by Victor Fernando R. Ocampo

Opathan | Danghus | Thursday

It was a gentle late-afternoon, pink and gold like a burden of beach roses. Tala was helping her grandfather harvest sweet potatoes with their small pod of harvester baskets. A carillon of bells pealed somewhere in the distance. The seven-year old quickly squatted down, excited and wide-eyed, as a swarm of floating air jellies suddenly streamed overhead, their amorphous, opalescent bodies twinkling like stars. Just seeing them made her heart sing with joy at the sheer awesomeness and wonder of existence. 

Her grandfather’s loud chuckle broke her reverie. “They descend from the ocean every night,” he teased, “yet every time it’s like you’ve never seen them before.”

“Lolo,” she asked, mildly irritated at her elderly companion, but still careful to use the ancient Filipino honorific for grandfather, “have you ever seen the ocean?”

“One day soon I will, my child,” he whispered, his voice hoarse as an old rocket engine, as the two of them filled a floating basket with the fattest, most purple sweet potatoes. “Any time now I will have to return to her, to Mother Ocean.”

“Why can’t I go with you?” Tala asked, digging her fingers through the loam of ash and powdered regolith. Wherever her hand made a wound on the sweet-smelling earth, tiny balls of silver nitrogen-fixing worms would emerge from the furrows, then burrow themselves deeper into the soil.

“We talked about this.” 

“But I will miss you!”

“I will miss you too, and your Mama and Papa. I really wish I could bring you, but you’re far too young to have earned it.” 

“What do you mean by ‘earned it’?”   

“We are our world. If Life has been kind, the secret ocean is your reward,” her Lolo explained. “If Life has been hard, then it is your final peace.” 

“I don’t want you to go,” the girl pleaded.

“I will always be with you. I promise. But the ocean is calling me and I cannot say no.”

“You promise! Where’s this place anyway? I’m going to find Mother Ocean herself, or whoever’s in charge, and tell her not to take you!”

  Her grandfather sighed as he sent the harvester baskets home. “Mother Ocean is up there,” pointing up to the sky, “but let me tell you an open secret: there’s also a very long path to the west of our village.”

Tala said nothing more and the two of them walked home in silence. Her mind, however, was racing everywhere all at once, trying to determine what was the best way to reach the sacred waters. 

That evening, after a quick supper of crispy tofu, mushroom adobo, and red rice, her grandfather announced that he would retire early. Tala watched as he walked over to their antique aparador, the only heirloom their family had brought with them from the ancient star they had left so many generations ago. The large and heavy cabinet was made of ebonized wood, unlike everything else in the room which had been grown from mushroom mycelium. For such an important ritual furniture, it was strangely devoid of any carving or ornamentation. She watched as he carefully took out her grandmother’s blanket and unwrapped it from its protective sheath. He buried his face into the soft cloth for a few seconds, before telling Tala to go to bed. 

Tala tiptoed over to her grandfather, bowed her head and pressed his hand to her forehead for a blessing. Tala remembered the first time she saw her grandmother’s blanket. Mama had been sad and sleepless for several nights. Finally, Papa had called Lolo for help. Her grandfather arrived carrying his wife’s burial blanket inside a hard, protective valise. The sea-blue cloth was woven by artisans who lived on one of the satellite ships collectively called Bulan. It was decorated with thousands and thousands of individually embroidered sea shells. In the middle, running the whole length of the cloth, was the lettering Alataala Maykapál, Diwa at Alaala– grandmother’s name, thoughts and memories. The letters were woven with gold thread. When her Mama lay on Lola’s blanket, she slept like a baby for days. 

Her grandfather brought the aparador with him when he came to live with them a few years ago. Tala had always been a little scared of the strange cabinet and always avoided going near it. Sometimes, when she happened to play nearby, she would hear eerie, disembodied voices. One time, Lolo opened the door wider than just a crack and the aparador seemed larger on the inside than on the outside, with stacks and stacks of ancestral blankets stretching far into darkness. 

Tala slipped under her comforter and curled into a ball. The room lights dimmed themselves and she knew that the house would soon begin to silently tidy itself. As soon as she closed her eyes, she heard voices calling her name. Tala sat bolt upright and ordered the room lights to brighten. She asked the house to scan if there was anyone else on the premises but there was only herself and grandfather who was sleeping soundly in his room. 

She shouted bravely into the sudden silence, “Whoever you are, go away! My grandfather taught me to fight!”

After thirty minutes of staring at the ceiling, nothing happened, and a very tired Tala slowly slithered to sleep. She dreamt she was running along the shore of a fantastical ocean that was in fact a giant blanket. The waters were made of indigo-dyed cotton, which somehow crested and fell on an embroidered shore, leaving behind  innumerable lace-work shells. Many voices were whispering to her in the dream-wind, but she could not make out what they were saying. She called out to the voices, telling them she would meet them when she found Mother Ocean.

Alemanah | Hingot-hingot | Friday

After school the next day, while her Lolo was away, and Lola’s robotic Anito was off-line, she packed some rolls called pan de sal filled with synthetic carabao cheese, and a water bottle, then resolved to find Mother Ocean.

At the edge of their village, she saw her Lola’s retired colleague, Mrs. Idiyanale, tending to her cloned chickens.  The woman waved hello and asked Tala where she was going. 

“I am looking for the ocean,” the young girl said.  

“You are as incorrigible as your grandmother was,” Mrs. Idiyanale answered, as she scattered protein powder to her impatient and noisy birds. “Why did you leave your poor grandfather alone? His nanotech implants are failing. The ocean should be calling him by now.”  

“He’s with his doctor,” Tala replied. “They said I wasn’t allowed to stay there.”

“And why are you looking for Mother Ocean?” Mrs. Idiyanale asked. “What a foolish thing to do. I will tell your Lola to come and pick you up before you get into any trouble.”

“Lola’s still charging.” 

“That’s really her own fault,” Mrs. Idiyanale quipped. “We could have cloned our dead and dying long ago, but she was one of those who voted not to.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your grandmother always used to say that we are more than just our physical bodies but look what she is now–” Mrs. Idiyanale noted condescendingly. 

“I’m sorry, I need to go, po” Tala interrupted. “I need to find Mother Ocean.”

“Listen, child,” Mrs. Idiyanale continued, ”The ancestors can’t even see you yet. You’re much too young. The Ocean won’t mean anything to you.” 

“I heard my mother talking about you once,” an increasingly impatient Tala said. “You and Lola didn’t get along. Why should I believe you?” she added, somewhat impudently.

“I have no reason to lie to a foolish child,” Mrs. Idiyanale said, her voice full of barbed intimations. “Besides, your Lola and I were very close once, and you are of your Lolo’s blood.”

Tala didn’t know what to say.

 “Everything we have comes from it,” the old woman continued. ”Everything whose time has come returns there. But there’s absolutely nothing for a little girl like you to see. If I were you, I’d stop this foolishness.” 

Tala bid the old woman goodbye, and decided against her advice. The cloned chickens seemed to cluck at her in disbelief, although she knew they were probably just hungry.

“If you really love your grandfather, you would go back,” Mrs. Idiyanale said, as she watched Tala briskly walk away. “Foolish girl!”

Beyond the village was a very large field. At the crest of a shallow hill, she spotted two young men flying war kites called guryon. She recognized them from school, twin brothers named Balakbák and Balantáy.

“Hey! Come and join us! We need three fliers for a proper battle. And what are you doing so far away from the village?” 

Tala told them what she was looking for, as she wiped her sweat with a handkerchief, watching the two colorful kites duel overhead.

“You are looking for what?! Mother Ocean?!” Balakbák exclaimed, as he pulled at the rigging of his giant, laser-tipped kite. “The ocean is only for old people.” 

“Stay and play with us instead,” Balantáy offered. “We’ll teach you how to fight with guryon. We’ll teach you how to fly!”       

“Your teachers will tell you all about the ocean at the end of time,” Balakbák added.  “Spoilers– it’s just a giant soup of brain fluid and icky liquid stuff rotating to provide gravity. Just wait. Our time will come soon enough.”

“Thanks for the show. I do love anything that flies. But I need to go now,” Tala insisted.      “For my grandfather. I think he may be dying.”

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Balakbák said, “but everybody is always dying. When you wake up every morning, the person you were yesterday is dead. But you aren’t really gone. That’s what our grandmother taught us.”

“I never met my grandmother,” Tala countered. “She’s just a robot now,”

“You’ve never slept on her burial blanket?” Balantáy asked.

“I don’t think she’s old enough,” Balakbák interjected. 

“Stay here and learn to fly,” Balantáy offered once more, plugging another techno-organic kite string to a control node buried in the flesh behind his fist. “You don’t even need these control nodes yet. Besides, you’ll need something to distract you when your grandfather passes–”

“No, thank you,” Tala interrupted. “I will go and find Mother Ocean now.” 

“Fine,” Balantáy said. “If you really want to go, it’s that way,” pointing to the distant west. “But be careful when you reach the Screaming Trees. The people that go there are weird.”

“Unwell,” Balakbák corrected his brother. “Just don’t stop at the Forest of Screaming Trees.”

Tala could still hear them arguing as she quickly walked away. 

“She’ll never make it,” Balantáy added. “Doesn’t she have to be dead?”

“Shut up,” his brother hissed. “They just won’t let her through.”   

Tala walked for what seemed like hours until she reached the edge of a bamboo forest. She stopped under the first big grove that offered cool shade. Don’t stop at the Forest of Screaming Trees, Balakbák had warned her but Tala was very hungry, and none of the trees looked like they were screaming. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry, so she took out her food and ate as quickly as possible. When she was finished, she tidied up before walking farther. 

“Who goes there!” a voice boomed suddenly through a thicket. 

Tala was surprised to see their village Civilian Guard, Corporal Sitan, waving metal arnis batons at her. The usually taciturn master of the Hukloban robots, which kept the peace and directed traffic, seemed beside himself with anger, gibbering and talking to no one in particular. Many pieces of bamboo had been broken and scattered about.

“My DNA is too damaged to repair! How can I tell her I’m joining Mother Ocean? How?” Beating his chest and wailing at the silent trees, “Mangagauay has no one else. She shouldn’t have to be all alone. All she’ll have left of me is a machine, a ghost of fake skin and metal with my engineering skills! She has no need for androids. She doesn’t need my stupid blanket! The only thing we ever wanted was to be together!” 

“Please, Sir,” Tala said, noticing the large cache of weapons slung behind the Corporal. “You’re frightening me.”

“Is that all we deserve after a lifetime together? Shadows? Shadows! A hollowness! My world is gone!”

Tala saw the very pained expression on Corporal Sitan’s face and, for some unknown reason, her fear subsided. She had sensed an enormous miasma of despair radiating from the broken man, and now felt only pity. “When… when my Lola died,” she said softly,  “the world also ended for her. But the world didn’t really end, not for my Lolo, not for my parents. Apart from your wife, don’t you have anyone else?”

Corporal Sitan looked straight into Tala’s eyes and let out a deep sigh. 

 “What could a child really know of grief?” he huffed. “Larva.”

“Sorry po,” she ventured, “my parents always tell me that we can’t have everything we want. ” 

Corporal Sitan paused for a moment, before suddenly howling with renewed rage. Tala gasped as he started attacking the bamboo trees with a laser bolo. Startled, she ran westward, thinking of her Lolo and Lola.

She had never met her grandmother in the flesh. All she remembered was her Lola’s Anito, a memorial android built to look like her grandmother in her prime. It could cook excellent leche flan and, like her xenobiologist Lola, knew everything about plants and animals. It was cold to the touch and had no feelings. Despite its life-like synthetic skin, asking for a blessing felt like pressing an ice pack to her forehead.  

Would the ocean steal away what made Lolo her Lolo too? Tala worried.

Beyond the clearing was another plain, one even larger than the last– so immense that it seemed absolutely endless. Under the orange glow of twilight, she could see the emerald tsunamis rippling across the cogon grass, restless and shifting like the waters of her imagined ocean. 

Tala ran and ran until she suddenly hit a wall. An invisible wall of impregnable glass that had come out of nowhere. She smashed against it so hard, the force threw her to the ground most forcefully. Above her, the bowl of the sky seemed to quiver and reverberate like an angry bell, banging and clanging for the dead. She had reached the end of their world but there was still no ocean. 

Tired and defeated, she cried on the soft earth. 

Sabaduh | Ligid | Saturday

When Tala woke up, she was back in her own bed. It was already the next day. Her grandfather had been tending to her all night. 

“An officer, Captain Anagolay was her name I believe, discovered you by the perimeter wall,” he grunted. “What were you doing out there? The poor woman had to carry you home.” 

“I’m sorry for all the trouble, Lolo.”   

 “You were trying to find Mother Ocean,” the old man said softly. “Oh, my child, don’t you worry. I will be going home to your grandmother.”

“Don’t go to Mother Ocean, Lolo!” Tala cried, reaching out to hug her Lolo tightly. “It’ll turn you into an Anito robot and you won’t remember you love me–  just like Lola!”

“Lola went to Mother Ocean just before you were born,” her grandfather comforted. “Her Anito AI knows who you are, but she can’t express what she feels for you, not in a way that you’d understand. One day soon, your Mama and Papa will let you sleep on her blanket, and mine.”

“Why do you have to go?” Tala asked, between sobs. 

“My body is old. It’s like a starship that can no longer be repaired,” Lolo gently explained. “But don’t be sad. My own grandfather used to tell me that Life doesn’t start at birth and doesn’t end in Death. You and I will always be together. Do you know why?”

Tala shook her head.

 “Because you know all my stories in your heart.”

Tala felt her grandfather’s arms wrap around her tightly. She buried her face into his arms.

“Captain Anagolay left her hat,” he said softly, pointing his snout at a wide-brimmed salakot embroidered with slowly changing star patterns lying on the dining table. “Do you really want to see the ocean?” 

Tala nodded.  “Won’t you get in trouble?”

“Your Lolo used to be a soldier,” he said. “I have a plan.” 

The old man fetched one of the floating harvester baskets and Captain Anagolay’s salakot. They loaded the basket, some sweet potatoes, and the wide-brimmed hat onto their family’s utility vehicle, a funny-looking multi-legged craft that resembled a giant isopod from an ancient deep sea     . 

The utility vehicle crawled swiftly across the village, past Mrs. Idiyanale’s house and her cloned chickens, past a hilly field where Balakbák and Balantáy’s broken war kites– thankfully biodegradable– had been abandoned. They journeyed for a little over half an hour, until they reached the Forest of Screaming Trees, now heavily damaged by the depth of Corporal Sitan’s anger. Beyond the bamboo debris field lay the vast plain where the invisible wall stood. 

As the isopod utility vehicle reached the outer security perimeter, it halted by the shade of an undisturbed bamboo grove, encircled by thickets of beach roses. The air was filled with the fragrance of late dry-season flowers and pink-orange fruit. Her Lolo gestured for Tala to climb inside the floating harvester basket. She fidgeted nervously as her grandfather arranged the salakot and a few plump sweet potatoes around her head, before carefully securing the cover. 

“Are you sure they won’t catch me?” she asked. 

“The outside of this basket is covered with a radiation reflecting cloth woven from soft gold, manganese, and copper. The inside is lined with my old quantum stealth battle cloak,” he explained. “You will be invisible.” 

Once her grandfather and the floating harvester basket reached the wall, a strange door of crystal and shimmering metal appeared. He put his hand on one of the glowing moonstone panels. As soon as they were safely strapped inside, the cabin began to ascend rapidly. He adjusted the cover of the harvester basket so that Tala could peek at what was around them.

The village, and everything the young girl had ever known, lay on one of the spinning decks of a gigantic, 700-kilometer spaceship. Seven hundred floors above their village lay the special magnetic sphere bottling an enormous ocean. Millions of river-like crystalline pipes flowed to and from it, feeding an asteroid-sized torus of water circling their ship like a finely woven basket.

“We are our world…” Tala whispered.

“That is the human singularity where all our ancestors sleep,” he added. 

Her grandfather re-fastened the basket cover as the lift arrived at its destination. 

“What can I do for you, General Maykapál?” Captain Anagolay asked, as the old man arrived with the floating basket.  

“I sent you a message to tell you that you had forgotten your salakot,” he said, opening the harvester and taking out the officer’s hat.

“Oh yes,” Captain Anagolay said. “Thank you so much, Sir. You didn’t have to. I was going to come back for that, but I have just been so busy. The fighting on some of the Bulan satellites has been so intense lately. There are so many bodies to process for Mother Ocean.”

“I am sorry to hear that. Thousands of generations and we still can’t get along…Oh, I also want to bring you these,” Lolo added, giving her half a dozen purple sweet potatoes. “These are soil-grown, not replicated. It’s my wife’s special hybrid. Consider it my thanks for finding my granddaughter.” 

Captain Anagolay thanked him profusely. After a short goodbye, her Lolo and the harvester returned to the lift and back towards the lower surface. Above them, the ocean tide rose and fell as if it was breathing deeply. As soon as they exited the crystal lift, the door closed behind them like a tomb.

They rode the isopod in silence. A carillon of bells pealed somewhere in the distance. Tala knew that swarms of air jellies would soon descend from the heavens to scrub the air clean of cosmic radiation, but she was too lost in thought to look out for them. 

Once they arrived home, grandfather sighed and muttered to himself. “I’m afraid I have some bad news from the molecular engineering hospital,” he said quietly. “But your Mama and Papa are returning from the Bulan satellites tomorrow. They will bring you my blanket.”

“I know,” Tala said, trying very hard not to cry, even as the tears began streaming down her cheek.

“We are here to keep watch over each other, child, not to keep,” her grandfather whispered. “I have waited all my life to return to Mother Ocean.” 

 “I will go back to Mother Ocean to find you,” Tala declared. “But… but only when I have earned it. After school I’d like to learn how to fly a guryon, then maybe a Guryon spaceship. I want to be a great warrior like you. The ocean is a reward I haven’t earned yet.”

“If that’s what you want,” Grandfather smiled and sighed at the same time. “But who will take care of my sweet potatoes?”

Tala squeezed his hand tight. 

“Bring my stories to the future,” Lolo whispered.

The two of them sat quietly in the dark utility vehicle watching the air jellies twinkle like stars. 

About the Author. Victor Fernando R. Ocampo is the author of the International Rubery Book Award shortlisted The Infinite Library and Other Stories (Math Paper Press, 2017 ; US edition: Gaudy Boy, 2021) and Here be Dragons (Canvas Press, 2015), which won the Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Award in 2012. His play-by-email interactive fiction piece “The Book of Red Shadows” debuted at the Singapore Writers Festival in 2020. 

His writing has appeared in many publications including Apex Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Future Fiction, Likhaan Journal, Strange Horizons, Philippines Graphic, Science Fiction World and The Quarterly Literature Review of Singapore, as well as anthologies like The Best New Singapore Short Stories, Fish Eats Lion: New Singaporean Speculative Fiction, LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, the Philippine Speculative Fiction series and Mapping New Stars: A Sourcebook on Philippine Speculative Fiction.

He is a fellow at the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference (UK) and the Cinemalaya Ricky Lee Film Scriptwriting Workshop, as well as a Jalan Besar writer-in-residence at Sing Lit Station (2020/2021).

Visit his blog at vrocampo.com or follow him on your socials at https://beacons.ai/vrocampo