Good Friday Sickness
When I was a small child the most terrifying day of the year was Good Friday. It was scarier than Halloween, more petrifying than playgound games, more horrendous even than the first day of school. It was The Day God Died.
You couldn’t make noise before 3 p.m. because God was dying, and you couldn’t make noise after 3 p.m. because God was died. If you so much as scraped your chair on the floor, the ancients would glare at you and say, “Sssh!” They would point at the crucifix, at the bloodied, broken body of Christ and say, “Patay ang Diyos!” If God was dead, it meant that devils and other loathsome creatures roamed around the earth, feeding on the little children. They could be lurking behind the garden swing, hiding in the aparador, lying in wait under the bed. It was enough drive you cowering under a table until Easter Sunday. To be safe, I carried a flashlight all the time.
Visiting aunts and uncles would drink innumerable cups of coffee and discuss anting-anting – amulets which protected their owners or gave them special powers. For some reasons, the procurement of anting anting always involved killing a black cat and burying it at a crossroads in the dead of night, then digging up the cat’s skeleton on Good Friday and taking a particular bone. In return for his grisly labors, the finders would be protected from curses, knives, bullets, lightning and other potentially fatal occurrences. I remember one blowhard, an acquaintance of my parents, who claimed to be invulnerable to bullets. I could almost believe him, for it seemed that bullets would not penetrate his armor-thick skin, or he was shielded by a force filed made up of noxious gases.
Until Sunday dawn, a cloud of dread would hang over the household. I would sit very, very still on my bed, clutching in one hand the faded flannel blanket I refused to surrender as a car rag, and in the other hand a pair of art class scissors. The scissors would come in handy in case of an aswang attack. The aswang, a horrid woman who’d had a bad hair life, would sit on the roof, lower her long, thread like tongue through a crack or a window attached to it to your stomach, and slurp up your innards like a milk shake through a straw. I maintained a high level of alertness, ready to cut the monster’s tongue with my Looney Tunes scissors.
Today I am a large child and Good Friday is two days after, is still the most terrifying day of the year. It is scarier than rent day, more petrifying than breathing next to a congressman, and more horrifying than a day without conditioner. The reasons, though, are different.
Except the tingling pressures and high blood cells disturbing my mind due to a long wait sitting here in the lobby of an airport, the reasons are really really different. All the malls are closed, and the absence of an activity with which no pass the time is terrible to contemplate. What are we to do? Will we be forced to do something or consequences?
All the movies showing have Charleston Heston flexing his jaws or Victor Mature with a look on his face that says, “I should’ve eaten more fiber and prune juice.” Once again the face of that splendid ham Richard Egan shall fill the screen, with eyes flashing and eyebrows flying, pointing at Richard Burton and screaming, “Rrrromansss! Kneel before your Emperah!”
But what really freezes the blood is that devils and monsters don’t even wait for Good Friday anymore. (Yes, bien, you are a monsterrr) They roam the earth every single day. They have free rein, and worse, you can’t even identify then on sight. Devils don’t have horns, tails, and pitchforks theses days’ many of them wear expensive suits and drive luxury cars. Aswangs don’t have to lower their tongues through a crack on the roof; they have to lower their tongues through a crack on the roof; they have more efficient ways to drain people of blood – they worm their way into public office.
Today’s devils and monsters look just like everybody else. They’re double insidious: they pretend to have your best interests in mind.
And no scissors or anting anting can help you. 
