FLORES, Francis G.

2015-13693

A Black Encounter

It was eight o’ clock in the morning and I headed into the living room. The curtains hung
in generous folds around the windows. The scent of coffee from my clay mug thickened the air.
The walls added an orange glow to the morning light. I sunk into my couch and put my laptop on
an old-fashioned, mahogany table. I browsed the internet about “Real Stories of Mythical
Creatures in the Philippines”, for this was the subject of my next paper. And I knew that
something like this should not be done in the evening.

“Nak, usap-usapan yung bagong lipat diyan eh..aswang daw!” my mother said as she
fumbled with the needle and thread and started sewing some of my worn-out clothes. “Ano
Ma?!” I replied after that nerve-racking statement. “Grabe naman Ma, may horror na pala ang
tsismis” I added. “Ano ba nak? Hindi naman ako tsismosa! Narinig ko lang!”

My mother was the sympathetic ear of her kumares. I saw her sometimes with the other
talebearers, nodding and smiling throughout these unconstrained and derogatory conversations.
But I believed she was just an obsequious listener, not one of those tsismosas blurting out
secrets. Although she shared some tsismis before, she had told it in the strictest confidence. I had
finished slurping my coffee when I picked up my laptop. “Ma, diyan lang ako sa kuwarto ah” I
walked upstairs and decided to finish my paper inside my room.