Burning.
Murder.
Stenches of charred bodies.
Burned souls.
Called souls were many but few were chosen to partake with sumptuous meals.
Flames laughed. And smokes challenged all saints in heavens. Flames danced and swayed with the wind - - and the ledda all around but not with the heights of priestly walls - - and smokes darted their might to the place of thy kingdom come bringing all along the screams of burned souls to heavens or hells, nobody ever knew.
And beyond the heights and mights of that priestly walls, the drapes stood still, and faithful enough, guarding the called who call themselves semens and also the owners of holy cloaks who called themselves Prefects, all of them were preoccupied of their dreams in limbo or somewhere else, dreaming of the good promised days of redemption of happy life, some or all of them never knew what was hell like, the dreams of doing something holier than the ordinary, of becoming guardians of the infirms, the poor and the sick. And just beyond the walls, one soul cringed, cried, burned and charcoaled out of reach.
I was one of the semens - - I hate to remember it now. And I dreamed that night about sex.
Then, just before the roosters crowed for the third time, screams betrayed the silences of The Hill. One body lost its soul. Rather, the soul was purged from the body.
And when the lights shone on the dreamy faces of the walled-wanton lives, the truth was revealed, blackened beyond recognition, charred truth. Awed by the scene and by the sudden revelation, one priest run for the merciful water.
The bottled water in hand–we call that water, holy–he held the bottle with his index finger and the thumb, looked at the body with sacramental thoughts, more of condolences than of venerations, he sighed and closed his eyes as if summoning all his strengths and transferred those to the body, and in depth breath of repentance, he raised his sight and called the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and drenched the charred body to salvation. Unknown to the called, the soul was towed by the smoke to heavens or hells, no one ever knew. The absolution was too late.
Shouldered dropped, drooped, and heavied by the lost of one soul, the semens and the Prefects winked and said goodbyes to the body of a soul sentenced by burning flames, a soul of blackened flesh beyond recognition and in cognito, gone to different places at the same time, left by the muses of poetics and wonders of languages. Gone and alas, incommunicado from the grasps of all known-living worlds. And exiled to the worlds only the believers knew. They asked for repentance and prayed to God that He may receive the creature to His fold and give it an unending happy life.
It was hard to say ‘you damn fool, be thankful. The worst is over, isn’t it?’
But, on second thought, the end of its kind was not as expected, far from what was imagined and nothing to what was conceived as holier which was supposed to be, and far from what the mind could grasped. Having poetics today was inimical and philosophizing was out of places, moreso to the meaning of sermon to be heard or to the existence of gospel being preached. Nothingness should be the call of the day.
Or, maybe, it was better to miss the scheduled holy mass, for nothing was holier than to contemplate to what had happened, to what was happening to the joyful days of the living, now dead unceremoniously, mercilessly burned and displayed beyond recognition, as offering to the new day. God may forgive His called ones missing the words of wisdom at this day. But, not today. Not with this seminary.
But, what was the used of lingering to one’s charred body of an unknown person to a semen dreaming of holy days with the sickly and poor and not with the dead? God will left all souls to heavens, anyway.
Or, maybe, it was easier to linger on one’s pain than to imagine oneself experiencing the agony the charred body had gone through this early hours. Sympathy was a virtue but turning your back to the causes of sufferings, the sufferings that the semens professed and confessed to ease upon all who carries the burdens of their crosses, that is, carrying all crosses to himself all crosses of the burdened, was apathy.
And the holy bell could be more comfortable and it sounds more comforting. Indifferences to peoples’ pains were palatable while kneeling, genuflecting and astutely preaching the comforting words of the Gospels, mum to the noises of discomfort of the worlds outside the walled sanctuary, numbing all pains that already creeping up to the ends of all arteries and veins, may it be full of cholesterol or not, that this eerie scene brought so early in the morning.
The sounds of solace, indeed, were needed in these trying times.
The bell rang the third time and it was time for the daily, routinely chanting of lauds and the giving of halleluiah to heaven with the intention to include the lost life in the petitions.
I was there. As a decoration of the circumstances, I did not know. And I hate that!
The ironies for that day were vividly stated by Padre Pio (not his real name, of course), who we fondly called kalbo, in his sermon. He said: ‘After that experience we just encountered this early morning, of seeing the charred body of one lost soul, after savouring the stenches of death, the dead, not anymore the dying, the sickly and the poor, and better still, after feeling the sharpness of burned flesh for those who had the innards of touching the body, with the greatest intentions of comforting the dumped corpse, may these be touches full of contritions, venerations and/or condolences, God showed us the true world, the world of pains and sufferings we were called for to serve. I saw your dreamy faces turned pale and blue, full of shocks and angsts, of despairs and admonitions.
‘I asked you now. To whom we direct our admonitions? To whom do we blame for the circumstances that just ended a good and youthful life, I presumed, who, like you, hours before he found himself in flamed, was full of dreams and aspirations? Is it not disturbing that just few steps from our doorsteps and few meters from our headboards, there he was and died without help? Indeed, there was a discomforting revelation that evil worked its best while many were fast asleep and dreaming, out of guard. Enemies strike when it is less expected. So, be on guard. Or, we, may put it this way, always be prepared for any eventuality.’
Padre Pio paused and let his words flowed–plowed their dreams with viciousness–among the seminarians who at that time fighting the sleepiness and sloppiness they always brought inside the chapel and with complete disregard of the needed wakefulness to hear the gist–even the jest–of the sermon. Some were at attention but with glassy eyes, with tears of controlled yawns, and pretending to be awaked. Some shifted the weights of their bodies and swaggered their uneasiness to the truth in the sermon like bitter pills being put to their mouths. The silences of the faithful and the hoarse voice of the priest haunted the saints who were present at the altar. And, bounced back to the pews occupied by the called.
The semens hoped that the father should end his long speech and his rhetorics in dissecting the scene they all knew a while ago, and looked forward to the sumptuous breakfast being prepared at the refectory, a meal of fried dried fish we called tuyo and sautéed pechay which we hated so much as unpalatable menu. The meal was hopefully sumptuous because it was only the menu being served, and thus, we got no choice.
But, the father had no inkling to end his sermon and he continued: “It all happened under my nose, just beyond the seminary walls, just beyond the comfort we called holy lives, just as we philosophized the meaning of existence, quidity, and social justice. And just beyond our stupidity.”
Okay, that was stupidity all along. Listening to his rhetorics of salvations could not shoo away guilts that were slowly creeping and eating my thoughts of redemptions.
And still…
The sight burned its images in the abyss of my memories. And, it is still burning. The stenches of death were still stacked in the bridge of my nose and I could still smell it until today. The scene was still living in the back of my eyeballs so that I could still see it when I blinked against tears. The laughters of burning orange flames licking the priestly walls and engulfing at the same time the charred body that was crying in pain, in agony, and waiting for forgiveness of whatever sins it had. These imaginations are pulling me back to The Hill. Gadammit!
If only the occupants of the priestly sala felt the heat, the absolution was given as it falls due. And there were no other burned souls whose screams cracked dawns. But, nobody listened to the agony.
Now, they are coming back as Tales of The Hill.
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