Where the Fireflies Danced

The dimly lit sky brushed with faint pink streaks was nature’s sign for the kids to go home if their mothers or elder sisters haven’t made their siren’s call yet while ensuring that the steamed rice for dinner won’t be burned or mushy. It was the first day of the summer school holiday and the kids played the whole day like it was their last and couldn’t be bothered about the time.  

‘Let’s play one last game before dinner time,’ said the skinny boy, panting from non-stop back and forth run. His cheeks flushed red from the heat of his body. The white towel placed by his mother on his back to absorb his sweat is now damp and warm.  

‘Tin-tin, you are the ‘it’ this time!’  

‘Me again?’ Tin-tin asked in dissent as she rolled her eyes, arms akimbo.  

‘Yeah! You lost in the last game!’ answered Jun, the skinny boy. ‘Hurry up, it’s getting dark.’  

Tin-tin clicked her tongue and shrieked, ‘okay fine!’ She walked while making stomping noise, faced a tree, covered her eyes with both her palms, and started chanting the Hide and Seek song that prompted the other players to start hiding.  

Tagu-taguan (Hide and seek)  

Maliwanag ang buwan (The moon is bright)  

Wala sa likod (Not behind)  

Wala sa harap (Not infront)  

Pagbilang kong sampu (When I count to ten)  

Nakatago na kayo (You should be hidden already)  

Isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat, lima, (One, two, three, four, five)  

Anim, pito, walo, siyam, sampu. (Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.)  

‘Game?’ Tin-tin screamed to the top of her lungs.  

‘Wait not yet,’ shouted Blessie before she giggled. Her plump cheeks bounced as she ran towards a Narra tree about five meters away from where Tin-tin was standing. She held her rubber slippers on both hands and wore it as if it was meant for her palms rather than her soles and hid behind the whorled trunk of the Narra Tree. She saw an opening in between the twisted trunk and peeped to see if Tin-Tin started her hunt.  

‘Game?’ Tin-tin screamed once again. This time, she was answered by a silence which means all the other five players have already found their hiding places.  

Tin-tin removed her palms from her face, opened her eyes, and turned around. To her alarm, everything was pitch dark. She looked around and couldn’t see anything or anyone except shadows of trees that seemed even taller than before. 

‘Blessie? Jun? Where are you?’ she called out with the loudest voice that the juvenile lungs inside her tiny body can produce. ‘Joshua? Inday? Kulot?’ she called everyone but she was, once again, answered by silence only this time in chorus with the crickets.  

She walked slowly towards a path she couldn’t even see. Her steps, gentle so as not to trip on any protruding roots of ancient trees or rocks or twigs. She kept calling her friends but none responded. It’s the end of the game.  

Something trickled her forehead. Her small body shivered. The moon in its brilliant fullness showed up as the thick clouds blanketing the sky moved. The chocolate-colored mud soil dried by the summer heat looked silver under the moonlight, it’s cracks made the road look like a never-ending jigsaw puzzle.  

Slowly, she tilted her head up and saw the roots of an ancient banyan tree looming over her. ‘Balete’ she uttered in a soft, trembling voice, almost a whisper, as all the hairs in her arms, legs, and back stood up and chill ran down her spine.  

Her grandpa would always tell her folk tales every night after dinner. Outside their hollow block-walled house enclosed with rusty iron roof, they would sit on a bench made of bamboo along with moths and mosquitoes.  

‘Unworldly creatures love to hang around balete trees,’ he would start. ‘Legend says, a kapre lives there, so better not cross a balete at night.’ Kapre in Philippine folklore is a tree giant, described as a tall, dark, hairy creature with blood-shot eyes that sits on the branch of a tree while smoking. Sometimes they would also roam around. They can be felt through their slow steps that make the Earth tremble and followed by a smoky smell.  

And if that’s not enough to scare a nine-year-old child, his grandpa would still add, ‘dwende - dwarfs also dwell underneath the roots of the tree. These sensitive tiny creatures are too small for humans to see and they get furious if we accidentally step on them so you better say, tabi-tabi po to let them know that you are passing by. They like children. They play tricks on them and sometimes take them to the underworld.’  

Her eyes would wander around, checking if she would see any kapre or dwende under the trees rooted a few meters away from where they were seated.  

‘Why are you looking around? Takot ka, are you scared?’ Her grandfather would ask and gently pinch her nose.  

‘Lolo, are you scared of them?’ she looked at him curiously as she caught whiffs of smoke from his cigarette combined with the menthol flavor that comes from that candy in a green wrapper he takes while smoking.  

‘Of course not! I punched a kapre in the face once. He ran away and disappeared.’ His gap-toothed smile confused Tin-tin.  

‘Eh!’ Tin-tin would protest in disbelief. ‘Are you telling the truth?’ He would just answer in giggles then move the menthol candy from his left cheek to the right before taking in another puff.  

That night, alone in the dark, under a balete tree, she wished nothing but for her grandpa to be with her and punch whatever unworldly creature that would show up.  

Crippled by her fear of all creatures lurking in her mind, she stood still under the tree and looked up, hoping she wouldn’t see a smoking kapre. But instead of a dark furry giant, she saw something glowing, like tiny bulbs switching on and off, on and off, moving towards her.  

‘Fireflies,’ she said in a voice, more amused than scared. She held her right-hand high, trying to reach them. The luminescent bugs magically swirled around her head, down to her waist. To her disbelief, her tiny body levitated, slowly, higher and higher until she was above the trees and sky-high. The moon so round in its fullness looked so close, she thought she could almost touch it.  

She then slowly descended and once her dust-covered feet touched the Earth, the fireflies flew and swirled around a banana blossom, a purple-skinned flower, shaped like a tear that hangs at the end of the banana cluster. Bedazzled, Tin-tin touched the blossom and its tip slowly opened. A small diamond-like stone fell on her hand.  

The fireflies disappeared and it was dark all over again. Large puffy clouds dominated the sky once again vanishing the moon into oblivion.  

She looked at the stone on her hand wondering what it was. She held it close to her nose but she couldn’t figure out its scent. Instead, she perceived a burning smell. She looked around to see if there’s fire but there were only rows of banana trees. The smoky smell reminded her of the kapre once again and a chill ran down her spine. The faint smoky, minty scent grew stronger and stronger until it suffocated Tin-tin. She felt dizzy and the next thing she knew, she was lying on her sleeping mat, safe at home, away from unworldly creatures. She got up and walked out of the room and saw her father, rubbing the back of her crying mother.  

‘Nay, I’m hungry,’ her faint voice almost cracked.  

Isabel, her mother, wiped her tears and went to the kitchen. She took rice from the cauldron to a red plastic plate. On the table covered with plastic flower-printed mantle was a bowl of green beans sautéed in soy sauce with ground pork. Tin-tin devoured the food laid in front of her and asked for another serving. Once done with her meal, she immediately asked for her grandfather as it was storytime. 

‘Where’s lolo?’ she asked her mother and was answered by long silence followed by sobs.  

Earlier that day, while Tin-tin was busy playing hide and seek, her grandfather collapsed due to heart failure and was rushed to the hospital by an owner-type jeepney owned by Jun’s father, the only vehicle available in their small village. It took them an hour to reach the nearest hospital and the patient didn’t make it alive.  

Before Isabel and her husband left in a hurry, she asked Blessie’s mom to look after Tin-tin while they were away. When Blessie arrived home at half-past six, panting, she informed her mom that Tin-tin disappeared. They rushed to the Barangay Chairman’s office and informed them of the missing child. The whole neighborhood searched for her. Tin-tin was found unconscious under a banana tree. A huge brown Mariposa with white spots on its wings sat on her head as if guarding her, flew away as soon as the whole village with their brightly lit torches arrived.  

Tin-tin shared her account of what happened that night and left the whole village in awe. Everyone was on the look for that diamond-like stone. The elders said it was a talisman given by the universe to chosen people. This amulet is said to protect the owner from harm, escape death several times over and live a very long life until the person is ready to hand it over to a worthy successor.  

Years later, Tin-tin and her family moved to the city but they still visit the village from time to time.  

Thirty years later, she went back to the village to attend the 9th birthday party of Blessie’s daughter. It was a hot and sticky summer day. Children’s laughter and shrieks filled the air as they kept running back and forth while the men of the village busied themselves by roasting a baby pig, stuck on a bamboo stick, its skin turning deep brown against the heat of fiery charcoal while drinking shots of local gin. The women prepared the buffet table laying several oval Tupperwares containing sweet spaghetti, pancit bihon, chop suey, fried chicken, and puto; the traditional menu for a birthday party.  

Tin-tin noticed a plump boy who sat on a knee-high plastic chair, watching other kids play.  

‘Why don’t you join them?’ she asked.  

‘They don’t want me to play with them. They said I run too slow because I’m fat,’ the little boy shrugged.  

Tin-tin quietly nodded as she has nothing to say about the poor child’s situation.  

‘Are you new here?’ asked the plump boy, whose name Tin-tin later found out was the same as her grandfather, Fernando, son of a couple she wasn’t acquainted with. They probably moved to the village after Tin-tin and her family left.  

‘Yup,’ she said, naughtily grinning. Fernando’s eyes glimmered as he excitedly told her the legend of the old war veteran, a survivor of the Philippine-Japanese War, who scared a kapre away and passed on his anting-anting to her granddaughter.  

‘They said he survived the war because his anting-anting let him dodge bullets and escape death,’ the boy animatedly added.  

Tin-tin who has enthralled with the new legend she just heard, just smiled and nodded once again.  

Later in the afternoon, she bid goodbye to her childhood friend Blessie and headed towards the other side of the village where the terminal for buses routed to the city is. She walked on a concrete road that once was a chocolate-colored mud soil that hardens and cracks during summer, like an endless jigsaw puzzle. She heard heavy footsteps behind her. She stopped and looked back. The plump boy was following her.  

‘Can I walk with you?’ he asked. ‘I live on the other side of the village. I think my mom forgot to pick me up.’ The chubby-cheeked boy pouted.  

Tin-tin smiled, up-turned her right palm, and extended it towards the boy, prompting him to hold her hand. They walked and passed by the primitive balete tree, where she saw dancing fireflies once, thinking if that rare occurrence was real or just a dream or a product of her wild imagination. As she looked at the enchanted tree, she caught a whiff of smoke with a hint of mint. A big brown Mariposa swirled around the two and landed on Fernando’s head.  

‘Lolo,’ she whispered and smiled. The big brown butterfly with white spots on its wings flew and landed on her nose, sat on it for a few seconds then flapped its wings and flew far, above and beyond the peak of the balete tree.  

She thought of her grandfather’s legend and wondered if it was true. As a kid, she always wondered if her lolo’s story about scaring a kapre was true but she guessed she could never find out any more. 

It’s been thirty years since the diamond-like stone fell from the banana blossom to her hand. And whether this talisman could let her escape death and live a long life, she is yet to find out.