Five Insect Stories

Story Number One

Once upon a time, an expat teacher lived in a condo on a swanky condo street. There weren’t many access points to public transport because everyone else drove in expensive cars. So the expat teacher had to climb 67 concrete stairs from the bus stop to reach the swanky condo street. The last of the 67 concrete stairs rose out of a fetid puddle of stagnant jungle water that never seemed to dry up.  Every day the expat teacher saw something interesting at the fetid puddle of stagnant jungle water at the base of the last of the 67 concrete steps leading to the swanky condo street. In the fetid puddle she had seen toads, mice, dragonflies, giant land snails, mosquito larvae of a frightening size, wriggling worms, tadpoles, and once, a baby snake.

One sunny weekend day, the expat teacher noticed an iridescent turquoise flash. It was a Common Bluebottle butterfly. She fumbled for her camera and knelt at the edge of the fetid puddle which had once again yielded up its bounty to the delight of the expat teacher.

THE END

Story Number Two

Once upon a time in a condo on a swanky condo street lived a distinctly unswanky expat teacher and her two expat teacher roommates. One night when all three were about to settle in for a short night’s rest before waking up in the godless hours before dawn, the expat teacher was roused by someone shouting her name.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaace?!?! There’s a huge moth in my room!”

The expat teacher was conveniently just passing by her roommate’s bedroom had narrowly missed being brained by the door as her roommate rocketed out of her room. Her roommate stood in a cold sweat, suddenly still and silent, and mutely pointed at her curtains. The expat teacher locked eyes with the giant brown moth sitting on the curtains. She strode into the room, emanating a mysterious magnetic power. The moth took flight; the roommate whimpered from the hallway as it flew straight at the expat teacher and landed like a brooch on her chest and trembled there.

The expat teacher walked with silent assurance out of her roommate’s bedroom, past the stunned roommate in the hall, and into her own bedroom … and then darted for her camera. The moth-spell broken, the winged monster flew wildly at the ceiling light, stunning itself and falling behind the door where the expat teacher immediately began a photoshoot. The roommate poked her head into the bedroom: “Should I … uh … leave you two alone?”

THE END

Story Number Three

Once upon a time, on a swanky condo street, an expat teacher was just returning to her bedroom from the front door where she had been releasing an enormous moth back into the balmy tropical night. Just as she was passing her roommate’s room, she was startled by a piercing shriek from within, “GRAAAAAAACE! There’s another bug in my room!”

The expat teacher burst into the room, brandishing her camera still warm from the moth’s photoshoot. The roommate was standing in a corner pointing at the curtain. A small praying mantis stood on the curtain with cocked head, trying to kill everything with its furious praying mantis gaze. The expat teacher sprang into action, trying to make her camera go into macro mode with sheer will alone (and failing.) She pursued the mantis from curtain to wall to window, never managing to take a decent picture.

The little praying mantis – as proud as any of its kind – flew into the ceiling light in one last defiant kamakazi gesture, killing itself just to spite the expat teacher. Its small green body joined its brethren in the domed white tomb. It had won.

THE END

Story Number Four

Once upon a time, in the campus of a girls’ primary school in Singapore was a blue railing. It divided the road from the sidewalk and was usually bereft of life. One morning though, the Wednesday sun rose to illuminate a terrible and wonderful sight: two piles of red Singapore ants, all spindly legs and antennaes and beady black ant eyes. They didn’t move. They weren’t feeding. They simply sat in a still pile about four ants deep.

An expat teacher stood at the blue railing, blowing hard at the ant pile. Some students stood a few metres behind her, horrified. Slowly the ants started moving but they didn’t go anywhere, the just started moving their limbs around. Three hours later, they were still there. Four hours later, they were gone. What were the ants doing? By what fell means will they achieve their sinister goals? Were they ants at all? We may never know.

THE END

Story Number Five

Once upon a time, a woman went for a hike and saw a one-legged cricket trying to sing. It was heart-breaking.

THE END

Stories from Tubigon: Mom vs. Encantado

“Mom, do you believe in encantado?”

“No! … mmm…. no. Mmmmm …. maybe.”

My mom moved to Cebu to take accounting at the university there when she 16 years old. Near the end of her first year, she and her friends went into the fields with food and drinks. They lay their blankets down in the shade of an enormous acacia tree and they had a picnic.  They were young and energetic; they laughed and joked, someone started singing, dancing may have ensued, and no one was louder than my mom.  It was dark by the time they packed up and went home.

My mother woke up the next day to find her bottom lip had swelled up to three times its normal size. She couldn’t open her mouth. She couldn’t eat. She could hardly fit a straw in her mouth to drink. She went to the doctor and they gave her medicine, but after three days, the lip only became more painful and more swollen.

Weakening, she went home to Tubigon. My lola (grandma) was a nurse, and she didn’t know what was wrong with her either so they called in a witch doctor. The witch doctor gave her medicine too, and it helped enough for my mom to be able to take some food. They soaked bread in milk and squeezed the milk into her mouth because that was the only way she could get any food.

Two weeks in, things were getting serious: my mother’s lip was still just as swollen as before, she still couldn’t eat and everyone was getting worried. I like to imagine my tiny teenaged mother lying on a rattan bed in the old house near the window surrounded by her small army of scabby cats and dogs and watched over by Catholic saint tokens and tiny bottles of holy water from this and that crying statue; witch doctors giving up, nurse friends of lola bringing mentholated oil, lola herself washing and rewashing everything my mother comes in contact with as if to cure her daughter by cleanliness alone, various ratty-looking kids climbing fences to stare at her mutant lip, neighbours’ whispered speculations about the local wak-wak families and their nasty curses. Someone finally remembered that my mother’s primary school principal claimed he had an encantado friend … invisible, of course.  In fact, my ma had come into contact with this encantado once before … long ago …

* flashback waves  and accompanying harp music *

Ling and I were sick when I was really little, maybe six years old. The quack doctor couldn’t help, and maybe we couldn’t find a real doctor. The principal of my school had a friend who is an encantado and he said he could help. 

We went to a small room and it was a little dark. We stood on one side of the room, the principal stood on the other. He said to us, “turn around and don’t look back no matter what you hear”. Then the door was closed and we turned around. We were alone – just Ling and me and maybe another sick kid and the principal. I heard him start talking to his friend, explaining our sickness. I was scared when another voice replied. 

While they were talking Leling wants to turn around and see. Before she can turn around, we hear, “Don’t turn around!” right in our ears! We were scared. Ling didn’t turn around. 

Later, we were healed.

This same man was now the superintendent of the entire island school board and he still had the same encantado friend. They managed to get an appointment with him to see if his friend could help heal my mother’s swollen lip.

They sat in an office and talked. Sometimes the superintendent addressed an invisible person who was walking around the room, sometimes he listened to that invisible person speaking inaudible words. According to the superintendent, the encantado friend told him that my mom had seriously pissed off some powerful encantado with her noisy sunset shenanigans. Rule number one of coexisting with encantado: do NOT disturb the peace at dusk near an acacia tree. My mom brought this upon herself, she was told. (She agreed.) Mr. Friendly Encantado agreed to travel to these entities to apologise on her behalf. In the meantime my mother was directed to apply some oil blessed by this encantado on her lip.

She went home and applied the oil.

The next morning, she woke up to find her lip had crusted over completely. It had turned into a nasty, full-lip scab. It was hard and painless, but she still couldn’t open it. She kept applying oil.

On the second day after meeting the superintendent, she woke and sat up in bed. She brought her hand to her lip, and it fell off in her hand.

Her entire scab-lip fell off!

Underneath was a new lip, soft and supple … and moveable! My ma could eat again! The only catch was that her new lip was not symmetrical; it was thicker on one side and a little crooked in outline.

To this day, my ma’s bottom lip is crooked.  She’ll show you. Just ask.

You should be having nightmares about acacia trees tonight.

Stories from Tubigon: The Miscarriage

I arrived in Tubigon three days ago to spend Christmas in my mom’s hometown with her older siblings Nene and Inday.  I arrived with a fever and have spent those three days mostly languishing in the only finished room in my aunt’s brand new house (finished specially for my visit!) However, at mealtimes I’ve managed to talk to my aunt and uncle about the old Tubigon. Already I have some fabulous “new” stories. Here’s one of my favourites.

Uncle Nene rarely understands me and but we enjoy our conversations anyway.  I asked him, “Uncle Nene, do you remember when the Japanese came?” This is what he replied:

Manong remembers segoro. But – ah – koan … Between Manong and me is two years. Between me and Tita Inday is two years. Between Leling and Etta is two years.  Between Inday and Leling is five years. I remember this and the reason. There was another baby in that five years but it was not … koan?

 (Koan is a word that means sort of “what” or “um”. Uncle Nene uses it a lot when he speaks English.)

The baby was not  - koan? –  was not good.  How can you say?  She bled lots of blood. We called the quack doctor and he caught the blood in a pan. Then there came something in the pan.

I said, “The baby?!”

No. Not the baby. Koan - round and bloody. Like a liver. Walay baby. There was no baby. The quack doctor knew it was a  - ay, koan! - a wak-wak. English is a witch. It was a witch inside of Mama. Maybe it want to kill her.

In Bohol, we believe that wak-wak can look at a woman with child and hurt her. We have a belief that the witch can curse you with eyes only. Perhaps this is how the witch came to be inside of Mama.

The quack doctor said we must take the witch and burn it so it will die. So my father made a fire behind the house and we burnt it. That is why there remains five years between Inday and Leling. I remember.

I said, “Do you believe it was a witch, Uncle Nene?”

What? Ay, ha ha, no. Ah, perhaps.

And this is exactly what my mother says when I ask her about her Bohol beliefs. This place is a different world altogether. It’s a little surreal. Stay tuned for more Stories from Tubigon, and my fabulous Thai adventures.

My mom and the old house.