"The Courteous Devil"

"The Courteous Devil"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

When I was 10 , I saw something in Poctoy , Odiongan, Romblon that would solidify my belief in the supernatural.Something that I still have no explanation for to this very day.

It was a summer day and night time was quick to come. Back in those days the lamp posts were too far in between and entire portions of Poctoy would be left in darkness with only the light of the moon to guide people who were unfortunate to still be out on nights like these.

During this particular night my Lola Charing was getting furious because my Ate Cherry and my cousin Lot have gone to the local bingo place which was approximately 4 blocks away from the house.It was getting late and they were still not coming home.She was worried so being the only boy in the household at that time I was sent out with a female helper and my cousin Janjan to fetch her older sisters.

As to be expected we started off slowly as our eyes adjusted to the darkness around us. The light of the moon made the path clear but still plunged everything into a pitch black environment. There were only a few houses in that area at the time and no lamps were lit in any of them , from the distance we could see the light of the house that served as a Bingo house , on both sides of the road were fields that stretched to the mountains on our right and to more fields on our left. Yup nothing much to see but rice and more rice.

So there was the 3 of us huddled together as we walked. We were staying on the middle of the road and this was ok because vehicles very rarely pass this area. No Tricycles or Singles or even Jeepneys. We wanted to reach the local bingo house as soon as possible because there was still a lot of stories about the area. 

As my eyes adjusted I was able to see movement to my right , then the shape of a man coming out from the fields. I said it looked like a man because he wore a Camisa de Chino , a folded pair of pants that was up to his knees as well as a straw hat that covered his head. He looked like a typical farmer coming home from the fields only he had glowing red eyes. I could also see red glowing teeth as the creature seemed to smile at me. How about that Red glow in the dark things way before any of those things came out in the market , this was the early 80's! This thing had been looking at me with what looked liked an amused look. 

My companions was seeing the being too. Then it did something that we would never expect it to do. It took a long look at me , deliberately took off its hat which allowed me to see a glimpse of the short horns that were hidden by the hat. After taking his hat off the being bowed its to me and after bowing continued to walk toward the rice fields on the left and disappeared. We did not try and follow of it out of fear. So we did the only thing we could. We ran to the Bingo House.

We had to run like crazy people and when we got my other cousins had to dash right back to the house without a word. My Ate Cherry and Lot might have been surprised at us. I could never have been sure.All I know is that we closed the windows of our sleeping area that night despite it being so hot that we were all perspiring.

I have been to Poctoy many times since then and the place is now full of new houses.I was never able to see that Farmer again and that mystery has stayed with me until today. Maybe I was never meant to find out the meaning behind that bow. Was it an acknowledgement? Was it just being courteous? Was there something in me that I did not know about? I would rather not have these questions answered though. I might be afraid about the meaning behind it all.