The bus ride from Bacolod to the small town of Magallon in Negros Occidental felt like an eternity to a young man named Moises. It has been five years since he last went home to the place of his birth where he learned how to live and how to love as well as how to hate and how to die.
The year was 1946 and the war that was known as World War II recently ended but it left a wound inside Moises and going back home revived the pain in his heart that has scarred and hunted him yet fueled his bravado when he was still fighting the war against the invading Japanese along with the Negrense guerillas across their island.
The bus stopped in the heart of the town, the plaza, where the bus stop was located. He slowly descended the vehicle and looked around. The ruins left by the war were still visible in his home town, from the dilapidated town hall to the razed market. “The injuries left by the invaders are still fresh,” he thought to himself.
He painfully recalled the dreadful morning that changed his life in an instant as he walked around the plaza.
It was a sunny Sunday morning and it was the market day in Magallon and people all around the town were gathered in the plaza and in the market to buy and sell livestock, harvests and produce. Moises along with his older brother Carlos and younger sister Susana was tasked by their tatay and nanay to sell sweet potatoes yielded from a small piece of land which they cultivated located in a small sitio called Funda Daan.
He and his siblings sat around a big abaca basket where the sweet potatoes were contained when they noticed two shadows in the ground which they traced to its source in the sky. They saw two fighter planes going north where the US military installation in their small town was located.
After a few minutes they heard two thunderous explosions which rocked the plaza. Everyone was shocked and confused and Moises saw smoke coming from the north. Though still fifteen-years old, he heard that the Japanese are attacking Manila and he quickly thought of that. A minute or two passed and the residents saw the fighter planes again and it started to openly shoot at them. It did not hesitate to fire at men, women and children, and when the planes reached the town plaza, Moises saw one of it released a round object and it exploded as it hit the ground. Products flew around and the people started to run away but a big truck full of Japanese soldiers appeared and fired at those escaping.
Suddenly aware of the danger, Moises looked around and he saw Susana holding the lifeless body of Carlos. He ran to his siblings and he noticed two holes in his brother’s chest and he hugged the body along side his sister.
Tears trickled down Moises’ cheeks as he remembered that awful day. He stood near the spot where he thought the bomb hit the ground. It was getting dark so he started his hike to the home where he grew up.
As he walked down the road, he recollected how he and Susana ran the same path to their home. He wept as he remembered how he noticed that his sister was limping and he saw blood gushing out of her right leg. He did not notice it earlier but that surely caught his attention at that moment. Susana stumbled down and Moises carried her rest of the way. They hid in the bushes once he heard the rumbles made by the Japanese’ truck. “They are now heading to our sitio,” he told Susana but the girl did not answer back but simply lifelessly stared at him.
He was still carrying the dead body of his sister when they reached their home which was now ablaze and surrounded by the invaders. He can still hear the cry of his mother as the fire slowly but surely ate her body along with the house where he was born. The Japanese was laughing at her frantic cry for help and at the foot of the soldiers there sprawled a headless body of his father.
When the soldiers left he jumped out of the spot where he was hiding and he noticed he was still carrying his sister. He went to look at his tatay’s corpse and laid down Susana beside him. The fire was now dying but he knew that his nanay is all ready dead beneath the rubble of the charcoaled nipa hut.
Someone suddenly jumped out of the nearby forage and Moises quickly stooped down and picked a rock from the ground to use in self-defense. He saw his sweetheart Amor along with his brother Mario and their eyes was still swelling from crying.
“They got out father too,” Amor said as she lunged at Moises to hug him. “Mother is still hiding though,” she added.
“They will repay,” Moises mumbled.
Mario walked up to him and held his shoulder as Amor loosened her grip on him. “Moises, I know someone that might help us,” he said.
He and Mario then made a plan to join other men to join the guerillas in Bacolod to fight off the Japanese. Amor kissed him just before he and Mario left Funda Daan.
He was now a few meters away from their home and many things have changed in him. He is now without Mario who was killed in Bago City in a skirmish with the invaders, he also learned how to write proficiently from an American soldier who was with them in the guerilla force and he is planning to go back to school and become a teacher. Though the wounds inside him are still fresh, he is now planning to start a new life now that the war just ended and freedom of his country was all ready promised by the Americans.
He reached his destination and saw that the rubbles that used to be their home was now cleaned and there was a new nipa hut standing in its place. Though definitely smaller, it looks the same as his childhood house. He started up the foothold and entered the hut and he saw the familiar innocence and beauty though much more mature face of Amor staring back at him. And her presence made the wounds heal and the pain gone.
“Moises, welcome back,” she said. “Please do not leave again.”
Moises answered by putting her arms around her and kissing her in the lips. They stayed in that position until they grew weary. A new life awaited him in the arms of the person he loves most. Life had been unpleasant before but a new chapter in his life is unfolding and though unsure of what will happen, he knows that the best is yet to come
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