Feathers

The infant howled like a wild dog. His worried mother swayed the cradle in rhythm to her humming of a lullaby. The ramshackle hut shook slightly as the cradle dragged its ropes attached to the brace of the palm roof. The mother hummed louder but in a pleasant tone. Her soprano voice flew about, against the lonely light of the sole lamp that was struggling to defeat the dimness inside the hut.

Outside the hut, darkness devoured the surroundings. The cicadas performed their routine chants. The coolness of the evening’s air fondled the coconut trees enclosing the hut. The long coconut leaves rustled in tune with the lullaby. The wind blew gently into the half-opened hinged window.

The hut was built in bamboo sticks that served as walls, coconut planks set as flooring, and four huge logs anchored in the corners. The flooring was elevated, four feet off the ground. Wood fuels and a wheelbarrow were laid beneath the floor, the storing place which was fenced with barbwires.

Segundida hummed. Pushed and pulled the cradle. Her infant had been crying for an hour. She knew no reason for it. She had fed him with breastmilk. She had cradled him in her arms several times. She had been humming, in ascending loudness. She was worried and a bit irritated. Rufino, her husband, had been away since the break of twilight.

Now the infant shrieked like a siren. Segundida reached for him and lulled. She held him consolingly against her breast. She swayed, danced, hummed, sang, and worried.

A rasping noise and a tick under the flooring jolted her. It grew louder as she lowered the sound of her humming. Louder and louder until it became unbearable to her ears. She wanted to check it out, but she could not take her infant outside, under the smog that could cause him to have colds or cough. She could not either leave him alone inside the hut. Something goaded her more not to go outside and leave the infant.

The scratching stopped.

The infant went on crying. A cry that bore an agony. An agony caused by something Segundida could not believe. She waited for the scratching to sound with the infant’s cry. But there was none anymore, even a single hiss from under the flooring. Then, the infant’s cry settled into an absolute hush.

In a few moments, Rufino showed up in front of the four-step wooden stairs of the door. He knocked on the door. Segundida looked at the door, eyes drawn out. She shivered.

“Fino, is that you?” she said, tremblingly.

Another door knock jumped her chest.

“Fino, is that you?” her voice shook.

“Dida, open the door. It’s me, Fino,” declared the voice outside.

Segundida put her infant in the cradle. She walked lamely to the door and opened it. She was sweating.

“What happened? Why are you shaking?” said her husband.

“I’m just worn out trying to pacify Inde. She was crying for an hour. I worried someone or something is under the hut. There was scratching and ticking off, I don’t know what it was. Maybe a thief trying to steal the wood fuels.”

Rufino squatted and gazed under the hut. “There’s nothing there. It could just be a cat.” He stood up and ascended the steps. He looked at the dangling cradle. “He’s asleep.”

“Just a while ago. When the scratching stopped,” reasoned out Segundida.

The infant was now calm as the unruffled surface of the lake and quiet as the silent night.

At midnight, the infant babbled. The scratching below the floor came again, in a tolerable state though. And then, the infant howled and cried in pain. Rufino and Segundida woke. Rufino rose and headed for the door. Segundida swung the cradle and hummed lifelessly.

“Dida, I’m going out to check it.”

Segundida nodded, as she rubbed dried tears in her sleepy eyes.

The scratching grew louder and the tick could be felt on the floor. It awakened Segundida completely, annoyingly. She stood up and held her infant tightly around her slim arms.

Outside the hut beside the steps, Rufino bent to search the storing place. It was too dark to see. The moon overhead could not flash its light through it. He waited for a moment while hearing his baby cried in great distress. His sight began to adapt to the dark surroundings. He hunkered to pry the area. He saw the silhouettes of the heap of wood fuels and the wheelbarrow. Far ahead, he saw something. A bird, maybe. The scratching and ticking stopped. It flapped its wings once. He dashed to the other side of the hut to clearly get a going over what he saw. He crouched and saw a bird, large as an adult peacock. It was scratching the wood fuels, he thought. No. It braced its wings onto the ground, scratched the floor by its talons, and pecked the planks. He saw it.

Rufino pounded, quite shocked by what he saw. A bird that stood using its wings while its claws and beak on top doing something noisy and disturbing. He moved off the backyard and looked for something he could use to clobber this annoying creature. Then, he found a two-by-two-inch wood, firm enough to cripple the creature within a blow.

Rufino crouched like a tiger again. He slowly unlocked the loose door made from barbed wires. He yanked it and slyly went through it, prowling, and gripping the wood. The creature was preoccupied with its scraping business. He shifted his way behind the creature. He gasped, inhaling the smell of charcoal. He halted for a little while and heard the beat of his heart increased. He sighed deeply and stiffened his grip on the instant weapon. Then, he crawled again.

The bird did not see nor feel Rufino was coming behind. It was still scratching and pecking the floor when he was within its reach. It ceased and turned its head with red eyes to Rufino. It noticed him, but it was too late to flee, scamper, and shoot away.

Rufino, with his full-of-annoyance vigor, stroke the long wood. He hit the bird. It flapped its wings and undertook to fly, but ended up rebounding, bouncing against the flooring, upon the ground and the heaps of wood fuels which scattered. Rufino clobbered the bird. Its feathers floated in the air. It spread once its wings and passed out.

Rufino was terrified to see the bird. He chilled. The bird turned into a squirrel, the size of Rufino’s callous hand. He attempted to touch it, but it scurried away.

***

The next morning someone knocked on the door. Segundida opened it. She saw an attractive woman dressed in early 20th-century Filipiniana dress.

“What can I do for you, Missus?” Segundida said. She was a bit amazed by the way the woman behaved, very conservative as they call it.

“I have a favor to ask from you.” The woman smiled. “I’m your new neighbor. There.” She pointed her hand towards the rice fields behind the coconut trees.

Segundida glanced at the newly built hut. It had not been there yesterday, she thought. Questions formed in her mind.

“We built it last night,” declared the mysterious woman.

“Nice to meet you,” stammered Segundida.

They shook hands.

“So what about this favor?” asked Segundida, reluctantly.

“If you don’t mind, I want to get the feathers under your hut. They’re Mother’s.”