Continued from Part 1/3: Miring
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After a simple miring ceremony at my sister’s house in Kapit, we had dinner. A nice array of food and drinks, deserts and snacks were served and we ate to our hearts’ content. The miring plates have been placed in every family member’s room. The women got the talking and the men started the mandatory drinking session outside at the porch. It seemed my brother in law’s mother had stocked up a good deal of home made rice wine brew called ‘tuak’ as a result of their previous year’s absence from the scene. His father passed away last year so there was no celebration then. Tuak and a host of other imported liquors made the drinking session very lively. Moderation is slowly forgotten and no one noticed it diluting with all that alcohol; it wasn’t missed. But the ambiance was pleasant and orderly, contrary to most sessions elsewhere.
Around the table sat my brother in law, a few friends and relatives and his grandfather. Yes, his grandfather is an old and wise gentleman. More than once, telling me how my father is a humble and gracious man, how he is the people’s person who gets along very well with everyone, and that he respects my father as much as my father respects him. All this did not surprise me much as this was one of his many values that he strongly insists his children bear. It does however made me glad, despite wanting to be better than my father, that I was indirectly told that I inherited a good trait.
This old man is also soft spoken and mild mannered. Often times it is said that alcohol intoxication brings out the worst in people. But this grandpa just kept on smiling as he dished out sensible thoughts and deductions when it was expected of him. Once in a while his facial expressions indicated deep thoughts, like his mind went off somewhere remote to retrieve something important. He left the table a few times to flush out the excessive fluid consumed throughout the session and at one point, didn’t return. We finally agreed that he has retired from the session and has called it a day. We continued our discussions, though I can’t really recall a solid issue. It was this and that, here and there. Such are dialogues fuelled by alcohol.
After a while my sister’s niece called out to her grandma and said she heard a few thuds upstairs. I went in and she told me that great grandpa had gone upstairs a while ago and just now she heard something hit the floor. ‘It could be grandpa.’ she said.
Both of us rushed upstairs, into his room, and there was grandpa lying on his left side, his back against the wall and his head right at the corner of the room. And ironing board had fallen nearby and it brought down the iron as well. An ashtray slipped off a reading table, scattering a number of cigarette butts and sprinkling ash all over the floor. Grandpa was mumbling something and was almost crouching, his head resting on his left arm. Eyes shut, he was in a mixed state; dead sleepy, intoxicated and groggy, and in pain. I took a closer look at the corner and saw blood stains on the wall. Trickles of blood I then saw on the floor. I reached for his head, felt his scalp and had blood on my fingers. Her daughter, my sister’s mother in law, came in afterwards. She told her granddaughter to fetch a bowl of warm water and a piece of cloth.
“Ah, he’s had too much. Must have fallen and tried to get up again” she said, calm but worried. We looked around, gathering as many clues as we could and attempting to guess what went on earlier. It looked like he went to the toilet to throw up and as he walked back into the room, he reached for the ironing board for support, knocking down the ashtray from the table nearby in the process. Unfortunately the flimsy board gave way too easily and he fell, near the corner. The accompanying iron missed him and hit the floor instead. He fumbled for the wall, tried to get back on his feet, leaning against the wall for support as he pushed himself up. This lead his head toward edge of a mosquito mesh frame and a sharp aluminum corner carved into his scalp. The scorching pain must have disabled him completely, causing him to fall tight into the corner and helplessly wait with the hope that someone downstairs heard the commotion.
As his daughter cleaned his scalp he let out a few painful yelps and moans. She wiped the blood and vomit off his face and wrapped his head to stop the bleeding. They laid him carefully in bed and hoped he’ll be alright. It was almost 3 am when everything was calm again, and since lying in my room allowed a full view of the patient, grandma told me to be on guard just in case he pulls a deadlier stunt.
“Great! Uhm, do I sleep lightly or just stay wide awake in the process? Sheesh!” I grumbled in silence.
As much as I hate the predicament I’ve landed in, I don’t want this old man to die under my watch. That would not make for a jolly good gawai. And so I slept extremely light, making sure I jump at the slightest sound. My thoughts played all kinds of possible dreadful scenarios. One depicted him lying there, his moans getting louder as it built up into a scream; an eerie scream of death. Arghhhhhhh . Another showed the morning sun rays gleaming on a dead body in the next room, a sign that I spent one night sleeping with the dead.
I was miserably terrified that night. I was stuck between an unknown group of watchful spirits represented by a miring plate full of eggs, rice and wheat pops, a feather etc, etc, and an old man who might just be cold and stiff the next day. An air brewing a storm of mystical notion and probable death filled my bedroom that night, or rather, early morning. Although the lights were turned on it felt very dark and cold from where I laid, stiff and anxious. Once in a while I would hear faint moans and my ears pricked, my head quickly directed a view to the room and like an eagle’s eyes, mine would zoom as close as possible to assess the situation. Each time was a false alarm. But I was told to be on guard. And I will do my best not to disappoint, till death fails me.
A night of sleepless endurance, a room assumed to harbor guardians and a system drenched with sleep-inducing alcohol; it doesn’t get any worse than this, I thought.
But I was wrong.
And this is to be continued. Part 3 of 3
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