"You are a daughter of the dusk and the eve," the village shaman said after blessing me with coconut oil and burnt herbs.
In his faint baritone, he began, "The season of monsoon rains just ended and left the surroundings supple and abundant. You got out from your mother’s womb at exactly one minute before six o’clock, when electric posts were already on, but the people were still filling the streets for the ebbing sunset."
The sun's hypnotic disappearance was an unwonted spectacle that late afternoon. It turned the sky yellow-orange-red, danced on the horizon, and drifted like a sail before it totally vanished and gave way to the emerging stars.
The golden moon soon followed, and then the bells of the century-old church rang nine times, signaling for the six o’clock Angelus when people stopped, bowed, and silently did their supplication and atonement. God was so good.
"I was already a shaman then," he said subtly insisting that I had to believe him and his bowl of seawater.
Everywhere was teeming with shrubs and grasses. Leaves were verdant. They swayed, whirled, and whistled with the coltish breeze of October. Lemon and orange trees were in blooms. Their thick, stubby roots made them fruit so soon. Rambutans and Mangoes were turning red and yellow. They smelled like fermented honey.
Some birds began to fill their nests. Others without lovers and kin settled on thick branches. There were unaffected flappers and careless gliders in the air still undecided where to spend the night.
Overweight bullfrogs called their mates. They owned the trenches and overran the water canals. They were loud like chatters of idle women laughing and sharing gossips.
Cicadas were the noise of the dark that baffled praying mantises in trance. Children looked for them as a challenge. Grasshoppers were like a flying blanket in their last synchronized flight of the day. They were on the look out for a grassy meadow.
Other unknown insects had a melodious chorus, although it was too early for lullabies. Babies were still crawling for kisses on their foreheads and light pinches of fondness on their cheeks, and cried their baby talks in tears and pain. Molars were breaking their soft gums, and soon they could bite.
Beetles showed off their new luminous shines. They had new horns and thorns to show. Bees shook their wings, regurgitated their sweet harvests, and buzzed off to retire.
The sun was bidding goodbye. Fireflies were everywhere. Some rested on the crowded petals of lilacs, others dived into the deep bosoms of lilies, and the rest soared to reach the brightest star.
"Now let me tell you how you came into being." He rested for a moment and scratched his back before starting anew.
Dried barks and withered leaves were raked, mounted, and lit to smoke. Their burnt aroma scared evil spirits, drove away mosquitoes, and perfumed the evening dews, the sweat of the cooling day.
Once in awhile, the remains of the monsoon wind breezed and touched arms, necks, and cheeks like kisses- warm, wet, and murmuring.
Dogs barking in unison feared the fading daylight and felt the wind on their backs. They knew their hours were coming soon, and they were ready to howl for the clearest perfect moon.
October evening sky was the bluest. Clouds could not succeed to form. They looked like dense white blossoms of hyacinths before they shied away and slowly disappeared. The world seemed perfect. Its chaos was beautiful; its color, kaleidoscopic; and its sound, an aural delight.
People lit their houses; brightness glowed and flickered, and shadows began their play.
Mirthful children preoccupied themselves with hide-and-seek in the verdant orchard. Burly trunks of fruit trees, overgrown shrubs, and leafy vines were good for camouflages and covers. Laughs, giggles, numbers loudly counted, and yelled names could be heard from afar. Twigs broke under their feet as they disturbed the uncollected piles of shredded barks and dried leaves. Those who tumbled and fell cried. Others who pushed and shoved shouted their dominance with boastful pride. That night, childhood was endured, survived, and happily lived.
A sad smile emerged on his face like he missed something. "Those were the days, my child." After a couple of deeps breaths, he continued.
Women set their stoves for evening fire. Their kitchens instantly became busy. Their ears could hear the boiling sound of water in a kettle above the burning firewood amid the noise of prayers and children. Their noses recognized the burnt smell of whatever they grilled on top of charcoal embers. Their eyes knew when the food was cooked and done. They had mastered their domestic chores; stoves and hearths were their domains.
Grandmothers began their evening rosaries. They spent most of their time in incessant turning of beads and monotonous recitation of prayers.
Grandfathers bothered themselves with vexatious news on televisions. They just refused to retire in peace and solitude.
Everyone was busy doing something to welcome the blessing of the night: darkness, the end of the day.
Grown up men converged and crowded the tables made of sturdy bamboo splits and started the passing of shot glasses quarter-filled with strong coconut vodka.
Succulent cubes of fresh tuna soaked in rice vinegar and soy sauce and mixed with diced grilled pork with lightly burnt, crunchy skin. Onion, ginger, and pepper were added as spices, and round slices of fresh cucumbers and tangy radish roots completed the sapid h’or dourves.
Households prepared, served, and shared the hearty harvests of their labor. On their tables, there were steamed crimson rice, stir-fried shoots and greens, papaya salad with mango chutney and shrimp paste, chicken soup with gourds, fried calamari, sweat and sour freshwater fish, stewed ox tail, whole roasted pig, and sugared fruits in coconut milk.
"Everyone was filled, and enjoyed the feast. We all sang our hearts out and danced the evening away afterwards." He smiled his incomplete laughter.
Strums of guitars echoed, and singers turned their laments and memories into pitches, notes, and tones. They had sad songs about love they lost in their repertoire, but there was exuberance and optimism in their singing.
Every after monsoon, there was gaiety and hope. Young men picked wild flowers that would only smell like perfume at night and put them together as bouquets for their sweethearts. They were too shy to let anyone see their old-fashioned love.
Pretty women, excitedly expecting, dusted their faces with translucent powders; sprayed their arms, necks, and napes with floral-scented fragrances; and meticulously prepared themselves for the nightly visitations of their well-groomed lovers. There was sweetness in the air. Life everywhere was celebrated in effervescence and in festal mood.
"Hibernation was over; you were born," he abruptly ended. He looked tired, and his throat seemed dry.
But I still tried. "Was my grandmother excited to see me," I asked, "and how about grandpa?"
He looked at me and took his dark sunglasses off. He had no eyes, no eyelids, and no eyelashes.
I repeated myself, "How about my grandparents?" His lips did not move like they held a secret.
His assistant, a childhood friend of his, approached me and whispered, "He can talk but not hear and see."
To be sure, I looked at the shaman many times. His ears had no lobes and no holes.
His friend read my baffled face. He pulled me to the corner away from the shaman and whispered again, "He was born deaf and blind," as if he could see and hear.
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