Mirra-Edora Esmael

There was a house. And then there was a time.

In Barangay Simandagit. Along the stretched, cow-milk shoreline. By the turquoise, crystal-filmic seawater lapping contentedly fifteen meters from the road. House and time stood. Warm. Indifferent. Harrowing.

Before my father decided to move our home and warm it up with his kata-kata, that house already stood beside ours. It’s either green or blue, my memory cannot decide. Sometimes it’s a twin of our house, just bigger. Other times it’s green, charming, and poignant, but it’s always sun-showered. Its sea-weathered wall is always infested by reflections of the busy, fidgety sea.

The family who lived in that house is loud. I cannot remember if they were boisterous, or just passionate, or both. My memories are full of them calling each other and shouting, dictating what errands to run or how to do it.

“Amilli gih ka toyu! Meheh ma si Auntie Orang, daa ka ma lannang heh!” Buy soy sauce first! At Aunt Orang’s not at that Chinese!

“Ay heh?” What was that?

“Ma si Auntie Orang daa ma lannang! Pag-ubus nu, amilli labayin na boheh eh. Bay ni isihan na du!” At Aunt Orang’s not at the Chinese! After that, get the water. It’s already been filled!

Their voices would disturb and intrude every space of mundanity, along the tiny gaps of colorful laundry clips, across mixed scents of bang-bang, detergent, and salt-tanged breeze, or meandering along the length of sunrays during golden hours.

As a little girl I tried to avoid them. I didn’t make friends with any of the children, nor did I make eye contact, but I knew them.

I knew they had relatives from Sabah. Papa said they were originally from Malaysia.

I knew the intense, bespectacled chubby grandmother.

I also knew that one of her sons, Uncle Rosly, was a troublemaker. He has similar strides with Papa. The house would wobble lightly when they came or went. Uncle Rosly’s steps are firm even when he’s drunk. His arms always swayed with the determination of an anxious pendulum tongue.

He always left the house like he’s never coming back, and one night he never did. One night and three consecutive gunshots.

My memories always start with scents, bubbling up a bloated foam of laundry water, then popping once air sands its walls thin. That’s when the memory comes unbidden. Surging. This one, however, started with familiar beats—one, two, three, four, five—the pulse of a firework. One and two came right after the other. A pause. Then the last three came almost tumbling over themselves, urgent but cautious.

It was New Year’s Eve. The fireworks blew sparks to the black expanse the moon cannot comfort, letting the night heave and groan satisfyingly.

I was pretending to walk on a ramp like a model. My siblings were playing around me. Mama was in the kitchen. Mboh Hadja was watching us. Papa was somewhere around the house.

When the first series of gunshots was fired, we didn’t panic. It was probably just the fireworks. Then the shots became distinct. Rhythmic. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. It charged the air with the premonition of a jinn’s three-knock patterns my brother warned me about. The gun, or guns, fired more before Mboh Hadja shouted. She was the first to acknowledge the fear.

“Pa kobel kam! Pa kobel kam!” Take cover! Take cover!

We dropped to the maroon-varnished floor. Some of us looked at each other, confirming the fear as it curled comfortably around the eyes. Expanding. Bitter-stark.

I looked for Mama and Papa and searched their eyes too. I wanted to confirm how much of the fear I should welcome. I was scared, but should I cry? Should I let the fear scooch closer to my heart? And eat more of the firework residue sprinkled around it?

Here, the memory dwindles. I can’t remember what happened next, but Mama probably left the fish to sizzle. Papa must have run to us. His fear would have been so palpable I would have tasted it. I imagine him pulling us into a tight hug, his arms, big and strong but uncertain, shielding us from the bullets and what they meant.

Papa must have insisted on going outside and checking what was going on. Or maybe he called his friends from our Winnie-the-Pooh Motorola phone. And that would have been how we learned that the other party in the shooting was Uncle Rosly. Drunk, steps-firm, arms-swaying Uncle Rosly.

At some point we went back to lying face down on the floor; hands up, palms out. Just like how villains surrender at the end of every Cinema One movie. The police always arrive just after the starring defeats the boss, guns poised and cocked. Chk. Chk. Then men—puffy leather jackets, denim pants, and white face towels wrapped around foreheads—would spill out of the vans in a practiced tactical dismount. But that was Retrica Daydream-filtered Channel 9. In our barangay’s shooting, there weren’t any police who came to save us, nor did the firing stop for the next twenty-four hours.

We quickly learned that Uncle Rosly’s enemies were able to control the entrance of Simandagit, so no police could come.

My parents didn’t tell us, but they must have worried about the fact that one of the parties was our neighbor. That our houses, separated only by a few-meter gap, conveniently respected privacy but impressed kinship. I can almost imagine the people thinking, deducing: no other neighbors, no clustered roofs, just two houses, both Sinama, both big families—family friends.

We couldn’t possibly wait for the neighbor’s enemies to come knocking. So, in the middle of a chilly, shadow-choked night, I and my family marched hand in hand out of our barangay. Crickets whirred restlessly as I clutched Papa’s calloused forefinger. Hours before this I know I must have asked many questions. As though knowing more would help ease the threat carefully molding the lump on my throat. I imagine being reprimanded for asking too much. After that I must have focused on searching their eyes, ready to respond to any hint of fear and tension. I remember constantly looking up at Papa. My eyes kept asking what role I should assume, seeking permission to cry, to welcome the goosebumps writhing under my skin.

I was six or seven, petite and small. I hadn’t yet forged a physique that could hold and carry events, words, and meanings bigger than my frame. All three languages I spoke at the time were not yet mature. So, I depended so much on facial expressions. I couldn’t see my mother’s since she was holding our youngest. But I saw certainty clinging to the hem of her battik pajama like another confused and frightened child. My father’s face was grave. He didn’t have to say anything, but I understood. We all did. The idea of death created a shared intimacy among us.

I was six or seven, and I knew. Death. It wasn’t as far as the entrance.

After coming out of Simandagit, our family moved to Barangay New Housing. We stayed there for two or three years. During those times, the loud neighbors disappeared. Perhaps they went back to Sabah, Malaysia, who knows? Only their house, hollow and abandoned, was left. Its walls, as ever, remained infested by the wriggling sea reflections.

Stories of what happened to the loud family circled around until they found a sense of mundanity. It became one fragment of the Simandagit backdrop, a local legend. In reality, it was the first seed that stretched and coiled one end of infinity up in a continuum, morphing into a capsule. This mental archive was carefully woven by the community from every kissa or kata-kata about the house. Fluid. Ever-living. Tenacious.

Years melted. They folded into nostalgia and rolled along my tongue whenever Mama told me to practice singing on our karaoke. Although most times they hid on the soles of my feet, propelling me to make bigger steps. Until my own stride made the wooden bridge wobble.

Fear only settled inside me for a few days. As a child, when emotions come in swells, they exude out of my body like a fever breaking. After expelling the heat, it recoils and runs away from me, leaving my body flitting like a ghost. So, I shoved and delegated all of those to my parents. It was their role, not mine. Maybe that was how I was able to join my friends and play at Uncle Rosly’s house. By then, it was a make-believe market. The goods were glossy, sometimes pearlescent seashells. The money was crisp candy wrappers and flattened crown corks.

I was warned not to go there. They said only naughty children played in it.

The house, even as time moved, stood in the same timeframe and is seen from that same incident. It’s encased in the same December night, watching the same fireworks. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. No police, just guns, cocked—chk-chk—poised and pointed, but not fired. Target—house and time—frozen.

I didn’t heed the warning because I didn’t understand the danger, nor did I know where it could come from. So, I and my friends continued to play at the house. By then we called it our playhouse. Sometimes we would run around it playing pulismatik, apas-apas, and tapuk-tapuk. Other times we’d just go and see what fun games we could join. And in one of these particular times, the danger came from a neighborhood kuya.

I was playing yet another game the adults warned me not to ever engage in sugal-sugal or card games. We watched as a boy and kuya played against each other. There were cheers, teasing, and envy for the many cards they passed to and fro. At one point they ended and went to one of the empty rooms of the house. Kuya told us not to follow. We were so loud earlier that they couldn’t concentrate and spoiled their game. So, we didn’t.

Instead, I and my friends talked about the kurung dresses of the twins whose family recently moved. We also yapped about the Bollywood films we watched. Even sang their songs. We started dancing to them when, suddenly, the shouts came.

To this day I don’t know how to describe what I heard. The emotions can’t even decide what form to take. Plea. Anger. Fear. Desperation. They stacked on top of each other. Not tumbling over just swaying drunkenly, threatening to topple down. The wails were coated in all four at once but nastier, more sinister.

We all ran towards the voice. I knew we all got scared when we heard it. The voice was very familiar. The name he called and told to stop, we knew who it was. It wasn’t a long run, but I could have stumbled all the same, except I froze. Then, I looked down. There, on the floor, the boy thrashed. He kept trying to pull himself up. But on top of him was kuya—laughing, grinning, goofy kuya. They were both clothed. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew it was bad. Dirty. Pungent. Nauseating.

The boy looked at us. His eyes circled, frantically searching for help. Except he didn’t ask. He kept telling kuya to stop even as his eyes roamed around our faces. Those teary, blurry pair landed on mine. They lingered. They paused a few seconds too long for me to accept his emotions, to feel them doubling up—thickening—dissolving to a sticky, bubble-gum texture that seeped through my pores. My heart clenched as his emotions violated me until there was nothing of me to pour into. Was this how my parents felt when I gave them my fear? Did they also recoil from these gooey sensations?

Fortunately, my feet, where all the melted years took shelter, were unscathed. They were light, no stickiness. So, I ran. A few seconds later, I heard the others joining me. Some shrieked, while others thought it was yet another game.

I ran even when I knew I should have helped. Even as the wooden bridge wobbled threateningly. Or as the guilt became more palatable than all the other emotions weighing me down.

I ran and ran and ran.

The kids talked to other kids and parents. I envy them. How did they tell other people? What did they say? I can’t even describe the heftiness that sat and settled over my heart. So, I delegated the telling to my friends.

Mama was mad I was there when it happened, but she was angry for my safety. She wasn’t angry for the boy, or at the neighborhood kuya. Maybe Mama didn’t understand her emotions either. Was it also bigger than her? I don’t know. Sometimes I think Mama doesn’t care much about other people. But maybe because she also encountered an equally nasty tar-like experience, Mama ignored all of them. I imagine it’s easier to not see the whole story, and just see me.

Mama warned me though, not to go near or close to kuya just as every parent told their children.

What was odd, though, was how the incident closed fast. It wasn’t abrupt. There was no rigidity around the neighborhood. It was more like the people heard it and then mentioned other things in passing, ones that distracted them—the water breaks and typhoon that just passed. When everyone did circle back, the spotlight was on the playhouse.

They expressed how they’ve always known playing there was not a good idea. Some confirmed they’ve always been uncomfortable seeing kids merrily jumping and laughing about, disturbing the jinns residing in it. To me—nine-year-old, still petite but tall—I was scared of the playhouse more than whatever was inside it.

“Hangkan na subay kamu dih da magkadtu-kadtu pa bay yaun mga anak.” That’s why you shouldn’t frequently go to that house, children.

“Hoon.” Yes. “Asal na hadja san mataud kaginisan in mahinang duun bat dugaing pa in tagdapu nakawah bakas, dugaing pa in mga jinn nagbabay duun.” Such things will always happen there because there was the death of its owner, and there’re also the jinns living in it.

From then on, fewer kids played in the playhouse. There would be rare occasions, though. When the sea was ten feet high, wet footprints would loiter around. These were misplaced against the faded, varnished floor; the spots of green or blue paint that remained; and the wobbly kitchen space. These were the times when we would use its bridge as a diving ramp we jump from. Even parents would join in on the fun. During those times we forgot all the incidents. The playhouse became loud again.

Everyone participated, except the house. It remained glued in place by the poised gun, cocked but not fired. It stayed someplace where space and time do not evolve, locked in a temporal pocket. Suspended. There, at a once-upon-a-time capsule, the playhouse stands still.

Over time, the house seemingly became exhausted. It flaunted a kind of numbness from accepting all the stories told about it. Like that one gossip about a woman’s voice crying and calling for help one night. There were many versions of that story too, but one definite plot stayed—a woman and multiple men. “They were probably drunkards,” Mama announced, “for who could have done such monstrosities?” This story didn’t close fast. It spread like a disease. Everyone was eager to diagnose and offer their expertise.

Nobody knows how this new story started or ended. But everyone was sure the wailings were the same fireworks as that December—Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg. Tgg.

Their sentiments fell on the woman, of course. But perhaps because nobody knew the true identity of the people involved, the blame was on the playhouse. What could they have expected from a house whose owners were criminals? It wasn’t jinxed, no. It was more cunning for that. The playhouse was alive. Its walls—sun-showered, sea-weathered—a convincing actor, hid all the ugliness very well.

In the following years, stories about it would sprout, more violent, more disgusting. But the playhouse remained silent, almost stubborn. It welcomed both tragedies from humans and nature. While it bravely persisted on the first, it succumbed to the latter.

Typhoons. It seems too much of a cliché that such a present consciousness should surrender to a natural disaster. As though even in its demise it must insist on being proud and petty. It cannot allow itself to fall under the weight of our feet. It wobbled and shook, but it never gave in. It accepted villainy, but it cannot stoop to the role of a victim. So, it accepted the fate of an antagonist. A graceful fall from the force of nature. A fitting end.

The playhouse and all its ghosts are memories I don’t like to dwell on. Not because they still haunt me, but because I have lost the meanings they exuded. I imagine these meanings as grains that kept getting moved from the door, to the kitchen, to the walls as Papa continued to fix where the typhoons claimed. Until each grain fell to the wriggling sea.

The emotions I hold for them now are just crumbs. They’re leftovers from people’s words and sentiments that somehow landed on me, infecting my consciousness and tainting its innocence.

Today this memory lives inside me, tucked to one corner but thriving in its own little capsule. It’s caged with all the unmediated meanings my young mind cannot comprehend. The memory only comes alive once in a while when tales of the nostalgic days of Barangay Simandagit are told. It always disturbs the peace and gentleness of our mundanity, because once upon a time—

There, is that once-upon-a-time.