a story from the second world war

When I was still a little boy (okay, so I was always overweight and not that little) I didn’t like going to sleep early (and not much as changed). When it was already bedtime, I’d always find a reason to get out of bed. My dad would then tell me that there was an aswang outside the window and he’d tell me that I should stay in bed and protect him. This, of course, would freaked me out and made me reconsider my wanting to watch TV. 

It was stories like those that somehow comes into play whenever I write my stories. I grew up in a household where stories about aswang and ghosts and duwende were part of every day conservation.

As it turns out, my dad’s family already had their fair share of paranormal encounters even before I was born.
Last August, me and Wella went to Bacolod, my dad’s home town. We went to the house where my dad grew up and had dinner with my cousins and my uncle.

That's my dad sitting on grandfather's knee.

My uncle told us the story of how my grandfather went missing during the Second World War. So, my Tito Jo used the Spirit of the Glass to track down the location of my grandfather. The glass slid across the wooden board and spelled out T-A-L-I-S-A-Y. 

Turned out my grandfather was captured by Japanese soldiers and was placed in a POW camp in Talisay. On the day of his execution, a new commander arrived at the camp. The officer turned out to be my grandfather’s classmate and he spared my grandfather’s life. 

It was just interesting to find out that how my family has always had some encounter with the supernatural even as far back as the 1940s.