The Unforgettable Fire

Photo taken weeks after the first on-going floor renovation.

It was on Sunday evening, 6:40 p.m. June 14, 2020, when I arrived at our house in Malolos Bulacan just to visit my widow grandfather whom I rarely see because I am permanently residing with my parents in San Mateo, Rizal.

As I was walking to the front door, I suddenly got shocked when I got close to the window and noticed a woman peacefully lying on my grandfather’s pallet bed. I have no idea for how long I paused, not until my cousin loudly patted me on the back and asked me why I took 10 seconds to stare at an open window. That time, my heart had dropped, and it dropped even more when I looked back as the woman whom I saw earlier was not there anymore.

After my cousin saw my horrified look, she grabbed me by the hand, then led me to their backyard to play badminton. Even when we were playing, I still couldn’t forget the woman I saw. To ease my mind, I just told myself that the woman in my grandfather’s house was just a visitor. However, I still can’t explain the goosebumps that I randomly felt during that day.

When I got home at 8 midnight, I immediately went to my bedroom upstairs to rest. Little did I know, I was not home alone at that time, even though my grandfather would come home at 3 a.m. due to his duty as a tricycle driver.

I was supposed to wait for my grandfather to come, but since I was exhausted, I didn’t know that I had fallen asleep until I woke up from a loud sound coming from multiple glasses being thrown on the floor repeatedly. It was so loud that I felt like crying because it was so scary hearing it at 2:28 a.m.

When I finally dared to stand up, I suddenly found myself crouching after hearing a deafening scream followed by terrifying laughs and an intense bang from the walls. Remembering my grandfather, I hurriedly rushed down to see what hell looks like in real life. Broken plates and glasses with blood were all over my grandfather’s table.

What almost gave me a heart attack was seeing a tall fire on the center of our floor, inches away from reaching our 18-foot-high ceiling.

Before I felt like passing out due to the suffocating smoke that I inhaled, I angrily asked the woman who she was and what she was doing in our house.

To my surprise, I began to gather my strength the second after the woman answered me in a childish tone saying, “Masusunog ka rin. Nasa ilalim ng apoy na ‘to yung anak ko! Mamamatay ka din (You will burn too. My child is under this fire! Die too).”

Knowing the woman I was talking to was crazy, I knew that I had no power over her, so I weakly ran outside shouting for help. When I got out, my face fell first on the street as I saw blood dripping from my feet due to broken glasses that I ran through. Seeing what happened to me made me unconscious on the edge of our street.

After everything that happened, I found myself in a hospital room surrounded by my grandfather and cousins. They found out about the terrible incident which I went through, and then my grandfather explained his side of the story.

According to my grandfather, the woman I encountered was the one he saw on the street asking for food. Feeling lonely due to my grandmother’s death a year ago, my grandfather decided to take the woman in her mid 50’s to our house.

“Hindi ko alam na gano’n siya, ang bait at malambing niya kase. Pakiusap, patawarin mo ako, anak (I didn’t know that she was like that, she was kind and sweet. Please, forgive me, my child).”

Yes, I had all the reasons to be angry, the situation could honestly have killed me, but I didn’t feel any anger because what I felt was mercy. Mercy for my grandfather, who is probably just missing my late grandmother.

After all, I cannot deny that the woman my grandfather took home looks like my late grandmother, Paz. Her brown skin, curly hair, and angelic face almost resemble the old woman who could have burned me.

Before I got discharged from the hospital early in the morning, the police told me that our neighbors had caught the old woman stabbing herself to death in our house. As per the police investigation, they’ve also found out that the old woman escaped the mental hospital facility and have records of several murders, including murdering her children.

When I returned home, I immediately saw our burned floor in the living room due to the fire incident that had happened.

Since my grandfather noticed how uneasy I became every time I passed through our burn floor, he ordered a carpenter to fix it.

The damage in my grandfather’s house might have been erased, but the haunting memory that it gives me will remain in my mind forever.