Shadows

In the summer of 1987, U2's number one song, "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," was bumped down by Madonna's "Who's That Girl," on the pop charts.

Coincidentally, these two songs complemented one boy's fate to a confusing soon-to-be journey with a pre-selected soundtrack to a movie nobody would ever see. The mystery of the Universe already took hold of him, leading him down a path few could ever explain with clarity.

Quite possibly, the Universe conspired to communicate with him through one specific event: a haunting, which only the unique mind of Eu El not only accepted but also understood in a way that "normal" people would have difficulty holding their lunch in if they knew what was waiting for them after their time on earth expired.

Throughout centuries the mystery of life and death have left many unanswered questions. Yet, unknowingly, the truth subtly reveals itself in some form or another. Sometimes, these "signs" would appear clearer when, as the saying goes, "we stop to smell the flowers."

And, Eu El loved the smell of flowers.

Many forgettable and unforgettable childhood memories constantly ran through Eu El's thoughts. However, no memory would be as defining as one particular event which he would soon face. In fact, even then, if anyone understood what the Universe was trying to tell him, no living soul with a conscience would see this as a blessing nor opportunity for any child.

If, however, there were to be a young adolescent capable of competing with the supernatural, then fate could not have chosen a more suitable warrior than Eu El, a boy with a name his father unintentionally gave him, and nobody could pronounce correctly the first time.

Unscripted, the second syllable is similar to a fictional super hero, whose "El" stood for hope in a faraway planet destroyed by a solar explosion.

Evoked by a simple question that had yet to be asked, this boy's life would soon be faced with an uncontrollable, frightful anomaly that would haunt him behind almost every dark corner for the remainder of his life, lingering from a faraway place that few ever visited. More so, both the believers and non-believers alike would not be willing to accept what they discovered in those dark corners which stood out in clear sight. Even when whatever was discovered there stared back with glowing red eyes, the truth of their existence was hidden well behind the walls of denial.

Their presence would never be as convincing as this story; true to every aspect written from a mind conditioned by nature than by imagination.

In one such dark corner, Eu El patiently stays out of his father's sight. Quietly, he waits for that moment he could get his father's attention without interrupting his evening watching the latest releases on HBO.

Too young to understand the life of a lifelong laborer, a life his father has known since the 1950s working in a bakery somewhere in Manila, Philippines, Eu El secretly longed for a time that would never come in which he could play catch with his Dad.

He had no idea the hours of his dad's overtime working at the Post Office were funding the dreams of El's immigrant relatives rather than his aspirations of one day becoming an athlete, or owning a comic book business.

"Dad, can I play baseball? My friends are all on a team," El recalls asking his father in the fifth grade.

His Dad's response usually went something like this...

"No! You're going to fail! Don't waste my time!"

El's respect to his father was as relevant as his existence: both went unnoticed.

At the finale of each T.V. show, his dad committed to either these two things:

He either took a bathroom break, or he grabbed a chilled drink from the poorly lighted, outdated refrigerator before returning to dabble with the channel changer for the remainder of the evening, before falling asleep on his new Lazy Boy chair.

The good news was satellite t.v. had yet to be available to the public for another five years. Any sooner, the distraction of advancing technology may had convinced El's dad that he never had a middle born child.

The thought of beginning freshman year in high school made El's last summer as a kid feel as if it was doomed to end like some kind of disastrous movie without resolution, a struggling disappointment in which his bond with his father hardly was weakly developing since his birth. He prepared a list of questions for his dad that sounded more like a bucket list written in question form.

Can you take me fishing, Dad? (And, I don't mean to literally take me to the lake in the morning, and dump me there alone until you finish watching the NBA playoff game against the Lakers).

Mom said you played catcher in high school. Can you teach me how to throw a baseball?

Dad, the last movie we watched together was "Raiders of the Lost Ark." I was in the second grade. Will we ever watch a movie together again?

But, there seemed to be more pressing questions. These questions, harbored from worry, distracted him from all his other listed questions. If no effort was made to seek answers for himself, then these questions would linger like an invisible phantom weighing down his soul until his sanity broke.

Like a candle that was moments away from burning the last length of its wick, the exhaustion of his quest for his father's acknowledgement simmered down to whatever radiance of innocence Eu El had left in his thirteen year old spirit.

"Dad, why'd you give the Christmas present mom bought me in the first grade to my cousin?"

"Dad, why don't you ever celebrate my birthday?"

"Why did you break all of mom's plants the other week?"

His mom's voice coincidently interrupts from inside her room, "It's late! Go to bed!"

Maybe it wasn't coincidence. Instead, it was a mother's way of avoiding trouble inside the home. El's father was sensitive to insults, which clearly showed when he lost control of his emotions.

"Okay, mom!" El shouts back.

El's swell of anxiousness was enough for him to conjure up a mutter of a single word which, from many years ago, drowned from his father's neglect, indicating the incomplete distillation of doubt that remained within his voice.

"D-D-Dad?"

He waits as he did many nights before for his reply. However, much like every night, the re-runs dominated over El's presence.

Repositioning himself between his father and the television, El discovers his dad to be sound asleep. The consistency of his father's habits lead him to hypothesize the possibility of television having a direct impact in the flat lining of brain activity.

"Dad?" El attempts again.

"Wha...What?" his father finally responds as if the sound of his son's voice resuscitated him from a near death experience.

"Eu El! Go to sleep!" his mother, again on cue, interrupts from her room.

"I'm just asking Dad something!"

Perhaps, it was the annoyance of being hurried by his mother. Or, maybe, it was the innate nature of a son's eagerness to connect with his father that was to blame for having El speak before thinking. Instead of asking any of his prepared questions, El decides on a different topic: the relatives.

El knew this topic would energize his father with the enthusiasm needed to talk until dawn; but he also knew the slightest mention of the relatives would be like opening Pandora's box.

To El, however, after all the trouble his father put him through, releasing unimaginable evil into the world seemed like a fair trade.

As innocent as his question began, El unknowingly opened the door to a familiar but unspoken, dark reality camouflaged by the world's denial with just six words:

"Dad, did Grandpa and I ever meet?"

"Huh...?" his dad replies, half awake. "Grandpa? Your grandpa was a gambler; he was never home. Always playing *mahjong."

"Did I ever meet him?"

"Sorta...Why?"

"What do you mean 'sorta,' Dad?'"

"What?" his father responds, bewildered that a conversation between him and his second born was transpiring. "You were two years old when he sorta visited us in Novato."

Confused, but content with where the direction of their conversation was heading, El continues, slightly bolder and not overthinking.

"I don't get it, Dad. I thought you said Grandpa never came to visit us here in America."

His deduction was enough for his father to take a confused glance at El's curious eyes before reconnecting back to the television. "You weren't old enough to remember when he visited."

"I don't get it."

Never looking down at the buttons of the channel changer, El's father turns the television off with the grace of a blind man reading a braille sheet. In a continuous motion, El's father straightens his posture on the recliner and begins the story his son already lived, but was too young to remember. Even with much effort, his father could not get comfortable.

"Well," he repeats, straightening his back, "you were still wearing diapers, and playing with your brother in the room when you met him. Your brother ran outside yelling somebody had walked into the room. You were too young to talk, but I found you babbling to someone who wasn't there."

Eu El's gaze turns into the lost look of a child placed in a calculus course.

There was something to fear when El's father mentioned about "someone who wasn't there." This phrase was enough for fear to burrow deep into El's mind, and later seep out through his pores in the form of goosebumps that had formed on his arm.

"I saw you pushing your trucks as if you were playing with someone in front of you," his dad continued.

"Then what?" El asks, clearly spooked. "Was it...grandpa?"

"I didn't know at the time. I mean, I didn't know until after you rolled your toy trucks in front of you."

"Then, what?"

"I," his father clears his throat. "I saw how every time you rolled your trucks, the trucks kept rolling back to you."

"On their own?" El asks.

"Yeah," his father unsettlingly validates. "They rolled back to you by themselves. One...

by...

one."

"You wouldn't remember any of this," his dad reminds him, noticing the denial in his son's eyes. "But, I know what I saw."

El struggles to ask, "What happened afterwards?"

"The telephone rang. And, that's when I understood."

"Understood what?"

"The call was from your relatives living overseas. They call for a couple of reasons. First, if they need money. Or, if someone died. It wasn't coincidence how, on the night they called, something strange happened."

His father pauses, noticing the light of acceptance beginning to shine inside El's eyes.

Whatever was inside Pandora's box seemed to had found El's soul with just a few words from his father that summer evening back in 1987.

"Before our relatives said anything, I told them, 'Don't say it. I already know. My dad is dead, isn't he?'"