fiction

Sacred Mountain
by Calbi A. Asain

I WAS ONLY A SOPHOMORE in college when I participated in a leadership workshop in a far-flung province in the South. At first, I was hesitant to go. Why not hold it, I thought, in the city where we could be exposed to modernity? The goal, as defined by the sponsors, was to acquaint student leaders in the urban enters with their counterparts in depressed areas and their needs. But since it would be my very first trip out, I decided to go. Then there was, of course, the excitement of meeting other student leaders from southwestern Mindanao—the prospect of making new friends and all.

While I was packing, my mother gave me a list of precautions to take once I get to the venue of the seminar. Which was natural for a parent seeing her youngest off for the first time. She said there were many sacred, mysterious spots in the place which I should not violate. Transgression, she warned me, would likely result in illness, insanity, or even death.

She named a well-known sacred mountain, the mother of all mysteries to her. This mountain, she stressed, was located in the capital town of the province and towered over it and its vicinity. This she had learned from her cousin living there, who visited us some years back. I was eager to go. In addition to my penchant for mysteries, a plan jelled in my mind: on my way home, I would take the plane so that I could make a stopover in the city and behold something new, something different.

It was somewhat stormy when I left our old port together with other delegates from other schools in my own province. But the sea welcomed us with its serenity late in the afternoon as we left a small island town where more passengers boarded the M/V Gumamela.

The next day, a few hours from our destination, a fellow passenger next to me warned his companion not to be noisy: the sacred mountain was in sight. I got up right away to have look. And there, not far off, stood what must have been the sacred mountain. I gazed at its steep slopes and rocky, yellowish-brown jagged peak. As we docked, the sacred mountain looked so tall that its summit seemed to fall on us. As I stared at it, I thought I saw up there a huge rock shaped like a man. And it seemed the figure was somewhat staring at me, too. I rubbed my eyes to make I wasn’t hallucinating, but when I looked at it again, I was jolted by the sound of the ship’s anchor as it roared down into the sea.

On the crowded wharf, a group of well-wishers had gathered, their streamer saying: “Welcome Delegates to the 1st Western Mindanao Student Leadership Workshop!” We all hopped into the waiting jeepneys, as many student leaders had come on the same boat, which had sailed al the way from Zamboanga del Sur. We drove through newly-cemented streets of the town. Some of the townsfolk watched us curiously as we passed by.

Along the highway to the school where we would meet and stay for one week were dense vegetation, fruit trees, and the long stretch of coconut plantation. To our left was a clean white beach. Beyond the trees, to our right loomed the sacred mountain around which we traveled around to get to the seminar site. Then all the vehicles stopped on the road near the shore, and we all jumped out to view the surroundings. I turned to the sacred mountain. The closer it was to me, the more enigmatic it seemed.

“That mountain, there’s something eerie about it,” said one delegate. He folded an empty Hope cigarette pack and flattened it on his back on his lap while sitting on a log. Then he pulled his pen from out of his pocket and began sketching the mountain.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m drawing the mountain. It intrigues me so.” Glancing up at the mountain every so often, he continued drawing it.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of what?” He stopped and bit his pen, staring at me. The Hope cigarette wrapper flew from his hand as if snatched away by some unknown force.

“Look at that!” I watched the wrapper being blown away by the wind. It hi the coconut trunk and hung as if glued there for a while before it swung down when the wind dropped.

“It was the wind, period.” The city-bred delegate looked away.

Our vehicles roared back to life, and we got aboard. In about fifteen minutes, we arrived at a huge open gate. It was the school campus where the workshop was to be held. We were instructed to proceed to our respective lodgings in order to get settled and rested. I looked around. The campus was quite spacious.

There were three beds in the room I was supposed to occupy—which meant I would be with two other delegates. I chose the bed beside a window. All the windows were shut. I opened the one over my bed to allow some fresh air in, and I saw the sacred mountain again. I felt the hair on my nape rise when I saw what looked like human eyes on the side of the mountain facing me—seemingly closing on me as they joined each other to make one huge eye. I shut the jalousies abruptly and sat down on the bed, gasping, only to be jolted again when one of my roommates pushed open the door without knocking.

“I’m sorry…I thought there’s nobody in yet. I’m Darkis. How do you do?”

“How do you do? From the city?”

“No, from the province.”

“Me, too. Do you speak Tausug?”

“A little. But I speak Yakan and Chabakano quite well.”

I thought of moving to another room. Darkis was lanky and crossed-eyed, with a big mouth. His canines seemed to protrude when he talked, and there was a gap between his two main incisors. But I was supposed to be a principled youngster, shunning any form of discrimination by reason of looks, creed, or station in life. Besides, I have to make do with Darkis because our third roommate had not come. The following day, he gave me an indigenous, hand-made fez from his province, and I could only give him an imported toilet soap I had bought from our barter trade market.

The weather turned bad in the middle of the week. It was worse at dark. One evening, after supper, we decided early to call it a day. Darkis dashed to the lodging house ahead because I had to go to the infirmary to get some cold tablets. There was no electricity. I was groping in the dark when I got to the lodging house. When I opened the door, someone covered in a white bed sheet blocked my path, and I almost shouted. It was Darkis.

“How could you?” I took my small flashlight from my bag and looked for the candle we had been provided with.

“Sorry, I just wanted to have some fun. I’m bored!”

“At my expense?”

Darkis just grinned off my question, and I saw his canine gleam in the dark as I lighted the candle and put it on the table. By the way, I forgot to tell you, we have a sacred mountain like that one outside,” Darkis tried to divert my attention, sensing I was irked.

“Really? What’s it like?”

“Well, there are so many things you cannot do in is vicinity. You can’t piss near or toward it. If you do, you wont be able to piss for days! And when you spit toward it, you’ll have ringworms around your mouth!” He gestured at me, his face twisting grotesquely.

Ringworms! I could not imagine having them around my mouth. So I asked: “Is there a cure?”

He looked at me in the eye. “In our place, you have to offer live rooster and swear a hundred times you wouldn’t do it again. All this you do with the help of a shaman.”

I recalled that I had sneezed, then spat toward the sacred mountain as we entered the campus gate. But I was not exposed to it when I did so. Then my chin itched, and fearfully I looked at Darkis. I thought I had caught ringworm.

So many strange things occurred during the workshop. One night, at supper, we were teasing each other. The girls were giggling, we boys were exchanging crazy innuendoes. One delegate from the city said that a vampire seized and bit him in the neck in his nightmare a night before.

I looked at Darkis sitting opposite me.

“No, Fareed,” someone said, “there are no vampires in my homeland.” We all laughed.

Don’t laugh too much while eating,” snapped a female delegate from the host province, who was always giving us warnings. “The sacred mountain is nearby. Your laughter could annoy it. We fell silent. Only the sounds of the spoons and forks on our plates and our chewing and belching could be heard. All of a sudden, we started from our seats when a rat appeared dangling from a curtain on the window facing the huge dining table. Where it came from, we knew not.

“I told you so!” exclaimed the serious –looking student leader from the host province as the rat scampered away down the window sill and out of the house into the garden full of weeds. I looked at Darkis, as expecting him to say something about the appearance of the rat. He was silent.

We had another session afterwards to identify common problems in our towns and cities and their causes. The Manila-based speakers would bring the results of our deliberation with them the next day. We had to stay up until the wee hours to finish the job. We felt extremely used up and sleepy when we got through. After the grueling session, Darkis and I hurried to our room.

I had barely removed my shoes when, groggy from lack of sleep, I practically dropped dead on my bed. A couple of hours later, I was shouting and kicking in my sleep, I almost fell to the floor. Darkis kept pulling y right foot’s big toe until I woke up.

“What’s wrong? Whey the hell were you pulling my big toe?”

“You were yelling in your sleep, that’s why. In my province, that’s a sure way to wake up somebody having a nightmare. And if that doesn’t work, one must pull a sensitive part of the body.”

“Which part?”

“Well, that thing below your navel”

“What, You’d do that?

“Why not? I’d rather pull it that see you die and be investigated by the police. By the way, why were you yelling in your sleep?”

“It was the sacred mountain. I dreamed of it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Yes, I dreamed it has many eyes, and then they turned into just one huge eye closing in on me. I felt I was trapped…”

“Did you do something prohibited? I mean, during our stay…”

“Nothing…well, I took some pictures of it from the bridge. I love taking pictures, you know.”

“That’s why.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, some mountains cannot be photographed. I’m afraid the rest of the film has been affected.”

“Those that I snapped were the last three of or four exposures.”

The last day of the workshop came. Many participants had indicated the were leaving in the same afternoon to catch the last boat, which made the trip to the island once a week. If they missed it, they would have to wait for the other boats days later. Darkis and I would take the plane. When I told him about my idea of flying to the city before going home, he said he was joining me. It would be out first time to fly, so we were pretty excited. We left in the morning after workshop.
We arrive in the city after an hour’s smooth flight. From the airport, we took a motorized tricycle to the wharf because we had to buy our boat fares in advance. We went straight to the RSJ shipping Lines to buy our tickets. Darkis entrusted our luggage to a kindhearted storeowner, then, we proceeded to the commercial district and found a camera and film shop.

I handed my roll of film to the salesgirl for processing and paid a deposit of P100. We were told to come back at 3 p.m. for the pictures.

“Perfect! You leave at 4 p.m., and I leave at 6.” I nudged Darkis, who was dallying with another pretty sales girl. Let’s get out of here, I’m starving.”

“Who’s not?” Darkis pulled the door open, and we stepped out.

We went straight to the fast food center at the corner of Brillantes and Climaco streets. We sneaked into the line for out stomachs could no longer wait. We settle for the boiled beef, vegetable stew, and fruit cocktail for our desert. Darksi has a glass of coke and plain water for me. To my pleasant surprise, he paid our bill, which was fair enough because I was going to pay for the pictures.

We went to the big department store on the next block to while away the time until we could claim the pictures.

“I hope to see you again in the nest workshop,” Darkis said, “in some place where there would be no sacred mountain.” As he grinned at me, I remembered all at once the sacred mountain that seemed now exotic, faraway land, my dream about it, and the snapshots of it I had taken from the wooden bridge.

After window shopping—asking the sales girl about the price of this and that but not buying anything—I signaled Darkis that it was time to go.

Back at the photo shop, I handled the claim stub to the salesgirl. She took it and looked for the envelope containing my film inside the glass counter. She pulled out a folded strip of film from it and put it on the counter. Returning my deposit, she said: “Sorry, nothing came out of all 36 exposures. What a waste!”

“But…But why?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe you exposed the film.” The salesgirl turned to another customer who had just come in.

Darkis and I looked at each other without saying a word. Then I took the film and scanned it on the counter for a while. I raised it toward the light above.

I could see nothing but a strip of blank film.

From Panuggud and Other Stories, DLSU Press, 2001

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