Coconut trees towered over the grassy path, their gangly trunks bearing hairy-looking palm fronds that stretched out darkly and starkly against the pale, white clouds. Clouds gathered near the ground, wisps weaving through trunks, blades of grass, and ant mounds, caressing the nape of Francisco’s neck, exposed by his short hair.
The soft sole of his shoes stepped on something mulchy. Muddied strands of hair stuck to the edge. Dark as a crow’s plumage, as shiny, and seemed freshly cut.
A nasty potion of stale rainwater, fresh fish blood, and rotting leftover food assaulted his nose. A foot ahead of him was a muddy ditch blocking his way, entangled dark locks lining the edges and floating on brackish water. Crows cawing from afar, crows landing and pecking at a trail of hair strands that led somewhere.
Francisco followed the hair-strewn path, which went beyond the puerta of the house he knew so well.
“Tao po, is anybody there? Nay? Tay?” But no one answered.
He wanted to turn back, but his legs somehow carried him up the escalera. The higher he went, the stranger the sounds he heard. Murmuring, heaving, hissing, and moaning that heightened into wails and hysterical cries before the sounds repeated themselves, like a rosaryo.
Beyond the antesala was a lady in a white sleeping gown whose face was covered by the long, dark hair that led Francisco there. She kept cutting her hair with a knife, only to cut herself over and over at the wrists.
A rotting face stared back at him, a face beyond reality, a face of his past mirrored to him – like an answer to a question he feared to ask. “Who are you?”
In a low, pleading voice, it said, “Kita.”
Alyna Jalaine A. Rubin resides in Davao City. She is currently a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Literature at the University of Southeastern Philippines. She also completed her undergraduate studies at the same university with a degree in Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Cultural Studies.