Jael has to egress through a series of hard right and left turns in putrid and thieving-prone alleys, along several sari-sari stores, then over and across a noisy overpass. If only he had a wardrobe from Narnia. Erik’s house is not far off from his, in a subdivision on the other side of the highway, opposite from slum nation. For a long time, Jael has gone and left the village entrance, not to mention the guards getting used to Jael’s visits, passing by, he flashes his courtesy smile every time.
Erik lives in a huge house with a perfectlytrimmed lawn and a set of towering gates, it was the kind of mansion fantasies people dream about. A wooden cascading staircase meets the two large doors in front. The best thing besides the casa, the well-kept façade and the flower-crammed landscape, are Erik’s parents who are more than welcoming – both lawyers, and unlike firm rich parent stereotypes, they are gregarious and hospitable like most households around in the exclusive village. Despite Jael’s less fortunate upbringing, Erik’s parents are cultured and sensitive to his background.
Jael rings the doorbell.A muffled, echoing ding dong bounces in the house, and in a few seconds, Erik comes to unlock the side gate. He seems excited, his eyes expectant.
“So what’s the plan? I really want to get back something for Mama for mother’s day.” He leads the way up the stairs, into his room.
“Hmm, let’s see.” Jael shrugs. Erik knows what he means. The boys enter Erik’s room, a midnight blue haven—consoles line up under his wide, flat-screen television, posters of movies and video games hang proudly along the light blue walls, a large foamy bed and pillows stormed with a snaked blanket. Still, a wake-up mess.
“Wow.” Jael slumps and sits on a large green beanbag, slowly sinking.
Erik has dreamed of the other worlds since his childhood. He dreams of places while still in his pajamas, traveling to the blackness of the galaxies, while afloat in the nothingness; the stars entrapping him at all directions while he never has a course to follow. When he shouts, nothing comes out – merely a breath, a sigh amid his levitating body. Occasionally, he is able to move as his mind pleases, to any route, slowly moving but never reaching. At times, he just stays in his position, able to rotate his head sideways. Yet, he notices over the years that he can see the same constellations the way he sees them when he meanders at night lying in hiss house’s vast lawn before sleeping.
As he grows up, the same dreams occur – but Erik starts to identify and name constellations, and it has always been one and the same, but some change during the years. Some of them have died; maybe become black holes, nebulae, or meekly disappear.
He never knows the answer until one night he dreams of entering an encircling void, it captures him into another world unlike his own and as he wakes up in his dream, he smells the air, sniffing the reek of the place. The first time in, he was frightened, but he has been able to learn the ways. And he is able to dream into that arid place ever since.
“Let us,” Jael repeats. His body now barely visible, the lower half of his body undiscernible in the green beanbag. Jael looks at Erik as he stands from his bed while nearing him. After a while, he feels the beanbag move. The fluff adjusts, he feels some part of his body reach for air again. Erik takes to share a seat in the beanbag.
“Alright.” Erik closes his eyes. The boys keep silent. The hum of the room’s air conditioner is drawn-out, until slowly it dawdles. It douses. Slowly. Slowly, until everything is still. And roughly, a noise is audible. What follows is an awful stench. And the sound amplifies.
The boys are not of that world – of the one which has an arid smell and a night market every day. But more so of horror reveries.
When Erik first entered the parallel earth he now calls theMetaverse, he had thought all was a delusion. Trashing around the place, it was less of a dream but a nightmare. Monsters from local myth are also citizens of the Metaverse. The first time Erik stepped into the place, he spent his first few hours screaming, running around, and asking the humans (if they were) where the hell he was. Most of the creatures his late Yaya used to tell him in stories to put him to bed, came to form and in veracity. Likewise, they spoke the language of humans. It was outlandish indeed.
“Ah. It’s you, Kuya Erik.” As the small infant greets him from the café where both the boys are now at. The boys faded in the world sitting side-by-side, abruptly most of the times, spawning at a previously empty seat at the glass window’s side of the red-lit retro of a café. In the Metaverse, Erik’s house is a diner in the capitalNeoManila. “What would it be today?”
“Hey Bin.” Erik greets the tiyanak, one of the regular waiters of the infamous café. His eyes averts from a black fade to a red ire while he speaks; his over-salivated teeth never the greatest sight. “A coffee please. Take-out. We won’t hang much heret.”
“Of course. Always a pleasure and an honor to be of service to the Visitors.” Bin steps back. Erik observes that he is growing slightly bigger; he is about 2 feet now. Bin takesthe civil manner: small, baby steps to the back, and eventually, decides to just run in all fours to get the coffee done.
Erik caused turmoil during the first few days into the place. Unbeknownst to that world, neither the people of the Metaverse and Erik knew where each came from. But the world’s citizens cared little, for they had things to think about. And most did not believe Erik’s fading in to their world. Most of the people of the Metaverse think that either Erik’s just an ordinary human or an aswang, not shapeshifting to get attention. But the café’s people believed Erik’s truth.
To Erik’s discernment, he thought that the only way to convince that it is truly real was if another human from his reality would come to see the Metaverse. So after much conviction, and in advice from the wise Mariawho serves as head priestess in the Iglesia, Erik found a way to let Jael in the world.
Maria told him that Erik is a dreamer, a determined man granted by Bathala the gifts of Visitation. But she warns that the gifts may not be for long, as long as he does not disrupt the Laws of both of the worlds, and unwilfully trusts in his own truths, then he may extend his gifts to anyone.
“I am to meet with Gerald today. Remember him?” Erik smugs. Jael knows who Gerald is, how could he forget. He is basically that smoking giant living in that large mango tree at the far end of the plaza. “The kapre? You do remember, do you?”
Jael just nods. He is always excited to go to this place every time, especially during the first few times when he freaked out when he first metthe rarities of the Metaverse. To spend a lot of time with Erik this summer vacation sure came with the profit!
“I hope we don’t get lost like before. Uh—” Erik winces. Gerald is the trickster of tricksters. But one of the finest mafia of the Metaverse’s black market—unlike in the Metaverse’s Centtro, where all the markets converge, the things which are practical to the boys’ world are not present anywhere there. Only but in Gerald’s cornucopia. Usually, he sells them in the Metaverse’s currency, but Gerald knows that the boys do not belong of the world, so he asks favors instead in exchange for whatever Erik is in need of. “Let’s go.”
Erik takes the coffee, taking a sip momentarily. He hesitates to drink again, giving the bitter drink to Jael.
The alleyways are chilly especially during the mornings. Most of the kiosks are filled with goods and edibles in the morning, and at night, novelties and healthcare for all kinds and races flood the market. In NeoManila, the mornings can turn to night in an instant, but in just a short while as the sun recuperates again after a few moments of the regular eclipses. The sudden nights can be instant and obscure; the differently-colored stars visible in an instant.
“Hey, it’s the boys!” A rather numinous voice coming from a kiosk, which seems like a tall tree with a wooden booth in its protruding trunk. Jael looks and pauses to listen indistinctly. It is the regular market ladies, hidden from Erik and Jael’s sight. Maybe it is the diwata’s who are the best charmers and not to mention, the paramount businessmen in this side of town. “Ah..ha.. yes, come check these out… yes? Yes? Here, Springwater for your trip, boys?”
“We’re kind of in a hurry, ladies. Next time, maybe?” Erik winks to the tree. He grabs Jael by the arm to pace hurriedly. “No time to dilly-dally, bro. We are kind of in a hurry.”
The Iglesia’s bells ring from a distance. The boys are nearing the plaza. As they march to the plaza, the number of humans strangely becomes numerous, if they are not aswang or other kinds of shapeshifters at least. It is odd, for Erik and Jael to see the Metaverse look like home to them, let alone a few humans carrying tiyanaks in place of children in their arms. Nonetheless, it is strange to see a lot of humans near the plaza.
Erik thought about what Maria told him about his gifts, about how it should not violate the Laws. Are the negotiations violations? he ponders as the bells stop tolling. Then a choir follows, echoing an aria of the word Bathala as the music from the Iglesia melancholically sifts the air to put the plaza of NeoManila in a trance of worship. Like cherubim singing, the unseen choir resonates their masque of a pitch high into the air like singing prima donnas.
It is the noontime service. Jael stops to listen, again to the praises being sung to Bathala. The curious boy in his great spellbound state of amusement. He is taken aback by Erik’s dragging. “We really have to hurry.”
“Why?” Jael purportedly asks. He creases his forehead, evidently frustrated by Erik’s enforcing. “Don’t we have all time to spend here? Time doesn’t move in our world after all.”
“No. No.. I don’t know, bro. Oh my bathala!—I dunno.” Erik lets go of Jael’s arm, realizing that he has been tiring his friend the whole day with the nonstop pacing across the city. “Just..come on. Please, I’ll try to explain when we get to Gerald’s.”
The boys almost run to the mango tree as they reach the edge of the plaza, carefully avoiding the little duwende’s coming out of the Iglesia who most likely had been sticking their fingers to the pockets of the service attendees. The little creatures snicker as they walk in groups, someare left out alone unsuccessfully going back to their anthills.
As the boys near the mango tree, the wave of strolling people around ebbs. Erik calls for Gerald, knowing he is hiding somewhere across the middle branches of the tree.
“Ger!” Erik calls to the giant. Slowly, a hairy foot slid beneath the leaves, the whole lush of the trees’ leaves shakes as the kapre goes down from its niche. A giant, resembling a dark-skinned man but with hair all over the body except for his head, comes down to sit at the thickest and lowest branch of the tree.
“Ahh, if it isn’t the Visitors?” Gerald groans in his deep, abysmal voice. A cigar in his mouth, he puffs smoke to the boys’ direction. “Whats do you needs today, young Eriks?”
“That necklace from earlier.” Erik pertains to the necklace which had an authentic ruby to adorn which Gerald had shown him the previous week.
Erik knows that it was that necklace, it is his mother’s. Most probably, he had accidentally brought it along to the Metaverse during one of his visits and accidentally dropped it somewhere in the streets of NeoManila after completing a chasing task from Gerald. His mother has despaired, looking for it almost every night, but Erik knows that he must not allow this to happen lest this may be a violation to Bathala, according to Maria.
“The red one.”
“Ahh. A necklace. That necklace. Which has belongs to the young ladys, selling it to me last time..very much.. very much visitors like you.” Erik has asked for the longest time where the novelty items come from, but Gerald just smiles and tells him that the world has secrets not for young Visitors to learn yet. “Ahhhs… Ahhh.. You sees, it is of a highs prices. Because itss is new”
”What do I have to do?” Erik smiles with great heroic intent.
“Come closer, for the younger Visitor needs nots to hears all.” A whisper, a short message of the task at hand. Jael looks at Erik’s face which turned pale in an instant, his friend’s face speaks in surprise and shock.
“—You see, in this world, theys do not really belong. They have shunned us for years, and with the new Law, it is unlikely that they ploys somethingsbads for us. But yous, you Visitors—are not of this world, so you are good to us.” Gerald speaks, in a clear manner, good enough for Jael to hear and to guess in the first few missing parts of the request.
“I see.” Erik closes his eyes, deep in thought. He put his hand on one of the many pockets his green jacket had. “Let me see. Just one? How will I know if it was not a shapeshifter?”
“Ahhhss. You’ll know… The eclipse will tells.” Gerald laughs, a haunting shriek to Jael’s ears.
Erik grabs Jael by the arm again, just like before. As they arrive to the middle of the plaza, Erik sighs. I’m really sorry Erik wants to tell Gerald. But he does not. “This world is damn crazy.”
Jael walks back the way he has gone.
This time, stopping by to look inside the church and observe the wonderfully woven stained glass. “Bathala will come to judge us… Bathala will provide….” the head priestess speaks in homily. But Jael does not listen, but instead studies the figures in the elegant stained glass: A muscular man and a supple woman hugging between a bamboo cut in half in the middle of the wilderness.
This time, Jael walks and stops to look at all the kiosks there is to see at the alleyways of NeoManila. It really had all healthcare products for all kinds, but not much for humans to sustain his interest much. Then the tree from before which had turned its leaves reddish beneath the already orange illumination of the alleyways, the familiar feminine voices are giggling and whispering to his ears, food for bathala? a taste of? taste? food for bathala? they repeat.
But Jael walks still, back to the café. He gets in at nearly sunset. Bin comes to assist him almost immediately as the chimes of the café doors ring. “Kuya, kuya. Where’s kuya?” in the tiyanak’s screechy but small voice.
“He told me to wait here,” Jael walks to take a seat near the counter. Bin sets up across the counter, looking expectantly at Jael while he holds a carafe. “Maybe a coffee is pleasant?”
Jaeltakes and drinks the warm coffee. A slight bitterness kicks in. And suddenly, just out of his periphery over the glass panels of the café, the sunset hazily turns to night, just for a short while.
An eclipse.
Jael sips once more, the coffee mug intentionally blocking what his eyes may see. Slowly, he gulps the whole mug and lays it down to the wooden counter.
“It is finished,” Bin murmurs to himself as he pours coffee now for himself.
Jael watches the water slide down his fingers—crystal by crystal. Morning sunlight hints itself between the edges of the jalousies from the lone window of the snug bathroom, the dim orange rays hauntingly illuminate the whole dank room.
The liquid touches his skin caressingly and dazes the body in a cold squeeze of surprise. He looks to the rusty shower head above, engaging deeply in the bath mantra.
He knows he should not take long, before Mama calls down to him to tell him that he is taking too long bathing and to stop wasting water. He goes downstairs, set for breakfast. He hasn’t got a clue what keeps him waking in the morning routinely without alarm. Perhaps, the early sunlight in the morning greeting Jael’s face?
He lays the spoon and fork properly in the middle of the plate as he finishes, cleaning up every grain of rice and meat on the ceramic, only the oil left grazed on the plate. After he finishes, he calls Erik to remind him of today’s adventure. What was to do on summer in a house in some narrow alleyway in the middle of slum nation?
If he has not gotten tiresome of their cat Mingming who unfortunately seems like a boarder in the house to eat and sleep in its favorite corner under the sink. If not, it spends most of its time in some neighboring house—it can be a bit comical if it stays here all day, somehow. If ennui is the word to describe being all alone after Mama leaves the house for work, it is the right word. More than that, doing a marathon watching of noontime TV shows and soap operas on the box TV, and cooking his own lunch or buying food in the nearest carinderia; maybe this world can be a bit better. Days are better when Mama buys and cooks food from the wet market, ah—their favorite adobo and chicken curry. All the food thinking gets Jael famished.
Most of his friends are on a trip somewhere across the globe, or cooling their asses off at Baguio picking fresh strawberries, or maybe attending Muay Thai lessons at the gym. For hell he knows, he’s not complaining of time he spent in this peculiar summer.
But now, the summer, like every summer, has been an awful length of time, more than the time he has spent here, somehow. Jael slouches at the seat, thinking about the plans ahead. It was the time left before another chapter. Jael’s cellphone vibrates. A bubble box appears, it is Erik. A visit, perhaps?
‘Where are you? Read your text, need that necklace asap’ He texts.
‘Wait. Be in 15.’
Jael prepares all he has to bring, mostly just himself and a few candies to munch along the way. As Mama takes off, it was only when he notices that the rain starts to pour, like heavy needles striking the bare metal roof directly above, ringing loudly and dancing in rampage. He has always been afraid that when the raindrops get heavier, the roof will create holes and the rain pins down like sharp icicles in acupuncture. Today, he is to meet with Erik at the nearby mall.
He puts on denims and a jacket. At times like this when the rain was villainous, the alleyways are much quieter. Jael ponders that the hard-falling raindrops are less loud than local gamblers shouting Bingo! or than men starting their drinking sessions despite the zenith of the breakneck sun at impish noontime. In peace he walks the squirms of the alleyway with only the droning sound of raindrops on concrete, metal, or the umbrella heard. He is in speculation if today would work well.
Jael and Erik are to meet at the mall’s plaza, the only open-air space of the mall where there are lee traces of nature—a plant box with a few trees. A few kiosks lines up the edge of the circling plaza, where most start to open at night when work is over. A few people, mostly a group of students on summer break, stroll the malls at the early hour. The rain wets the fitting benches at the center of the plaza, as Jael waits instead on the benches under the glass roof.
Erik passes by after fifteen minutes of waiting, observing golden time in his usual manner. He seems distressed, his disheveled hair go in all directions, and his droopy eyes tell that a night’s sleep was either too little or too much. He continues looking for Jael across the mall’s benches.
‘Erik.’ Jael shouts to his counter-euphoric look. ‘Very early, no? And… are you okay?’ Jael teases in unease. He looks to Erik’s green jacket, a chockfull of creases and disc taints from the raindrops outside.
‘No, man. I’m sorry, just woke up.’ Erik rubs his eyes as he opens and closes them to get a better vision. Erik opens them, consciously this time.
‘Ah.’ Jael says. He doesn’t seem to remember, a flash across Erik’s eyes always tells Jael that it’s time for an adventure to the Metaverse, a place, never again in the memory of his friend, a place of home which he has come to believe.
Jael looks up to the glass roof, a heavy, dark-throttling cloud warns of a storm ahead. “It’s okay. So what should we do today?” He thinks of the tale they went to, and wonders, deeply, in daydream, if everything in sight of Bathala has been a dream.