Ecaldre, Sweet Lovely D.

BSTM 2A2-9 / TF 10:20 11:50 AM

LIT 1
(Short Story)

January 20, 2017

Prof. Oreste

Chain Message

Alan shuts the door behind him. Tired from work, he takes off his green polo-shirt
uniform and throws it off like a basketball into the laundry basket in the corner of a cramped
room-for-rent that he occupies. Hes been living here for quite a while now. Ever since he got the
job at a fast-food place that serves local Filipino dishes.
He hurries taking off his black rubber shoes, belts off, pants off, and being the king of his
own abode, he can freely wear his birthday suit, every night. But not this time though; he wears
his favorite boxer shorts that reads Dr. Pepper, which he got from an ukay-ukay place just around
the corner.
After a hard days work, Alan only looks forward to one thing, Facebook. Man, he feels
good when he sees the wi-fi icon in his phones status bar. Thank God for his buildings free
internet connection. He lies down on his comfy-enough bed. Phone in his hands. Tap-tap-tap. He
sees two new messages and eight notifications. Of course, he checks his messages first.
Oh shit. he thinks to himself.
The message at the top is from his sister, whos in his hometown in the province. He
already knows what this one is about. Money. Of course she needs money. She doesnt
message him at all besides when she needs money for books, projects, or whatever. Alan
is always hesitant to send her anything. He always sees his sister post photos of herself
out and about with friends gallivanting.
Screw that. then he checks the other message.
Its from his co-worker Bryan. Seems like Bryan cant get to work tomorrow. Damn,
tomorrow was supposed to be Alans day-off but it seems like he has to get to work to
take-over Bryans shift.
Okay Ill do it. he replies.
Alan moves on and checks his notifications. Theyre mostly new posts for a Looking For
Love group thats hes in. One is a tag of a photo by his former co-worker, flaunting a new BMW
car and a stack of 1 thousand Peso bills. Damn multi-level marketing. Alan still thinks its a scam
though. He moves on. The last one is a post tag. This is very important and you must read. It

cuts off from there. Alan has to click on it, or tap, or whatever, its a phone. He does so and its
the usual If you dont share this, something bad will happen post. Alan reads it anyway.
Lester was a 34-year-old man, he received this letter and ignored it. The next day the Devil
visited him in his sleep and tormented him all day til he cant take it anymore and kills himself.
This could happen to you!!! Just share this to 1,025 people and everything will be okay!
You think Im stupid? Alan grins as he scrolls down to a picture of Baphomet with a
pentagram background.
He checks out the rest of the stuff on his news feed right after. Its getting late. He
remembers he has got to go to work the next day for Bryan. Time sure flies fast when youre
stalking a female co-worker on Facebook. Alan plugs in his phone to the charger and places it on
the bedside table. He flips over his pillow to the other side and lays down his head on it. Its cool.
Its heaven on earth. He closes his eyes and drifts away into a sweet slumber. Good night sweet
prince.
Ever since he was a boy, right after his uncle taught him to count sheep in his mind to
easily fall asleep, hes been having dreams about sheep jumping over a fence over and over
again. Its not unusual for him to have this dream at least once a week. Hes never told anyone
about this before though.
This night is no different. Theres the fence again and he sees it clearly. Its vivid, and if
he hasnt seen this same dream over and over hell probably think its real. 1 sheep, 2 sheep, 3
sheep, 4 sheep, 5 sheep, and so on and so on. After a while he loses count and out of nowhere
pops a goat into his usual dream. But instead of jumping over the little wooden fence, the goat
charges at it and breaks it. The goat stops right after. It walks around a little and he notices it
looking at him. A goat, with blazing red eyes is staring right at him. This is not good. It screams
meeeeeeh!!! as it charges into where Alan is.
Alan wakes up with a knee-jerk reaction.

What the fuck? he says to himself, not in his mind but with a whisper.

He reaches for his phone on the bedside table, turns it on. Its half-past 6 in the AM. Just
about time he wakes up. Alan pulls himself up and prepares himself for his supposed-to-be dayoff to take over Bryans shift. He takes a piss, takes a shower, puts on his green polo-shirt
uniform, which he completely despises by the way. All good to go except for most essential hair
gel. Yep, Alan is stuck in the year 2000. Alan squeezes the blue slimey hair gel onto his palm. It
feels so cool in his hands. Alan thinks hed go with a spiky style today. Oops nope. He doesnt
want to be teased with the lizard falling onto his head and gets impaled by his spiky hair. So he

goes with the duck-tail look. He sure looks confident as he checks himself out in the mirror. He
gives himself a smile. What a great way to start a day, start the day with positivity.
Alan suddenly gets startled. What? He turns around, but sees nothing. Nothing but a
poster with a sexy girl and a rums brand name on top. But he swears, he swears on his life that
he saw something. Something looking at him. He swears he saw a goat, on his bed, blazing red
eyes, staring at him. Alan feels creeped out definitely, but hes got to go. He shrugs it off and
goes out the door, locking it down with a padlock. Its not the kind of door with a doorknob. He
checks his phones clock and skedaddled out of there.
The traffic is getting worse, and worse each day. a passenger in the sitting in the middle part
of a jeepney beside Alan utters to everyone aboard. Alan agrees while being a little bit nervous of
getting late for work. Its 23 minutes til the store opens.
Bayad po. he hears from behind him. A student in uniform tries to hand over her fare and
Alan takes it.
Bayad daw po. while he reaches out to hand over the fare to the driver.
May Goat Bless Our Trip, he notices the signage behind the driver reads, thats weird. Alan
squints his eyes, and he still reads the sign as it is the first time. Still has his hand stretched out,
the female students money in hand, he sees the driver turn his head around. But Alan dropped
the coins. The driver was a goat. Again, blazing red eyes looking at him. Everything suddenly
moves in slow motion
Meeeh with a slow low-pitched sound the goat spoke.
The coins hit the metal flooring of the jeepney. Alan reacts and looks down.
Sorry miss, sorry! as he bends down and picks up the dropped coins.
He looks up and sees a 50-something driver reaching back with an open palm. Still creeped out,
Alan hands over the money on the drivers hand. Then Alan moves his eyes up behind and above
the driver. God Bless Our Trip.
Sure hope so! Alan rubs on his eyes. He thinks hes still half-asleep. Hes tripping more than that
time when he tried getting high with Angels Trumpet with his cousin back in the province.
Its his stop.

Para po.
He goes out and gives a greeting nod to the security guard of the fast food place. He gets in and
punches in his time card. Almost 3 minutes late. He probably wont have to do anything until
later that day. Oh, hes a delivery man by the way. He hangs out in the kitchen to have a bit of a
banter with his co-workers. As usual, they all talk about getting drunk last night while Alan just

listens as he cant really talk about stalking Marie, the cute chinita behind the cash register. And
he doesnt think he can talk about that red-eyed goat either. So he just listens and complain about
Bryan.
There are three of them delivery guys that came to work today, the 2 of them are already out for
deliveries. The phone rings and Marie answers it.

Alan, youre up.

Mrs. Cruz

Everyone at the store knows Mrs. Cruz. If you rank the stores patrons, shes probably at
the top spot. And her usual order, kare-kare. Alan knows where to go at this time obviously.
But he thinks,
Kare-kare, its made of goat, kare-kare, goat, kare-kare, goat.

By this time Alan feels something is actually off.

Before going out, Alan had to take a piss. He thinks to himself, the comfort room has big mirrors
above the sinks. Damn it. But he has to go. Youve got to go when youve got to go.

Ill just avoid looking at the mirror.

He approaches the comfort rooms door, he sighs then he goes in.

He walks straight for the urinal. Unzips his pants and pulls out his junk.

Come on man, go go go!

Hes usually having a hard time and has to imagine the sound of running water for his urine to
flow out and now having an even harder time by being paranoid about a goat creeping up, maybe
behind him. Yes, behind him. He hears hooves making contact with the tile flooring. First one
was faint. Each sound was slowly getting louder and louder. Something is creeping up behind
him definitely. Just because youre paranoid, doesnt mean theyre after you. He knows this
sound, kind of like the sound of horses hooves strolling around Intramuros.
Its all in your head, man.
Keep telling yourself that.

Go! Go! Go! Go!

Come on!

He keeps cheering himself on as the creeper behind him is getting closer, he knows.

Please, yes, yes, yes, yes!

It finally goes out! It feels so good. So good that he forgets about the creeper, certainly that
freaking goat, for a second. For a second, yes.
Meeeeh! Alan hears from behind him as he was just putting back his junk back in his pants.
Fuck! I shouldve shared that fucking post. he tells himself as he power walks his way out.
He did not bother looking down. He knows what hell see.
Alan still had to make that delivery but he cant get that goats face out of his mind. He feels
really hesitant to get the delivery from the kitchen.
Out of everything, he has to deliver kare-kare. Kare-kare equals goat.
But he has to do it. He picks it up and puts it in the square delivery backpack. He approaches
Maria for the receipt. She giggles.

What? She points down, with her lips, to the direction of his crotch. Alan looks down.

Shit. she giggles as Alan hurriedly pulls up his zipper.

Shes still giggling as he walks out the door.
If that goat suddenly appears in front of me, I swear please Lord help me.

Hes nervous, feeling sweaty as he traverses the highway on a green motorcycle.

He sees the building where Mrs. Cruz resides at a distance.

Just a little more, come on.

His heart beats a little faster as he gets closer to his destination.

Come on! Yes! Yes!

He feels relief. A great relief. He makes a deep sigh and shakes his head with a smile. Alan
approaches the building and approaches the elevator. Its open with no one in. Alan feels hesitant
to go in alone. He doesnt want to see that goat appear suddenly in front of him as the elevator
light flickers. Hes seen too much elevator prank videos on YouTube. Instead of a ghost girl
screaming, hell see and hear a goat meeeeh-ing. He imagines the exact scenario in his head.
A man goes in the elevator from behind him. Thank goodness.
Mrs. Cruz is on the 9th floor so Alan presses the number 9 on the elevator controls. The other
man presses the number 5.

Crap. Alan maybe has to go up 4 floors alone.

The elevator door closes and it moves up. Alan feels quite nervous but not as much as he was
down at the ground floor a while ago.
Ding! 5th floor. The man goes out, Alan is now alone. He checks outside, and no one is there. He
hopes someone else will get in the elevator but after several seconds it closes down. 4 floors to
go. Alans palm gets a bit sweaty. He tries to erase the face of the goat from his mind. Come on!
Come on! Hes staring at the digital display above the elevator door as it reads, from 5 to 6, to 7,
to 8, and finally, 9! Alan takes a deep breath. Whooo! Maybe hes finally woken up. Maybe hes
not tripping anymore. Maybe the goat left him alone. He steps out and heads to the 906th unit.
Thats where Mrs. Cruz is. 904th, 905th, and there he is 906th. He knocks on the door.

Delivery! He hears a faint voice from the inside.

The door is open, just get in because Im in the middle of something.

Alan turns the doorknob and goes in. He puts down the delivery backpack, unzips it and pulls out
the plastic bag with the food inside.

Where should I put this?

Come here in the kitchen, Ill pay you here. He hears from other room.

Alan approaches the kitchen, the room right next to where hes standing.

As he walks in, he sees it. The goat, blazing red eyes, standing on the kitchen counter, staring at
him.

Meeeh.

Shit. thats all Alan could say.

Meeeeeeeeh!