The trip from Georgia to Butuan was excruciatingly long and it started when my
son, Tres, drove me to the airport three hours before my flight. We wanted to
avoid the anticipated early morning traffic. Once I got to the airport,
everything went smoothly. All I had to do was swipe my credit card in a slot
intended for that purpose at the self service check-in booth, choose my seat of
preference, check in my luggage and I was promptly issued my boarding card, all
by machine, and the impersonal computer. The Delta flight to Los Angeles was on
time but by the time the Philippine Airlines Flight 113 took off for Manila, it
had already been fourteen hours since I left home.
Rose and Mina met with me at the Bradley Terminal to discuss and to brief me on
the BalikButuan 2010. The meeting with these Valley girls was a welcome respite
from the tiresome, muscle-cramping sit-and-do-nothing flights. I had seen all
the in-flight movies except for the Filipino ones and although I find these
somewhat amusing, they were entertaining only for the first thirty minutes
after which I would find them a bit amateurish and terribly repetitive and
boring. It seems to me that to be a Filipino star, the actress has to have the
ability to shed copious amounts of visible lacrimation on demand. And the
Filipino actor has to have Caucasian features to be noticed, a left-over of the
colonial days. Luckily, I was so tired that I fell asleep and did not wake up
until the re-fueling in Guam. The VSOP Remy Martin offered by the pretty
stewardess helped, too.
The PAL noon flight to Butuan was pleasant enough. I expected to find somebody
on the plane who I knew, but no, there was no one. I guess that would be
expected since the Butuan population now is close to half a million and most of
my acquaintances are mostly senior citizens who probably prefer to keep their
behinds on land and glued to a chair around a square table while they caress
ivory chips with Chinese characters.
The one thing I love to see is the city viewed from a plane circling above -
the sparkling fish ponds, the dark green mango trees, gently swaying coconut
trees, our magnificent Mayapay, the softly curving rivers, the vehicles moving
along J. C. Aquino Avenue like little crickets of different colors, and blue
and white smoke floating vertically up from some 'kaingin' somewhere. From up
there, I don't see our public market nor do I smell the over-powering stench
from the public dumpsite. Thank heavens for little blessings.
I survived another trip but I was bone-tired.
On that night of my arrival, the heavens did not cooperate. It was drizzling
and my favorite nook on the second floor terrace facing east was wet. I was
resigned to messing around with my computer. I did not have DSL connections yet
but Smart promised me it would be installed in a few days.
I could not sleep, the jet-lag bearing down on me insistently. I started
working on my documents and reviewing my two-week schedule prepared for me by
Freida, not realizing it was already two o'clock in the morning until I glanced
on the time displayed at the right hand bottom of the lap-top screen.
Since the incident I am about to relate to you here, Melchor, my 18 year old,
completely innocent and naive gardener, had resigned and Ayette, one of the
maids, also decided that she was going back to school or something and that her
father wanted her back home to help care for her younger siblings.
As I said, I was tinkering with my computer. I have a table on the loft of the
second floor near the door to the terrace. The door was closed as I did not
want to have the drizzle blown in. Still, I felt a cold draft sweeping across
my bare feet and I wondered if I had left the air-conditioner on in the green
room next to the computer table. I got up, walked around the table, going in
the direction of the room. But the door was closed. I opened it and confirmed
that the air-conditioning wall unit was not running. There was a complete and
uncomfortable silence in the house. I did not even hear the hum of the
refrigerator in the first floor kitchen or the rain-drops on the roof.
The draft persisted and it was getting inexplicably freezing cold. I shivered
as I pulled my striped, multicolored lounging robe around me. "Hmmm," I
whispered to myself. I was completely alone in that part of the house as Rheza,
the head maid, would now be fast asleep in her own quarters across from the
butler's pantry and Roly, the guard, would either be roving the outside
perimeter or more plausibly be fast asleep in the screened nipa hut at the
western corner edge of the walled property, while Condom, my handsome
half-Spitz guard dog, would be sitting patiently near the main gate, ready to
pounce on any intruder who might make the mistake of trying to get in.
So I was completely alone that drizzly night and the thought that I was all
alone made me suffer goose-pimples as all kinds of thoughts of supernatural
things invaded my mind. On my way back to the computer I happened to glance at
the bottom of the curved stairway.
That was when I saw it, I mean, her. Whatever. It was a she, I will attest to
that in any legal document because she wore a long flowing white dress and had
long wavy caramel brown hair that gently bobbed up and down as she seemed to
float up the staircase. Towards me! I could not appreciate her full facial
features, "tabunon" I hoped, and I definitely could not see her eyes yet. The
vision seemed to be fading in and out at first.
What would you have done if you were in my situation? Me? I moved backward,
slowly and deliberately, until I found the chair with the back of my thighs. I
slowly sat done but I kept my eyes steady on her. My heart was pounding against
my chest. In my profession, I have seen dead people, some in various stages of
decomposition, and I do confess that the sight and smell of them affected me
some, that is, until I start to autopsy and cut them up and try to analyze the
causes of their deaths. Then they would just be mere specimens. As a medical
student, I have spent many-a-night studying the different parts and
characteristics of a human skeleton and many times have I fallen asleep,
sharing my bed with someone's skull, ribs, and vertebral bones.
But I had never seen a ghost or anything like a ghost before. Now, right in
front of me, was something, a ghost, an apparition, something. The scientist in
me was stirred even as my lips were parched from hyperventilation, still
unaccustomed yet to the humid Butuan summer air, unaccustomed yet to strange
nocturnal appearances.
In the stillness of the night I heard soft sobbing, the melancholic sound as if
echoing from far away but magnified by the bare walls and tall ceiling and the
absence of any other sound that one would normally expect in a house. She
stopped at the last step of the stairway, twenty feet from me, facing me, arms
hanging down her sides, hands open in my direction, as if in supplication,
pleading, it seemed. I slowly shifted my eyes towards her feet. I guess I was
expecting her to be wearing Nike sandals or something incongruous, like mine,
but I did not see her feet as they seemed to have been covered over by the long
white gown. I tried to look at her upper left chest to see if she was wearing a
lab coat and expected to see some kind of identification tag. "Ha, ha, ha," I
laughed silently, thinking I was getting scared and compensating by being
silly.
Mind you, the episode lasted for a few minutes, not mere seconds. I had time to
think. Was I dreaming? Had the time-zone difference affected me? Or was this
the real thing?
If it was for real, and there is such a thing as a ghost or spirit, then it
meant that spirits do exist and if souls do exist, then one can only conclude
that there is such a thing as a spiritual God. Everyone, sometime, somehow, has
a desire to know for sure. Here was my chance.
But what is this apparition? Rather, who is this apparition? Somebody's
wandering soul who just happened to drop by? Or perhaps, someone who died and
was buried in the ground over which my house was built? Or was this the ghost
of someone who I knew and had died and had left something undone and that she
wanted to tell me something? Something like buried treasures somewhere?
Maybe she was my guardian angel. I have always entertained the idea, that with
all my luck, and all the good things that had happened to me, something or
somebody out there must be looking out for me and watching over me. Hmmm, but
this one did not have wings.
Or, perhaps, she was one of the victims of my distant gallivanting past, come
to haunt me for my misdeeds, come to punish or torture me. But then, she did
not look angry or threatening. She just looked and sounded so sad.
I wanted to talk to her, communicate with her, ask her questions. At a certain
point, I decided I had to have a visual and concrete proof of this phenomenon.
I slowly lifted my right arm to reach for my camera which was on the table near
the glass of water which I promptly bumped against and overturned, spilling the
liquid on some important papers. I did not want to spook her by any sudden
moves. But I did. That was when she just disappeared. And I mean, just
disappeared, not in a puff of smoke, or in a sudden blast of bright colors. No,
I mean -- disappeared, as in nada. She was there and then she was not there. I
had wanted so much to take her picture and talk to her but she was gone. So was
the cold air. The refrigerator hummed and I started to hear the "rakatak" of
the rain drops against the roof. I started to feel the clammy perspiration on
my back and above my upper lip. The summer-night heat was back.
It was not until before daybreak when I fell into a stuporous and dreamless
slumber. I woke up and had my late breakfast of ripe papaya and tea. I did not
tell anybody about my experience yet, and not until Rheza and Freida confronted
me with a tangerine-colored hair ribbon they found under my pillow and a
foot-and-a-half strand of wavy light brown hair under the bedsheet. Neither of
them claimed the ribbon as theirs. Freida has shorter hair, and Rheza and
Ayette both have dark hair. And definitely, I don't have any. They eyed me with
undisguised suspicion when I told them of what happened the night before. The
guard, chauffeur, maids, and gardener were all ears when I related the night
event to them. Melchor, since that time, had refused to go alone up to the
second floor, even during the day time. He subsequently resigned and he left a
few days later. So did Ayette.
But Freida and Rheza, to this day, still harbor doubts. They never directly
accused me of any shenanigans but they think that there has to be a more
logical and earth-bound explanation for the ribbon and the wayward strand of
hair. Well, I assured them, me, too.
I never saw her again although I kept trying. Maybe next year.
I'm back in Georgia now.
Submit comments via the Discussion Board at:
http://www.butuanon.org/yabb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.cgi?board=Essays
