Sea Freaks: The Story of Brandong Palikpik

 

SEA FREAKS: The Story of Brandong Palikpik

The village where Brando was born was a once famous seaside resort. It was a divers` haven skirted by ribbons of corals. But not for long. The place lost its charm when the corals were destroyed. They were smashed to pieces by the boy-fishermen to drive the fishes away from their coral homes and into the waiting fishing nets. The boy-fishermen worked for the muro-ami fishing magnate, Don Andres.

Though only twelve years old, Brando`s skill in swimming was without match. He has a physical advantage, because you see, his feet are webbed. He was born that way. He only has three toes on each foot, which are both flat and longish, and resemble a scuba diver`s fins. To questions as to why Brando was born with them, his mother could only answer that they were caused perhaps by her frequent staring, while pregnant with Brando, at pictures of her late husband wearing his diving fins.

But village kids believed otherwise. Teasing, they insisted that what fascinated Brando`s mother were not pictures of divers, but of frogs. So, Brando came to be called by many names: Brandong Palaka (frog), Brandong Syokoy (merman) and Brandong Palikpik (fin). Of these, the last sounded least insulting, almost pleasant to the ears, that Brando even seemed pleased to be known far and wide as Brandong Palikpik.

It was on the eve of the town fiesta, just before dark, when strange but amiable-looking men stopped by the eatery run by Brando`s mother. This group of seven men arrived on a big outrigger. They were dressed in bulky jackets and trousers and had on oversized rubber shoes. Wearing big smiles on their faces, they went to the counter where Brando and his mother was.

"Good evening," greeted the one who seemed to be the leader of the group.

"Good evening. What`s yours?" Brando`s mother asked.

"I`m sorry. But we really came here only to ask for directions - to the house of Don Andres. The fellow who owns the fishing boats. Do you know him?

"Yes. Of course. Who wouldn`t know him in this village? Almost all of the boys here

work for him," she answered. "You would never miss his house. Nobody for miles around

has a house that big, and with a water playground yet. All right, you go out through that door and then follow the footpath leading to the main road..."

"Wait Ma, I`ll just accompany them," interrupted Brando, who was then leafing through a file of skin diving magazines,

"No. It`s almost nighttime. We`ll be having our supper in a little while."

"Please Ma."

And Brando`s mother, knowing her child`s continuing fascination with the water playground in Don Andres' compound gave in.

"Okay. But be sure to return at once." Then addressing the leader of the group, she asked, 

"By the way, why do you want to go to Don Andres' house?"

"We`re looking for jobs. As fishermen."

"I don`t think that this is the right time to go there looking for jobs. We`ll be celebrating our fiesta tomorrow, and all the men in that compound have started getting drunk early this afternoon. They can get really rowdy."

"No problem with that. We also drink. We`ll know how to get along with them."

"Oh well, if you insist."

Don Andres' house was unique - a manifest symbol of his obsessive taste for the grandiose. It`s not enough that he owned the biggest fishing fleet in the whole province. He also had to live in the most luxurious mansion thereabouts, complete with a water playground for his only child, Carlos. 

Its huge swimming pool had tubular slides attached to an enormous concrete whale. But the centerpiece of the playground was the twisting slide that rose several stories high. This playground was heaven to Brando. His greatest desire was to be allowed to spend a day in it, along with other village kids who were on good terms with Carlos. He got invited, all right. But the long time it took him, with his unwieldy feet, to climb the slide tower`s narrow ladder bored the impatient kids. Add to that the envy they felt, when Brando, upon hitting water, flitted fish-like through the whole length of the pool.They can never top that. So they seldom invited him.

Carlos opened the gate himself. He was wrapped in a towel, having spent with the village kids a daylong frolic at his water playground. 

"Oh Brando, it`s you. Come on in."

Even if they seldom get to play together, Carlos actually had a soft spot for Brando, whom he admired for his agility underwater. What really prevented him from inviting Brando more frequently to their frolics were the sly ways of the envious kids who dissuaded him from doing so. They wanted Carlosi all to themselves.

"Who are they?" Carlos whispered.

"They are fishermen looking for work. They want to see your father," Brando said, also lowering his voice.

"Papa has visitors upstairs. He cannot attend to your companions tonight. After the

fiesta, maybe. But anyway, come inside. Have some food and drinks."

Carlos introduced the strangers to a group of fishermen. They were carousing near a big kettle hanging over a low fire. Simmering in the kettle was a tasty soup of goat`s meat. Carlos and Brando retired to a spot near the outdoor shower where Carlos resumed dressing.

It was a noisy gathering. Don Andres' men were drunk. While two of them laid sprawled on benches asleep, others engaged in confused talk and argued in loud voices.

"Where are you from?" Iteng, the fellow in charge of refilling the wine glass, asked.

"We are from Mongpong," the leader of the strangers replied. "We are fishermen. We want to work for Don Andres."

"My, you come at the wrong time. This is not the time for interviewing job applicants. Tomorrow`s fiesta, and tonight, well, tonight's the time for drinking - our rehearsal for tomorrow's main event," Iteng said with a laugh. "Don Andres himself is busy drinking with his big shot pals. They must be drunk by now. Better have a drink so that your coming here won't be a total waste of time. Here." Iteng handed a glass of reddish coconut wine to the leader.

For several minutes, Don Andres' men and the strangers took turns drinking from that single glass. A bowl of steaming soup was also passed around. Moments later, Iteng noticed something: " O, where are your companions?"

"Oh, they must have gone somewhere to take a leak."

"Can`t be sure. They might be vomiting instead."

"Could be, with wine this potent."

Iteng chuckled: "We don't call that dragon's blood for nothing."

Iteng was again pouring wine from a pitcher when the compound was rocked by explosions in the boatyard. Though roused savagely from their stupor, Don Andres' men were so numbed by alcohol that they failed to react. Amidst the tumult, they dimly saw their newly-built boats being blasted by the dynamites detonated by the strangers. They saw them too, rushing out of the gate half-carrying Carlos and Brando who were both struggling and shouting for help. Using the tricycles parked outside the compound, the strangers escaped.

The strangers were not from Mongpong. They were the secret inhabitants of the dreaded Durian Reef whose existence have long been suspected by the villagers. Those who dared ventured in the vicinity of the reef never came back, their disappearance conveniently explained as accidents - wrecks caused by the spiny rocks resembling the spikes of the durian fruit after which the reef was named. The reef was never inhabited by humans. It has no vegetation. Fresh water could only be had from depressions in the rocks, natural reservoirs filled by rain during the monsoon season. No place was safe for mooring as submerged spines could easily pierce any hull.

But the reef was a sanctuary. Since the earliest times, undetected by humans, thereef provided an ideal abode for a tribe of amphibious creatures. They are like humans in most aspects, except for the fins protruding from their torsos, their scaly limbs and their webbed feet. They breathe with their lungs when on land and through their skin underwater. And they hop when they want to move faster from place to place. To sustain themselves, these creatures tended the corals, which are nests for dozens of species of fishes. Thus, the havoc wreaked on these corals by Don Andres' boy-fishermen caused the dwindling of their food supply. 

After shedding off his suffocating human clothing, the leader, now displaying the lean muscular body of a fish-eater, began to speak: "I'll tell you why we destroyed your father's boatyard. We wanted to scare Don Andres, to stop him from sending into our sea his coral-breaking gang. Remember the fishermen from your village who disappeared months ago? It is against our rules to have any contact with humans- but we have to punish them.They were exploding dynamites in our sea. We thought that would stop Don Andres from pursuing his destructive ways. We were mistaken. Not only won`t he stop- he even taunted us by building more boats!"

"The fishermen, where are they?" asked Carlos.

"We held them captives for a while, but they tried to escape. So, we killed them and ded them to the fishes."

Carlos and Brando shuddered on hearing that, their pristine world of boyish pranks and jealousies exposed for the cloistered unreality it really was.

"So you see, there is no hope of you ever returning home. We need you here to protect us from revenge attacks by your father."

"But Carlos hasn't done you any wrong. Why punish him for the faults of his father?" Brando asked, pleading.

"I know, I know. But as I`ve told you, we need him as shield to prevent any revenge attacks. Don't worry, both of you won't be harmed as long as the humans don`t attack us. Especially you, Brando. With those fins for feet, why, you might even be one of us. But enough of that!

"Let me just warn you. You are captives. You`ll be given enough food, but you`ll be closely guarded. You can go play in the sea, but remember that you cannot escape for my followers are fast swimmers. As speedy as barracudas. Don't ever try to escape, because if you do, we`ll have no choice but to destroy you. 

"But aren`t you going to ask for any ransom?" Brando asked.

"What ransom?"

"Ransom. Money in exchange for the freedom of Carlos. His father has plenty of it. I'm sure that he'll be most willing to pay you any amount you demand."

"Money won't be of any use here. Everything here we can have for free. No, we don't need money."

"But what do you need? Why don`t you tell Don Andres what you need? Perhaps he can give you that. He will give anything for the safe return of his son."

"I don`t know why I allow you to argue with me. But all right, I`ll indulge you. All we need are fishes, lots of it, to feed our expanding population. But you humans refuse to see that your maniacal destruction of our corals are depriving the fishes of nests. You refuse to understand that you can no longer bring back to life the corals that you have destroyed. Now, how can Don Andres do that? How can he restore the corals?"

Brando spoke no more. He had no answer to that. So, he and Carlos went to sleep distressed. The leader was right. How could anyone replace the corals? How could anyone guarantee nests for fishes now that the corals are fast disappearing? With these questions in mind, Brando fell asleep.

Nowadays, Brando was no longer sure whether he did the remembering in his dream. But anyhow, the pictures of boat wrecks and scuba divers he saw in the diving magazines he was reading on the night these creatures came into their eatery, did gave him the idea. 

About an hour before dawn, Brando, who was no longer able to sleep, asked that the leader be awakened. Though still drowsy, the leader again good-naturedly yielded to Brando`s persistence. Brando proposed to him his idea. And the leader, being the reasonable creature that he really was, readily gave his approval. By midday, with three amphibious creatures as escort, Brando was well on his way to his own village, to the mansion of Don Andres, to relay to him the demands of their abductors.

Not a week passed when there appeared, crossing over to the edge of the horizon, a flotilla, sailing for the Durian Reef. Dozens of boats made up the flotilla, which was Don Andres' entire fishing fleet. As the fleet neared its destination, the boats scattered to encircle the reef. When Don Andres' yacht blew its horn, the crew of the fishing boats did quickly their assigned tasks. After fifteen minutes or so, they lowered the lifeboats down the side of their vessels. The crew were abandoning the fishing boats for these were starting to list.But no one was surprised nor was there any panic, for this was Brando's very idea. In exchange for the safe return of his son, Don Andres agreed to sink his entire fishing fleet in the sea surrounding Durian Reef. He ordered his men to scuttle the boats by boring holes on their bottoms.

The moment the sea swallowed the last of the fishing boats, a small canoe paddled by Carlos appeared, gingerly making its way around the spiny rocks to the yacht, where Don Andres, Brando, and the cheering crew was waiting for him.

Many years would passed before anyone can appreciate the logic of the maneuver. If anyone should ever go diving around the fringe of the reef, dozens of varicolored apparitions would provide him with visual delights. The boats sunk by Don Andres' men now lay unmoving about a hundred feet below. Their former grayish hues are no longer visible because their hulls are now plastered with swaying colonies of colorful sea anemones. Aside from these, reddish species of sponges and bluish starfishes found refuge on the wreckage of the boats.

And darting in and out of the portholes, funnels, doors and other vents and orifices of the boats are fishes, several varieties of them, flashing colors that would surely light up any aquarium. But no, the wrecks are supposed to be sanctuaries, artificial nests for fishes needed by generations of those mysterious amphibious creatures for their survival.

The village where Brando grew up again became a famous seaside resort. From Don Andres' pier, divers board yachts bound for the reef. The boat wrecks encircling Durian Reef became major tourist attractions, luring divers from all over the world. Pictures of scuba divers posing alongside the wreckage of Don Andres' fishing boats were often featured in skin diving magazines abroad.

The village is once more a busy place. But most busy are Carlos and Brando, who found their calling guiding divers in their underwater treks. Brandong Palikpik found at last his true milieu, for underwater, having fins for feet is not freakish. It is the most natural thing in the world.

End

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