Before the third episode of the Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop (PGLW) concluded on April 18, we knew that we had one more thing that we can offer our bright young fellows: a starting platform for their creative endeavors. Here, we present one of their final outputs from the workshop. We also asked them to provide an artwork that they think best represents their stories. Read on.
He awakes, programmed to grab his phone and doomscroll on social media to do his job of flooding comments sections with statements he was never taught to fact-check. He gets up, looks into the mirror, and realizes he does not have a reflection. He is certain his eyes are open. His body is not on the bed– it is right there, attached to his head, every time he looks down. He is still wearing the same clothes he wore to sleep– a ‘Vote Bongbong Marcos’ shirt he got for free from the 2022 elections season. Maybe it is true that ghosts wear the same clothes they died in forever. Now he shakes his head in regret, wishing he had never worn that shirt.
His body is whole, but something feels off. He cannot feel his shirt touching his skin. He cannot feel his hands pinching his arms. He cannot feel his feet touching the ground. Is he really dead? They say only ghosts– only monsters– do not have reflections. He steps back and forth, side to side, searching for his missing reflection. Until the figure of the red lady appears.
This lady is red– not white. And unlike white ladies whose souls remain wandering in pursuit of justice, the wonderful red lady began seeking justice ahead of her brutal death. And for this, the red lady’s life was way scarier for the majority of the Filipino population than her death. Living is temporary; death is forever. But the red lady did so much in her 22-year lifetime. When she was alive, she was braver than most monstrous entities present in every scary place she ever visited. She visited farms, haciendas, and mountains, where soils were fertilized with bloodbaths. She ventured to places where mananaggals were actively ripping the hearts out of innocent children like her. Where aswangs were not only shapeshifting to bodies of deception– they were equipped with guns and bombs, too. Where folklores were lived reality, there was nothing more threatening for monsters than the red lady’s presence.
And for him, there was nothing funnier than the red lady’s death. He always thought of the red lady’s story as yet another silly death turned into a horror story– a cautionary tale. But now he questions; why is his reflection not in the mirror, while a dead woman’s is? She is there with a reflection brighter and clearer than his own first-person perspective of his own body.
They say you know a person is dead when they lose their reflection on mirrors, but the red lady is not like any other feared ghost. The red lady is not a ghost, but a fierce reflection that mirrors every face she ever came across.
He still does not have a reflection, but her reflection never left the mirror. Because even after death, her soul remains more alive than the souls of living beings like him. Even after death, she remains more human than those who sing the ending lines of Lupang Hinirang, then proceed to commenting ‘corned beef’ on Facebook posts mourning her life well-lived.
He sees the reflection of the red lady grabbing his phone. She just wanted to take a mirror selfie, the way she used to in front of her university’s bathroom mirrors. She smiles beautifully; he shakes in fear. He cannot wait to tell others about this very real encounter with the red lady, but he doubts anybody will ever believe him. Not even he would believe this reality, even if a news reporter tells him this story.
Kaya Mandala B. Novicio
