The Hand In Laguna

The Hand in Laguna (by Lallie) She sees his left hand shaking. “Pasmado,” she tells him. “Told you, don’t wet your hands after using the typewriter.” He smiles at her. “I use the computer now,” he jests. Dr. Myrna Tuazon shakes her head. “It may be serious. For all we know, you may be showing early signs of leprosy.” There’s a sigh. Her husband Raul grins. “Well, that will give you an excuse for leaving me.” Of course she won’t leave him. They’ve been married for more than two decades. They started out as college sweethearts, were best friends before that. They took the same course: Biology, the study of life for they argued that they both love life. It was in Biology that they realized that life is not about love and humanity, it’s just about those cells and microscopic organisms. It was in Biology that they started questioning, doubting, and eventually disbelieving the existence of God. “The study of life, it’s basically the study of matter,” Raul would usually opine. They’re both Ph.D. holders, both with an unfaltering expertise on microbiology. Myrna even hated one commercial before, “Ang germs, hindi bini-baby, pinapatay.” She told Raul, “Totally wrong. Ang germs dapat bini-baby, if we won’t study them, then tayo ang patay.” That constituted their usual banters, how the world could be broken down to its minute details, in matters of the emotion, they relied heavily on chemistry. “There’s always this chemical reaction in the brain, in the body that can explain what, how, and why we feel,” they agreed. Now they’re viewing their dean’s cadaver, neatly placed underneath the clear mirror of an expensive coffin. Myrna sees her husband’s left hand shaking a little. “You should visit a doctor,”

she tells him as her sight scans the loving one-liner tributes etched in blue ribbons at the insides of the coffin’s massive cover. Raul looks at her, grinning. “You’re just paranoid because we’re in front of death.” Death. It pounds on Myrna’s head for a while, even while she’s comforting the dean’s wailing widow. Death. It hangs on top of her head even after they drove off from the funeral parlor. Death. It lurks in her mind even after they’ve changed to their pajamas. Death. It sips through her thoughts even while checking her students’ exams. “Death,” she tells Raul. “Have you thought about it?” Raul narrows his eyes, pouts a little as he lowers the book that he’s reading and looks at Myrna. “The end. No ifs, no buts. We’ll be part of the earth’s gazillion microorganisms as we disintegrate.” “The dean’s wife. She was …” “Wailing.” Myrna joins her husband in bed. “Not that. She was only comforted when her sister told her, ‘Di bale, magkakasama pa rin kayo sa kabilang buhay.” “Part of their beliefs.” “It’s so stupid. I wanted to tell them not to give the grieving widow any more false hopes. Isn’t it pathetic to live the remaining years of your life believing that after death, you’ll still have a shot at life?” Raul lets out a soft laugh. “Don’t go around bursting bubbles. Let them believe in whatever they choose to believe in.” Myrna notices the shaking left hand once more. “You better do something with your left hand.”

With left hand raised, Raul says, “This may be the curse for the kaliwete. Maybe the right-handed doesn’t have whatever I have. We kaliwetes must be using more of our brain, more of those neurons.” He pauses, looks intently at Myrna. “But you can never say that kinaliwa kita.” Myrna’s face becomes serious. “I’m worried.” “Di bale, magkakasama pa rin tayo sa kabilang buhay.” “Ay Raul. That’s the problem, we’ll never know.” Raul puts his arm on his wife’s shoulders. “Why don’t we make a pact? Whoever goes first, you know, dies, will come back to tell the other if there is an after life. Of course we won’t be able to come back if there’s no after life.” Two years later, Raul dies. Myrna’s strength lives through as the cancer slowly eats her husband away. A day after his burial, life goes on for Myrna. Her colleagues at the university in Laguna would have wanted her to take a leave, decompress, process the whole widowhood thing first, have a vacation after losing her beloved. But she brushes those suggestions off. “He’s dead,” she tells them. “That’s it. The end.” She’s been drowning her nose in a sea of exam papers when a pertinent knock at the door started irritating her. She’s living alone, now that Raul is dead. Since she doesn’t believe in a supernatural being, she also doesn’t believe in its demonic counterpart. She blames the wind, the impending typhoon for rattling her door. When the third continuous knock bangs the door, she could feel her mind racing for a weapon. “A burglar?” she whispers to herself. She pulls the drawer near the bed and gets Raul’s pistol. “I’m armed, you coward,” she calmly says as she aims the gun towards the door. Silence ensues. The ticking of the clock is in rhythmic unison with the ticking Myrna feels coming from her chest. She concentrates at the door. There’s nothing extraordinary about

the door, its creamy color hasn’t faded even if they haven’t repainted it for more than two decades. But there’s something wrong now with the door. At its very center, its cream-colored state seems to be changing into a darker hue. It becomes darker, and darker, until Myrna sees that cream becomes black. There’s something pushing the creamy-colored door right at its very center, but it isn’t pushing the whole door, it’s just pushing the color at its very center, until the center becomes black. Myrna slowly approaches the door, with pistol still in hand, with mind swarming with various chemical names that may cause discoloration on things. She bends a little to come face to face with the center of the door. The black spot glows. Little by little, like burning cinders, the black spot takes shape, with flaming redness outlining its very form. Myrna gasps. The black spot turns into the shape of a left hand. It’s inching its way out of the door, slowly, like a butterfly squeezing out of the cocoon. The left hand, scorching, shaking, tries to reach out to Myrna. She screams. She spends her afternoons now at St. Therese Chapel, just inside the university. She believes, the study of life is the study of microorganisms and matter, and what matters after death. END