Asoy Bantog and the Aswang

This story is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather,

TIBURCIO PANOGOT

the original "Lolo Bucio"

from whom this story was handed down.
And to Toto, who is not afraid of the dark anymore.

Little Toto was afraid to go to the outhouse by himself after dark. The little building was located at a distance from the house and Toto would not venture out of the house and sit in the thatch-roofed and sawali-walled structure for a while for fear an aswang would come down and snatch him up and carry him away to eat him.

Adriel - A Young Adult Romance

My college classmates and dorm roommates will probably remember this story, and recognize a little bit of themselves. I wrote this when I was 17 years old (has it really been that long ago?) so it's very dated. The original is in longhand in a little notebook about the size of a thin paperback.

One-sided conversation with a maya

(Aurora Blvd./ Araneta Ave. Overpass, 8:00 a.m.)



Hello, little bird.
What are you doing here,
so far away from the rice paddies?

Here there is no rice for you to eat.
There are stray cats aplenty
waiting to catch and eat you;
there are stray wires to hold you
till you can't fly anymore,
then they zap you dead.
The trees here are small and stunted,
there are no tall grasses;
where will you build your nest?
How can you raise healthy nestlings?

Hello, little bird.
We are both far from the rice paddies,
you and I.
But you can still sing.

Photo by photospill on Flickr.

The ant and the eagle

An ant and an eagle fell in love one day;
love conquers all, or so they say.
All went well till the eagle spied the sky
and remembered she knew how to fly--
she had never promised to stay on the ground;
although to keep the love she'd found
she had to stay, and not go far,
had to ignore that heaven had stars,
that high above, clouds floated, winds blew
that high above, other eagles flew.




The ant each day earned his daily bread
by fetching and carrying things on his head
through hard toil, uncomplaining of his lot
never thinking to aspire to what he had not,
that an eagle loved him was too good to be true,
he thought; it was a fluke, it would fall through.
He was just an ant; what did he know of the sky?
He belonged to the ground, he would not even try.

Let me fly, I will come back, the eagle said,
Stretching her wings for the flight ahead;
You belong nowhere but the sky, the ant replied;
I love you but this won't work; we tried.
The sky's your domain, to the earth I am bound;
I can't fly, and you can't stay on the ground.
But don't some ants grow wings and fly?
The eagle asked. Not I, said the ant. No, not I.


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The blog is "Laya's Stories" but I've decided to include poems and all things literary as well ^_^