To Love A Monster

TO LOVE A MONSTER 
by Tiana Gulapa

Angela was a girl of about seventeen; she had long black hair and dark eyes.
She captivated people with her smile and more with her stare. It was no mystery that almost every boy or man in the village had his heart captured by the fair-skinned beauty.
She lived alone in a small wooden house, constructed from palm wood and palm leaves and decorated by various lovely flowers planted everywhere.
Once, Paulo asked her why there were so many different flowers when she could have only planted her favorite.
“They are all my favorites.” She said, holding his hand, “But you are the one I love," and with that, she quickly planted a kiss on Paulo's lips.
Paulo smiled and held her in his arms. People often wondered how a beautiful girl like Angela fell in love with a simple boy like Paulo when she had many rich and handsome suitors all over the village and even out of it. Paulo was a simple farmer’s son. He had the same dark hair and dark eyes as Angela, he only wore shirts that were either too dirty or too large for his boyish yet muscular frame.
He always walked around with his carabao to and from the farm; Angela would often ride on its back whenever she bumps into Paulo during the day.
They were inseparable, being together during the night- every night; it became an accidental routine. Paulo would first let Angela ride the carabao to the small mound of land while he walked by them. Angela never needed any help in riding the carabao or any animal for she had a natural talent with them, so to speak. When they reach the small mound of land, they would lie down side by side and gaze at the countless stars that scattered throughout the black sky.
“I’ve heard a story about the stars.” Paulo said.
“What story?” Angela looked at him.
“That they are angels.”
”And?”
“That’s it.”
Angela laughed, “That’s not a story at all!”
“Hey, that’s a story!”
“A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end.”
Paulo laughed. “I still think it’s a story, and it’s good.”
There was a silence broken only by the music of cicadas and other insects that played their instruments at night. When suddenly, Angela spoke, “I am a story.”
He looked at her, wonder written across his face although deep down, he knew why.
“I know the end to my story.” There were no tears in her eyes but only an eternal sadness and Paulo could only hold her in such a way that only lovers can do. An embrace that signified deep love; love that pushes through boundaries, that slices through skin and bones, through blood and soul.
They lay there for a moment longer when Angela gets up.
”I have to feed now.” She said.
Paulo took a bottle from his bag and in it held a kind of thick, black liquid.
Angela took it from him and opened it.
She rubbed the oily substance all over her skin and smiled at Paulo, her eyes and teeth in stark contrast against her blackened face, if another person had seen her he would have been frightened but this is Paulo. He was different from all the other boys and she loved him with all her heart. Paulo kissed her and told her to take care of herself.
“I will.” And with that, she took the form of a pig, blacker than the sky itself and swiftly ran off into the woods nearby. Paulo watched her leave and lay down on the soil again, staring at the stars, thinking of angels.
Angels like his sweet Angela.

Angela spotted a wild pig and stalked it.
She had been hiding behind a tree, waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Pigs are very quick, almost as quick as she is and in an instant, she was biting on its back while taking on her natural form. She had sharp teeth and raw was how she liked her food. After finishing up the obvious parts, she ate the intestines then drank the blood. She saved the heart for last because it was her favorite. She liked eating it because if she was lucky, leftover blood would spurt out whenever she chewed on it, yet sometimes she would devour the heart first if it was still beating after the animal dies.
When she had finished up, she dusted herself off and took on the form of a pig again; she seemed to only change to the form of the animal she had eaten last. She quickly ran off, heading to where Paulo waited for her.

Paulo got up when he saw Angela return. He smiled at her.
He took the rag and wiped her with it, trying to get the oil off her skin. After a couple of minutes, her fair skin shone through the black and figured he can never get it completely off her as he always figures it every night and hands her the fresh clothes he brought for her.
“I will just wash myself when I get home.” She smiled.
“Let’s go home.”
“Let’s stay here a while.” Angela said.
“All right. I want to be with you anyway.”
“I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
”Do you remember the time you asked me why I’ve planted many flowers around my house?”
”Yeah. That was the first time you told me you loved me.”
Angela smiled. “Yes it was. Do you still want to know why I planted them?”
Paulo kissed her black cheek. “Yes please.”
”My mother was very much like me except she can take the form of butterflies. There were hundreds of them, of her in the house and I would laugh and be careful not to jump around since I might step on one of her.”
A tear now fell from her eye, tracing the black oil, making it glisten in the starlight.
Paulo gazed at her while she talked.
“When she died and passed on her gift, her curse to me, I don’t know which anymore, I thought that maybe if I planted enough, a part of her would come back.”
He took her hand and kissed her deeply and Angela felt that the kiss was enough to heal the wounds and erase the scars she had collected over the years of realization that she had received not a blessing nor a gift, but a curse, that she did not have a soul, that she was a monster. Yet in that moment, she felt fine with it and knew that this was the last connection of her mother to her and she was glad, memories fail but this was permanent. She kissed Paulo even more deeply and everything was gone, the sound of the night, the soil, the grass, the carabao that patiently waited for them, the sky, the stars, they were all gone and what was left was the kiss and the kiss was everything and all was fine and she felt her heart race a little faster, a tiny reminder of the soul she still has left and thought was gone.
“I love you Angela. Let’s go home.”

The rumors started the next day.
Angela was beautiful as ever, buying grocery from the market; food that she will never eat but will be given to Paulo. She overheard two girls of about her age talking about her.
”Andy saw her last night.”
“Where? Is it true? That’s hard to believe.”
”By the woods, she looked scary.”
”We might be next, you know.”
Angela passed them by without a word or a stare but the girls still went quiet.
She went outside the market, thinking nothing of the rumor.
Rumors die in a week, she thought.
She was walking towards her house when she heard another group of people talking about her.
“She’s a monster.”
”She thinks she can fool us? The bitch.”
”We can’t let her kill us, we must do something.”
“But are the rumors true?”
”Yes, Andy saw her and according to Old Man Ignacio, her mother was the same way.”
Angela walked a little faster, tears forming in her eyes. She never hurt anybody.
She fed alone that night; Paulo was left alone in his and his father’s home, knowing why.

The day after that, there was a commotion in the village; all of the people’s livestock were killed; the carcasses bloody and left to rot in the sun. Paulo went to the mini-plaza where the commotion or "meeting" was taking place and some were shouting murderous things about Angela.
“Angela would never do such a thing!” He shouted.
The people looked at him and one spoke up, “He was with Angela that night! He is a murderer!”
A man punched Paulo in the face and he managed to get up despite the punches he was receiving and ran.
He ran and ran until he reached Angela’s house.
“Angela! Angela!” There was blood pouring out of the cut on his cheek, one of the men must have slashed it with a knife. Angela was not there.
He ran to the mound where they always were at night and at last, he saw her there. She was alone, standing on a piece of rock, her hands raised up to the heavens.
“Angela?”
She looked around, her eyes widening as she saw Paulo’s cheek.
”What happened to you?”
“We have to get out of here.”
“Who did this?”
“Angela, there is no time. We have to go.”
“I did not kill them.” Angela looked at Paulo pleadingly.
“I know my love.”
It was almost noon when they finished packing up Angela’s clothes.
It had only been less than fifteen minutes.
“Wait for me, my love. Don’t open the door for anyone unless you hear my voice.”
Angela nodded.
Paulo set to run off but Angela gripped his arm.
”I love you.”
Paulo kissed her “Wait for me here.”
He ran towards his and his father’s home. When he got there, he saw that his father was waiting for him. “Where were you, child? Still fooling around with that monster?”
“She’s not a monster.”
”She killed the animals.”
Paulo packed his clothes into a bag.
“Where are you going?”
”Away,” he grunted.
“You are choosing her over your own father? You ingrate!”
“I can- we can make it on our own.”
With that being the last words he said to his father, he ran off to where Angela was.

Tonyong was the name of Paulo's father, he married Anita; the love of his life. When Anita was carrying their supposed second child; the child after Paulo, one of the monsters devoured her and their child. Paulo was very young then and he too, was young and filled with hopes and dreams for their family. The monsters took his love from him and now they have to pay.
That girl must pay for what her kind has done to us. Tonyong thought.
He smiled, rotten teeth in full display. He washed the blood from his hunting knife.
“Patay kang aswang ka.” (You are dead, you monster.)

Angela’s house was set ablaze.
She was screaming while the smell of burning skin permeated the air.
People crowded in front of the burning house, they were shouting and laughing but Paulo could not hear anything but the beating of his own heart and his love’s screams.
He pushed through the crowd but rather than going through it, he was eventually engulfed by it. Tears fell from his eyes as he himself fell on his knees, crushing the reddest flowers he had ever seen in his life.
He stood up again and pushed through the people.
“Angela! Angela! Angela!” He repeated her name countless of times and received only agonized screams from the burning house as a reply.
He never got through, it was as if a million arms were pushing him back away from the fire.
“My love.”
“Get the kid out of here.” Said a man in uniform.
“The monster influenced him and corrupted his innocence.” Another said.
Paulo fell on his back and stared glassily at the sky.
Then everything was gone.

No one dared to talk about the killings or the fire.
Paulo went to the place for the first time in weeks.
Instead of ruins or ashes, he stared at an empty lot; there was nothing there except for grass and a single red flower, a black butterfly sitting upon it.
He walked towards it and saw a black stone inches away from the insect and the red flower.
He turned it over and over in his hands.
“A blessing and a curse.” He swallowed it.



Author’s Note:
"Aswang" is a generic term applied to all types of witches, vampires, manananggals, shape shifters, werebeasts and monsters. The original definition referred specifically to a ghoulish were-dog, which is where the word comes from- "Aso" ("The dog" in Tagalog). This type of creature was an eater of the dead, also called the bal-bal (maninilong in Catanauan, Quezon), which replaces the cadaver with banana trunks after consumption. Aswang stories and definitions vary greatly from region to region and person to person, and no particular set of characteristics can be ascribed to the term. However, the term is mostly used interchangeably with manananggal and are also usually depicted as female.
In the story however, the aswang here is a shapeshifter.
In order to pass on to another the curse of being an aswang, the aswang must puke out a small stone before he/she dies and the receiver of the stone must swallow it. An aswang will not die unless the curse is passed on to another, one of the many terms for the process is called “pagmamana”, meaning “to inherit” in English.