Monster Hunter (Short Story)

I’ve always imagined purgatory to be some sort of waiting room. Nobody looks good under fluorescent lighting. The Christmas lights made it worse. I see a nurse crouched over her desk as if the bags under her eyes were weighing her down. She gave me a frown earlier and I felt my lifespan shorten. I see a man who looked like a TV presenter, all clean and shiny like a bobble head as he spoke to his phone. I don’t think he notices that the “Get Well” balloon he was holding was near its death.

I am sitting on one of the standard hospital chairs, they’re all connected by black metal, each row like a blue plastic caterpillar. My feet swing from the floor. I’m the shortest in my family. My twin sister tells me it’s because I was always meant to fly. My mother tells me it’s because I fell headfirst out of heaven while Marian was smart enough to use the staircase. She had a special way of covering the barb wire in her words with sugar or prayer. Maybe, that’s why she loved to bake. She liked seeing the blood on my teeth as I told her how delicious her red velvet cupcakes were. It also explained why there are multiple statues of saints and Virgin Marys around our house —they all had bleeding hearts.

“So, who’re you waiting for?”asks an old man wearing felt reindeer ears on his head.

Danger bells start ringing in my head. But the nuns in my school taught me how to be polite. Ma never missed a moment to remind me how much money she wasted on that effort.

“My sister is giving birth” I answer, not looking him in the eye. I clutch the swiss army knife in my jacket pocket. I’ve always been told that I’ve never been afraid of causing a scene.

“A Christmas baby! God gave you the best gift, huh?”

I give him a blank close-mouthed smile, hoping that he’d take the hint and go far away, maybe back to the north pole.

“I’m here for my granddaughter, she just had her appendix taken out. She’s just six so she still believes in all that Santa Claus nonsense.” He points to his peculiar hair accessory. “My wife and my daughter-in-law are reindeers too. My son wanted to be the big man himself. He’s away all the time, overseas, but he tries. It’s his first Noche Buena back since Lexie was three.”

I nod at him, proud that my smile was still in place. How do flight attendants do this? My butt is slowly inching itself off the seat, readying my body to flee at any moment.

“Where’s your mother? Is she and your father planning something special too?”

“I don’t have a father,” I look him in the eye as I say this, my voice like a rubber band eager to snap on skin.

“Oh.” He nods his head and looks away. Great, as if it was my fault it was now awkward. At least I don’t have to be both rude and polite anymore. So, I stand and stretch my hands up high. I hear my bones pop like bubble wrap. The old man begins leafing through a travel magazine. My feet slide on the newly waxed floors as I leave without a word.

He reminded me of my own grandfather— not because they were alike, no, this man seemed like he was one of the good ones. Lolo Tonio was a lit fuse that was always on the verge of destruction. If people thought I was bad-mannered, on him it looked respectable. He ran my mother’s childhood like a military camp. She ate silence out of his palm at daybreak. Perhaps, that’s why she looms over our lives like a meticulous dollmaker. It’s the only language she knows how to speak. My grandmother though, Lola Bella, was a short circuit, with her voluminous hair, bright bangles, and chewing gum. When I was six years old, she blew one on my face. I think some of her spit is still embedded in my pores. She told me once that she came from the mountains. I asked her if she ever missed it. She stopped chewing for a split second and I saw a whole life pass by her eyes.

“No, hija, I don’t miss it.”

“Why?”

“Because they didn’t have TV, what would I be without my teleseryes?” She smiles that crazed smile of hers—all teeth and eyes— like a rainbow gecko.

“That’s it?” I continued like the child I was, hungry for a more magical answer.

“And because I was cursed,” she said, all breathy and mysterious.

I gasped.

“There was an old mango tree near my house where a kapre lived. And naturally, he fell in love with me. Of course, I couldn’t return his affections, so I ran away with your lolo. But before I stole away into the night, he came to me and cursed me to bear monsters.”

She paused for dramatic effect.

“But your mother was born, and she was a little too chubby and too red, but she wasn’t a tiyanak. Although, raising one would’ve been fun!” She cackled and I half expected it to rain. “Hay nako.” She wipes tears from her eyes. “Don’t worry, hija, you’re all too serious to be anything but human.”

***

I’ve reached the hospital cafeteria and it’s just as pathetic as the lobby. There were garlands hung on the greying white walls. The lunch ladies were serving everything in plastic wrapper, as if it could hide how unnecessarily lifeless the chicken was. They served holiday-themed gelatin too. They were the only ones that looked happy, jiggling away, to the beat of whatever was coming out of the speakers.

I got to the front of the line, searching for something that didn’t look like regurgitated mama bird feed. I noticed some of the servers on break huddled together over the latest Philippine Star issue.

“Capricorn. Your future is uncertain but everything in life is. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get what you want. You will get what you deserve. Lucky Numbers: 13 and 99. Lucky color: Black,” Said the one with enormous hoop earrings. She seems pleased with what she read, we all like to believe we deserve the best.

It reminded me of the stories Ma would read to us before bed. She would use her fairytale voice, high-pitched and doused with too many exclamation points —as if that made God any less ominous. Her favorites were the ones about great floods and seven plagues and people swallowed by the earth for complaining too much. Her eyes met mine when she got to that last part. My sister just loved the drama. To this day, whenever our mother would rant about a spot that wasn’t dusted right or a plate that was put away too loudly, Marian would call it divine wrath. Anger of biblical proportions. Fiery. Righteous. Justified.

I see a waitress in the back throw a cigarette out of the kitchen window. She approaches her co-workers. One takes out a small bottle of perfume and sprays it directly over the woman’s painted face. She coughs. It mixes with the mist of roses and frying oil. She grabs the paper and continues the reading.

“Virgo. This is your lucky season. A miracle is on your way. Take your chance and grab it before it disappears. Lucky numbers: 3 and 88. Lucky color: White.”

Marian is a Virgo (so am I, obviously, but I don’t really care). If she can get away with it, she’ll use it as a character trait. The only thing she read in the daily newspaper was the business and horoscope sections. Strange combination, right? Her reason? She wanted to know how her fortune would fare in the real world. She liked numbers. And counting. And money. At six years old, while I was finger-painting a long-lost Pollock, she was multiplying with three-digit numbers. Soon, she was winning one competition after another. Marian likes to trust in the invisible, which is why she and our mother got along so well.

I remember the night I found out. Ma took me out to a nice pizza place near our street. We didn’t talk about church, or school, or future plans-like we did every Sunday dinner. We just talked. And talked. She tells me about how she caught the neighbor eating our malunggay leaves straight off the stem again. I tell her about this girl in school who likes to chew the gum stuck under tables. I notice that she eats the crust first, just like me. And for the first time, I think she sees me.

When our bellies were outrageously full, I waited for her to make a comment on my weight. She doesn’t. I excused myself to the bathroom and I paced for two minutes. It was like I was on a first date wondering: “Does she like me?” I smiled to myself in the mirror. I decided that it’s the perfect time to tell her that I don’t want to be a lawyer. And we could compare lawyers to bloodsuckers, and we could laugh like it was our habit to laugh together.

I approached our table with a skip in my step. She showed me pictures of Cousin Marge’s baby. I nod every time she tells me how cute the baby is. Not really because I agreed but because I was trying to find an opening.

“Your sister is pregnant,” she said suddenly.

I stared at her.

“I don’t want to be a lawyer,” I said in return.

There was a pause, we were magnets that pushed each other away. Was this the last thing Lucifer saw when he was cast out of heaven? A blank face. A disappointed one. As if he was the last thing, God ever wanted to see again.

“What do you mean you don’t want to be a lawyer?!”

I started to laugh. People started staring. I laughed harder.

“Agatha, Stop!” My mother whisper-yells. “Nakakahiya.”

I shut my mouth.

“Me? We’re 17. Am I the pregnant one?” I snorted.

Her nostrils flared and her breath could burn a thousand villages. She inhaled and exhaled. She looked me in the eye and I became as small as the fly perched on her skin.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand- “

“Who’s the father?” I interrupted. Marian never mentioned having a boyfriend. We went to the same school. We practically breathed the same air.

The question silenced her.

“She doesn’t know, does she?” I concluded.

“She does! They met during a party. She’s been seeing him for six months.”

Wow.

“So, she just never thought to tell me? For a year.”

“We know how you get, you overreact —you have a big mouth. We didn’t want the whole barangay to find out. You’re both going to college soon and this could mess with her future,” She said bluntly.

I nod. As if the movement could dry the wetness threatening to stumble on my cheeks.

“What do you mean you don’t want to be a lawyer?’ She asks again.

This is the voice that kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden.

“It’s not what I want,” I say in a miniscule voice.

“Ano? Speak up, you’re mumbling again.”

“IT’S WHAT YOU WANT!” The spotlight was on our table once again.

“What I want?! What do you know, Agatha? What’re you going to do? Sell your paintings?

Live in MY house for the next thirty years? Magisip-isip ka nga.“

As if you’re any better? Your daughter IS pregnant. She isn’t married. Just. Like. You.”

I felt a sharp sting on my face and my hand touched my cheek in surprise. Ma was breathing heavily.

I stood from my seat and walked out of the restaurant. I barely heard my mother yelling my name.

I ran to my house, tripping on the unfinished road. The porch lights were open. I realized that I didn’t bring my keys so I started banging loudly on the gate. The neighbor’s dog started barking. Marian swung the gate door open, rubbing sleep from her eyes. I looked over her body and my eyes settled on her stomach. I could now see how bloated and round she was. The bump moved, like a worm trapped under flesh. Her hand flew to console it.

“Ma told you?”

I failed to make eye contact. I can’t find the words to ask why she couldn’t tell me. For all those months. Why couldn’t she have told me?

She ignored my silence and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I slowly returned the hug. She smells of coconut. She’s been on the hunt to find the perfect shampoo flavor ever since we were thirteen years old. Our room was a mixing pot of strawberries, banana, roses, lemons, oranges and whatever else she found pretty. It stuck on our clothes, the ones we always shared. She always tells me that I look better in them. I never believed her. Marian was better at me at everything.

“You get it, right? Why we didn’t tell you?”

We.

They kept saying “We.” As if they’ve become one person. And I was the extra limb that needed to get surgically removed.

I squeeze her tighter. She takes it as a yes. I never know how to tell her no.

“Thank you, Aggie,” She says into my hair.

The thing moved again and I let go of my sister in horror. She laughed and took my hand and placed it over the bump. I remember what Lola Bella told me once, many moons ago. About our curse to bear monsters. I still think she’s a lunatic but maybe the old bat was telling the truth. She shouldn’t have run away though, now we’re forced to deal with her decisions. She should have killed the kapre when she had the chance. She should have saved us when she could. Her mistake, her cowardice, is now my responsibility. And as I look at how entranced my Marian was with her demon child. I knew what I had to do.

***

My thumb grazes the edge of my knife. I see a fragment of myself on its features. My eyes are bloodshot. I have never felt more alive. I decided not to buy anything from the cafeteria. I didn’t want to cloud my head or accidentally poison myself before I did my job. Now, I am sitting on the closed toilet seat of a bathroom stall. There are words written all over the walls. I place the knife back in my pocket and trace my fingertips over a scribbled “Motherfucker.”

My sister told me her baby daddy’s name was “Joe.” I have no idea how she thinks that’s an actual name. It made him impossible to find on the internet. She wouldn’t even give me his last name. She said I could ask him when I meet him. I remember constantly asking her where he was. Her eyes always end up looking far away. She stops being here.

“He’s abroad,” she answered.

“Doing what?” I asked.

“Basta,” She waved me off. And proceeded to talk about the different nutritional benefits of formula and breast milk. She’s been brainwashed.

My mother entered the dining room in the middle of Marian’s rant about diaper brands. I don’t make eye contact. One of these days, she might actually turn me to stone. She likes to pretend that our conversation never happened. Which is fine. She is more relaxed when she pretends, I don’t exist. She places the same comfort on pretending our birth father doesn’t exist. Or Marian’s supposed boyfriend. It must be interesting inside her head, deluding herself to be the receiver of an immaculate conception. The virgin apple doesn’t fall far from the virgin tree and all that.

My ringtone echoes around the tiled walls, pulling me back into the present. My mother has texted me Marian’s room number. Ah, so it’s done. I brisk walking past the identical wooden doors of each room. It was almost poetic how I spiraled to the top floor. Take that, Ma, I didn’t fall from heaven. I crawled my way out of it.

I get to door number 666. How coincidental, right? Just as my hand reached for the doorknob, it flew open. My mother looks beaten. The grey hairs have escaped from her usual bun. It almost made her look human. I peer behind her to catch a glimpse of Marian. My tip toe squeaks with effort.

“Sssh! Ano ka ba? Don’t wake her up! She’s resting,” She whisper-yells. And something—the size of an oversized bean—makes a mewling noise behind her.

Ma tells me to watch over her. She was going downstairs to request a change of rooms. She tells me the room number feels like a bad omen. And this time, I agree with her.

I enter the room. She closes the door behind me. The click of the lock sounds like the beginning of a death march. My heart starts beating as if it was going to rip itself out of my ribcage. I take a few steps closer. And place a kiss on Marian’s head. She smells like sweat and rubbing alcohol. There are shadows under her eyes, and I can see bone piercing through her cheeks. The monster sucked her dry.

I maneuver around her bed, careful not to make a sound. She didn’t need to see this. She didn’t need to know this existed.

I stand above the bassinet. The creature was sleeping, little mouth shaped like an o. It was everything I thought it was.

I take my knife out of my pocket.

I plunge.

It cries.

The knife drops.

Thank God.

It’s over.