My Father's Hometown 7: The Dead River

I learned here that a river if dead, was full of trees in each banks, no flowing water, polluted and have trees and plants inside the river. And if the banks of the river was full of trees, some of the trees have their own occupants.

I told from my first story of my father's hometown that our house was facing a river. Actually, a dead river. These stories happened to my playmate, my mother and me. If you're going to enter our street, the road was actually beside of the dead river and you would see many trees around.

My Playmate, Intoy

Intoy is a boy and the same age of me. This was happened when one night he needed to go to a wake of their relative. His family already departed and he left so he needed to go on his own. He was using a bicycle that time. In a particular area near their house, there were two bamboos grew with a mango tree in the middle. When he was passing by on that area, he saw a light like a lamp in the mango tree. It was floating. When he was about near the tree, the light flew to the middle of the river. In the middle of the river was another mango tree and to his confused, he saw a nipa hut beside that tree. We knew that there was no nipa hut on that area and if you could build one, it will be destroyed by water because every time that there was storm and heavy rain, the river had full of water and that was the catching basin of our area. The light enter the nipa hut and form again as a lamp. He felt so much fear like his head was blowing so he put his feet on his bike to go as fast as he could. He told that story to us because we usually play on that mango tree in the middle of the river.

My Mother

My mother was often in Marikina but when it happened to her, she did not go home late at night on the road because of her story. It was rainy season and the road was dark and muddy. The tricycle she was riding can't pass through so she needed to drop off at the corner of the street and walk with her bag and other things. She had luck because it was not yet raining at the time but it was dark because of no electricity (that time when there was heavy rain or storm, usually our area had no electricity). There was an old big mango tree several steps from the corner that have a huge branch. The tree was located at right side of the road and that branch was like reaching the other side of the road where a bamboo plant was. When she was passing by that tree, she felt water drops fell on her. She thought maybe the rain will start but the branch of the tree moved like someone was shaking it that causes of water on the leaves dropped on her. Out of confusion, she looked up and freaked out when she noticed a dark man was shaking it. It was a giant tree or kapre here in the Philippines. Because of fear, she walked so fast in middle of the muddy road and prayed out loud. And that was the reason why she never went home that night.

They're toying with me

This is my story. I wanted to get some tamarind at the river bank. There was a tamarind tree near the bamboo from the story of Intoy. It was afternoon around 2 to 3 pm. That tamarind was full of fruit that time. Sometimes you could picked on ground or brought your own hook. In my middle of harvest, someone gossiped on me. "Psst!" I suddenly turned around to see where the sound came from. Then I continued hooking some tamarind and again I heard a gossip again. I freaked out maybe it was a snake so I got all my things and go away as fast as I could. But when I was on the road I heard someone called my name and I turned around again to look who it was. I saw nothing. I glimpsed at the mango tree in the middle of two bamboo but no one was there. I tried to look around again that maybe someone was toying with me. And I heard again another gossip. And maybe a few seconds someone called me again but the voice was too far from me. So I ran as fast as I could to get out on that area and went back at home.

I also told this story to Intoy after he stated his story about the light and the nipa hut.

Thanks for reading.