Believe It or Not

Believe It or Not

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Towards the end of the century (the 20th not the 19th), new commercial spots sprouted, as if in the aftermath of the New Year explosions, in downtown Dumaguete, meaning mainly Perdices Street, formerly Alfonso Trece. So many of these that balikbayans walked the street eyes reflecting the metal–heart feeling the point–in the word poignant. Before the century–before the millennium–had blinked its last, Jollibee Dumaguete was there, looking like a bright movie set except bigger and real.

One late afternoon, coming straight from my classes at Silliman–straight from Katipunan Building to the university portal to where Jollibee was just a few more steps away–I decided, because Jollibee was just then particularly crowded and a man in his late fifties normally evaded crowds, to turn left and cross the street following San Jose Extension that would then lead me to Rizal Boulevard–a beautiful view of the sea with magical Siquijor basking in the horizon if I looked eastward, and equally magical Cuernos de Negros looming among the clouds if I scanned westward.

I am unable to make that left turn.

Two men are beside me, one to my left and the other to my right, and, though neither lays a hand on my body, I could feel their unbelievable strength.

I’ve read too many comics. This is a scene from Superboy comics, vintage late fifties. Superboy is rendered helpless as Hercules and Samson–“the two strongest men in antiquity”–come from behind him, transported across the time barrier I don’t remember how, and grip an arm each.

In my case it’s Ponciano Elopre and Pantaleon Villegas–Buhawi and Leon Kilat–walking beside me and I should feel puny, but there’s a bumpkin quality about them that makes me feel honored and privileged and chosen.

“Indeed you were chosen–“ Buhawi begins.

“–But we are the ones.” Leon Kilat finishes.

“Chosen? Chosen to do what?”

Buhawi: “To join us.”

Kilat: “For butong at the market across the street from Mercury.”

* * *
 

Though it cannot be found in the history books, Gaius Julius Caesar reached Siquijor where, among the sorcerers, he got acquainted with the occult in its lushest, most exotic forms. With characteristic brevity, he summed up his experience in these words:

Veni, vidi, voodoo.

His convulsions and trances had begun. This he was able to conceal from people, but not for long. Cleopatra thought, at first, that the world conqueror must have fooled around with some secret amatory witchcraft from the Siquijodnons that had gone very, very wrong and now he achieved orgasm over literally nothing–and how. But at length the truth was clear as sunrise on the Nile: the geezer had epilepsy.

From Brutus she learned this:

Surfeited with the intoxication of military conquests, Caesar took an intimate stroll on Salagduong Beach one evening with his friend and angel (the noble Brutus). The sky swarmed with stars one of which, somewhere in the east and the middle between the zenith and the horizon, for some unaccountable reason caught his eye.

He could not believe it. The star, to which he was not paying a more than casual attention, began to move to the left just a little then halted, then moved again–sailed–in the same direction and then returned to its original spot.

Surely it had been an illusion and it would now stay fixed where it was. But the star, once more, began to travel, this time to the right, and then downwards closer to the horizon.

“E. T., Brutus!” he cried in grave amazement.

(Back to MetroPost HOME PAGE)

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