Atong (standard:horror, 216 words)
Author: jopoguerrero	Added: Sep 03 2008	Views/Reads: 3267/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Ilocano tradition during a wake

On death watches' triumph, he awakens at the wake – minute coppice,
rubbed and fanned to weep like a splintered censer. 

In the interleave of the sincere and the insincere, his fumes swoop in
guard of the remains against the gloating flow of Lethe. 

Then he burns in vigil for a burned life, stinging and whipping snags on
the soul's destination from the banquet for either maggots or fire. 

His watch is a fierce simoon which turns even the darkest faeries shorn
and shaven – for with nepenthe his frailty is cast in flames. 

But oh! – oh, a rash chill, scrawny but increasing – pinched his blaze
as famished Eidolons rise into form toward his charge. 

He hastens to rescue his dead, yet he felt sered, withered and chained –
feeble levin against eternal knells. He asked: “In Pluto's name, why 
so?” 

The underworld chuckles and points: “Runic rhymes let slip your heel
that bleeds when a child pours pure hatred on your dead right where 
your ashes breed.” 

Alas! He hears an orphaned dreamer circling, crying right where his
ashes breed – then the phantoms cheered over their moieties of the 
object of the child's fury. 

The merriment of the spirit vultures brought the wind that puffed out
his flames – making him and his dead rest, but never in peace. 


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