by M.A. Del Rosario
Artwork by: M.A. Del Rosario
Simeon S. P. Balagtas didn’t understand the world anymore. Life wore him down, as everything was very different in his youth, and that was a very long time ago. Every day he sat in his small store along Carriedo Street near a busy Quiapo church, with a walking stick in one hand and a fan in the other, waiting for someone to buy. He sold different things, from clothing to underwear, and assortment of bootleg shoes and fancy trinkets. He also sold bootleg toys, and those sold more than everything else he had.
Simeon never understood the fascination for such things, for he didn’t have toys in his youth. He never found a fondness for it, even as he grew older. He didn’t understand why children were fascinated with these things and the foreign games that were a big hit to the modern youth when they could be playing Tumbang-Preso or Luksong Baka. Has the world influenced his country so much that traditional games matter little now, unlike before? Is his yesterday gone with the swath of modern influences?
Simeon looked up at the sky, sighed at the blistering heat and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He heard the clanging of bells as the midday mass started. The flock started their praises and lamented, as the choir sand and rejoiced in the risen Lord who had been dead for three days. Passers-by stopped to look at what he had to offer. Sometimes it was a good day for business, sometimes it wasn’t, but Simeon understood that not all days were good and that in his old age, he should be content with what came his way. He took out his lunch, stashed inside a worn backpack, and started to eat. Sautéed Sayote and a cup of rice filled his belly. It was all he could afford to eat that day. The mass had ended, yet, he hadn’t sold a single item, and it was already one thirty in the afternoon.
He shrugged and sang softly.
O ilaw, sa gabing madilim…
An old song. The words were sung off-tune, with a voice that faded in and out like a lost soul wandering the night. It was a painful tune because it brought him back to a painful time. But he learned to live with it eventually. Simeon had seen better days, and by that he meant that he had a good life before it was all swept away by an unwanted war and the tides of change.
Wangis mo’y bituin sa langit…
He lifted his head and recalled his youth. Images flashed in the air like some cinema against a backdrop of blue. Long ago. Distant. They were memories that were almost gone.
Simeon San Pedro Balagtas was born on a serene night in 1922, with stars that brightly glimmered and crickets that hummed in symphony. His cry broke the silence of the barrio as the hilot held him by the ankles and slapped his buttocks. This brought tears to his parents’ faces.
Time passed in the barrio and Simeon grew up to be a good boy of eight in the eyes of his parents. One day, he woke up to a noisy carabao and the voice of his parents talking. He heard his Nanay say goodbye to his Tatay, who was off to the fields early that morning. He lazily rose and rolled his banig over his pillow, placed it in a corner of the room and headed to the breakfast table. The smell of smoked fish and fried rice permeated but did not entice Simeon to eat. Instead, he read an old issue of Liwayway magazine a friend gave him the other day when he and Tatay visited the plaza.
“I want to act,” said Simeon, happily admiring the magazine cover.
“What are you talking about?” asked Nanay as she started to wash the dishes. “And start eating so I can wash your plate after.”
“I want to perform in the Bodabil. I want to be like them, like the actors that I read in this magazine! See, they’re like me before—poor—but I can do what they can do, too! Then I can help you and Tatay. We won’t be poor anymore.”
The boy had that sparkle in his eyes that his Nanay failed to notice before. She dropped what she was doing and asked surprisingly, “You can read?”
Simeon nodded.
“How can you read? You don’t go to school! We can’t afford school! How can you read?”
“I just can,” the boy said with a shrug.
“You smart boy,” said Nanay with a tight hug.
That night during supper, when Tatay returned from the fields, they talked more of his aspirations of becoming an entertainer. Nanay served fried fish and rice with boiled kamote leaves dipped in bagoong. Such a pleasant memory. It would have lingered longer, but his thoughts were broken by the voice of a woman buying shorts. Simeon held his memories back. The reminiscing could continue later. He smiled at the woman and greeted her with pleasantries, grateful that it was his first sale of the day. Sometimes, it was the only sale. He waved as the woman left. She didn’t wave back.
Simeon nodded as he held a hundred peso bill. Long ago, he had more than that, as he pursued his dream and indeed, became a performer in local vaudeville. But now, one hundred pesos was all he had, and he was thankful.
A light breeze managed to enter his store and touch his face—a warm caress on a blistering midday. He whistled, remembering his father’s whistling when his Tatay would lounge underneath the big mango tree and carve things with his knife. They were good wood carvings (or so he thought during those days of his youth) of carabaos and things made during siesta in the afternoons. Those carvings were long gone. Lost in time, between the passage of youth to adulthood where many things come and go. Yet he remembered those days, the shoddy scrapings of unpolished woodwork, crafted by loving hands beneath the blistering heat of the midday sun so that the hard life of a poor farmer could be bearable. His father enjoyed the craft even though his Tatay wasn’t good at it.
The breeze came and went, and so did the reminiscing, and the loud sound of a bustling crowd pulled Simeon back to reality. Back to life. Back to chaos.
An old man in thick glasses, wearing a red aloha shirt and grey khaki shorts, stood in front of the stall and wore a smile. It was a friendly smile, like one that you give to old friends, but Simeon smiled back without any recognition. He straightened himself, scratched his head, and with a voice crude and hoarse asked, “Simeon? Simeon San Pedro Balagtas?”
Simeon looked up to the old man with confused eyes. “Do I know you?” he asked with a scratch on his balding head.
“Yes indeed… Yes indeed! It’s me, Antonio Salcedo!”
Antonio Salcedo, a name that Simeon hadn’t heard in a long time. He recalled the name of his director in the days of Bodabil and the early days of black and white cinema—a man he thought was dead. He stood and shook the other’s hand.
“How are you?” asked Antonio, wearing a quaint smile that was true and affectionate.
“I get by,” honestly answered Simeon.
“Time hasn’t been kind to you,” Antonio shot back with his own honesty.
Simeon was quiet. He was offended. He was angry. But he knew that the old director was always like that—tactless and blunt. He regained his composure and remembered that he owed Antonio a great deal for helping him out during the days of the war.
“I’m sorry my friend,” said the old director. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that seeing you here, in this state, saddens me.”
“What do you mean this state? I mean, look at you! Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, if I may steal the quote from Mark Twain. But it seems that you look more dead than me!”
Simeon’s brows narrowed. The lines on his forehead became more pronounced as his ears fumed from Antonio’s lack of decorum. “Look here, Salcedo, my life has been a wreck since the war had taken so much from me! I don’t need you to talk to me like it was yesterday. I wept at the news of your death. They told me the Japs took you to Palawan where you were burned with the Americans. I couldn’t get the image of your ugly face burning out of my head up to now. So please, spare me your mockery because I just mourned for someone who isn’t dead, and now I feel like a fool in doing so.”
Antonio straightened himself and said, “I apologize if you thought that way, Simeon. You realize that we are eternal, forever encased in a display box meant to entertain the world—we can never die.” He crossed his arms before continuing. “You left when the war ended, when Manila was destroyed—you left, and we couldn’t find you.”
“We?” asked Simeon, hands flailing.
“That’s right! We. The whole production. We thought of restarting Bodabil, to entertain the troops while Manila was being rebuilt. It took a lot of convincing, but the Americans thought it was a great idea. They knew who you were. Some of them had seen your films. We looked for you, but we could never find you. And no, I wasn’t taken to Palawan. I was in Santo Tomas with everyone else.”
Simeon’s anger subsided. He started to cry. He cried because he wanted to get away from it all—the pain and the loss, and most of all, from himself.
“You walked out on us years ago,” said Antonio Salcedo, “Why did you do that? Have we become too irrelevant in your life? What happened to our friendship? Is it because of what happened to her?”
“Don’t even attempt to go there!” Simeon spat. The mention of the woman hurt him.
“Enough, Simeon. I am sorry, truly I am, but I pity what you have become. Take a look at yourself, selling these things that don’t really matter to you. You could have been a Dolphy or a Rogelio de la Rosa! You could have been a legend with people clamoring for your name—waiting to see you. Instead, you left us without even a word. We couldn’t find you. It was like the world ate Simeon S. P. Balagtas and his legacy became just a lie!”
The old man looked long and hard into the other man’s eyes. Simeon saw himself stare back, but it was the younger version of him, and it was then that he realized that he had made a mistake, that it was his anger that took the better of him. Simeon lowered his gaze and gave a deep sigh.
“We shouldn’t be having this conversation, Salcedo.”
“You’re right,” said Antonio while he scratched his head and shrugged.
“What I did I cannot undo,” continued Simeon with remorse. “I left because I had to.”
“Well, what can I say? I did try to find you after you left. We all did.”
“Why?”
“Because you are our star… the star! You are Simeon S. P. Balagtas, the star of Bodabil! You are Bodabil!”
“Don’t you mean were?”
“Were? My dear Goerge, we still are, and we actors will never fade in the eyes of those who have witnessed our glory! If you still remember those days, then you are still living it! In our memories, our past shall not waver, even in our most dire of days!”
“Still the Shakespearean I see,” said Simeon with much musing.
“I am! This new world cannot take that away from me. So much has changed since our time on the stage and song and dance. Now there is television—the internet by God—and cinema has changed a great deal! Everything is easy, and within reach, yet the simpler it gets, the more complicated life is. How can such a thing be? This new world has taught us idealism and self-worth, but most of us just don’t get it, and we end up being bigots and self-righteous individuals. I see it happening in this thing called Facebook.”
“What’s that?” asked Simeon with a bewildered expression.
“Something that’s on the internet. People these days are hooked on it. They rarely have lives anymore—always looking at someone else’s page, someone else’s gossip. It’s like these things have become a part of them; an extension of themselves! Nobody really talks to anybody anymore these days. It’s a sad thing… really, it is.”
“And you don’t have one of those gadgets?”
“Me? No! Never! What would I do with it? If I want to talk to someone, I’ll use the telephone, or better yet, go to their house. If I want to watch a movie, I’ll go to the cinema. If I want to read, I’ll get a book. If I wanted to lose myself I’d go to a theatre—but even that has dwindled over the years. No, not me!”
Simeon took out a pack of cigarettes and started to smoke. The trending times with their luxuries in technology were alien to him. In fact, it irritated him. It lacked passion. It was all artificial. This modern world paled in comparison to the wonders of yesteryear when things were done with wit and wisdom, and humanity only strived for excellence. He stared at Antonio adamantly as he puffed a smoke and said, “I gave you my answer.”
Antonio, at that point, had given up. He knew that Simeon was stubborn and could not easily be convinced. He turned around, and with a side glance, he said, “You don’t belong in this time, Simeon. None of us do. I’m directing something new if you’re interested. It has song and dance and sadness and fun!”
“I… can’t,” replied Simeon with uncertainty.
“I have a feeling you’ll change your mind soon enough.”
With a confused look, Simeon watched the old Antonio Salcedo walk away. “Aren’t you going to give me your contact number?” he shouted.
“I’ll know when you have decided. When that time comes, I’ll send someone for you. Remember that the war is over Simeon, and it’s about time you give yourself another chance.”
The answer was more of a whisper, and Simeon could have sworn he heard it in his mind. The old director disappeared into the crowd. There was always something peculiar about that man. It was like Antonio existed in another plane of reality, and he strived for perfection. It was like everything else in the world was an imperfect story in his mind and that the world needed him to give it a proper direction. Yet, with all his eccentricities, Antonio, the great director of the old stage Bodabil, was hailed and revered. His unconventional methods were drowned by the brilliance of his work. That was always the goal of the old director—to raise the level of consciousness of his viewers, and if a nerve was struck, then his goal had been achieved.
Now, in all of the places in Manila, it was in Carriedo that the great Antonio Salcedo reappeared, and the man didn’t even buy anything Simeon was selling.
***
The sound of trumpets blared. It pulled the audience closer, caressing their anticipation, until the band picked up the pace of a lively chorus as the red curtain rose like the feathery wings of a magical bird that opened up to a wonderland of people in colorful costumes. The women in their flamboyant attire flicked their legs up and down, sideways and front, frolicking and dancing in a rhythmic pattern before a crowd of spectators with eyes that sparkled with delight.
From the darkness of a grandiose stage entered the main act for the night. The famed actor Simeon S. P. Balagtas, who sang and danced like he was the god of the stage, stepped in with his microphone in hand and wooed the audience—his audience—and in turn, they wore smiles that didn’t diminish until the end of his presentation.
The tapping of shoes echoed. The sound of the band sped in tempo, then stopped, then started again with the tapping of shoes. He looked to his side, and in she came. With arms that majestically flapped, Simeon placed the microphone onto the stand and slid his way to the dancing goddess. There, they danced in the middle of the stage. Tap tap tap! Their shoes sang in a chorus of bewilderment.
Again, the audience applauded. Such a remarkable presentation!
After several hours of impeccable dancing, singing, and acting, the curtains withdrew, and the seats slowly emptied.
Silence embraced the theatre.
In the dressing rooms, the joy continued with haughty laughs and simple jests as the performers and the stagehands mingled after a successful show. The thought of war was forgotten, at least for the night, for in an occupied Manila one might ponder what hellish things happen in the dark spaces of occupied halls and homes. The sound of boots echoed in the still night, and far-off gunfire rattled in the silence of the night. Such were the worries and woes of the citizens, and yes, at least for one night, Bodabil had lured them out of their misery. Those worries plague the performers too, for the longing of work in front of the camera, for a script of drama or comedy, action or horror, itched in the recesses of their hearts. They knew the importance of Bodabil, they thanked it, and yet the prestige of performing for cinema cried in their silent hearts.
But amongst all of them, Simeon S. P. Balagtas was content. He liked Bodabil and its simplistic nature. It was far different from the grueling work schedule of making a movie. In Bodabil, there was only the stage and the audience. It was more solemn and intimate in a way. There was some form of perfection in the performance. You can’t make any mistakes, not with a live audience watching.
A kiss came to his cheek. Her lips were bare, yet they sparkled with a deep red as though no makeup was necessary. His goddess. He looked at her. His gaze was deep and emotional. She shot back with a look of a job well done. He loved her intimately—passionately—and he would move mountains for her.
She was Elena. They congratulated each other. Their act was the highlight of the night. The two of them had performed together for the longest time. As he sang, she danced, and most of the time, she was his damsel-in-distress in many of their skits. It was a lovely time—a joyous time amid the chaos that devastated the world.
The bombs came to the world. Cities fell. In a time of doom, their love blossomed. Simeon and Elena realized they wanted nothing more than to spend eternity with their arms wrapped around each other. They were not sure of their future or if they would even survive the war, yet hope sprung eternal in their minds and hearts, and they knew that with their love, they would never die.
***
Simeon stared at the orange hue turn to a purple tinge as twilight ate the afternoon sky. He saw birds streak past the patches of clouds that hung like a magician’s hand, wiping the sky’s surface, revealing the first stars. He had seen fewer stars lately compared to when he was young. He read somewhere that it was the pollution and the bright lights of the city obscuring the night sky. That was all science he didn’t pay attention to—something he didn’t understand. All he saw was an art form that people should marvel at. He didn’t need an explanation for everything.
The street of Carriedo was busily closing. He looked around at the thinned crowd, turned and made his way back. He locked up the store, sighing at the thought of not reaching his quota for the day. He hoped business would be better the next day. He had to pay rent, more than anything else.
Slinging his worn backpack, Simeon walked to Plaza Miranda and headed to a sidewalk eatery near a fast-food restaurant. He ordered his dinner: a small bowl of hot noodle soup and a glass of water. He couldn’t eat at the fast-food restaurant. The last time was months ago when he had extra money to buy a hamburger meal. Nowadays, he couldn’t even afford to commute home, and so after eating, he started his trek to Arlegui Street, where the small room he rented waited for him.
The evening was alive, bustling with traffic, and gossip carried through the air. Simeon couldn’t recall how many times he had walked up and down the steps of the building to his room on the third floor. He only remembered the faces of the tenants that came and went. Most of them were old like him. His keys jingled as he unlocked the door. Inside waited a bed and the mess that he left that morning. The door silently closed with the hinging of a lock. He opened the bottom drawer of his rundown plastic cabinet and dug into the pile of underwear. He pulled out a round can of biscuits, opened the lid, and frowned at what he saw. He counted three hundred and sixty-five pesos. He reached inside his pocket and added the three hundred he earned for that day. At least he had six hundred. Not enough for next week’s rent.
Beneath the paper bills and coins was a picture of him and Elena. He didn’t remember the date or the occasion the photo was taken. He only recalled that it was raining the night the picture was taken—the night she was taken from him. Tears ran down his face. The memories of yesteryears crushed his heart, suffocating him with melancholy. He cried, holding the photograph, wanting to squash it with his hands, but his hands didn’t permit him to. He cried, letting the darkness take him, letting the sadness of many years wash over him, calling out to Elena in silence.
***
The last days of the war devastated the city of Manila. The gunfire and the dead filled the streets as allied soldiers pushed their way into a city that was already mourning the death of its soul. Beneath the canopy of the night sky shone the moon, looking down with sadness as silhouettes moved from within shadows, soldiers and citizens alike, looking for respite beyond the doom. Simeon and Elena hunkered down in a secret room on the second floor of their house in Paco. It was his home—a house Simeon proudly bought with his earnings before Manila was declared an Open City.
He was sixteen then, playing the role of an older man because he looked the part. His breakthrough film was lauded by critics. It was a huge success, and the producers gave him a bonus because they said the film wouldn’t have been a hit without him. The black and white film about a man and a talking bird made him a star. Simeon heard from the neighbors that the Japanese were ordered to kill every Filipino they could find—none was to be left alive. He also heard that the Americans were winning, and yet, he thought, victory always came with a heavy price. And so he hid, holding in his arms his most prized possession. In that small room hidden from the world was enough food to last them for a week. He hoped they could survive the coming days.
He was awakened by cracks of gunfire that seemed closer to their house. He saw Elena sitting beside him, looking at him with blank eyes, absent from the world. She was abducted by enemy soldiers. Simeon thought he could never get over the ordeal almost a year ago, but he knew he was a stronger person than people gave him credit for, and he never gave up on his Elena, though, more often than not, her mind was somewhere else.
Their secret room seemed smaller and suffocating. Simeon panted, seemingly in a panic, but he saw Elena looking at him like there was some semblance of recognition. He calmed himself. She closed her eyes. It was during the moments when Elena would cry relentlessly and shake violently that he thought his world would crumble. All he could do was hold her tight and pray for the moment to pass. But sometimes there were somber days when all was quiet, as Elena would sit by the window and stare up at the sky with an open mouth. Simeon would wipe the saliva that dripped down her mouth. He wished for more somber days now that the enemy was at their doorstep.
“Elena?” Simeon called, almost in a whisper. “Hold on tight, my love. Please… Hold on to me.” During that moment, Elena looked at him, long enough for eternity to recognize their love. The sound of the chaos outside subsided, and there were only the two of them for that brief moment until Elena looked past Simeon’s shoulder and stared blankly at the wall. Simeon cried, realizing that Elena was gone again. He started to shiver as the years of hardship came down on him, but he knew she needed him, and he knew how he could bring her back. He started to sing.
O ilaw, sa gabing madilim…
His voice was low and cracking. The folksong Aking Bituin was their love song, a testament to Simeon’s bravado when he took his guitar and serenaded Elena in one of their acts. It wasn’t part of the script, but he knew he wanted to do it, much to the surprise of everyone, especially Elena.
Wangis mo’y bituin sa langit…
Elena’s eyes moved from staring at the ceiling to meeting Simeon’s gaze. For a second, there was recognition. Her lips managed a smile, but that was only for a moment, as the sound of gunfire broke the temporary sanity of Simeon’s kundiman.
O tanglaw sa gabing tahimik…
Simeon continued singing, hopeful that Elena would return to him. But hope was a fish that swam in the sea of inevitability, and as he sang, the battle outside raged. Soon, not only gunfire was heard, but artillery fire reverberated within seconds of each other. The sound of buildings crashing somewhere paved the way to the smell of houses burning.
Simeon could only speculate what was happening outside. There was a rapid succession of gunfire. It was closer this time. The sound of vehicles whirred in the background. Another sound of canonfire. It was then he realized what he heard was a tank. His fear buried him all the more. He pulled Elena closer, and cried.
Something broke through the wall. A sharp sound followed by a pause—silence. There was a ringing in his ear. Simeon felt something wet drip on his arm. Chaos ate away the streets of Paco, and there was nothing that Simeon could do but hold his dead wife.
***
Simeon woke up to the sound of distant trumpets blaring to the tune of cabaret music. His wall clock said nine-thirty, but he failed to notice that the second hand wasn’t moving. He rose from the bed and looked out the window. The streets were empty, but he could hear distant sirens punching through the blaring trumpets.
The air felt like the 1940s—a rustic feel of a time long gone yet lingering in Simeon’s memory. Excitement overwhelmed him. He felt a youthful vigor start to crawl from his feet to his body, giving a jolt of a thousand lightning strikes with sprightly energy.
Off in the distance, he saw the bright lights of a vehicle approaching, then realized, as it came closer, that it was no modern car but a vintage sedan. It pulled over in front of his building, and from the backseat alighted a man dressed in a dark brown suit. The man seemed to sparkle as he made his way to the building entrance.
A knock on his door. Wondering who it was, Simeon made his way to the door but lost track of how he got there so fast. He released the bar lock and opened the door. The glow of his visitor blinded Simeon at first, but the glare subsided and he saw a short man tipping a bowler hat in greeting.
“Good evening, Simeon S. P. Balagtas,” said the short man, handing Simeon an envelope with his other hand. “You are invited to come to the opening of your Bodabil tonight. I will be your chauffeur.”
Simeon laughed. He thought it was funny. He thought everything was weird, and that maybe he was already insane.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?”
The small man didn’t reply. Instead, he turned around and beckoned for Simeon to follow. The old man, amused at his supposed derangement, followed the chauffeur with whimsical thoughts in mind. Their footsteps echoed along an empty hallway all the way down to the exit, and it seemed to Simeon, that even out in the empty streets, he could hear the sound of their footsteps. Then it stopped once the chauffeur opened the door.
The sound of a live band blared from afar. The tune of cabaret music became louder and clearer, and from afar, Simeon could see three lines of light play across the horizon. It was like the opening of a film from long ago, where searchlights filled a red carpet line accented by the glitz and glamour of movie stars. They strutted with their regal suits and fur coats, brandishing cigars and jewelry glittered with extravagance. Simeon remembered all the spectacle like it was yesterday.
As they drove off, Simeon saw Manila in a different light. It was like being in the past, when neoclassical architecture flexed its beauty upon the evening’s façade, and the lights shone brighter. The place was all aglow! Simeon felt young again. He didn’t feel the ache in his joints, and his body felt like a thousand years had been lifted off a dying carcass. The energy of yesteryear streamed through him and all around. He looked at his hands, and he seemed to have lost the wrinkles. He touched his face and laughed. If there were benefits in dreaming, it would be that you hardly ever need moisturizing cream to look and feel young. He laughed some more.
“We are nearing the theatre, sir. Your many admirers await your arrival.”
Simeon, wearing a smile on his face, nodded in excitement. He was an entertainer again—a man with a purpose—yet, somewhere inside, he felt empty. Something was missing in his dream. The smile faded as he looked at a sea of people standing by the sidewalk leading to the theatre. He saw many faces. Flashes from cameras blinded him momentarily. They were like ghosts in some haunted memory of his collapsed mind, chanting his name like he was a god reborn in the world.
“Don’t worry, sir. She is waiting for you.”
Simeon’s eyes returned to the chauffeur whose face he realized he had never seen. He moved his head forward, but it seemed that he couldn’t see the man’s face, like it always tilted at an angle every time he took a peek. He realized that he recognized the man’s voice, yet, he couldn’t place where he heard it. He simply shrugged and looked out into the festive crowd who started to chant his name. The car stopped in front of the theatre entrance.
The driver alighted the car and opened the door. As Simeon made his way out, he finally caught a glimpse of his chauffeur whom he realized he knew so well.
“Carlos!” Simeon said with delight. “Carlos Romulo. This is a very pleasant surprise.”
The esteemed statesman, Carlos P. Romulo Sr., drew a fresh smile and hugged his old friend. Carlos was a fan of Simeon from the very beginning, but they lost track of each other when the war started. The elder statesman was flown out of the country and Simeon remained.
“It is good to see you again, Simeon. When I heard from Antonio that you will be starring in a new Bodabil, I grew excited and couldn’t wait to see you. I insisted I be the one to fetch you.”
“But…” The words escaped Simeon as the chants of his name grew louder. “I am sorry I didn’t come to you after the war. I heard of your exaltation in government, yet, I wanted to be left alone.”
“I did try to find you, but only found your crew. You’re a hard man to find, Simeon, but here you are, on this fine night, back to the heaven you so longed for.” Carlos pointed to the crowd. “And there are your followers—your worshippers, god of the stage!”
Simeon gazed at the people, his adoring fans who chanted his name, and he felt their passion towards him. He felt alive again. But there was an empty space inside of it all, and he clutched his chest as the memories of Elena came flooding his mind.
Carlos tightened his grip on his friend’s shoulders and said, “Do not fret, old friend. She waits for you inside.”
Simeon felt his heart skip a beat. His anticipation overwhelmed him, and he failed to notice that he walked with a hop as he entered the theatre. He heard the music as each beat jolted his heart into a frenzy, and his eyes glimmered from what he saw. The spotlights danced with much fanfare, swaying with the music of strings and horns. The men behind the lights tapped their feet. Dancers in colorful costumes glided through a stage livened with elaborate drapes of reds and yellows. Then they all stopped and looked at the far end of the theatre as Simeon S. P. Balagtas made his way down the aisle and onto the front seats. Everyone clapped and cheered as the festivities rose to levels beyond glee, and the chants of his name resounded throughout time.
Antonio Salcedo emerged from the front row and embraced his friend. The old director cried, overwhelmed by the moment he thought would never come. He held his friend with outstretched arms and then looked to the stage.
“Take your place, my friend,” said Antonio, who looked young and regal, much to the surprise of Simeon. “Rise up to your heaven, to where you truly belong.”
Upon the director’s queue, Simeon felt a rush of energy. He felt his youth return—that astounding feeling he lost after the war. Gone was the apprehension and the guilt. He saw his hands glow under the spotlight. He felt the energy of a thousand years rush within his veins, streak across the theatre like a wave, shattering all his cynicism and despair. At that very moment, he was Simeon S. P. Balagtas, God of the Stage, and his power was absolute.
But what is a god without his goddess? The sound of the orchestra hummed a soft tune, and then silence. The sound of clattering soles broke the stillness of the moment. From behind the curtains emerged Simeon’s goddess, dressed in a sparkling gold dress, wearing only lipstick on her radiant face.
“It’s time to put on a show, my love.”
Elena reached out a hand with her eyes locked on Simeon’s. He reached out, and the moment their hands touched, the place erupted with a fury of a million loves rushing out into the universe, quelling the thousand-year thirst of a broken heart. Her smile was a radiance that Simeon welcomed, and inside was a warmth he thought he would never feel again. He felt more alive than ever! And he stepped onto the stage, sending ripples of hope as the audience felt it within their hearts. They clutched their chests as magic moved them. They cheered and marveled, and from that moment on, nothing could ever hurt Simeon again. He had regained his power and love, as mere mortals watched two gods dance and sway and sing on a forever stage where no twilight would ever dim their world again.
About the Author. M. A. Del Rosario is a Filipino artist and storyteller. He is a published author of graphic novels and short stories. He lies and makes up stories about monsters and gods. He is also an advocate of reading. He tells people to go to libraries, comic retailers, and bookshops. He lives with his family in a quiet subdivision where fireflies still exist and where cats question the existence of men. Sometimes, he talks to gods lost at sea. He still believes that magic is real. You can visit him at www.paperdrawing.com. His story, Cañao, was published in Philippine Genre Stories in January 2023.