BEST PHILIPPINE SHORT STORIES: THE MARTINI EFFECT

THE MARTINI EFFECT
by Doreen D.L. Jose

IT is a lovely spring morning and Dr. Nelson, the lecturer in Technology and Communications, is no longer talking Greek to us. By now, our second semester at the University of London's Center for Media Studies, my classmates and I finally understand all things digital as well as analog.

We're now into cellular and mobile personal communication and Dr. Nelson is explaining how the digital revolution is leading to a true convergence of all communication networks--computer, wired, and wireless--such that in the end there is going to be just one network. The information society. The martini effect. The … what? Syu-Chin. the Taiwanese girl raises her hand and asks Dr. Nelson.

The lecturer is taken aback by this. He looks us over one by one, each of us shaking our heads in turn. Instead of explaining, he says we can consider it as a possible essay topic: "What is the martini effect and how will this be brought about?" I guess it's not a very lovely spring morning after all.

MY boyfriend Roy seems to he flirting with the other girls in the mailing list that has us both as members. I don't want to imagine how he must be behaving in chatrooms. Funny, the thought of his virtual life frightens me so. It's probably because I just finished the case study: "The Internet as a playground where more and more people are migrating."

Roy and I used to meet at IRC's #filipino channel in the first months of our separation until I realized that I was spending way too much time online and this was affecting my performance as an overseas graduate student. I explained this to him and he said he understood. So we've kept ourselves to e-mail and the occasional long distance calls ever since.

It's only been a year, but it's like I don't know him anymore. I learn more about his life now from our e-group. "I can't help missing the old republic of two we used to have," I e-mailed him once. "Nothing to worry about," he said, "that republic still stands." Checked its flag lately? I wanted to ask, but it would just be a waste of bandwidth. Redundancy is all very fine, even necessary in face-to-face communications, but e-mail is a different terrain.

Even my mental picture of him has faded to a blur. I asked for his pictures recently and the jpg files he sent me as e-mail attachments showed him with shoulder-length platinum yellow hair. He exuded a look of self-consciousness that wasn't there before, probably because he took the pictures himself with a digital camera. He'd started growing his hair before I left for London. He'd started losing himself in cyberspace at around that time, too.

Do I have a right to complain? I left him to follow my dream, didn't I? But I shouldn't be thinking of this right now. I have work to do.

THIS e-mail looks like good news: "Hi, I'm Simon Ellis. I badly need the BT Technology Journal which you have--1997, Autumn issue. If it's alright, can we meet so I can photocopy the articles I'm looking for? I might also be of help if you're working on a related research topic or problem. You can find me in my cubicle at the second floor of the College of Electronics and Engineering during office hours. Cheers, Simon."

Apparently he got my e-mail address from the engineering library where I borrowed the relevant materials right after Dr. Nelson gave us our new research topic. The postgraduate adviser wasn't kidding when he said on orientation day that we'd soon be reading technical books and journals for our courses.

It's been a week and right now, I'm at a dead end in my research. Whenever the martini effect is mentioned in the readings, it's always taken for granted that it doesn't need any explanation. It's starting to feel like an elaborate joke played on the uninitiated by the engineering community. So, Simon Ellis's e-mail is a cause for excitement, indeed.

I e-mail Roy: "hi babes, guess what? somebody from engineering wants a journal that i have. maybe he can explain things to me. no?"

Roy e-mails back immediately: "it's your good karma at work, karen."

Whatever he means by that. The Force does seem to be on my side.

SIMON, it turns out, is a neat looking MSc research student of electronic engineering--well-trimmed hair, polo and slacks pressed using just the right amount of starch. He looks... uncomplicated. I notice his well-pressed clothes because I can't quite manage this trick myself. This is actually why I usually go for the grunge look. Today, for example, I'm in a tie-dye shirt and well-worn jeans, my hair in a braid because I didn't have time to wash and dry it this morning.

Naturally we were both happy to see each other. He asks me what a Communications student like me is doing with this technical material, so I explain the multidisciplinary nature of our program--the aim is to equip us so-called creative people with enough know-how so we can work with the technical people in bringing about the killer apps of the information superhighway. He tells me he's working on possible interfaces for third generation mobile telephony for his dissertation.

As I hand him the BT Journal, he asks how my research is going. I say, "Not too good… Do you happen to know anything about the martini factor or martini effect?" He smiles, surprised, then says, "Yes, of course, it refers to the martini adverts showing you can have a martini at the beach, on board a plane, in a bathtub… and is used to describe the coming information environment where you can have information anytime, anywhere." "That's all it is?" I ask. "That's it, yes," he says.

He gives me a copy of the early chapters of his thesis for possible use in my research. He also shows me some more references he has--transcripts of recent European mobile telephony conferences. Apparently, it is on the wireless front that things are happening in Europe. "You can borrow whatever you want," he says, beaming. I took him up on his offer, of course.

BEFORE Simon explained the martini effect to me, I'd tried to do a little participatory research. When I went out with my classmates to celebrate Sayaka's birthday at a Japanese restaurant along West End a few nights ago, I had two martinis--dry. It didn't taste particularly strong, so I gulped one after the other. Dmitri, the Greek guy, was a bit to blame for this, actually. From the corner of my eye, I saw him watching me maneuver my chopsticks. I met his gaze as I put the sushi in my--gasp--wide open mouth and he didn't look away. He even smiled. I must have spaced out after that because the next thing I knew, Sayaka was asking Dmitri, with a hint of exasperation in her voice: "Are you gay?" Dmitri, his eyes sparkling in amusement, said, "No,… why do you ask?" That was all he needed to get started on Greek stuff--this time the island of Lesbos. I wondered to myself why he didn't choose to tell us of the common homosexual practices of ancient Greek males, which seemed more appropriate.

Sometimes Dmitri would get so lost in his country's past it's just heartbreaking. He tried to explain to me once what exactly was going on in Bosnia by going back to 14th century Macedonia. I was, however, too lost in those dreamy Mediterranean eyes of his and his lullabyish accent to absorb anything.

"In Greece, we're so hung up about our past," he said, "because the present is disappointing."

"Well, at least you have something," I said. "We Filipinos don't even have a past to fall back on. We're a people with short memory," I said.

Our hang-up may not have anything to do with time, but with space, I thought as I watched the kimono-clad Filipina waitresses in the restaurant. Even the chefs who cooked teppanyaki-style right before our eyes, juggling eggs, carrots and spring onions in the air before cooking them, were Filipinos. My classmates--a group of Asians and Europeans--had been amused both by this fact and the cooks' performance. The manager of this place, however, is a stern Thai woman. I know because I sometimes work as a waitress here too, and every time I relax my smiling muscles, she gets on my case.

At the end of the night, Dmitri said he was seeing me home because we were both taking the Northern Line, anyway. We took the tube, then walked the short distance from the station to my flat. It was chilly. The weather seemed to have regressed to winter while we were busy with dinner. Dmitri took my bare hand and we walked in silence, the full moon hovering above us profoundly. At times like these, I guess, it's but natural to think of what-if's-and-all-that, but I told myself it was just the weather and the night and the moon, nothing more.

TODAY'S Sunday. I wake up before nine in the morning, which is good. If I wake up after that on a Sunday, I usually end up puttering about in my bathrobe the whole day. No one is in the kitchen when I come down for my breakfast of strawberries, chocolates, and coffee. My flatmates--all British girls--will probably be lying in till after lunch. Sunlight streams through the kitchen window, it almost feels like I'm back home. I feel lethargic when the weather is like this. It doesn't matter, I tell myself. I can't waste any more time today. I've lost enough time already the past few days going out with friends or just staring at the ceiling.

Go-go-go. I urge myself, rolling up my sleeves. I vacuum the carpeted floor, change the sheets, leave the laundry in the washing machine, then soak myself in the bathtub. Afterwards, I work on my technology essay and review for an exam. I can hear the crowd going wild in my head, cheering me on. Then I hear a referee whistle. Break time. I read The Guardian and come across a news item about credit card bills being stolen en masse and the thieves making mail orders using stolen account numbers. A thought flashes through my mind--my bank wrote that my credit card statement was on its way. That was about a week ago. I can see the crowd getting listless waiting for the game to resume, for the players to come running back on to the field. But nothing happens. This is a well-behaved crowd, though, and instead of booing and throwing things, they quietly leave, some of them scratching their heads as they do so.

As the day draws to a close, I think of Roy. He said he'd call in his last e-mail. He always calls when he says he will. What could be keeping him? It's early evening here in London already, so it must be past midnight in the Philippines. I'm a woman waiting for the phone to ring. Sheesh. I grab my denim jacket, take some coins with me, and go out to make a call from the streetcorner payphone. I had used up my phonecard which I need to call from my flat's phone, so I need to use one of those coin-operated units outside. When I dial his number, though, all I get is a taped voice in his answering machine. I can't believe it. Since when did he have an answering machine? I go to the Indian store and buy fags. My vision is so blurry I can't even see the price and have to ask the vendor how much it is. Three pounds and fifty, he says.

I once swore never to smoke again, but what the heck. It's all I can do while somebody somewhere is probably stealing my credit identity, and Roy… well, what's that answering machine supposed to mean?

WHEN I went to my bank to check up on my credit card statement, I was startled to find Simon Ellis working there. I wondered at first what he was doing there banktelling when he was supposed to have his hands full helping shape a future technology. Then l realized it wasn't him, just somebody of the same age and type. Anyway, this reminded me I had to return the materials to him. I was also reminded of Sophie, my French classmate, who had wondered aloud in our International Communications class how the Chinese policemen were able to identify the people they were doing to arrest from that sea of chinky-eyed (and to her, identical) faces in Tiananmen.

AFTER I give him back his materials, Simon asks after some small talk: "Would you care to have martinis with me one time?" I feel the blood rising up to my cars. "Oh, I don't know," I say. "I'm terribly busy right now." I try not to feel stupid as I say this, thinking of Roy, his broken promise and his answering machine. There's too much static between us now. Or is all that the signal itself and I'm just missing it like a fool? No, once my work here is done, I tell myself, Roy and I will talk things over and… I'm almost sure everything will be alright between the two of us, just like before. I'll probably be wondering every now and then about Simon and Dmitri and all the could-have-beens, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to he something I can't live with. I realize I'm more afraid of the future, of the unknown, than I'd care to admit and this is why I'm holding on to Roy. Tried and tested Roy. We've been together five years, after all. That must be worth something. "Thanks a lot, Simon. See you around," I say as I turn to reach for the door.

LIFE abroad has meant checking e-mails from people back home first thing it the morning, as soon as I get to school. It has become like drinking coffee to me. I even check my e-mails at the nearest computer cluster during coffee breaks. It's strange but I seem to be more in touch with them now than I ever was when I as in Manila. Oh, except for Roy…

Roy's e-mail today has as subject: "my bombshell." I double-click it. It's probably nothing to do with us. He had e-mailed me a bombshell a few months ago, when my good friend Annie came out of the closet and left her husband to be with her girlfriend. Roy was so shocked. "She's so feminine and so beautiful," he'd said. "I don't care if it's not politically correct to say this."

Hey, what is this? A practical joke? "dear karen, i miss you a lot and i wish we never got separated. i need to tell you something very, very important. and i want you to be the strong woman i have always known and loved. i have fallen in love with someone else. i love her very much, though we have never met in person. i know it sounds crazy but from her first e-mail, the connection is just so strong…"

I've known all along without knowing, haven't I? Headlines chased each other in my mind: "Girlfriend Left Out Cold in Cyberia"; "I Find Her Bits More Attractive Than You!"; "Man Dumps Real Life Partner For Cyber-Love." It's like my subconscious has been composing the news item all along for this very occasion. I've been reading The Sun a lot, I realize.

"Karen? Are you alright?" a familiar voice pulls me out of it.

I look and see Dmitri, then shake my head. He leads me out of the computer cluster. I tell him the story in between puffs of strong Hamlet cigars, over ouzo, at the nearby Ole English pub.

I'M ready to hand in my essay. I have everything put this time around--how exactly the wireless mobile telephone is about to become a universal personal communicator and usher in the martini effect. Basically, mobility (and therefore, wireless) rules, as the third generation will combine the features of a telephone. a computer, a television. a newspaper, a library. a personal diary, even a credit card.

The third generation mobile essentially means three things--global coverage, a handy pocket-sized terminal, and multimedia capability. Scenario: while waiting for your flight, you can download and watch Trainspotting on your mobile phone or maybe read the daughter you've left behind a bedtime story until she falls asleep. And just as the martini has endless variety--there's Blue Martini, Dirty Sicilian, Dean Martini, and so on--the services of the next generation of mobile telephones can be customized to fit specific needs and preferences. Welcome to the information society, where you can have information/communication anytime, anywhere.

There's still a lot of work to be done to get there, of course, both technically and politically, but the industry is confident that the martini effect is just around the corner. As I see it, the choice of metaphor for what is to come betrays a great deal of optimism and enthusiasm, even giddiness. It tends to sidestep one big question: Is the world ready for/Do we really need all this?

I'm submitting the essay well ahead of time. I'm all set to leave, not for Manila, but for Greece. With Dmitri. There's a lot to learn over there, I feel. I check my e-mail today for the last time. I think I'll take a break from all this brave, new world stuff once I'm in Greece. I think I'll try classical studies or archaeology there for a change.

BEST PHILIPPINE SHORT STORIES: THE LITTLE PEOPLE

THE LITTLE PEOPLE
by Maria Aleah G. Taboclaon

THE elves came to stay with us when I was nine. They were noisy creatures and we would hear them stomping on an old crib on the ceiling. We heard them from morning till night. They kept us awake at night.

One night, when it was particularly unbearable, Papa mustered enough courage and called out. "Excuse me!" he said. "Our family would like to sleep, please? Resume your banging tomorrow!" Of course, we had tried restraining him for we didn't know how the elves would react to such audacity.

We got the shock of our lives when silence suddenly filled the house--no more banging, no more stomping from the elves. Papa turned to us smugly. Sheepishly, we turned in for the night, thankful for the respite.

When dawn came, the smug look on Papa's face the night before turned into anger for shortly before six, the banging started again, and louder this time! We got up and tried speaking to the elves but got no response. The banging continued all day and into the night, and stopped at the same hour--eleven o'clock. And at exactly six a.m. the next day, it started again.

What could our poor family do?

Papa tried to call an albularyo to get rid of our unwelcome housemates but the woman was booked till the end of the week. Meanwhile, the elves had become our alarm clock. When they start their noise, we would get up and do our errands. Papa would start cooking, I would start setting the table, Mama would sweep. The whole house--my older sister and my cousin would water the plants, and my brother would start coloring his books. (We really didn't expect him to work, he was only four.)

After a week, we got hold of the albularyo. She spent the night in our house and by morning, she told us to never bother her again. The elves had already made themselves a part of our life, she said. Prax, the leader of the elves, had spoken to her and had told her that his family had no plans of moving out. They liked things as they were.

We eventually settled down to a comfortable coexistence with the elves. They woke us up at six, they let us sleep at eleven, and in return for the alarm service we would leave food on the table. By morning, the food would be gone and the table cleaned.

All in all, it was a very good relationship.

After three weeks--the first week of May--I met Prax, the leader and oldest in the clan, and I met him literally by accident. I was climbing the mango tree in our yard when one of its branches broke. I fell and broke my ankle. The pain was so great that I just sat there numb, staring at my ankle which had begun to turn blue. I could not move or cry out. I went to sleep to forget the pain. My last conscious thought was that the ground was too cold to sleep on.

I woke to a hand touching my foot. It belonged to someone--something nonhuman, for his hand radiated warmth that seemed to penetrate to my bones. His hand was small, wrinkled and felt like dried prunes.

Although I was curious, I kept my eyes closed. I imagined a hideously deformed face, with long and sharp teeth. Would he disappear when I open my eyes? Or would he devour me? I pretended to be asleep.

After several minutes, I could pretend no longer; I was too curious to remain still. When I opened my eyes, the horrible sight that I expected was not there. Instead, there was this old, wrinkled creature, even shorter than I was although I was the smallest in my class. He wore overalls unlike any clothing I knew of. Its texture was a mixture of green leaves and earth. It clung to his skin and writhed with a life of its own. Its color continually changed from deep to light green, to dark to light brown, and to green again. It was fascinating to look at. I felt a sense of awe and respect towards the elf.

He was good with his hands. My ankle already felt better. He was massaging it with an ointment that smelled nice. Before I could stop myself, I sniffed deeply, bringing the healing aroma of the ointment deep into my lungs. Detecting my movement, the elf turned to me and smiled kindly. Although I didn't see his mouth moving, I could hear him talking.

"Don't be afraid," he said. His voice was so soothing that I had to fight my urge to snuggle and sleep in his small arms.

I shook my head slightly. What was I supposed to say? Hello, elf? How are you? I could not. I didn't even know if I was supposed to call him that or just say Tabi or Apo.

As if knowing what I was thinking, the elf smiled again. "You call our kind dwendes or elves, no?" I nodded. "I actually don't mind if you call me an elf, but please call me Prax."

Seeing my astonished look, Prax laughed. His laugh sounded like the whistling of wind through the trees and a bit like the breaking of the waves on the seashore. I thought it nice and longed to hear more. And I wanted to know more about his kind. Did they have children? Wives? Did they play games like patintero? Habulan?

But Prax was not in the mood to chat. He told me that I should have been more careful. I could have been seriously hurt.

I nodded absently, thinking that I liked his clothes, his laugh, and his voice. He reminded me of my grandfather who had died a long time ago.

I closed my eyes, letting Prax's healing massage lull me to sleep. Thirty minutes later when I woke up, the elf was gone. Only the lingering fragrance of his balm remained.

When Mama and Papa arrived, I told them what had happened. It was really frustrating seeing their reactions. They became pale, then collapsed on the sofa. I had to douse them with water before they revived. Why couldn't they be like other people and be glad that I had been befriended by a supernatural being? I had told them about my first encounter with a real elf, and they fainted on the spot! I sulked for the rest of the evening.

Mama told me to never, never talk to elves again. Or did I forget the countless tales of elves taking people to their kingdom after killing them? I just shrugged. After all, the elf had saved my life!

I thought no more of it and, indeed, began to enjoy the banging and stomping on our ceiling. I almost wished to be hurt again just so I could see Prax. But nothing happened and I passed the rest of my summer days dreaming about playing with elves.

I met my second elf in school. I was in Grade 3, a transferee to a new public school that had a haunted classroom. My classmates related tales about dwendes, white ladies, and kapres in our school. I believed their stories readily.

I tried to tell them about Prax but since they were skeptical, I decided to let them be. As it was, I was excluded from their games.

In the classroom, I chose the seat I felt was the most haunted, the one farthest away from the teacher's table. Nobody wanted to sit near me. Behind me was a picture of the president. Without the company of my classmates, I expected elves to make their presence felt. So I waited.

By the third month in class, it happened. We had a very difficult math exam. Our teacher left us and went to gossip outside and all around me my classmates were openly copying each other's work. I looked at their papers from my seat, hoping that their scribbles would mean something to me but the answers to the blasted long divisions eluded me. I looked at the ceiling, trying to see if my brain would work better if my head was tilted a certain angle. It did not. I looked to my right, nothing there. And finally, I looked down and saw this tiny little elf, smaller than Prax by as much as six inches, sitting on the bag in front of me tap-tapping his foot impatiently.

"What took you so long to notice? I've been here for hours!" he said.

What gall! Did he really think that his race would excuse his bad manners? I ignored him and frowned at my test paper. What was 3996 divided by 6?

Immediately, he apologized and told me that his name was Bat. He had seen me play outside and thought that I was beautiful, sensitive, and romantic. Did I want him to help me in my test?

Me beautiful? I enthusiastically agreed to let him answer the test. I showed him my paper, and he snorted. "For us elves, this is elementary!" he said. I wanted to tell him that to us humans, these problems are also elementary, third-grade in fact, but I changed my mind.

Bat and I became friends. He helped me with my homework and gave me little things such as colored pencils and stationery that were the craze in school. He cautioned me strongly against telling my parents of my friendship with him. After all, he said, some people might not understand our relationship. They might forbid us from seeing each other.

I thought nothing of it and kept silent about my friendship with Bat. I enjoyed his company, for he was very thoughtful. He was a good friend and I thought we would be friends forever.

The time came, though, when he declared that he loved me. He wanted me to go with him to his kingdom and be his princess. I refused, of course. For God's sake, I was only nine! I didn't know how to cook or do the laundry or do the other things that wives are expected to do. And he was an elf! Short as I was, he only came up to my knees. What a ridiculous picture we would surely make. He pleaded with me for days but out of spite I told him that I had already confided to my parents, and that they were very angry. It was not true, but Bat didn't know that. He got angry and launched into diatribes about promises being made and broken. Then he vanished.

That night I dreamed that Prax talked to me. He told me that I should have never offended Bat outright. "That elf is a stranger in our town," he said. "We don't know his family. He might be violent."

But I had already done what I had done and there was no use wishing otherwise. I told Prax I'd never worry. After all, he'd always be there for me and my family, right?

"Wrong," he said. His gift was for giving good luck and for healing minor, nonfatal injuries. "What good is that for?" I asked. He couldn't answer, and left me to a dream of falling houses and shrieking elves.

The next day, I got sick and did not get well even after the best doctor in town treated me. My parents had grown desperate so the albularyo was called once more. She told my parents to roast a whole cow, which they did willingly. The albularyo and her family feasted on it. When I was still sick after a few days, she instructed my parents to cut my hair; she told them that elves liked longhaired women. The problem was Bat liked my new look, and in my dreams, he was always there, entreating me to go with him. I got sicker than ever.

The albularyo, getting an idea from a dream, then tried her last cure--an ointment taken from the bark of seven old trees applied to my hair. It cost more than the cow and nobody could enter my room without gagging. The smell was terrible. That did the trick. Apparently, Bat was disgusted but he would stop at nothing to get me, even if it meant getting my family out of the way. I told him again and again that I didn't love him and would never go with him, but the elf's mind was set. In the end I just ignored him, for who could reason with an elf, and a mad one at that?

He did not turn up in my dreams the next few nights. In a week, I was up and running again and I thought that all was right. My parents decided that I should transfer to another school, this time a sectarian school.

Then something happened. My mother had a miscarriage. People blamed the elves and talked about it for a long time. I remember the sad and fearful looks of my parents every day as they heard the banging on our ceiling. Were they friends or were they responsible for the accident? I had never told them about Bat, who Prax said was the one behind all these incidents.

Years passed, and since nothing untoward had happened since my mother's miscarriage, we began to let go of our fears. The alarm service continued, and our belief that my mother's miscarriage was the elves' doing was discarded. It was simply the fetus's fate to die before it was born.

"Bat left town, probably to look for some of his kin to help him," Prax said.

It was a chilling thought, and with Bat's words the last time we talked, I was terrified. I laid awake at night thinking of a way to protect my family. I had Prax, but what about them?

When I was twelve, the banging on our ceiling stopped. We were having lunch, feasting on the pork barbecue my mother had bought after her experiment with chicken curry failed. The sudden cessation of the noise we had been living with for years was jarring. The silence grated on our ears. For the first time, we could hear ourselves breathe.

No one moved. Even my brother, who was now seven, stopped chewing the pork he had just bitten off the stick. Papa stood up and called to the elves. Nobody answered. Gesturing for my cousin to follow him, they got the ladder and prepared to climb to the ceiling. They took with them an old wooden crucifix and a bottle of water from the first rain of May. My cousin brought along a two-by-two and a rope. I didn't know what they wanted to do but we looked on, our barbecue forgotten.

Papa went inside the ceiling and my cousin followed. Moments later, they came back running. My cousin descended the ladder first and I don't know whether it was because of fright or just because he was careless, but a rung broke and he fell to the ground, back first, hitting the two-by-two he had dropped in his haste. He lay there, unmoving except for his ragged breathing, his back bent at an angle we never thought possible.

Mama fainted, Papa stood still, my sister called an ambulance, my brother wailed, and I sat in the ground, laughing. It was not a laugh of gladness, just my nervous reaction to what happened. But they misunderstood and locked me in my room. I cried, shouted, cursed, but remained locked in. From inside my room I could hear them talking, the medical help coming in, and relatives pouring inside our house. I was ignored. I slept and dreamed that an elf was laughing. When I woke up, the whole house was filled by elven laughter. Then my cousin died.

After another year, my little brother followed. He was run over by a postal service van. I can still hear the anguished wail of the driver as he asked for forgiveness. He claimed that a tiny creature had run in front of his van and he had swerved to avoid it. My brother was unfortunately playing by the roadside and the van ran straight into him. Witnesses say they had heard laughter at the exact moment the wheels caught my brother.

The driver was imprisoned, but the deaths did not stop there. Barely six months later, my father drowned while fishing. A freak storm, the fishermen said, but for us who were left alive there was no mistaking that our family would die one by one.

There were only three of us left: my mother, my sister, and I. We tried to seek help, but the policemen laughed in our faces. We were branded as lunatics. And Prax was gone, defeated by Bat and his family apparently on the day the banging stopped. Even the albularyo could not help us. What use were her potions and ointments? What the elves needed was a good dose of magic, and the albularyo was primarily a healer and an exorcist. She had no training when it came to defending a whole family against vengeful elves.

And poor Mama! A mere week after my father died she followed. Extreme despair, the doctors said but we knew better.

My sister and I left home and went to live with our relatives in the city, hundreds of kilometers away. We told them about the elves but they laughed and told us we were being provincial. "It is the 90s," they said. "Belief in the little people died a long time ago." We knew they were wrong, but how could two orphaned teenagers convince the skeptics? Perhaps, we should have insisted on talking more but, as things were, our aunt had already scheduled counseling sessions for the two of us The fear of being sent to a mental institution stopped us from further trying to convince them. In the end, we just hoped that the distance from our old home would keep us safe from the elves.

But they followed and, one by one, our foster family died. Car accidents, food poisonings, assassinations through mistaken identity--there were logical explanations for their deaths but we knew we had been responsible. We could only look on helplessly, and despaired.

We traveled again, haphazardly enough to let us think that we could outwit the elves. But they finally caught my sister about a year ago. We were on the bus bound for another town when a tire blew out. The bus crashed into a ditch and although most of the passengers including myself were injured, the only fatality was my sister. I realized then that there was no escaping the fury of the little people.

After my sister's death, there was a period of silence from the elves. I decided to continue studying and enrolled at the local college. I had no problem with finances. I had inherited a large sum from a relative I had unwittingly sent to death.

After I got settled in the school dormitory, Prax appeared in my dreams again. He told me about a chant that he had dug up in the enormous library of a human psychic he had befriended. It was a weapon against any creature--effective against those with malicious intentions, whether towards humans or other creatures. Prax thought it would he better if I could defeat Bat myself. After all, hadn't Bat done me great harm already? I agreed and prepared myself for the battle that would decide my fate.

It was not long after my conversation with Prax that Bat tracked me down. It was a weekend and I had the room all to myself. I looked up from my notes and saw him--much older, his once clear complexion now marred with dark, crisscrossing veins. Hate screamed from him, and he stooped and walked with great difficulty. I pitied him.

He gave me an ultimatum: go with him or die on the spot. I pretended to look defeated and worn out. My act was effective and Bat looked pleased. He wanted us to go immediately but I dallied. At the pretext of packing my few valuable possessions, I told him to wait outside and count to a hundred.

When he was gone, I took out the ingredients I had prepared and the mini-stove I had borrowed. I boiled a small amount of sweet milk. I unwrapped Bat's image made in green and brown clay, with strands of his hair given to me by Prax, and started blowing and chanting words that meant nothing to me.

Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat.

Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat.

Blow. Allif, casyl, zaze, hit, mel, meltat.

Outside the room, Bat's count reached 70. I put aside the image and into the pan I poured hundreds of brand new pins and needles that had been blessed. The count reached 80. I repeated the chant and immersed the image in the boiling liquid. I waited.

Bat's count reached a hundred but I did not worry for it had become faint and weak, just as Prax had told me. Then Bat dissipated into a mist--shrieking, I might add--to where, only God would ever know.

Prax appeared again in my dreams that night and told me that they--Bat and his family--would never bother me again. He himself would move his family away from humans to avoid similar incidents in the future. It was too bad he didn't discover the old book with the vanquishing spell earlier for I could have saved my family. I could not bring them back, he said, but I could build a good life of my own. With the luck he bestowed on me, I would never be in need for material things the rest of my life.

I kissed the old elf, knowing that we would never see each other again. I watched him fade away, seeing the last of my family go.

When I woke up, I went to my desk and studied math, remembering where it all began.