, adrift, caught in a current of mystery that came in the hour between sleep and waking, the vaguely frightening loneliness only brought you closer to everything, to the walls and the shadows on the walls, to the other sleeping people in the room, to everything within and beyond this house, this street, this city, everywhere. I met Maria again one early evening, a week later, as I was coming home from the office. I saw her walking ahead of me, slowly, as if she could not be too careful, and with a kind of grownup poise that was somehow touching. But I did not know it was Maria until she stopped and I overtook her. She was wearing a white dress that had been old many months ago. She wore a pair of brown sneakers that had been white once. She had stopped to look at the posters of pictures advertised as “Coming” to our neighborhood theater. “Hello,” I said, trying to sound casual. She smiled at me and looked away quickly. She did not say anything nor did she step away. I felt her shyness, but there was no self-consciousness, none of the tenseness and restraint of the night we first met. I stood beside her, looked at the pictures tacked to a tilted board, and tried whistling a tune. She turned to go, hesitated, and looked at me full in the eyes. There was again that wide-eyed—and sad? —stare. I smiled, feeling a remote desire to comfort her, as if it would do any good, as if it was comfort she needed. “I’ll return your book now,” she said. “You’ve finished it?” “Yes.” We walked down the shadowed street. Magallanes Street in Intramuros, like all the other streets there, was not wide enough, hemmed in by old, mostly unpainted houses, clumsy and unlovely, even in the darkening light of the fading day. We went into the apartment house and I followed her across the court. I stood outside the door which she closed carefully after her. She came out almost immediately and put in my hands the book of Greek myths. She did not look at me as she stood straight and remote. “My name is Felix,” I said. She smiled suddenly. It was a little smile, almost an unfinished smile. But, somehow, it felt special, something given from way deep inside in sincere friendship. I walked away whistling. At the door of my room, I stopped and looked back. Maria was not in sight. Her door was firmly closed. August, 1941, was a warm month. The hangover of summer still permeated the air, specially in Intramuros. But, like some of the days of late summer, there were afternoons when the weather was soft and clear, the sky a watery green, with a shell-like quality to it that almost made you see through and beyond, so that, watching it made you lightheaded. I walked out of the office one day into just such an afternoon. The day had been full of grinding work—like all the other days past. I was tired. I walked slowly, towards the far side of the old city, where traffic was not heavy. On the street there were old trees, as old as the walls that enclosed the city. Half-way towards school, I changed my mind and headed for the gate that led out to Bonifacio Drive. I needed stiffer winds, wider skies. I needed all of the afternoon to myself. Maria was sitting on the first bench, as you went up the sloping drive that curved away from the western gate. She saw me before I saw her. When I looked her way, she was already smiling that half-smile of hers, which even so told you all the truth she knew, without your asking. “Hello,” I said. “It’s a small world.” “What?” “I said it’s nice running into you. Do you always come here?” “As often as I can. I go to many places.” “Doesn’t your uncle disapprove?” “No. He’s never around. Besides, he doesn’t mind anything.” “Where do you go?” “Oh, up on the walls. In the gardens up there, near Victoria gate. D’you know?” “I think so. What do you do up there?” “Sit down and—” “And what?” “Nothing. Just sit down.” She fell silent. Something seemed to come between us. She was suddenly far-away. It was like the first night again. I decided to change the subject. “Look,” I said, carefully, “where are your folks?” “You mean, my mother and father?” “Yes. And your brothers and sisters, if any.” “My mother and father are dead. My elder sister is married. She’s in the province. There isn’t anybody else.” “Did you grow up with your uncle?” “I think so.” We were silent again. Maria had answered my questions without embarrassment. almost without emotion, in a cool light voice that had no tone. “Are you in school, Maria?” “Yes.” “What grade?” “Six.” “How d’you like it?” “Oh, I like it.” “I know you like reading.” She had no comment. The afternoon had waned. The breeze from the sea had died down. The last lingering warmth of the sun was now edged with cold. The trees and buildings in the distance seemed to flounder in a red-gold mist. It was a time of day that never failed to carry an enchantment for me. Maria and I sat still together, caught in some spell that made the silence between us right, that made our being together on a bench in the boulevard, man and girl, stranger and stranger, a thing not to be wondered at, as natural and inevitable as the lengthening shadows before the setting sun. Other days came, and soon it was the season of the rain. The city grew dim and gray at the first onslaught of the monsoon. There were no more walks in the sun. I caught a cold. Maria and I had become friends now, though we saw each other infrequently. I became engrossed in my studies. You could not do anything else in a city caught in the rains. September came and went. In November, the sun broke through the now ever present clouds, and for three or four days we had bright clear weather. Then, my mind once again began flitting from my desk, to the walls outside the office, to the gardens on the walls and the benches under the trees in the boulevards. Once, while working on a particularly bad copy on the news desk, my mind scattered, the way it sometimes does and, coming together again, went back to that first meeting with Maria. And the remembrance came clear, coming into sharper focus—the electric light, the shadows around us, the stillness. And Maria, with her wide-eyed stare, the lost look in her eyes… IN December, I had a little fever. On sick leave, I went home to the province. I stayed three days. I felt restless, as if I had strayed and lost contact with myself. I suppose you got that way from being sick, A pouring rain followed our train all the way back to Manila. Outside my window, the landscape was a series of dissolved hills and fields. What is it in the click of the wheels of a train that makes you feel gray inside? What is it in being sick, in lying abed that makes you feel you are awake in a dream, and that you are just an occurrence in the crying grief of streets and houses and people? In December, we had our first air-raid practice. I came home one night through darkened streets, peopled by shadows. There was a ragged look to everything, as if no one and nothing cared any more for appearances. I reached my room just as the siren shrilled. I undressed and got into my old clothes. It was dark, darker than the moment after moon-set. I went out on the corridor and sat in a chair. All around me were movements and voices. anonymous and hushed, even when they laughed. I sat still, afraid and cold. “Is that you. Felix?” “Yes. Maria.” She was standing beside my chair, close to the wall. Her voice was small and disembodied in the darkness. A chill went through me, She said nothing more for a long time. “I don’t like the darkness,” she said. “Oh, come now. When you sleep, you turn the lights off, don’t you?” “It’s not like this darkness,” she said, softly. “It’s all over the world.” We did not speak again until the lights went on. Then she was gone. The war happened not long after. At first, everything was unreal. It was like living on a motion picture screen, with yourself as actor and audience. But the sounds of bombs exploding were real enough, thudding dully against the unready ear. In Intramuros, the people left their homes the first night of the war. Many of them slept in the niches of the old walls the first time they heard the sirens scream in earnest. That evening, I returned home to find the apartment house empty. The janitor was there. My cousin who worked in the army was there. But the rest of the tenants were gone. I asked Mang Lucio, “Maria?” “She’s gone with your aunt to the walls.” he told me. “They will sleep there tonight.” My cousin told me that in the morning we would transfer to Singalong. There was a house available. The only reason he was staying, he said, was because they were unable to move our things. Tomorrow that would be taken care of immediately. “And you, Mang Lucio?” “I don’t know where I could go.” We ate canned pork and beans and bread. We slept on the floor, with the lights swathed in black cloth. The house creaked in the night and sent off hollow echoes. We slept uneasily. I woke up early. It was disquieting to wake up to stillness in that house which rang with children’s voices and laughter the whole day everyday. In the kitchen, there were sounds and smells of cooking. “Hello,” I said. It was Maria, frying rice. She turned from the stove and looked at me for a long time. Then, without a word, she turned back to her cooking. “Are you and your uncle going away?” I asked. “I don’t know.” “Did he not tell you?” “No.” “We’re moving to Singalong.” “Yes, I know.” “Well, anyway, I’ll come back tonight. Maybe this afternoon. We’ll not have to say goodbye till then.” She did not say anything. I finished washing and went back to my room. I dressed and went out. At noon, I went to Singalong to eat. All our things were there already, and the folks were busy putting the house in order. As soon as I finished lunch, I went back to the office. There were few vehicles about. Air-raid alerts were frequent. The brightness of the day seemed glaring. The faces of people were all pale and drawn. In the evening, I went back down the familiar street. I was stopped many times by air-raid volunteers. The house was dark. I walked back to the street. I stood for a long time before the house. Something did not want me to go away just yet. A light burst in my face. It was a volunteer. “Do you live here?” “I used to. Up to yesterday. I’m looking for the janitor.” “Why, did you leave something behind?” “Yes, I did. But I think I’ve lost it now.” “Well, you better get along, son. This place, the whole area. has been ordered evacuated. Nobody lives here anymore.” “Yes, I know,” I said. “Nobody.” Ω THE LITTLE PEOPLE by Maria Aleah G. Taboclaon THE elves came to stay with us when I was nine. They were noisy creatures and we would hear them stomping on an old crib on the ceiling. We heard them from morning till night. They kept us awake at night. One night, when it was particularly unbearable, Papa mustered enough courage and called out. Excuse me! he said. Our family would like to sleep, please? Resume your banging tomorrow! Of course, we had tried restraining him for we didnt know how the elves would react to such audacity. We got the shock of our lives when silence suddenly filled the house--no more banging, no more stomping from the elves. Papa turned to us smugly. Sheepishly, we turned in for the night, thankful for the respite. When dawn came, the smug look on Papas face the night before turned into anger for shortly before six, the banging started again, and louder this time! We got up and tried speaking to the elves but got no response. The banging continued all day and into the night, and stopped at the same hour--eleven oclock. And at exactly six a.m. the next day, it started again. What could our poor family do? Papa tried to call an albularyo to get rid of our unwelcome housemates but the woman was booked till the end of the week. Meanwhile, the elves had become our alarm clock. When they start their noise, we would get up and do our errands. Papa would start cooking, I would start setting the table, Mama would sweep. The whole house--my older sister and my cousin would water the plants, and my brother would start coloring his books. (We really didnt expect him to work, he was only four.) After a week, we got hold of the albularyo. She spent the night in our house and by morning, she told us to never bother her again. The elves had already made themselves a part of our life, she said. Prax, the leader of the elves, had spoken to her and had told her that his family had no plans of moving out. They liked things as they were. We eventually settled down to a comfortable coexistence with the elves. They woke us up at six, they let us sleep at eleven, and in return for the alarm service we would leave food on the table. By morning, the food would be gone and the table cleaned. All in all, it was a very good relationship. After three weeks--the first week of May--I met Prax, the leader and oldest in the clan, and I met him literally by accident. I was climbing the mango tree in our yard when one of its branches broke. I fell and broke my ankle. The pain was so great that I just sat there numb, staring at my ankle which had begun to turn blue. I could not move or cry out. I went to sleep to forget the pain. My last conscious thought was that the ground was too cold to sleep on. I woke to a hand touching my foot. It belonged to someone--something nonhuman, for his hand radiated warmth that seemed to penetrate to my bones. His hand was small, wrinkled and felt like dried prunes. Although I was curious, I kept my eyes closed. I imagined a hideously deformed face, with long and sharp teeth. Would he disappear when I open my eyes? Or would he devour me? I pretended to be asleep. After several minutes, I could pretend no longer; I was too curious to remain still. When I opened my eyes, the horrible sight that I expected was not there. Instead, there was this old, wrinkled creature, even shorter than I was although I was the smallest in my class. He wore overalls unlike any clothing I knew of. Its texture was a mixture of green leaves and earth. It clung to his skin and writhed with a life of its own. Its color continually changed from deep to light green, to dark to light brown, and to green again. It was fascinating to look at. I felt a sense of awe and respect towards the elf. He was good with his hands. My ankle already felt better. He was massaging it with an ointment that smelled nice. Before I could stop myself, I sniffed deeply, bringing the healing aroma of the ointment deep into my lungs. Detecting my movement, the elf turned to me and smiled kindly. Although I didnt see his mouth moving, I could hear him talking. Dont be afraid, he said. His voice was so soothing that I had to fight my urge to snuggle and sleep in his small arms. I shook my head slightly. What was I supposed to say? Hello, elf? How are you? I could not. I didnt even know if I was supposed to call him that or just say Tabi or Apo. As if knowing what I was thinking, the elf smiled again. You call our kind dwendes or elves, no? I nodded. I actually dont mind if you call me an elf, but please call me Prax. Seeing my astonished look, Prax laughed. His laugh sounded like the whistling of wind through the trees and a bit like the breaking of the waves on the seashore. I thought it nice and longed to hear more. And I wanted to know more about his kind. Did they have children? Wives? Did they play games like patintero? Habulan? But Prax was not in the mood to chat. He told me that I should have been more careful. I could have been seriously hurt. I nodded absently, thinking that I liked his clothes, his laugh, and his voice. He reminded me of my grandfather who had died a long time ago. I closed my eyes, letting Praxs healing massage lull me to sleep. Thirty minutes later when I woke up, the elf was gone. Only the lingering fragrance of his balm remained. When Mama and Papa arrived, I told them what had happened. It was really frustrating seeing their reactions. They became pale, then collapsed on the sofa. I had to douse them with water before they revived. Why couldnt they be like other people and be glad that I had been befriended by a supernatural being? I had told them about my first encounter with a real elf, and they fainted on the spot! I sulked for the rest of the evening. Mama told me to never, never talk to elves again. Or did I forget the countless tales of elves taking people to their kingdom after killing them? I just shrugged. After all, the elf had saved my life! I thought no more of it and, indeed, began to enjoy the banging and stomping on our ceiling. I almost wished to be hurt again just so I could see Prax. But nothing happened and I passed the rest of my summer days dreaming about playing with elves. I met my second elf in school. I was in Grade 3, a transferee to a new public school that had a haunted classroom. My classmates related tales about dwendes, white ladies, and kapres in our school. I believed their stories readily. I tried to tell them about Prax but since they were skeptical, I decided to let them be. As it was, I was excluded from their games. In the classroom, I chose the seat I felt was the most haunted, the one farthest away from the teachers table. Nobody wanted to sit near me. Behind me was a picture of the president. Without the company of my classmates, I expected elves to make their presence felt. So I waited. By the third month in class, it happened. We had a very difficult math exam. Our teacher left us and went to gossip outside and all around me my classmates were openly copying each others work. I looked at their papers from my seat, hoping that their scribbles would mean something to me but the answers to the blasted long divisions eluded me. I looked at the ceiling, trying to see if my brain would work better if my head was tilted a certain angle. It did not. I looked to my right, nothing there. And finally, I looked down and saw this tiny little elf, smaller than Prax by as much as six inches, sitting on the bag in front of me tap-tapping his foot impatiently. What took you so long to notice? Ive been here for hours! he said. What gall! Did he really think that his race would excuse his bad manners? I ignored him and frowned at my test paper. What was 3996 divided by 6? Immediately, he apologized and told me that his name was Bat. He had seen me play outside and thought that I was beautiful, sensitive, and romantic. Did I want him to help me in my test? Me beautiful? I enthusiastically agreed to let him answer the test. I showed him my paper, and he snorted. For us elves, this is elementary! he said. I wanted to tell him that to us humans, these problems are also elementary, third-grade in fact, but I changed my mind. Bat and I became friends. He helped me with my homework and gave me little things such as colored pencils and stationery that were the craze in school. He cautioned me strongly against telling my parents of my friendship with him. After all, he said, some people might not understand our relationship. They might forbid us from seeing each other. I thought nothing of it and kept silent about my friendship with Bat. I enjoyed his company, for he was very thoughtful. He was a good friend and I thought we would be friends forever. The time came, though, when he declared that he loved me. He wanted me to go with him to his kingdom and be his princess. I refused, of course. For Gods sake, I was only nine! I didnt know how to cook or do the laundry or do the other things that wives are expected to do. And he was an elf! Short as I was, he only came up to my knees. What a ridiculous picture we would surely make. He pleaded with me for days but out of spite I told him that I had already confided to my parents, and that they were very angry. It was not true, but Bat didnt know that. He got angry and launched into diatribes about promises being made and broken. Then he vanished. That night I dreamed that Prax talked to me. He told me that I should have never offended Bat outright. That elf is a stranger in our town, he said. We dont know his family. He might be violent. But I had already done what I had done and there was no use wishing otherwise. I told Prax Id never worry. After all, hed always be there for me and my family, right? Wrong, he said. His gift was for giving good luck and for healing minor, nonfatal injuries. What good is that for? I asked. He couldnt answer, and left me to a dream of falling houses and shrieking elves. The next day, I got sick and did not get well even after the best doctor in town treated me. My parents had grown desperate so the albularyo was called once more. She told my parents to roast a whole cow, which they did willingly. The albularyo and her family feasted on it. When I was still sick after a few days, she instructed my parents to cut my hair; she told them that elves liked longhaired women. The problem was Bat liked my new look, and in my dreams, he was always there, entreating me to go with him. I got sicker than ever. The albularyo, getting an idea from a dream, then tried her last cure--an ointment taken from the bark of seven old trees applied to my hair. It cost more than the cow and nobody could enter my room without gagging. The smell was terrible. That did the trick. Apparently, Bat was disgusted but he would stop at nothing to get me, even if it meant getting my family out of the way. I told him again and again that I didnt love him and would never go with him, but the elfs mind was set. In the end I just ignored him, for who could reason with an elf, and a mad one at that? He did not turn up in my dreams the next few nights. In a week, I was up and running again and I thought that all was right. My parents decided that I should transfer to another school, this time a sectarian school. Then something happened. My mother had a miscarriage. People blamed the elves and talked about it for a long time. I remember the sad and fearful looks of my parents every day as they heard the banging on our ceiling. Were they friends or were they responsible for the accident? I had never told them about Bat, who Prax said was the one behind all these incidents. Years passed, and since nothing untoward had happened since my mothers miscarriage, we began to let go of our fears. The alarm service continued, and our belief that my mothers miscarriage was the elves doing was discarded. It was simply the fetuss fate to die before it was born. Bat left town, probably to look for some of his kin to help him, Prax said. It was a chilling thought, and with Bats words the last time we talked, I was terrified. I laid awake at night thinking of a way to protect my family. I had Prax, but what about them? When I was twelve, the banging on our ceiling stopped. We were having lunch, feasting on the pork barbecue my mother had bought after her experiment with chicken curry failed. The sudden cessation of the noise we had been living with for years was jarring. The silence grated on our ears. For the first time, we could hear ourselves breathe. No one moved. Even my brother, who was now seven, stopped chewing the pork he had just bitten off the stick. Papa stood up and called to the elves. Nobody answered. Gesturing for my cousin to follow him, they got the ladder and prepared to climb to the ceiling. They took with them an old wooden crucifix and a bottle of water from the first rain of May. My cousin brought along a two-by-two and a rope. I didnt know what they wanted to do but we looked on, our barbecue forgotten. Papa went inside the ceiling and my cousin followed. Moments later, they came back running. My cousin descended the ladder first and I dont know whether it was because of fright or just because he was careless, but a rung broke and he fell to the ground, back first, hitting the two-by-two he had dropped in his haste. He lay there, unmoving except for his ragged breathing, his back bent at an angle we never thought possible. Mama fainted, Papa stood still, my sister called an ambulance, my brother wailed, and I sat in the ground, laughing. It was not a laugh of gladness, just my nervous reaction to what happened. But they misunderstood and locked me in my room. I cried, shouted, cursed, but remained locked in. From inside my room I could hear them talking, the medical help coming in, and relatives pouring inside our house. I was ignored. I slept and dreamed that an elf was laughing. When I woke up, the whole house was filled by elven laughter. Then my cousin died. After another year, my little brother followed. He was run over by a postal service van. I can still hear the anguished wail of the driver as he asked for forgiveness. He claimed that a tiny creature had run in front of his van and he had swerved to avoid it. My brother was unfortunately playing by the roadside and the van ran straight into him. Witnesses say they had heard laughter at the exact moment the wheels caught my brother. The driver was imprisoned, but the deaths did not stop there. Barely six months later, my father drowned while fishing. A freak storm, the fishermen said, but for us who were left alive there was no mistaking that our family would die one by one. There were only three of us left: my mother, my sister, and I. We tried to seek help, but the policemen laughed in our faces. We were branded as lunatics. And Prax was gone, defeated by Bat and his family apparently on the day the banging stopped. Even the albularyo could not help us. What use were her potions and ointments? What the elves needed was a good dose of magic, and the albularyo was primarily a healer and an exorcist. She had no training when it came to defending a whole family against vengeful elves. And poor Mama! A mere week after my father died she followed. Extreme despair, the doctors said but we knew better. My sister and I left home and went to live with our relatives in the city, hundreds of kilometers away. We told them about the elves but they laughed and told us we were being provincial. It is the 90s, they said. Belief in the little people died a long time ago. We knew they were wrong, but how could two orphaned teenagers convince the skeptics? Perhaps, we should have insisted on talking more but, as things were, our aunt had already scheduled counseling sessions for the two of us The fear of being sent to a mental institution stopped us from further trying to convince them. In the end, we just hoped that the distance from our old home would keep us safe from the elves. But they followed and, one by one, our foster family died. Car accidents, food poisonings, assassinations through mistaken identity--there were logical explanations for their deaths but we knew we had been responsible. We could only look on helplessly, and despaired. We traveled again, haphazardly enough to let us think that we could outwit the elves. But they finally caught my sister about a year ago. We were on the bus bound for another town when a tire blew out. The bus crashed into a ditch and although most of the passengers including myself were injured, the only fatality was my sister. I realized then that there was no escaping the fury of the little people. After my sisters death, there was a period of silence from the elves. I decided to continue studying and enrolled at the local college. I had no problem with finances. I had inherited a large sum from a relative I had unwittingly sent to death. After I got settled in the school dormitory, Prax appeared in my dreams again. He told me about a chant that he had dug up in the enormous library of a human psychic he had befriended. It was a weapon against any creature--effective against those with malicious intentions, whether towards humans or other creatures. Prax thought it would he better if I could defeat Bat myself. After all, hadnt Bat done me great harm already? I agreed and prepared myself for the battle that would decide my fate. It was not long after my conversation with Prax that Bat tracked me down. It was a weekend and I had the room all to myself. I looked up from my notes and saw him--much older, his once clear complexion now marred with dark, crisscrossing veins. Hate screamed from him, and he stooped and walked with great difficulty. I pitied him. He gave me an ultimatum: go with him or die on the spot. I pretended to look defeated and worn out. My act was effective and Bat looked pleased. He wanted us to go immediately but I dallied. At the pretext of packing my few valuable possessions, I told him to wait outside and count to a hundred. When he was gone, I took out the ingredients I had prepared and the mini-stove I had borrowed. I boiled a small amount of sweet milk. I unwrapped Bats image made in green and brown clay, with strands of his hair given to me by Prax, and started blowing and chanting words that meant nothing to me. Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat. Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat. Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat. Outside the room, Bats count reached 70. I put aside the image and into the pan I poured hundreds of brand new pins and needles that had been blessed. The count reached 80. I repeated the chant and immersed the image in the boiling liquid. I waited. Bats count reached a hundred but I did not worry for it had become faint and weak, just as Prax had told me. Then Bat dissipated into a mist--shrieking, I might add--to where, only God would ever know. Prax appeared again in my dreams that night and told me that they--Bat and his family--would never bother me again. He himself would move his family away from humans to avoid similar incidents in the future. It was too bad he didnt discover the old book with the vanquishing spell earlier for I could have saved my family. I could not bring them back, he said, but I could build a good life of my own. With the luck he bestowed on me, I would never be in need for material things the rest of my life. I kissed the old elf, knowing that we would never see each other again. I watched him fade away, seeing the last of my family go. When I woke up, I went to my desk and studied math, remembering where it all began.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 06:38:52 +0000
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