"The Merman at the Window."

 "The Merman at the Window."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

Growing up, there were things that I considered perfectly normal as a child that, now that I am an adult, I occasionally look back on and think:

What the hell was that?

This is one of those stories.

My mother was the eldest in her Pharmacy batch.

Not because she had failed at anything. In fact, she had initially taken up Nursing for three years before she suddenly shifted courses for reasons that, to this day, remain somewhat mysterious to me.

Because she was the oldest in her group, she became the unofficial “Ate” of the bunch.

And I became the group's baby.

So, yes, you could say that from a very early age I was regularly surrounded by a group of good-looking college girls.

I was a lucky kid.

Hahahaha.

One particular trip happened after what I vaguely remember being a particularly brutal final-exam week. Keep in mind that I was a small boy at the time, so I am asking everyone to forgive the gaps in my memory.

The group decided to take a trip to the beaches of Batangas.

One of the women in this group happened to be the daughter of a sitting mayor.

And this was not simply a matter of being the mayor's daughter.

Her father had political enemies who, apparently, were actively trying to kill him or kidnap his children.

So that was the environment in which we found ourselves going on a beach vacation.

We would be staying at a beach house owned by the family.

I don't remember much about the trip there.

What I remember very clearly is the beach house.

It faced the water, and the ocean was literally only a few feet away. You could hear the waves from inside the house.

We arrived at night.

As we entered the white-painted house, I immediately noticed something that, as a child, I thought was wonderful.

There was a wide square pit filled with sand in the middle of the house, with a fire roaring right in the center.

The pit was bordered by the same white wood that covered the exterior of the house.

There were two doors on either side leading to the bedrooms.

My mother and I were assigned to the room on the right.

There was a screened window in the room, and through it I could see trees and a steep sandy slope leading toward the back of the house.

I would later learn that the steep slope wasn't simply part of the landscaping.

It was designed that way for defense.

That should probably have been my first clue that this was not going to be an ordinary beach vacation.

The second clue should have been the men with guns.

I remember there being six or seven of them.

Some were sitting near the fire, keeping an eye on the screened doors that faced the ocean.

The ocean was dark, but apparently not dark enough to prevent them from watching it.

Others were standing outside, keeping guard.

As a child, I didn't think much of this.

Apparently, this was simply what a beach vacation looked like when your friend was the daughter of a mayor with political enemies.

At one point, some of the girls—my Titas, as I called them—wanted to go swimming in the ocean at night.

The tallest of the men, whose name I never really caught, immediately forbade them from doing so.

They argued a little.

He remained firm.

Looking back, I now realize that the man was probably not being overly cautious.

He was genuinely concerned.

The adults understood something that I didn't.

As a child, I simply thought:

Why can't the girls go swimming?

So everyone eventually stayed inside.

We sat around the fire and ate together.

For a little while, everything was peaceful.

Then one of the men went inside.

And suddenly, everything changed.

We were hurried into our rooms.

There was urgency in the way the adults moved.

The mayor's daughter obediently went into her room.

My mother pulled me into ours.

Then the lights went out.

I remember sitting there with my mother, staring through the screened window.

And then we heard it.

Gunfire.

There was shouting outside.

Commands.

People yelling:

“Doon! Doon!”

“Dali! Dito!”

People were running.

Then I heard something strange.

Sand was falling near our window.

And that was when I saw it.

Even after all these years, the image remains remarkably clear in my memory.

There was a green humanoid figure outside our window.

It had what looked like gills along its neck.

It had somehow made its way up the sandy slope and was standing near our room.

It looked toward us.

My mother grabbed me even tighter.

I remember being terrified.

But the creature didn't seem interested in us.

It simply looked at us for a moment and then ran past the window.

A bodyguard immediately followed.

There were several gunshots.

And then it was over.

At least, that's how I remember it.

The entire thing probably lasted only a few minutes.

When you're a child, a few minutes can feel like an entire lifetime.

Eventually, we were allowed to come out of the room.

My mother was furious.

She was particularly angry at the mayor's daughter for bringing us into what was obviously a dangerous situation.

My mother wanted to leave immediately.

She wanted to go home.

The adults eventually persuaded her to wait until the following morning.

I think we eventually left later that day.

One of the things I remember from the following day was going to a local perya, where I saw a bearded woman.

Apparently, after surviving a possible assassination attempt involving a green humanoid, my childhood brain was perfectly prepared to accept a bearded woman as normal entertainment.

As for the supposed merman—or whatever it was—we were eventually given an explanation.

The bodyguards said the people who had approached the house were actually men wearing diving equipment.

Apparently, they had been trying to get to the mayor's daughter.

And they had been dealt with accordingly.

I was never entirely sure what “dealt with accordingly” meant.

As an adult, I can make a much more reasonable interpretation of what probably happened that night.

But there is still a part of my childhood brain that remembers something very different.

A green figure.

Gills.

A dark beach.

A window.

And a man—or creature—running past us while armed bodyguards chased after him.

Maybe it really was a man wearing diving equipment.

Maybe my childhood imagination added the green skin and gills.

Maybe the darkness distorted what I saw.

I don't know.

But there is something else that makes the memory even stranger.

For some reason, my mother would bring up this story whenever we went to Batangas during my teenage years.

She would tell it as if it were just another family story.

And I would sit there thinking:

“Mom, you realize there was a gunfight at that beach house, right?”

But perhaps that is one of the strange things about childhood.

We don't always understand the danger surrounding us.

We simply remember the details that our young minds were capable of processing.

For me, it was the fire in the middle of the house.

The ocean just outside.

The armed men.

The darkened windows.

The shouting.

The sand falling beside us.

And most of all…

the merman at the window.

Whatever he really was.

And whatever happened that night, I think one thing is safe to say:

Whether he was a man in diving gear or an actual merman, he was definitely not supposed to be there.