LEO BOBADILLA lived a simple life. He was a fisherman living in a rundown shack near the shore of Santa Filomena, Romblon who would rise every day at 2 A.M. to let his net trap sleeping fishes. This, along with the responsibility of raising and tending to his sickly seven-year-old daughter, was his life. His wife had left him five years ago, choosing to marry a rich man from the city.
For someone like Leo, the early morn was a call for his thin downbeat body. Lying on a rough tattered mat that lied on the cold floor, he woke up to massage his poor daughter’s back. This was the third time that she was wheezing and coughing blood. His heart broke as he saw his daughter’s twitching eyes as she bore the pain in her chest.
Leo’s heart sank.
The results of a free medical check-up showed that his daughter was suffering chronic bronchitis. Since he couldn’t afford to have her confined in a hospital, the doctor suggested that Leo buy instead a nebulizer to ease his daughter’s breathing. Still, Leo couldn’t afford it. Left with nothing at hand, he felt utter desperation and rush to raise money to save—or at least prolong—her daughter’s life.
Feeling her bony chest and slow heartbeat, he rubbed her back with all the comfort his calloused hand could muster. He then laid his daughter’s head back on her ragged pillow, kissed her forehead and watched her go back to sleep. In a few minute’s time, he had loaded his nets back in his boat and gone out fishing.
The first few rays of the sun welcomed a droopy-eyed Leo back to shore. His gloomy expression told that today was a bad catch, which meant less chances to buy the nebulizer. This would mean an unlikely chance of getting the nebulizer that he needed. Morning passed and he managed to sell only a few pails of Tulingan. He made around 300 pesos—not even close to the money he needed. As he was fixing his nets, his mind drifted on taking the easy way out—escaping his life and his daughter until someone tapped his back. It was a thin old man with a long beard. He was dressed in loose ripped clothes smelling strongly of seawater. In his right hand was a plastic bag filled with fish heads.
“Excuse me,” the old man said with a raspy voice.
“Yes?”
“Do you have any water, sir? I have come a long way and I am really thirsty,” the old man said.
Leo dropped back his nets on the sand, bent over his boat, and picked up a used ketchup tub containing his remaining few water. Removing the cap, he offered it to the old man.
“This is all I have, I’m sorry.”
The old man accepted it without reluctance it with his thin shaky hands and drank all that was left. He dropped the container and wiped the trickling droplets off his chin with his hand, his beard making a mess. He stared at Leo.
“I know what you need,” the old man said.
“Excuse me?” he asked, in surprise.
“Bring your boat to sea before three in the morning.”
Leo was becoming annoyed. This man was talking nonsense.
“Go up north until you reach a mist and cast your net out there. You will come back a rich man.”
Leo was speechless. He didn’t know what on earth the old man was talking about.
“But water is always thirsty,” the old man added.
Without saying another word, the old man gave a slight bow and turned around.
Leo felt another light tap on his shoulder. But when he looked behind him, he found no one there. To his surprise, the old man had disappeared as well. Thinking he was delusional due to fatigue, he shrugged the idea off and continued fixing his nets for the next day.
It was 8 P.M. and Leo couldn’t sleep. Aside from worrying for his daughter, he was bothered over what the old man told him earlier. A long-time fisherman, he couldn’t imagine a spot in the sea he had never been to, let alone heard of. What more, this man hinted that there was plenty of money out there. After all, he said that “he would come back a rich man”.
Leo turned over his side.
With only the cold floor and a tattered mat cushioning her body, his daughter was wheezing even as she slept. Leo’s heart broke and he felt like crying.
“After I come home tonight, we will never be poor. I promise.”
He kissed her goodnight and tucked her in.
It was past two in the morning. Wearing his old coat and black shorts, Leo took the liberty of bringing his other flashlight with him just in case his old one died out. The skies looked daunting as ever. It felt almost as if it would forever be dark.
As Leo headed out, he was surprised when he saw something bright placed on his doorstep. It was his ketchup container—all prepared and filled with water to the brim. Leo ignored it and continued on towards his boat, thinking he must’ve left it outside the night before.
As he was getting farther off shore, a strong wind was felt and the door of his small house shut by itself.
Several moments had passed and still there was no sight of any mist in the area. For a moment, Leo felt like going back to the shore, but decided not to when he saw a thick white glow in the distance. As he approached, he realized that this was the mist that he was looking for and that there was more beyond it—it was like a border, thick, yet completely vacant at the middle.
Before he knew it, Leo felt a chilling shock that made his hair stand on end. His mind began to race with many questions. Leo thought about the place and its location—about why no one ever went there. As much as he was familiar with the sea of Romblon, he hardly had any thought on where he was. If it were cloudy, it could have been perceived even from afar. Leo ignored his thoughts and started with his work. He cast out his net and took a seat and waited silently.
The first few minutes had passed and not a single fish was in his net. Worried and irate, Leo felt that the old man had tricked him but was proven wrong yet again. Soon, the net started to fill with fishes. Leo’s shock overshadowed his joy. He stood up from where he was sitting, as the number of fish started to multiply at each growing second. A splashing sound made him look behind. A small round object was lazily floating behind his boat. His curiosity got hold of him and he picked it up, realizing that it was a pearl. But Leo didn’t buy the idea, one way or another, it couldn’t be a pearl. Leo knew that pearls didn’t float on water. Turning to face his net, these orbs came splashing out of the water. Horrified, he realized that he was surrounded in all directions by about hundreds of these orbs. Turning over to his side, his ears were now starting to get numb. Leo groaned as he was tormented by the sound of a thousand voices singing in chorus. The orbs started to glow in an abnormal way, and it only took him a moment to realize that he was staring at a thousand eyes instead of a thousand pearls. He was hearing the melody of unknown voices, all singing at the same time. It sounded harmonious at first, but it turned explosive and ominous. Losing control, he fell and slipped inside his boat in a supine position, his voice choked, unable to cry for help. As he felt the boat slowly filling with water, he remembered what the old man told him: “Water is always thirsty.”
The voices start to fill his ears at full blast. The singing turned to sinister laughs as he felt the boat slowly flipping on its edges as the water turned into a hungry mouth that devoured him.
Daybreak.
The silent town of Santa Filomena hardly showed any difference. There was nothing new with the usual sight of fishermen preparing their nets to catch fish and children running barefoot in the sand. The only new sight in town is a trail of spurned wood from where Leo Bobadilla’s house once stood. Now burned to the ground, rumors were spreading that the fisherman torched his house and left his daughter to die in the middle of the night. Despite the rumors, Leo the fisherman was never heard of again. Josef Brian M. Ramil
