"A Little Black Parade"

"A Little Black Parade"

by:

Virgilio F.De leon Jr. MD

It was a summer much like this when I went to a place called Malilico in Odiongan , Romblon. I was trying to impress a lady and since she said she enjoyed my company I walked her to her aunts house which was in that area.I found myself talking to her until midnight and we promised to see each later that day. I was staying over at a cousins place and they might be getting worried since I was out this late. It was about 5 or 6 blocks away from the Town Proper and that was a long walk. I didn't know then that I would be experiencing my own version of the Black Parade.

This long walk included passing by the Provincial Hospital , 3 Funeral places and the dark area of the Romblon State University(RSU). Piece of cake for someone like me. I was brave enough to bring that lady home and I can go home fine by myself. Since there might be a few drunk people passing this way and I was young I had a bottle of a 500 ounce Sprite at my weapon of choice. I was not going to need it that night though. Something was watching me.

When I got out of this girls house I noticed an animal , a black cat that was right across the road. It was staring at me. I stared back at it and walked on. The cat never walked to my side of the road but I did see it following my pace. It was walking over the few lamp posts. When I passed by a tree  , the cat was nowhere to be found. I thought it might have moved away.  

In it's place though was a dog. A normal sized dog. A black one. This one didn't look like it was going to attack me , it didn't have red blazing eyes or even snarling. It paced me too. After a while the dog disappeared as well. It was keeping its distance , looking at me from time to time while it seemed to sniff the air for something. I found that very odd but thought nothing of it. If it did come near me , I would just hit it on the head with the bottle in my hand.

I didn't know when but the dog was gone and I found myself alone until I came upon a little canal near the RSU and was surprised that there were about a dozen frogs there. All hopping after each other in the dark shallow water. The moonlight made their wet backs glisten.  All of them were black too. Someone must have poured a lot of oil on these poor things. Since I could not do anything for them , I just moved on.The toads just hopped on lazily in that canal.

I was near the town proper by now but before that was a tree on my left. Now it wasn't really odd to see a bird on a tree.Pretty common sight but this was already past midnight though and this one seemed like a black crow that was looking at me as a passed by.It made no sound. It merely turned its head toward me , flapped its black wings once and stood their on its legs. I gave the crow once last look and turned toward my grandmothers place in the town proper.

Nothing came near me that night. Nothing bit me or threatened me. I did not feel fear though maybe I should have. What were those black things? Was it a single Shapeshifter? Were they a whole family? Were they spirits of the night? If so they why did it seem like they were guarding me rather than invoking fear in me. The black parade never happened again. I would later learn that the family living near my lady friend were rumored to be Aswang. There was a myth that they do not attack anyone in their town , I may have benefited from that particularly rule. What bothers me is that all that time that they were looking at me in those different shapes I was not afraid.