Untitled

Bedtime Stories 

I've saved this story for last, untitled to this day.

It has exasperated me through the years because it's unfinished and yet, it's one that makes it impossible for me to stop smiling every time I think of it.

The seasons pass, I get older, and the hours tick away. But I remember.

*****

Once upon a time... 

A chorus of frogs croaked around, but all I heard that night as the stars hung suspended above us was Dadee's voice. Measured and quiet. 

Our ears perked. We waited with bated breath for what he would say next.

... there lived a colony of ants in a mound under the acacia tree. They were busy at work.

An ant was carrying a grain of rice much bigger than himself. With this load the ant tried to climb up the mound wall.  

Waving his hands hurriedly, as if trying to chase an invisible fly, he continued.

The grain fell down. The ant came down and lifted the grain once again.

He started to climb once more. Again the grain fell down, and again the ant went down to try. 

Dad reflected, with his eyes on the dark square that the capiz window framed in the sky.

The ant did not lose courage. He tried again and again - 33 times until he succeeded in taking the grain up the wall. 

What happened next, Dadee? I recall how I would eagerly urge him on.

He said nothing, letting out only a shallow, puzzled sigh. 

Wala pa. (Nothing yet.) There was still much to be done.

You see, there was this kamalig (rice granary) beyond the field. That was where the ants needed to go back to and each carry a grain back home before the rainy season began.

Then he continued. 

So the ants marched back through the field to the granary. Lined up like soldiers, they climbed up the granary teak post. And climbed up and up. And marched on to a sack. 

He had this low, intense, monotonous way of talking which was almost mesmerizing.

With great care, one ant took a grain and carried it on his back. He proceeded down the sack, and out to the field, toward the mound.

Dalian mo na, Dadee. (Hurry up already.) What happens next? I was getting impatient.

At first, he spread his hands as if that question was beyond his understanding, but he did concede later by doing the bobblehead nod. 

Yes, yes, I understand. Pero wala pa nga (nothing yet). Lot of cavans of rice in that one single sack, you know.

My eyelids had gotten heavier. I slowly slumped down my pillow and onto the mat. For a moment, a magical moment, I could see in my mind's eye...

... ants marching back through the field to the granary. Lined up like soldiers, they climbed up the granary teak post. And climbed up and up. And marched on to a sack. 

Soon, there was nothing but the scent of the sampaguita in the air and the buzzing of night insects as Dad went on. He was sculpting his sentences neatly, measuring them out with a cadence that seemed to promise an ultimate moral that never emerged.

Myths and legends do not happen all at once. They do not spring forth whole into the world. 

And so I like to think that Dadee is still forming this tale slowly, rolling it between the hands of time.

Until its edges become smooth.

Until the saying of the story gives enough weight to the words, to the memories, to keep it rolling on its own.

Dadee's favorite vantage point from where he said he could see the end of Fountain Street to the mile-away boulevard. Manila