A Serenade for the Innocent 14 Killing the Unwanted

-a homage to Philippine mythology and its vast possibilities to horrify-

I have nothing else to say to the town

Neither to the vast oceans of people

Whom I lived with since I was but a child;

They who scream loud of these unknown vistas

Of times immemorial to justify

The ritual called killing the unwanted.

They whisper in secrets among themselves
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To recall ancient texts of prophecies

Which tells the rise of Sitan, death keeper,

From the vast darkness of Kasamaán;

He lurks, waits for the day of his return

To commence in killing the unwanted.

To stop him from ever returning back

To the realm men ruled over for eons,

Our village pledged to protect the world from

The arrival of Death by offering

People, feeding their blood to the faeries,

Thus they thought of killing the unwanted.

The weak, the old, the sick, the frail, the lame

All will be offered each time the faeries

Ring the bell twice to signal their hunger,

And if the villagers deny their needs

They will break their barrier against Sitan;

They feed them by killing the unwanted.

Sometime in the past, my loving mother

Conceived my baby brother, smooth and pale,

But he is sick, his body weak, so frail

And no medicine we know can save him

So we are worried, oh so worried, that

He'll be part of killing the unwanted.

So we hid him from the village, we did,

We cared for him in secret ever since;

We would be out like nothing is amiss,

But we would always refuse to attend

Deep in the forest where robed villagers

Offer life by killing the unwanted.

And as days turned to months, they start to doubt

Our odd family's constant refusal

To be part of this foul ceremony;

They'd question us about the existence

Of my baby brother dear and why we

Attend not the killing the unwanted.

My mother answered all the time, peevish

And proclaimed thus that the baby is gone

After a sad, untimely miscarriage;

Saying that her sadness caused her absence

And since then she can't stand the sight of blood,

She can't stand them killing the unwanted.

The people's questions died soon thereafter

And our lives went swimmingly like before,

While my brother grows stronger and stronger,

Conquering his sickness each step he takes;

But none will know of his life in this world

If they are still killing the unwanted.

Then one day the faeries ring the bell twice,

But the town hadn't had time to prepare

So they dragged my mother, pull her hair down;

Elders explained the grief my mother felt

Is naught but sign of weakness thus she was

Subjected to killing the unwanted

I couldn't do anything but watch men

Steal my mother dear away from our home;

While they feed the faeries, I feed my wrath!

I ran with my brother and stole a horse

And let their hooves deliver me away

From the twisted killing the unwanted.

I lit countless matches and throw each stick

In all huts and houses to command fire

And have their burn ravage all that they own

Destroying the town in my fit of rage

Disallowing the chance we'll be the next

Target of them killing the unwanted.

It's been five years since that cursed day end.

I changed my name and my brother as well.

I worked really hard for our survival.

And a testament of this is our health.

We are alive and nothing else mattered.

Not even that killing the unwanted.

We have forgotten them thus forever

We have never spoken it forever

We have sealed our memories forever

We have been without its fear forever

We have lost what we know of forever.

We don't need it hopefully forever.

Soon I heard rumors among friends and peers

About an enigma from far away,

That a mysterious village in the east

Suddenly turned lifeless leaving nothing:

A burned ruin of their former glory

Along the remains of their hidden cult.

Adding to the mystery is a noise,

Two bells ringing frequently now and then;

None of them knew what happened hitherto,

Raging flame singed the narra all around

Along with a queer structure built to seal

A cavern deep down the once great forest.

Countless men tried venturing what's inside,

None of them doth returned from the abyss

Leaving all baffled by its end's mystiques

And the grandeur of the unknown cavern,

The only thing we know for sure inside

Is a growling noise creeping from within.

That's when everything rushes back at me,

All of my hidden, evil memories;

Ones I've denied ever since my escape,

Vile rituals I failed telling my brother

And thus I remembered the true reasons

Behind the cruel killing the unwanted.

I decided I need to face my past

To once and for all remove all my guilt;

I left my brother to a friend and leave

To confront the mistakes I have buried

Deep below the crevices of my brain

To rid us of killing the unwanted.

I traveled far and wide from the city

To the burned remains of my former town,

And wander in amazement as I gaze

At what I've done, the fury of my pique;

I was aback seeing once again the

Sepulcher of killing the unwanted.

The greens are no more, the soil is barren

All that remains is the blackened ashes

Of my former village, land of my youth,

Land of my despair, land of countless death,

And there I stand to gaze at the cavern,

That started the killing the unwanted.

I can hear the air scream, darkness around,

The damp stone is the only entryway,

The only entrance through eternal night

For darkness alone is what remains there

And the light of morning unpermitted

To the source of killing the unwanted.

I went inside with no light and no friend,

Shaking, I feel the end within the bounds

The unknown growls rang forth from deep inside

As I walk through the wet, dark corridor;

There, I've finally seen the journey's end,

So does all of killing the unwanted.

Creeping in the darkness is Death itself,

Stalking on the stone is the end of all;

All's damp and cold and cruel and evil--

He who's in front of me, He who rule us

Has come from the debauched Kasamaán

With a want to killing the unwanted.

There he lays hiding, consuming, racking,

Until darkness has dominion on all

And everything that remains would be gone;

He stands there, guzzling the radiant faeries,

Their white velvet dress, tinted with their blood,

In Sitan's mouth: killing the unwanted.

Thus the radiant and fair-skinned diwata

Are now nothing but livestock to Sitan

For He who's asleep is alive again;

He grabbed my body with his putrid hand

While his other hand grabs the town's faeries

Readying to killing the unwanted.

Sitan chewed the spent head of the faeries,

Glitters spew out as He crushes their skulls

Letting me see clearly how he relieved

The century-old hunger he's keeping:

First us, then the world; soon his strength returns

And he will devour all the unwanted.

Chapter end

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