He has something there!

By Emmanuelle

This is not the “I know you have something there. Get it out, show it to me, or with this hammer I whack black your fingers the left and the right, paa at kamay.”

Neither is this the “I know you still have something there. Show me how you bow your will to mine. Or I whack your skin black and gone with this paddle.”

Although the above are despicably violent deeds done to our young ones and which we should definitely do something about, this is not about it! This is about a story teller who has this particularly waspish temperament bordering on True Blood but, oh my, never the Twilight. And this is also about this five-year old plopped into the care of the teller’s blissful singleness while the tyke’s origins strike it out faraway there, where dollars used to be gold but now no more.

Anyway, one end of a working day, the storyteller drops into my office. With no further ado, she proceeds to lose her cool, notwithstanding the aircon blasting full. She bites her lips. She curls them down, she whorls them up. In discord most inharmonious, she bleats and bawls “Ayaw ko na, ayaw ko na! Sa iyo na, sa iyo na!” Her howls play hapless havoc with the room, which groans and shakes but takes it all. What could it do but?

Before I even contemplate to accept and to take whatever she is throwing away my way, of course naman, I must ask what she is precisely throwing away my way.

Me: What are you precisely throwing away my way?

She: Tiki, my nephew! Take it away. Boo hu hu!

And so, between sobs and hiccups, she unravels the yarn that is Tiki the it.

It seems Tiki has a mind of its own that is rarely like others normal and bored. It runs when it should walk; it pussyfoots when it should run; and it slides where it should brake tight. It has all clean and shiny surfaces for a giant keyboard, to beat and to drum to sticky gum. It quiets when it is asked to say its name; it bubbles babble when it must be mum. It writes a novelette when asked to draw; it squiggles when instructed to write. It hums and sings out loud and is insatiably curious when everyone is just crying out for sleep; it refuses to awaken when awaken it must.

I say to her, excuse me if I may. Tiki is a he and is not an it. He is also only five, and you at five had been a much worse case.

She pouts at that. He makes me blush in shame! His test instructed: check the items that create sounds. Tiki snubbed the ukulele, the piano, the violin, But he checked the bed in the selection. When asked why, he said he never heard the sound of a ukulele, a piano, a violin. But he said he heard the bed makes sound, when his parental origins laid themselves down to sleep.

Then the test instructed: color blue all things blue. He colored green all things blue! When asked why, he said he had no color blue.  He has blue! He blues away all clean and shiny surfaces!

I scream: Ha ha! Gimme gimme Tiki! I will take him away! Away, to me! I love him terribly already!

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