A TALL TALE FOR THE GULLIBLE AND THE UNSUSPECTING

A TALL TALE FOR THE GULLIBLE AND THE UNSUSPECTING
By: Bro. Geminiano V. Galarosa, Jr.
Dagohoy Lodge No 84
(HM- LL 185, JS 169 and RP 147)


The lion wrote this article almost fifty years ago when he was still a teenager but the copy of the school organ where it appeared in print is no longer available; so he is retelling this tall tale from memory once again.

This is a tale about the eerie underworld; on witches and tikbalangs, which in the nineteen fifties thrilled our teenage minds. It is a story usually told in country-sides where unnatural events are usually narrated and spread about.

It all happened when the father of one of lion’s boyhood friends died, and as was the custom in the place, relatives and friends of the deceased converged to pay their last respects and mourn his death. And most naturally, they stayed all through the night playing cards and other games of chance to while the time away.

On the wake’s third and final night, at around two in the morning, they continued playing “pusoy” a game of chance roughly the equivalent or “tong’its” or blackjack. A little drunk and with the group already out of cigarettes, the stakes changed- he who lose the deal must go to the town’s bus station where cigarette vendors still ply their trade and buy the needed packs. And as bad luck would have it, he lost the game of chance.

Still a little tipsy but nonetheless extremely nervous, the lion walked the stretch that roughly is about two kilometers away with eerie fear in his heart. After all, it was the time when “aswangs” are bruited to appear to claim the spirit of the dead man for his prize. Also, the lion had to pass the tall acacia tree noted for its “tikbalang”, which, according to folkloric belief, is usually seen sitting at its top. Worse, he also had to pass the bridge where old folks say an “aswang” who change its form from man to beast lurked menacingly at night. With utmost fear therefore, he could but sigh when he reached the bus station and buy the needed packs of cigarette with luck still on his side.

But his trip back to the place where his friends converged was as suspenseful. Having passed the tall acacia tree, he nervously approached the bridge, but at the middle was a big black dog, bigger than a Doberman, whose eyes were fixed at him a-glinting, and whose body summarily blocked his path. With menacing stare the dog looked at him straight in the eyes, and almost froze him to death. “This is it”, he thought, and he could not backtrack because the tall acacia tree was already at his back.

And just as suddenly, its form changed from dog to goat, from goat to cat, still menacing, still unmoving. And slowly it moved its two front feet in a crouching position, poised to make the fatal strike.

With dumb-found fear, the lion clutched his knife to face the inevitable.

The big black cat sprang and while in midair again changed form and became a hog. Just as swiftly, he lunged his knife at the throat of the animal and in an instant the ordeal was over. Bloodied, still nervous, but otherwise unscathed, he looked down at the motionless animal. The butcher at the market got a job.

If you feel you’ve been gypped with this story, please read the title once again. And Happy Halloween!!