Archived fiction

Respite

My friends have been pestering me to go with them to this little deserted island off Malapascua.
“Jake.” Sonya says, “Come on, haul your ass off that office chair for a while and enjoy life. Workaholics die young. It’s summer after all. Let’s go to…”
“Pastilan,” Grace says, “The only beaches you’ve seen for the past two years have been through the Internet. There’s this real place I know called…”
“Bai, you’re already too pale.” Fredo says, “You need some sun. Let’s go to the beach this weekend. I know a place. You’ll love it in…”

Calanggaman Island.

When I was a little kid my mother brought me to her hometown in Negros Occidental. We took the bus, an eight-hour ride. The trip made me dizzy and nauseous. The trip made me puke. I puked so much, my stomach hurt. I puked until I emptied my gut. I puked bitterly-sour digestive juices that scalded my mouth and burned my throat. I puked like I never puked before. My mother was so pissed-off; she told me she wouldn’t bring me along next time.
Then she beat me up in front of all the passengers.
After that I didn’t go on a long road trip anymore.

Until the trip to Calanggaman Island.

To get there, Fredo said we needed to take a four-hour bus ride from the North Cebu Bus station to a town called Maya, located at the northernmost tip of Cebu. We need to leave at 5 am, he says, to avoid the early morning rush hour. It is Friday, after all: a weekday. Then we will board a local outrigger boat or banca that will take us from Maya to Malapascua Island where Fredo already booked us a couple of rooms. Finally we need to ride another banca to Calanggaman Island. Sonya and Grace hate boat trips. Both can’t swim. Fredo is a licensed scuba diver. I don’t hate boat trips; I’m a decent swimmer.

I hate road trips.

Hodophobia is fear of road travel.
My shrink—an overpaid balding asshole-- says that like all fears and phobias, hodophobia is created by the unconscious mind as a protective mechanism, and at some point in my past, there was likely an event linking road travel and some emotional trauma.
Duh. Tell me something I don’t know, Doc.
Tell me something worth the bloated fee I’m paying you per hour, Doc.

I’ll tell you all something I do know, however:
One symptom of hodophobia is drying of the mouth. Another symptom is excessive sweating. Other symptoms are dizziness, nausea, shaking, heart palpitations, and the inability to speak or think clearly.

I know this because I felt all those symptoms as soon as I boarded that bus to Maya.
The passengers thought there was some lunatic onboard with them. My friends thought there was some lunatic onboard with them.
What’s worse is I puked all over the bus.

I’m just glad my mother wasn’t there.


Like any tropical island, the beaches in Calanggaman Island are lined up with coconut trees. The sand is white with the texture of fine powder. A few years ago I went to Boracay alone. Going there didn’t involve a long road trip. So I went. There’s an airport in Caticlan, so I took the plane. The beaches in Boracay are also lined up with coconut trees. The sand there is also white with the texture of fine powder. But the place is crowded. My friends go there because they like it crowded; they go celebrity hunting.

Calanggaman Island is not crowded, it is peaceful. No celebrities, no crowds. No trash littering the beachfront. No noise caused by jet skis or speedboats. Because the island is deserted, there are no cottages as well, so we needed to put up a couple of tents. Calanggaman Island is so small; you can walk around it in 30 minutes. There is a sandbar that stretches several meters across.

“Come on Jake, let’s hit the water.” Fredo says, slathering a generous amount of sun block on his arm. He’s already in his board shorts.
“I think I’ll stay here in the tent for a while. I got tired of the trip.”
“The two girls are already sunbathing in the sandbar. Don’t you want to join them before we have lunch?”
“In a while. Let me sleep first.”
“Okay. See you later bai.” And he was off.

Inside the tent, it is warm. I am sweating profusely. I faintly hear Grace ask something. Sonya mentions my name. Fredo says something that sounds like “killjoy”. I hear the three of them laughing loudly. I don’t care. I doze off.

I wake up to the sound of a woman singing. It is darker than usual inside the tent, and I’m surprised. A faint light resembling that of moonlight seeps into the tent. I unzip the tent’s mesh door and step out.
It is night time. A cold breeze blows and I’m shivering. I look around, and there is no sign of Fredo, Grace, or Sonya.
The singing is getting louder.
It is the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.
I call out Fredo’s name, Grace’s name, Sonya’s name. Nobody answers. I unzip the other tent. It is empty save for a couple of plastic bags containing our lunches: sandwiches, some bananas, bottled water, and canned juice. The food is untouched. I grab a sandwich and a can of pineapple juice and set off to look for the guys.

The singing voice is not Sonya’s or Grace’s. I know this because I’ve heard them sing during the videoke challenge in last year’s company Christmas party; they can’t sing for the life of them.

I call out my friends’ names. Nobody answers. I circle the island, and see no one. The voice belts out a sad song of farewell. It is in Visayan but it is not a familiar song. The voice is coming from the island’s interior, and I feel drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

The voice soothes my nerves and I forget my problems at the office. I forget the whole ordeal on that bus to Maya. I forget the whole ordeal many years ago on that bus to Negros. I forget that I hate my mother. I forget that my psychologist is a balding, overpaid asshole. I forget about Fredo, Grace, and Sonya and their whereabouts.
I feel my hodophobia vanish. I feel at ease.
I fight the urge to find the owner of the voice. Instead, I sit on the sand at the water’s edge, and let the lapping waves of the sea lick my bare feet.

And for the first time in many years, I am happy.

(This story was written as a farewell message for a good friend and officemate who decided to take a break from the hectic corporate life. We wish him all the best.)