manang goring
growing up, one of my playmates stunned us with his boast that his grandfather flew on a winged water buffalo from the mainland to our island to start their clan.
this was the same friend who, after school, always took the road home with me by the raucous duck farm in the mangrove swamp past the thatched hut of manang goring.manang goring sold the sweetest brown taffy of caramelized molasses and desiccated coconut.
the rest of our classmates took the long way home by way of the lighted road toward the stone church, lichened on one side, crumbling on the other, via the town hall, glossy, freshly painted, passing by the picture house showing old movies to a full house of bench mites and then toward the town plaza of ancient pitogo trees.
we always bought manang goring's candies and took them to school the next day. then we belly laughed ourselves silly when our girl classmates would shriek and this portly girl faint when they saw us sucking on what they called witch candies.
a little braver
I think it was on my birthday, i'm not certain now, but that was the day we got a little braver. he talked me into stalking manang goring's thickly vegetated backyard.
he had this silvery flashlight, made in china, and he beamed it against the thatched walls of the hut. we did not see any sorceress dolls, their torsos pricked by rusty needles, hanging inside manang goring's house. we only saw a big black cauldron in her backyard bubbling with a brownish-black concoction.
I stood transfixed outside the dark violet hedge bordering her yard while my friend I could hear yelling "come here, you yellow."
the roiling of the boil of manang goring's cauldron drowned every sound I could perfectly hear before including the thumping in my chest.
decapitated head
then out of the darkness, manang goring emerged. from each of her skinny arms dangled shriveled coconuts like decapitated head trophies of some feral tribes.
my friend immediately jumped over the shrub and sped past me, toward the stone pathway, toward home.
I just stood there rooted as the cauldron acquired a crown of white sinister smoke.
as manang goring walked toward me, I could feel her bloodshot eyes piercing through my chest and I thought that if I could just turn around I would see behind me, instead of my quivering shadow, the blazing beams of her gaze.
the moment I resigned to the fact that she easily could and would tear my limbs out, my friend scampered back, panting wildly, and grabbed my arms off my shoulders.
we flew toward the stone pathway, never stopping to breathe or to curse the star apple's branches lashing our faces.
late
that night, after the little party mama threw me, I had to kneel over a mat of salt to say my prayer loudly, a punishment for my wicked behavior, mama's words.
mama would interrupt my memorized prayers, telling me over and over that there were no witches, no reclusive women who could fly, nor vengeful women tormenting men with needles.
then the kerosene lamp in my room started to falter. she told me to go back to bed immediately while she tried to outpace the flickering light and headed back to her room.
but she was late. I heard mama in the darkness groping her way back, groaning mutedly one time when she bumped against the unplaned wooden stool outside my room.
that night, I remember praying for witches as kinsfolks. then mama could have had blazing eyes, effulgent and piercing, training a light ahead of her to guide her back to her dark and cold room.