Bad Omen and Manananggal and stuff— A She Blog Halloween Contest Entry
It started with a weird dream. In my dream I was smiling and the next I knew my mouth was filled with teeth that fell off from my gums. It wasn’t painful or anything like that. But the feeling of my mouth filling with these pebble like things, and my bare gums was awful. I could still feel my pulled out teeth even now, so alien in my mouth. Have you ever had a dream like that before?
I woke up soon after. I remembered my old nana telling me that its bad omen to dream about teeth falling. It means death. To counter it from happening one should bite into something wooden, or bite a comb or to talk about it with someone. It felt silly biting my comb and being all superstitious all of a sudden, but my vividly horrible dream did away with that. I played it safe and did all three.
I was meeting with my barkada (my group of friends) later at Anne Grace’ house that day. I told them about my dream. They were all properly sympathetic.
The creepy factor of my dream must’ve been the reason we found ourselves trading ghost stories.
My friend Juselle told us that she once read a black book and since then she can now see supernatural beings around us. The black book supposedly opened her third “eye.”
She confessed that while we were travelling from Cagayan someone was with us hitching a ride. We all shrieked, asking her who the hitchhiker was most close to.
Kimberly also shared her recent experience with a ghost. She was alone in the living room (the room we were presently in) with her laptop, busy with facebook when she heard someone snored. It was loud and right in front of her. She immediately turned the laptop off and ran upstairs. Along the way she passed her older cousin going down wanting a drink of water. A moment after that, her cousin Lorna came running back up, babbling about ghosts, and glasses clinking and stuff.
Anne Grace, my no nonsense friend was next. I admit I was surprised that she also has a personal experience about these things. I always see her as practical and not prone to perception problems (my idea about people who can “see”).
“When I was maybe six or seven, my father was still alive, we were playing there,” she gestured to a neighbour’s house. “They weren’t there yet, it was mostly a vacant field, filled with grasses and trees. Anyway, I remember my father was playing with me when I saw a man staring at us. He was a big man, dark. He was sitting under a huge tree. I told my father about him. It’s a rare thing to have strange people near our house before because our house used to be quite isolated. My father took one look at the man and he immediately covered my head with the towel he had with him grabbed her and ran towards the house. You must understand, I was very young. I didn’t find it strange at all to see a man with only half his body, guts spilling out, still alive. Staring at us.”
Anne Grace was really a surprise. It might be a male manananggal she saw. A manananggal is usually a female. By day they are ordinary looking. By night or during full moon they leave half of their body, waist down, in a safe place and the rest of her flies using her dark, leathery bat-like wings looking for pregnant women to feast upon. Manananggal has this long, thin tongues capable of burying through all our bodily orifices. This is what they use to suck dry the fetuses inside pregnant women.
According to stories by my old nana used to tell me manananggal can only be killed when people finds the vulnerable half and puts salt over it. Salt is painful for them. If they can’t join with their body when the sun comes up, they die. I admit, I really didn’t think I’d find a person who actually saw a manananggal and a male one at that.
It was my time to share. My friend’s talk about half bodied demons reminded me of my own story. When I was in Manila a few years back, I stayed in a dormitory that used to be a hospital. It was during my nursing practicum affiliation. Before we left for Manila we were already filled with stories of ghosts, of white ladies. One would think that only students with the macabre sense of humor would indulge in this bit of fun. But even clinical instructors, teachers that went with the group also shared their own experiences.
I was staying in a non airconditioned room in the fourth floor of St. Vincent’s Dormitory. There were a total of eight girls sharing the room. There were four double decks and I was in the top deck smacked close to a huge window. I spent some nights briefly entertaining the thought of a flying manananggal hovering outside while I sleep.
In Butuan, my hometown, I’m not afraid of manananggal. According to my estimation they are mostly in the Visayas and in Manila (I don’t know where I got the idea). I am most afraid of the aswangs. Since I’m in Manila, and sleeping in the vicinity of a huge window the flying manananggal was foremost in my mind.
Of course it was just at the back of my mind I don’t want to tell the world that despite my “education” I still fear the mythical monsters and ghosts, you know. But anyway, fear is fear. We stayed in that room for two weeks and during that time some things started to happen- which I, in my rational self, attributed to mass hysteria. What with all the ghost stories that are flying around, people are bound to see something.
But then there are physical manifestations. Things like a big puddle of water in the middle of our room when we woke up one morning. Undergarment that got wet without anyone pouring water over them. It was only when we moved to a different room that one of my roommates told us that she heard the pitter patter of tiny feet walking in circles one night. I asked her if she ever saw something. She said she didn’t because she just closed her eyes until she fell asleep.
I didn’t expect really to have a firsthand experience with these things. But I did. I saw my first ghost in that same old room. It was nearly ten o’clock, I was trying to sleep burying myself under my blanket.
I remember that the bright fluorescent light was still on, and people were still talking. It must’ve gotten too hot because I pulled my blanket off for a moment. This was when I saw a girl with long black hair and long white dress standing below my bed facing me.
What they say about opening their third eye must be true. I haven’t told this to anyone but just before I fall asleep I still see the girl standing still in the corner of my room every night.
