“IGWANG nalulunod!” The loud scream by the Bayantel technician at the top of the tower shattered the excited buzz that accompanied the successful test-drive of the Wimax service down below. Everybody to the last man, and woman, turned their head in the pools’ direction. For a split nanosecond, there was a defeaning silence. Then all hell broke loose.
My feet and limbs froze, my heart pumped and my head spun. In situations like this, a father always knows. Deep in my gut, I know it was Ezekiel. But my mind is ferociously resisting the idea, the dire, totally unacceptable possibility: it can’t be him; he’s a very good swimmer; it must be somebody else.
Overwhelmed, Erwin did not know what to do and remained motionless at the tower top, his head turned towards the pool. The Bayantel guy has gathered hit wits and quickly slid down the tower in one fluid motion. But Jimmy, Joe, Richard and their colleagues are already on the ground, racing against time and each other to reach the outermost pool. But Tere and the guys with her have beaten them to the spot, leaving behind a broken Thinkpad that fell off her lap when the commotion started. Tere was almost sure it was Ezekiel: he was the only one in the area at the time. And she was the last one he spoke with.
She was holding Boke’s orange shirt when I finally reached the area. “EK! Ekoy! Ezekiel!” I kept on shouting over and over again.
“Mayo man baga igdi,” one Bayantel guy told another who had waded into the shallow pool.
“Hanapon nindo. Let us look around. He is probably just around here somewhere,” Jimmy Casin hollered to his people.
Joe meanwhile run over to the outpost at the resort entrance, and started talking to the VHF-armed caretaker, hoping to get a good lead. Richard, Tere and Erwin who has managed to come down kept me company as I went around, jumping from one pool to the other, from time to time joining me in a chorus shouting my son’s name.
Thirty minutes later, my voice already hoarse, I finally slumped on a concrete bench, hands cupping my distraught face, bewildered by the disaster that befell an otherwise triumphant event. Jimmy and Richard both sat beside me, Tere deposited Ezekiel’s shirt on my lap, while Erwin and Joe stood nearby, from time to time checking if the broken Thinkpad still works.
“Where could he be? He cannot disappear just like that.”
“My men are still looking, Will. We will find him,” Jimmy replied, his hand tapping my shoulder, trying to reassure me things will turn out right in the end.
“This is all my fault. I knew this would happen. I should not have let him go.
“I’m sure he’s just around somewhere. Who knows? Maybe this is one big practical joke he’s playing on us. On you.” Tere firmly volunteered, finally breaking an uncharacteristic silence since the moment I reached the pool area.
“Tere’s probably right. The fact that we can’t find him means he is still alive.” Richard seconded in a confident voice that tapered down towards the end of his rationalization, realizing that he has just uttered the unthinkable, albeit in a roundabout fashion.
WITHOUT his knowing, Richard’s analysis was actually spot on. After what seemed like eternity, Ezekiel finally sensed something solid forming at the sole of his feet, and the familiar buoyant feeling of floating in water. But wait! The temperature suddenly rose threefold, forcing him to scamper towards the surface with his Hawk Gear in tow, towards the pool edge that is...chocolate brown earth.
Dazed, disoriented and seared, he tossed his wet backpack a few feet forward and quickly worked himself out of the simmering pool. Breathing heavily, he prostrated himself on the rugged landing patch, laid still for several minutes, and then fell asleep.
Deep in slumber, he did not hear anymore the cautious, measured footsteps that went his way, coming from a group of five that had been there inside the cave ahead of him, waiting for some time now for him to finally show up.
“Can he really be the one in the prophecy, Prince Arjuna?”
“I agree with
“You probably made a mistake in your reading of the prophecy, Sahadeva,” Nakula chided his twin brother, chuckling. “You may be the most learned among the Pandavas, but it doesn’t mean you are right all the time. I’ll bet you: you just bungled this one bigtime.”
“Can we go back again to the babaylan’s prophecy?”
