Tales Told at Marites Canteen

Chapter 3 (newly written scenes)

Joseph "Joe" Sase is sill oblivious to what's going on around him.

Had he paid any attention to the breaking news playing on the portable TV now, he would have notice that the attractive, wavy-haired, albeit chubby scientist was a familiar face despite her years and the professional look in spite the rugged and unflattering field clothing she now wear. That still expressive eyes addressing the millions watching the ABC -52 Breaking News Update is the same girl he'd known thirty years ago.

It would have been a poignant remainder of star-cross lovers that could only rival Shakespeare's own.

He would have asked what could have triggered her daughter's long distance phone call just minutes ago.

He put up his feet at the table, the old, and battered information table... smiled as a thought occurred to him when cool breeze sweeps by... smells like Yuletide already here..., gulp a few from a mug of steaming evening coffee. It is a matter of fact that it is just a few days that were ticked off the September calendar.

Joe stood up, stretched, lift his mug, and walked a bit from his station. Look around, at his left was the two-story neo-classical provincial secondary school's centuries-old building, the Sase's station is close to the building's library wing, one of the two single-level wings. He downed his still scalding-hot beverage, and as he did so, he got a glimpse of the library roof deck.

"I'm no kid, damn you!" he mouthed aloud to no one.

He started back, but a wee bit faster this time. The library top, an extension of the physics laboratory, gained notoriety, as it is the subject of strange tales. Kabayan Noli did feature these stories in his Halloween specials, not once, but actually twice!

Sase has no qualms looking in this direction, day or night, he has to live up to his image as the most feared guard of the school of this batch and countless before them, Taguro, as he was infamously called by most students and teachers as well, though not to his face. He wasn't offended, actually, amused, maybe.

The night sky is bejeweled by infinitely, far and countless blinking blips, the guard kidded himself, grabbed at some random distant sun of an unknown galaxy, cluster, or whatever, he enjoyed doing it with his friend back in the old day, in their kindergarten years.

He laughed quietly, here I am, retiring in less than a year, yet I'm thinking of my preschool buddies. "Hah".

The human mind works in a peculiar way. You see an old photo, of someone, or something, smell a faint odor, or felt a breeze and it will send you spiraling down memory lane. Reviewing your life helter-skelter then settling on one significant remembrance.

Like now.

Dymphna, the patron saint of memory, must have smiled on guard Joe. He felt his back pocket, took out his phone,

A brochure fell, he picked it up.

It was handed to him by what he thought to be a religious group that passed by the school gate that morning. Printed on it were:

"REPENT! THE END WAS NEAR... BATALA IS RETURNING AND THE JUDGMENT DAY IS UPON US." The pamphlet warned, "THE LORD SHEPHERD SERVANT GEOM ESCUPALDEZ IS YOUR ONLY PATH TO SALVATION WHEN RUPTURE CAME AND THROUGH HIM THE DEAD SHALL BE RESURRECTED AND WILL ASCEND TO HIM IN PARADISE IN ETERNAL LIFE..."

He frowned at the photograph of the rather good-looking, well-built, bearded man with a speech balloon that said:

"COME FOLLOW US AND BE SAVE FOR THE LORD SERVANT SHEPHERD WILL HAVE A MASS BAPTISM IN OUR CITY ON ..." said the saintly-looking Escupaldez