Rattlings

By Emmanuelle

ONCE upon a time, actually two nights ago, the vampires awoke. And in keeping with the delicious promise of their creation, they went on    a blood-sucking rampage.

What to do? I screamed, I ran, I jumped down the length of the stairs. I rushed out to the street. But first I looked back. Did I lock the door and the gate after me? Wala lang, just force of habit. Assured, I joined the rest of the living. They were screaming, they were running.

What to do? I picked up with what I was doing before I remembered to check the door and the gate. I screamed and ran with the rest of them.

The dark must have blinded us, the cacophony of screams must have deafened us, for we all scampered past the church, the rural health unit, the police station and found ourselves scampering three kilometers to where we should not scamper to in the first place. The old public cemetery.

Past the mounds on the ground with wooden or concrete crosses. The crosses tripped some of us including me. We fell. Natapilok nga e. We untripped us and we unfell us. We picked ourselves up. We brushed the soil from our pajamas. We combed the hair from our fingers. Sorry. We combed our hair with our fingers. We remembered to pick up our screaming and our running. We seemed to be always picking up something or another.

We, the living horde, streamed past concrete tombs in neglected gray or glossy whitewash, straight on to the shadows of the family mausoleums at the far end.

I chose the grandest of the structures midway to the fence. The rusty padlock gave way to my crazed fumblings. I entered, notwithstanding the gloom within. I pulled open the gold handles of a stand-up tomb. I asked the tomb, why do you stand up, tomb? I peered inside. Its lone resident skeleton crouched on one corner. It had to, I thought, it must have tired, it could not stand up all these years. I slid inside. I closed the lid tight.

It seemed the skeleton cringed further down. It clinked, it clanked.

Shhhh! I shushed. The bones stopped clinking. It stopped clanking. Then it started chattering. Its skull was grounding its teeth.

I elbowed the skull heavily down to the skeleton’s pointy knees. I whispered, “you shut up or I crash you to smithereens. I am quite heavy when tired. What more, I have this terrible fright, or haven’t you noticed?”

It shutted up. Sorry. It shut up.

“Thank you. My neck and all my blood thank you.” And to make it feel even better with its sacrifice of silence, I whisper to it more goodness. “Good for you, you have no neck, no blood. Yours have all dried up.”

And more of the same sweet good-for-nothing. We spent the night curled-up tight, spoon-fashion, whaspy whispy in the dark.

When the sun rose, we found we could not let the other go. We were stuck. I decided to bring the skeleton home with me.

I said to it, “today, we stay at my place. Tonight, I am yours.”

We clinked, we clanked all the way back to where I came that long-ago night. I and its bones comfortably hanging loose, hugging close.

Now I remembered. I forgot to check. Was its bones, a he or a she?

(Author’s Note: Blame the awakening on the third of the Twilight series. I got to watch it Eclipse twice in a row two weeks ago at SM Baguio. Those were the last two screenings too. And for the five hours including intermission, I constantly peered over the front and back of empty seats and cleaned-up aisles.)

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