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.
