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.
Lanie’s Tapsihan has been getting complaints recently. That they are not actually open 24 hours like what the sign says. Gabriel knows that these complaints were correct, but he also knew that they wereopen 24 hours. Just that some of those hours weren’t spent here.
He doesn’t get it, nor does he trust his mom, or his dad, or any of his family to have a clear picture either, just that every night, no exact time, sometimes midnight, sometimes as particularly random as 2:44 AM, they’ll get a customer that isn’t quite human. A white lady, an aswang, some kind of creature that the world has yet to know. A sign that their little eatery is making its momentary lapse with other worlds. It’s mostly the supernatural that visits, the impossible, the unknowable, sometimes they are familiar, sometimes they make Gabriel question the limits of his own imagination.
Gabriel is used to it. Having played around the place since he was a child, then helping out here-and-there when he was in high school. Admittedly he’s become more involved in recent years, finding some solace in how long the night seems to stretch, keeping the familiar morning light away. Tonight, now he’s taking over the place alone as his parents are out on a reunion.
The supernatural aren’t that scary once you get to know them. Or at least, their clientele aren’t. They still look the part, but they don’t mind that they aren’t serving human meat, seemingly content with a tapsilog, or a chiksilog, or any other silog variations, and a good helping of bone soup. Sometimes, conversation is the meal. Gabriel noticed it with the spirit-likes the most, sitting by the kitchen window waiting for someone to talk to. Somehow, it’s those that Gabriel has trouble with. All these years alive and he still has trouble trying to find the right thing to say. He’s grown to be untrustworthy of his own voice, sometimes shivering at the sound more than the spirits’ bloodied gowns.
An hour has passed since the last customers, some travelers Gabriel didn’t recognize, left. He’s wiped the tabletops thrice now in that span, and still no more arrived. There isn’t anything in general. No humans, no supernatural, no jeepneys, no cricketsong, no ticks from above. It only bothers Gabriel slightly, as he trusts the building enough, with whatever magical property it had in its walls to protect him. He takes one more glance outside, noting how the darkness has yet to deepen, before turning on the overhead television.
It’s around 51 minutes past midnight, when Gabriel hears the scrape of a wooden bench. He tears his eyes away from the grainy TV, standing, prepared to meet his first diner in a while, but Gabriel’s fingers fail to reach the smooth fabric of his apron before his entire body flinches.
The man across from him, wearing some kind of techwear coat, mirrors his surprise. “Gab…?” The man says, unsure but disconcertingly fond to Gabriel’s ears.
Gabriel imagines himself saying the man’s name, he doesn’t know how he would modulate it, how loud or pointed or soft he’d say it, how much of each emotion. Instead he stands there frozen, and without thinking says, “You’re dead.”
“Huh?” The man’s voice falters, his brows furrow, and his eyes start to fill with a pain that Gabriel recognizes but can’t place.
“Sorry—” Gabriel tries to snap out of his daze, but his feet still won’t move. “Wait.” He settles on that, trying to sound apologetic as he brings his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes hard. He feels the exhaustion of the night catch up to him, as the motion shakes his head, making his thoughts vibrate. In the dark of his closed eyes he sees the face of the man aberrate with the face of his friend, Matthew, oscillating until they become the same person. It makes Gabriel sick in ways monster viscera could never.
He doesn’t realize he’s trembling, when he opens his eyes again the man’s expression has shifted to worry. The man resembles Matthew, but older in a way Matthew could never look. Gabriel tries a few wary steps forward, noticing the metallic fingers under one coat arm, and the fashion that looked too futuristic to be Matthew’s own choice. Gabriel remembers this is a job, and that like every other night this is a different world. But not like every other night, he recognizes this customer.
“Sorry. I can–I can leave if you want,” The man’s voice breaks him out of it, small and resigned.
“What?” Gabriel can’t make sense of what the man is saying, “No—” He tries to recall his past encounters. There really isn’t a manual on what to say or not to say, that it’s best to follow and avoid deviating from the customer’s internal logic, but Gabriel’s mind is too full to act like he understands what the man is saying, and if he accidentally breaks the tapsilogan’s facade in the process and causes reality to break, that might even be a blessing to him.
“Um, I think,” Gabriel starts, he’s about two steps away from the man now, the large window frame of the kitchen separating the two. “I think I’m not from…” He doesn’t know what word to use exactly, “this, uh, dimension?”
There’s a pause between them, where only the howls of the wind and bursts of distant electricity fill the space.
“Oh,” The man says, more of a way to fill the air as he himself is unsure of what to do with the information, but a flurry of emotions flies through his face in that brief interval, and his shoulders are more relaxed now, his gaze a little lighter.
“So, yeah, haha,” Gabriel wants to look at anywhere else, but his eyes gravitate towards the man. He hasn’t had any practice in talking to Matthew in years, but now all he just wants is to talk. “I’m probably not the Gab you know, the same way, you’re not the Matt I know—Matthew, does Gab call you Matt? Sorry.”
“Yeah, he does,” Matthew chuckles. The sound is too-sweet, making Gabriel want to throw up his dinner. It fades ever so slightly, as he takes the tapsihan in before nodding, “Yeah, that makes sense. I thought it was so weird seeing Gab suddenly working at some retro restaurant.” Matthew laughs again.
“Wooow,” Gabriel says flatly, joining in the laugh. “Retro? That’s my present time, and you’re calling it retro?”
“Y’know what I mean,” Matthew continues to laugh. He looks so alive.
“So, I’m assuming this is the future?” Gabriel asks, settling down, looking at the boundary of the tapsilogan marked by the light of the lamp post. “Like a science-fiction sort of deal, Neo Tondo?”
“Kind of? You’re right about the name,” Matthew breathes out one solitary laugh as he looks over his shoulder. To Gabriel, anywhere past the light is just shrouded by an abyss-like darkness. In that unreachable horizon he sees the silhouettes of highrises speckled with neon lights. “Hardly feels like it’s the future, probably not different from where you’re from. Just a lot more blinding, and a lot more, I don’t know, depressing?”
“Ah,” Gabriel says, it is easy to dream up his reality back home to be even more hypercapitalist.
“How’s the tech?” Matthew quickly asks, trying to move on.
“What?”
“Of the place?” Matthew points to the tapsilogan with his mouth, “How do you move from dimension to dimension, Gab-from-another-world?”
“Uh, I don’t know, I always saw it as more magic. No one controls it, it kind of just does the travelling on its own. Every night, at some random hour, it’ll leave and when the customers leave, it goes back home.” Gabriel looks around the interior of the kitchen before landing on Matthew’s cyborg arm. “This is the first time I’ve ever thought to consider that it’s some kind of future technology… How does your world’s dimension-hopping work?”
“Oh, we don’t have that kind of technology, yet.” Matthew replies simply.
“What? I thought this was, like, the far future?”
“Well, some technologies are closer than others. This is like the first time I’ve ever seen evidence of other dimensions before.”
“Oh. Aren’t you excited, then?” Gabriel raises an eyebrow, “You don’t wanna pick apart the walls or something?”
“No, not really.” Matthew lightheartedly rolls his eyes. “Not everyone in the ‘future’ is obsessed with technology. I just learn enough to get by. Plus, I could do all that, get other people to come here and record you and this place, but then what if you leave in that time while I’m away.”
“And you’re Gab. You’re a Gab, but still you’re my friend,” Matthew continues, there’s something off in the way he’s speaking, like he’s chewing the words to make them easier. “Might as well enjoy that I’m lucky enough to spend some time with an alternate reality version of my friend without dragging other people into this. I think that’s cool.”
“I guess so,” Gabriel studies Matthew, his dark eyes are warm, the kitchenlight dimming the city’s neon. Gabriel can’t tell if it’s a quirk to this specific Matthew, or if he’s forgotten his Matt’s intonations.
Gabriel doesn’t realize when the lull falls on them comfortably. He thinks he hears Matthew softly whistling, but Matt never quite learned how to whistle. Maybe it’s some electrical hum? He doesn’t remember how long he spends thinking, the same way he doesn’t notice Matthew was satisfied just watching him in silence. It’s only when a stray gust knocks over one of the tissue holders that he remembers where they are, the tables and the seats. “Shet, sorry. D-do you still eat food and water and stuff?”
“Yeah,” Matthew gives him an eyeroll. “We’re still humans.”
“Great, okay. I’ll get you some water, go order something. The menu’s up top.” Gabriel can hear Matthew chuckle as he walks to the refrigerator to grab the stainless steel jug of water.
In the end, Matthew orders the reliable tapsilog. Gabriel doesn’t want to admit that he’s been doing subpar work for all the customers before, but he prepares the meal this time with a little more care, and a little more effort. It’s the first time in three years that he’s able to do something for Matthew. It might be a different one, but the motions feel all too familiar, all too indulgent for him not to imagine.
Some fifteen minutes pass, and Gabriel brings out the steaming plate of tapsilog in front of Matthew. He fills the bowl on the side with warmed bone broth, and the metal cup with Mountain Dew, Matt’s choice of soft drink.
“Thanks, Gab,” Matthew says with a smile, before digging in without missing a second.
He knows it’s impolite to converse with someone eating, but when Matthew is midway through his meal, Gabriel asks, “So, what’s your Gab like? Does he also part-time as a cook?”
“Ah,” Matthew pauses a little longer than what that question should ask for. He keeps his head bowed, obscuring his face from Gabriel’s view. “Like, you, I guess. He’s a sort-of archivist. This tapsihan is named after Tita Lanie right? Yeah his parents have an archive thing going, they collect and sell old media, like CDs, movies, old paper books, you get the picture.”
“That’s a thing in the, uh, future?” Gabriel is leaning on the frame-counter, off to Matthew’s side. “And that’s a business?”
“Surprisingly,” Matthew says, he sounds off-key again, now there’s a hint of disinterest layered on top of it that Gabriel can pick up but chooses not to point out.
An archivist, Gabriel focuses on that instead. It sounds like something he’d be into.
“How about me?” Matthew inquires after a spoonful of soup, “How am I like in your world?”
“Uh,” Gabriel hesitates. “My Matthew’s dead. Three years ago, hit-and-run, drunk driver.” He says quickly and softly. He tries not to think about that night. How all the fantastical nights he’s experienced since fade against the sharpness in those tanods’ shouts. He still hears the incessant monitor beeps of the nights that followed.
Their first exchange shoots up to Matthew’s head fast, and he lurches straight in his seat. “I’m so sorry,” He says gravely with as much seriousness as he could muster between spoonfuls of rice, “My condolences, Gab.”
“It’s fine,” Gabriel laughs, what else could he do at the surreal scene unfolding before him? He holds the chuckle, letting it fade out as he looks for something else to talk about, finding it at the glint of that chrome casing. “What about that arm of yours? How’d that happen?”
“That…” Matthew stalls, preemptively cringing, “Holobike accident. Flying motorcycles basically. Had to replace my entire left torso.”
Close enough to be the same thing, but Gabriel chooses to chalk it up to coincidence. Gabriel doesn’t let out a sound of acknowledgement, neither does Matthew say anything else. Neither of them meet each other’s stare, the atmosphere too awkward to do nothing but their own things for a while.
The silence stretches even after Matthew finishes, even after Gabriel comes to get the dishes.
The two of them idle there, Gabriel propping himself up on the counter, and Matthew on the other side, listlessly pushing around the bottle of Mountain Dew.
“You don’t need to pay, by the way,” Gabriel says, just to say something. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“How sure are you about the whole leaving-only-when-the-customers-leave thing?”
“Huh?” Gabriel jumps a bit as Matthew whips toward him, staring at him with wide eyes.
“What if a customer doesn’t leave? What if the tapsihan has a maximum limit and it just jumps anyway?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Gab. Can I go with you?”
The question makes Gabriel’s head spin. “What?”
Matthew stands up from the chair, putting both of his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders. “Please, Gab. Take me with you.”
The grip doesn’t hurt, it’s cool and the weight feels so unmistakably Matthew’s. Gabriel stares upward at those intense eyes, Matthew’s face threatening to break, and Gabriel can’t help but feel the odd loneliness of the last three years, and how easy it is to slot this Matthew’s face with Matt’s. He almost cages.
“But what about your Gab? You’re best friends, you can’t leave him.”
“Uh…” Gabriel watches Matthew flinch, “He doesn’t think of me that way…”
Matthew’s voice betrays him, cracking ever so slightly, as a familiar pain dims his eyes and it all clicks in Gabriel’s mind.
“He,” Gabriel remembers his own voice, all the words he said with an unrelenting clearness, “reacted badly didn’t he?” Gabriel remembers the cruelty of that night. How easy it came to him then. “I’m sorry, Matt.”
Matthew’s arms sag, as does his head. All the intensity starts to seep away from him. He doesn’t say anything.
Gabriel softly grabs Matthew’s human hand, and when Matthew doesn’t pull away, just holds him. “I don’t think I can let you go with me. You still have your Gab, and he still has his Matt.”
“I don’t want him experiencing what I did,” Gabriel stares at the ground, staring somewhen past it, “and I don’t want you missing out on the many things he has yet to say, the many things he has yet to do for his Matt. You still need to hear him say sorry.”
“I’m not an expert in how parallel realities go, but if he’s anything like me, he really isn’t angry,” Gabriel chuckles a bit. “Maybe at himself, sure. But, I’m sorry, Matt, all the Gabriels just seem to be bad with words, bad at dealing with things, you just really have to deal with it if you want to keep being best friends.” Gabriel pats Matthew’s hands goodbye.
“Just, give him some time to work through some things, and if he doesn’t go to you first, go to him. I’m sure it’ll turn out better than you’d expect.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then I give you the permission to kill him. I can attest that he deserves it.”
The both of them share a quiet laugh.
They stay standing like that for a while, standing apart. Until Matthew heaves a long sigh, straightening up and turning around. “Goodbye, Gab-from-another-world. Ingat.”
“Goodbye, Matt. Good luck.” Gabriel watches Matthew disappear into the unnatural shadows. Watching until it all recedes back into visible streets and jeepney roads.
Gabriel doesn’t know what to do, so he grabs the cleaning rag, and wipes the tables again.
Reaching the counter where that other Matthew sat. Wiping the countertop. Dropping on the wooden bench, his back against the counter. He grabs the liter of Mountain Dew, and takes a sip of what’s left of it. He looks to the skies, finding a star in that almost-lightless expanse, and wishes to have his Matt over for a warm meal again.
Articus Filipe E. Tolentino
