Mad Night

My stock photo, please don't steal.

The first night of my second trip to Baler had me clutching a Swiss knife, trembling from unknown paranoia on a rotting cot. My companions were in similar states: Ian held an umbrella in one hand and a dipper on the other while Elaine clung to the retractable rail of the shower curtain. I do not remember how we ended up this way—tired, perspiring, worried, and ready for an attack. 

Maybe it was the ramshackle room and the decaying door that triggered our worries. Maybe it was further heightened by the garbled laughing drunken voices beyond the door. Maybe it was the rusty doorknob we cannot lock properly that started our worries. Or maybe it was the inexperience. It was our first try at a backpacker inn and the room only had the essentials: a bed and a bathroom.

                  

“Do you think we’re safe?” Elaine voiced out after dinner, while we readying ourselves for bed. Ian and I were speechless. Words once spoken, I have come to realize, become truths. Are we safe? Are we really safe?

We exchanged looks and hesitations. Nobody countered the unspoken argument. My eyes scanned the room; a table, a shower curtain, a tabo, our bag of clothes, drenched swimsuits. There was nothing else. And the bed—a heavy bed made of Narra, a wood that once flourished in Aurora before illegal logging placed it in the endangered species list. 

We agreed, again without words, that it had to be the bed. We lifted the foam and placed it against the wall to push the bed toward the door. It would not budge. We decided to lift it up instead, three girls in the dead of night with the lights out, moving like hushed mice, wary in the dark. 

The baritone voices laughed. Sweat beaded my forehead. The bed was damn heavy. We pushed. It creaked. We stopped. The noises shushed. Footsteps emerged. We ran for the door-less bathroom. We hid in the shadows. The night stilled. We forgot to breathe. Then silence. 

We sneaked into the bed frame. My pajama as dense as my swimsuits. We resumed our positions, gave the bed one final push and sighed in relief when it finally touched the door. Then we lunged into the foam with our swords and spears and shields, in high alert. We waited. And waited. And waited.

The next morning, we woke up late for our scheduled morning surfing. We enjoyed making sand castles but it took us half an hour to push the bed back to its original place. We did everything in silence. We pretend last night never happen.

*I wrote this essay a few months back in response to a writing prompt but the incident happened around 5 to 7 years ago. Yes, I’m being defensive here. Haha. I remembered this because its summer surfing season again in Baler, the best time for amateur wave riders to visit the surf spot. – 4/5/2015