The Aras

LOVINGLY DEDICATED to someone who said it was “easy to write a CHILDREN’S STORY.”

My biggest Shukran for making me scramble with one. One that tells us, we do seem to create our own monsters – as a person or as a Nation, and that the sad end of either, is far from being child-friendly, at all.

From another long night at sea, Juan dragged his rickety banca inland, again empty of squid, pampano, or the smallest sardine. His knees buckled after a few drags, and slumped face-first on the sand, ghost crabs skittering to their holes.

How many prayers and lit candles more, Santo Andrew?

Juan wept, the salt of the sea in his tears.

Stirred by a gust of inland wind, Juan struggled to his feet, squinting.

Like full moons on a cloud-stripped sky, his eyes lit up. Before him glowed, a worm-like blob, a swirly green. It was crawling for the village boats lined up below a strip of coconut trees.

“An Aras…” he whispered, in disbelief. “A small Aras!” he repeated, yelling.

But save for the timeless chat of sea and sand, the dawn kept mum.

And for a while, Juan could think.

Juan recalled, as clear as the night they were told: In the clash of Good versus Evil over the sea, the wily Aras was the lackey of Evil. It gorged on the sea’s dead. The gullible, too.

“Others grew as huge as a whale and could gobble a hut whole,” told their elder, his dark eyeballs now peppered white from seeing too much sun on the sea.

Beside him hissed the flames of a bonfire.

“Always remember this,” he warned, to trembling children. “The Aras is a tricky one, sure. But it’s power to harm us, comes from us. Nothing more. When the Aras appears before you — flee at once, and don’t ever look back.”

Juan soon woke up from nightmares, checking if their hut still stood where it should, below coconut groves and as close as they can to the sea.

And lately, eyeing the swirls of the sea for some glimmer of hope, Juan learned that a fisherman’s nightmares become real with a hungry brood. And the sea had its own cares.

But, as the blizzard skyline turned a powder blue, Juan stared into the eyes of the Aras and felt hope.

“Such lies and nonsense, it all was! … Besides, what harm can it ever do?” he argued, cradling the Aras. “It’s…a pet. That’s it!” Juan wept again, but with joy, this time. And after many months on end, he now raced toward home with some thing in hand.

“Kumpare, is that what I think it is?” barked Nilo, untangling a fishnet from across a bamboo fence.

Turning back, Juan walked toward him. “Yes, Kumpare! What were the chances, eh?”

“Kumpare, get rid of that thing!” Nilo, said, his voice trembling.

“Or, take it back, at least … you know that … you can’t…” Nilo mumbled, seeing a dark pall possess Juan.

Juan’s reply rumbled low. “For me, it’s a good sign, Kumpare…It will bring me luck.”

“Kum – “

Juan turned away.

Juan’s neighbors knocked on his doors and pled with him to get rid of the Aras.

“Please Juan, while you still can,” came the village refrain. But the more they pled, the more his door stayed shut.

Neighbors fled.

After a fortnight, the Aras began talking human and hobbled as big as a hog. During this time, Juan hauled in netfuls of choice tuna and shrimp.

“See? The Aras has given me luck!” he yelled to scurrying villagers, more fearful by the day.

Juan stocked on chickens, pigs and goats.

“Cows come next, for the freshest milk,” Juan assured his children.

His hut, now a ‘proper house,’ Juan threw a feast for the Aras.

“It saved us from ruin,” he muttered, alone and giddy with wine, before a banquet. “An Aras shrine, yes … as gratitude.”

Before long, the Aras was the size of a carabao, chomping a meal equal to what the family ate in a week.

“Take heart, mahal,” Juan assured his wife, staring at the unfinished shrine. “The Aras is sure to bring us luck soon.”

But Juan’s next catches could buy neither cow’s shadow nor a drop of milk.

After supper one stormy night, the Aras puffed, “Juan, I want more.”

“But you just had the last six chickens,” Juan pled.

“More…Juan,” the Aras growled.

“But the storm …”

Flinching from the Aras’ steely stare, Juan started for the door.

“Please, you can’t…” begged his wife.

Huddled in a corner, the children began crying, their sniffles, pierced by angry thunder and lightning.

“It’s okay…I’ll ask Kumpare,” Juan said. “I’ll beg him if I have to.”

At the door, Nilo nodded in pity. “If you would take a goat…”

“Thank you, Kumpare, and – “

“Go see your family, Kumpare…”

“More,” the Aras growled, after gobbling the goat whole. The children’s sniffles crescendoed to terrified wails.

“I’ve done what I can… our neighbors now hate us…in this rain…I possibly can’t … ”

Its cavern-mouth gaping, the Aras stood to full height and stared down at Juan’s wife and children, its teeth’s jagged edges, glistening in the flickering candle light.

The Aras turned to him.

Juan froze, cascading tears, the sole movement.

Tasting the sea in his tears, he saw himself slumped on the sand, breathing in – like fish on land – a whiff of dried seaweed that blew from the banca’s patched-up hull.

He saw himself staring at the swirling dark sea.

He saw himself in the pitch darkness, staring into the eyes of a green blob.

And, in that moment, Juan knew. “Why? After all we’ve done for you, feeding you … fighting the whole village for you…”

“Oh, don’t you worry about the village, my dear Juan … don’t you worry about them …” hissed the Aras and crawled toward him.