Pita
2361 Words
With stingray’s tails on their hands, they start whipping those troublemakers. But instead of getting hurt, these people are retaliating. One of them manages to get a hold of the whip and lashes back at one of the men in armor causing him to fall from his horse. What’s not normal are these people’s appearance. Their pupils are white making them look posses, their salivas are gushing down from their mouths to their necks and their disgruntling snarl is disturbing.
“No! Please!” a woman with a toddler in her arms cries.
Without any delay, we rush to her aid.
“Please hurry and leave!” Sinag demands.
“Yes…thank you,” she says, running away with her child without looking back.
One foot forward, knees slightly bent and fists on our chests. “No weapons,” Gasol reminds us.
When a white-eyed guy charges to attack, a young lady who seems to be the same age as me, makes an introduction. She springs forward with her hands then lands with her feet. In a heartbeat, she strikes the guy with her canes. Before the other mischief-makers could lift a finger and create more unrest, we start to help out too. I strangle one of them from behind with my arms then trip his legs and wrestle him to the ground. It takes a bit of a team effort to tie and arrest these people but we successfully lock them up inside the four-wheeled horse-drawn prison cells.
“Sorry for bothering you and thank you for lending us a hand,” the lady says.
Her image is noteworthy. She wears gold embellishments on her ears, neck and wrists. Her upper garment has short sleeves and exposes her torso. It is paired with a fitted pants tucked in boots. Her right eye is as blue as sapphire and the left one is as grey as quartz.
She walks in front of me then pushes my jaw up with her index finger. I look away and step back.
“And you are?” she asks.
“Hn. I don’t have any reason tell to you.”
While swinging her left hand with her canes, she places her other hand on her hips. “My name is Tala, I’m the newly promoted chief assistant of Peace and Order Faction of the kingdom.”
“Tsk. Peace and order, huh.”
“Liyab!” Sinag says with a warning stare before bowing down to the lady. “My apologies.”
One of the men in armor trudges towards the lady gasping for air. “Young chief, there’s a problem!”
“Breathe, geez,” the girl with unique eyes says.
The man inhales a good amount of air then exaggeratingly exhales it. “More and more victims of pita are sent to Barrio Hilot and the volunteers could no longer keep up.”
The young chief, as she’s referred to, stomps her foot and grits her teeth. She veers her gaze to us with much rounder eyes then strides closer. “Please, just this one?”
Sinag and I look at Gasol who clears her throat. “We also need a favor to ask.”
“Alright! Consider it a deal!” the young chief giggles.
She extends her hand to Gasol. But when Gasol ignores her, she grins pretending to fix the gold cuffs in her hand.
“I thought we don’t want any attention?” I whisper.
Without looking back at me, Gasol speaks. “Yeah. But we need help.”
Without wasting anymore time, we ride the horses with their assistance - us at the back and them at the front. I hold on firmly to the young chief’s bare torso. As the horse starts speeding up, my salakot falls on my back with its strap dangles on my neck. The wind briskly rubs my face and my hair glides through it. My heart copies the rhythm of the horse’s movement, it bounces up and down every step of the way.
“Whoa!” the young chief pulls back the strap attached to the horse’s headgear resulting for the horse to trot. The abrupt transition of momentum catches me off guard, my arms wrap around her waist and my face buries on her white long hair that is tied up in a ponytail.
“You okay? Do you need a candy or something?” she asks, smirking.
I promptly unfasten my hands off her and tilt my body back slightly while fixing my cape. We hop down the horse then she hitches it on a rusty lamp post. Realizing that the others are way far behind, we proceed without waiting.
The village is small and gloomy. Its houses are built in stones and constructed in a linear style with a small gap in between each house. The houses’ design is somewhat similar to that of the ones in Haribon Island.
“There’s not many residents around here.”
“You’re right. That’s because most of them evacuated when our faction’s leader chose this place as a healing settlement,” she replies.
I temporarily stop walking. “Hey!”
“I told you, my name is Tala,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yeah. Tala, what are these pita victims all about?”
“Remember the guys in the marketplace earlier?” she asks.
I nod.
She then shakes her head and gestures for me to continue walking. “You know what? I’ll show you instead.”
We enter probably the biggest house in the area and are greeted by an old man. He has a slim figure and his skin is dark and wrinkled. A scarf covers his head and an amulet hangs around his neck.
“Kumusta?” he asks.
“I brought some additional helpers, the others should be here by now." Tala peeks her head outside the door then looks back at me. “Liyab, right?”
“Uh.”
“This is Mang Kanor. He’s a faith healer from the neighboring village. But he’s here to, you know…heal.”
Mang Kanor smiles and I bow down to show respect then stare at his scrawny face. “How can I help?”
He points to the corner of the room – a table covered in a black cloth. On top of it are herbs, bottles of oils and candles in variety of sizes and colors.
“Can you carry those things for me?” he asks.
“Of course.”
As we walk along the extremity of the village, an unfathomable depth of despair keeps unearthing before me. Hostile guttural sound slithers through the walls of every house. When Mang Kanor unlocks the door of one of the houses, a strong foul smell spurts. The situation twists my stomach into a knot. Feces and urines are scattered on the floor and victims of the so-called pita are constraint by fetters of iron clamp around their necks while black and blue patches mask their skins.
Mang Kanor lays down the candles on the floor and lights them up with a match stick. He then takes the herbs and bottle of oil from my hands, dumps the herb and pours the oil in a tin bowl and stirs them with his hands. He takes off his amulet and raises it in midair then says a prayer in a language unknown to me.
“Hold them down,” he points his finger to his patients.
Me, Tala and the other volunteers do as we’re told. Our hands against their skins make them frantic. The chains on their necks do not stop them from shaking their bodies exasperatingly. Mang Kanor steps closer to one of his patients who is in the corner right while continuously saying his prayers then he massages the oil infused herbs on his forehead. Gradually, the man stops fighting back the force of the volunteers who are securing him. Heavy breath breaks free from his mouth the his pupils turn from white to black.
“Wa…ter,” he begs.
An almost inaudible squeal flees from my mouth. The hair all over my body stands up as my skin tingles in disbelief.
Mang Kanor does the same thing to his next two patients and achieves the same result. The second person pleads to see her family and the third falls unconscious. Tala and I pin down the fourth and last patient against the rickety wall as Mang Kanor moves closer to him. The ritual is taking longer than the previous ones. Fluids exude through the man’s pores then blood spills out of his mouth. His body twitches uncontrollably for a little while before it stiffens. The man collapses, his eyes shut and his breathing stops. Tala attempt to revive him by pumping his chest several times with her palms…but to no avail. Shortly after, some volunteers cover the corpse in a white blanket and transport it outside.
Staring at the stains of blood on the floor, I haven’t moved from the position I was in - right arm rests on my right knee while hunkering down on the floor.
Tala pats my shoulder. “Hey. We need to move on to the next house. They need to start cleaning." She tilts her head to the direction of the open door where other volunteers are holding mops, scrubs and container of water.
Compassion keeps on striking my core and my heart sinks with what my eyes just witnessed. Before we could reach the next house, the discomposure that sticks on my brain for a little while now slides down to my lips. “How does the king respond to all of these?”
Tala freezes then intertwines her fingers together. “The king..,” she swallows. “The king thinks everything is under control. He knows this problem exists but he doesn’t understand the extent of it.”
“Why keep the king in the dark? Isn’t it necessary to tell him so that...”
“It’s an order,” she interrupts.
“From whom?”
“From Dama de Noche,” she answers, loosening her fingers a bit.
“And what is that?”
“She’s the head of our faction.”
I put my hands on my hips. “What’s her plan then?”
“Find out more about this magical drug, who’s manufacturing it and how the public gets access to it.”
More questions spring to my head but I refrain from asking and walk ahead of her.
“Liyab!” she gently grabs my arm. “Keep it as a secret, will you? We’re also avoiding public’s anxiety.”
I sigh then look away before nodding.
She takes my hand. “Here, these are treats. You’ll like them.”
“What is this, a bribe? Is this how you do things here?”
Suddenly, a howl peals from the next house. Our feet scramble to get to where the sound is coming from. Inside are Sinag, Gasol, some volunteers and more patients. A mixture of pity and confusion is written on their faces as they press the woman’s body to the wall while Mang Kanor starts his ritual. Two out of four patients in that house die.
It’s already dark, more than a hundred people are saved but thirty seven lives are lost today. More and more pita victims are being sent by the castle guards in this village that the volunteers couldn't even take a rest.
“As much as we want to stay and help out, we need to get going,” Gasol says.
“No, actually you’ve been generous enough lending us your time and efforts. So thank you,” Tala bends her waist down. “Oh! And the favor you asked for is already set.”
“Thank you," Gasol replies.
We say our goodbyes to them and walk our way out of the village.
Today is the longest day of my life. But tonight also has the most exquisite sky I have ever witness. It has swirls of purple and blue and green with sparkling dots sprinkle over it and the silver arc stows away behind the clouds. When we reach the outskirt of the village, my eyes divert to the two wheeled horse-drawn carriage vividly painted and decorated which seems to be waiting for something.
“Is this what Tala told us about?” Sinag asks.
“I guess. I ask for a faster way to get to our destination,” Gasol responds.
A man gets down from the carriage and walks towards us. “Are you Mister Gasol?”
‘Mister?’
Sinag gives me a gentle elbow when I chuckle.
“Uhm…just Gasol.”
“I am asked by Tala to give you a ride,” he stretches his hands, directing us at the carriage.
After a long tiring day, it’s stimulating to take a seat and lean my back against the soft cushioned chair while the breeze nudges my face from the huge open window. The horse leisurely crosses a narrow winding street. Lamp posts made of bronze are erected in every corner which made the area bright, houses made of stone and painted in different colors vie in heights, sizes and designs, the smell of roasted coffee beans are all over the air and the residents are still up and busy doing their stuffs. The scenes overwhelm my senses putting a faint smile on my face after all the unexpected and unfortunate circumstances that happened.
I’m still enjoying the ride when the carriage pulls up. “We’re here. The last village in the eastern part of Saad.”
- Writer
