Unrequired Readings and Necessary Fictions

                A couple of news stories shocked me recently. As someone who always end up drunk first in every game of I’ve-Never, it takes quite a lot to shock me. The two news stories that did were a.) the video of two teenagers brutally slaying a kindly doctor in his own home, and b.) the Bible-toting nice young man from Miami who was found growling in the streets, naked, and eating a hobo’s face off.

                There’s a lot to be said about these horror, and a lot to be asked. It is when we are confronted by these harsh realities do we confront the dark side of our humanity: this is what we are capable of.

                We are capable of generosity: a doctor—well respected and loved in his community—picks up two teenagers he met on Facebook, and gave them shelter for the night.

                We are capable of love: a young man from Miami, known to carry a Bible around, called his girl friend to let her know how much he loves her, shortly before stepping out to go to a party.

                So, how did we make the jump from love and generosity to brutal, shameless slaughter? I wish we know the answer to that one, but we can guess based on what we do know.

                What we know so far: right before slaughtering their host, the two teenage boys who the doctor picked up set-up his phone to take a video recording of their planned slaying. They promptly slaughtered him amidst his pleas to be spared. How anyone could stand to execute man while he pleads for his life is beyond me. The doctor was stabbed, repeatedly. Dragged across the floor, and bled in his own bathroom. One of his killer then went back to the camera, showcased his handiwork—by then, a lifeless sack of flesh and blood—and then DARED to put his stamp on it by focusing the camera on his own face. This killer, not even a man yet, took the life of another, and felt pride.

                What we know so far: a naked man was found devouring a homeless man’s face off. He was growling, primal and carnivorous. The police officers who responded had to shoot him down as a matter of necessity. Investigators suspect he was under the influence of “bath salts”, a dangerous compound known to cause sensations of high temperature (compelling the man, perhaps, to take his clothes off?) and hallucinations—oh, that tricky domain of the subconscious to break down reality in its entirety and replace it with its own follies.

                And with what we know, we must ask: what do we learn from these? Other than losing our faith in humanity, what have these incidents taught us?

                No doubt, guilty parties must pay the price of their crimes. There are consequences. It is in the upholding of the laws that govern the land do we feel safe and protected as a society. Murderous sociopaths and drug pushers must be punished. It is only when we can see these monsters behind bars can we comfortably tuck ourselves in at night.

                Yet, these monsters aren’t all the monsters there are in the world. We may put these ones behind bars, but there are monsters under the bed, there are monsters we share our beds with. The Canadian Psycho—the former pornstar who chopped a Chinese student and mailed the pieces, bit by bit—was said to be “in a relationship” with his victim. Every day, the local tabloids are replete with headlines of spouses slaughtering spouses, of women battered, of daughters raped. Recently, a 5-year old boy was rescued from a Satanic ritual involving his own parents gouging out his eyes with a spoon. On TV tonight, a mother holds her own daughter’s arms as her partner rapes her.

                The monsters we are most afraid of maybe the same people we most love.

                As a poet and novelist, it makes me question my role in a society on the brink of a breakdown. In our darkest hours, what use have we of fiction and poems? Indeed, why do we tell our children fairy tales, and not the truth about how dangerous the world really is?

                I believe in fairy tales. I have never been a fan of the ‘ever after’ part (I have always been afraid of commitments, even as a child, and ‘ever after’ sounds too long a time to commit to), but I love the part where the wolf is defeated by his own pride, or the wicked witch is destroyed by her own vanity. Of all the Disney movies, I love Alladin the most. There is something about a street rat socially climbing his way to the sultanate that appealed to me in my formative years.

                We tell fairy tales not because they are heart warming tales of teapots bursting into song, and twittering birds producing haute couture from scratch. We tell fairy tales because we don’t want our kids to pet the big, bad wolf. There are big, bad wolves, some of them will knock on our doors, and just like the three little pigs, it is our responsibility to ourselves TO REFUSE THEM ENTRY.

                We are duty bound to protect ourselves, our properties, our loved ones against monsters. If a friendly stranger offers us apples in a party, we must not take it, it may be laced with bath salts. We must not welcome wolves inside our homes, especially if we’re a kindly, old grandmother and our Little Red Riding Hood’s not coming to visit till the weekend.

               

                We must not trade our own voice just so we can stand alongside princes and their courts.

                We must not wish to be real boys when we are perfectly crafted the way we are. Don't enter houses, especially when they're made of gingerbread.

           And, if we take a quick survey of the fairy tales we tell in the Philippines, the most dangerous thing you should avoid doing is to fall in love. How many rivers, fruits, waterfalls, hills, caves, mountains, and trees have been created out of lovers foiled? A chopped hand, a drowned maiden, a lady left by her betrothed, a man betrayed. These are the stuff our fairy tales are made of. We formed the islands out of the carcasses of our fallen lovers. The first rain of summer. A creeping vine. The pineapple. The tarsier. The stars we have pounded away. The flower that spoke of our guilt. These are the things we have turned those we love into.

                And so: the fiction we tell ourselves is necessary. They may be stories we make up, but we made them up to bear truths: truths about humanity, truths about the world, truths that would horrify us otherwise and distract us from recognizing them. Stories don’t have to be true to be truthful.

                So I take upon this unlikely role of storyteller. In times when the most important thing to have is not a sharp mind, but a tablet that mimics human thinking... and that the highest earning professional of today is a lawmaking boxer who preaches about hate while promoting the use of foreign brands, I refuse to give up my faith in that one, undefeatable truth: In stories, salvation.  

                I am a storyteller. I bear the unfortunate burden of saving this world, one word at a time.