Yellow Tape

Tales of the most dire encounters with the unknown come to life amidst the muteness of a November night. Such sessions oftentimes transpire under the curtains through which came light and breeze from without; it is of somberness.

 

In such evenings, we feared the shadows that crept on the wall which broke the stillness of the night, despite knowing that it was of our figure. We dreaded the noise that danced along with the breeze, even though it was by our motion. We lavished ourselves in horror of the most petrifying creatures to ever stray the earth: tikbalang, aswang, manananggal, and right before we got to the most fearsome of all, I latched my eyes in sheer horror, attempting to recollect the calmness of my mother’s hum, which, the last time I heard, was a shriek of restraint that an uproar drowned.

 

I awoke to a hurting back from long hours of lying on concrete cement. I let my eyes wander around the wreckage of what used to be a busy ground.

 

BEWARE OF DEBRIS read the bold fonts of a tattered wooden board that laid beside my friend Totoy, all while a massive form of rock sat atop what was supposed to be his head. Caught in utter confusion, I looked up at the ruins of the heights that casted a shadow on the scantiness of my figure, shielding me from the heat of the sun, though it was a gloomy late afternoon all the same.

 

Perks of being a young lad was perhaps my clear-sightedness; and so when the wind drew up another breath that caused the leaves of a massive fallen tree to hiss, I knew it. I saw it, even from afar and through the multiple layers of walls blocking my vision. There is only one creature that sends my spine chilling down to its core, and lo! There goes the creature me and Totoy fear in the utmost degree: a man with a gun.

 

My eyes once again found itself on Totoy. Growing impatient of his stillness now, I nudged him a few times but to no avail. Quite a sight to behold he is, I thought, with all the thick drops of crimson wine that now dried up on his skin, but eventually figured as the line goes … better late than never … to dress up for Halloween.

 

“Watch out for a man with a gun,” my father once pronounced. I only supposed from his repetitive censures that behind my every cry of protest awaits a man with a gun to hush my mouth so I could never speak again. Heedless of what I seek for, they only mean to silence my outcries. How fearful was I at the thought! I therefore resolved never to protest again.

 

On account of my father, I was warned numerous times, though I wasn’t certain he took those cautions for himself by heart. I recall him coming home once on a break of dawn, sleeping on a mattress with a bullet pierced through his chest lest perchance he did not. That was the last time he came back home at all.

 

The closer the man got, the colder the air grew. In his hand was a bright shade of lemon accentuated by the domineering shades of gray all around the area. Embedded in it were fright-strickening prints of long, repetitive lines that say POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS—which I dared not cross indeed, for I have always found horror at the thought of getting my mouth shut by a man with a gun. The enclosure of that tape was always a blind spot that many times had kept me from the naked truth.

 

In no rush did I approach the yellow tape hanging by the tree, dreading the unaccustomed, and would have run the opposite direction, but for such a task my limbs were purposeless.

 

I peeked at the very picture most people feared to see, then I understood. A sensation of terror gushed over my veins, lips parted, and eyes gaped.

 

On the other side of the yellow tape that drew borders between the petiteness of my body and of the terror beyond, was that of my mother’s motionless figure, which, in my eyes, stood out amongst the pile of corpses like a star on a Christmas tree. On a paper that slid from her red-coated hand was a big LUPA PARA SA … sign that now hung still under the quietness of the dusk.

 

My body grew frail, perceiving that November shall never end now and will haunt me for the rest of what is left in life. In fact, Totoy will never wake up from his sleep to tell me about his Halloween costume, nor will my mother hum my fears away any longer. I let my knees touch the ground in affliction, resisting the dying of the night.

 

This has truly been the most frightening horror stint of November.

 

Before the lake of tears blinded my sight, I took one last glance at the mother whom I once cherished.

 

From her fingers dripped the blood of labor that now watered the land she fought for.

 

Photo slider by Natasha Audrey Ordinario