Long ago, as the elders have said, there lived a monster in the North. This great beast was said to be a winged serpent that flew above the clouds. When it moved a huge shadow was cast on the earth giving warning to the people below that danger was looming.
Nothing could hurt the dragon. Its scales could not be pierced by human weapons and only the very foolish, or the very brave would even think of challenging the beast.
Time passed and the beast was seen less and less by the people of the North. It was only through the tales told by the fading generations that its story was kept alive.
No one knew what became of the dragon, and there were even those that whispered that some brave hero had slain it, though it could never be proven.
And so, time passed and people moved on. Centuries brought much change and upheaval to the North. A new faith brought with it temples of stone. Works of steel and wires crisscrossed the land. People grew and multiplied.
Through all of this the dragon remained silent.
Until shocks rocked the North destroying buildings, damaging towns and splitting the earth. Many casualties were reported and it was a tragedy that would stay in people’s minds for years to come.
In the aftermath there were those that believed this event was a warning from the Almighty. A place of worship was shattered and its penitents wrote letters to their Lord begging for forgiveness.
One of these was a young man named Mariano. He stared at the rubble before him and prayed the rosary as he set down a handwritten note pleading for intercession in these trying times.
As he said his 20th Hail Mary, he was startled by a hand that rested on is shoulder. It was that of an old woman that he did not know.
“Hello lola, can I help you?” Mariano asked.
The woman just stared blankly at him.
“Are you lost? Are you here with your family? I can help you look for them.”
Just then the old woman grabbed Mariano’s arm and stared into his eyes.
“It is back,” she said.
“What is back?” Mariano was confused, he didn’t understand anything the old woman was saying.
“The great phantom. The giant spirit. The terror.”
The old woman crumpled into Mariano’s arms. Her breathing was shallow, and her pulse was weak.
Mariano shouted for help and an ambulance was called.
As he listened for her breath, she managed to let out a whisper, “Olimaw.”
The paramedics ushered the old woman into the ambulance and Mariano breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was over.
He grasped his rosary and continued on with his vigil.
A few minutes in he noticed something was different. His fingers felt a different texture. Mariano looked at his rosary and noticed that the smooth beads had been changed to rough, almost rock-like ones. He stared at the rosary and wondered how that could have happened.
In that moment a shadow was cast over him. He looked towards the sky and saw nothing but a group of clouds temporarily blocking the sun.
He wondered about the old woman and what she said.
It took him back to his childhood when his grandparents brought him to the lighthouse at Cape Bojeador.
The sky was a tapestry weaved out of starlight. Mariano had never seen anything like it before. He pointed towards the different constellations and his lolo would tell each of their stories.
At the end of their visit, when it was getting far too late for a six-year-old to stay awake, Mariano pointed towards the moon and asked his lolo to tell him a story.
His lolo obliged and put Mariano on his lap. It was then that Mariano first heard of the word ‘Olimaw’ and as he drifted to sleep, his lolo told him that no one had seen the serpent in centuries. The moon and the people of the North were safe from its jaws.
That was then.
In the weeks that followed the night sky seemed to grow darker. It was as if the very stars were hiding from an unseen predator. The moon’s light was left unfelt by those that had come to expect its cooling rays.
And through it all the words of the old woman ringed in Mariano’s ears.
“Olimaw.”
In the wake of the earthquake a giant fissure opened near Paoay Church. Thankfully the church was spared the damage that had befallen so many other structures, and Mariano took the time to go there to pray.
It was said that the church was specifically made to adapt to the seismic conditions of the Philippines. This was obvious with the striking buttresses around the church.
At any other time, Mariano would have marveled at the architecture, but this time he was here for a reason.
He approached the gigantic fissure with care, not knowing what he was going to find. Officials called the area a safety hazard and had told the public to stay away, though this was not strongly enforced. There were no people around when Mariano went on with his reconnaissance.
50 meters in he found what he was looking for. A large black scale the size of his torso. There was a shine to it when the sunlight hit. Mariano gasped and took out his rosary. He prayed to calm his nerves and he was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t realize his palms were bleeding.
As the droplets of blood fell to the ground a tremor went through the fissure. Mariano stopped his prayers, knelt down and covered his head. He closed his eyes and hoped that this was just a small aftershock.
The tremor didn’t last long and when he opened his eyes a soft glow filled his vision.
Before him was what seemed to be a man, though he was covered in light. He pointed towards the scale.
“What are you?” Mariano asked.
The man smiled and pointed to Mariano’s rosary. “I am one of many,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“In times long past, I would have been called a great spirit, or even—“
“A god.”
The man smiled and nodded.
“Was the Olimaw a god too?”
“To some.”
“It was here wasn’t it? Trapped? Can it be trapped again?”
The man looked towards the sky. “Maybe,” he said.
“It won’t stop will it?”
The man shook his head.
“What must I do?”
“What you have already done.” The man pointed to the rosary again.
“Pray?”
“Go to where the clouds roll by and do as you have done.”
“Wait! What does that mean—-”
And in an instant the man vanished.
Mariano stared at the rosary, stained with his blood. He knew where he had to go, but not what he had to do.
The next afternoon Mariano stood at the edge of the Gilbert bridge. The Laoag river reflected the dark orange of the impending sunset. From here he could see the Apayao mountain range and the sea of clouds that floated between the peaks.
He waited for dusk to settle in, when the serpent would burst through the clouds and make the night just that much darker.
Mariano’s fingers quivered has they tried to grasp his rosary.
As the sun nestled itself below the mountains, it emerged. It had a certain sense of majesty about it, a regal dragon swooping across the night sky, dancing in between the clouds.
It was time.
Mariano started with an ‘Our Father’ hoping that it might do something. The sharp stones of his rosary were digging into his palms as he clenched his fists.
Still the dragon danced.
Mariano fell on his knees. What good was prayer here? There was no way to stop the serpent. Not when he was alone.
He looked to the moon and saw that darkness was covering it. Soon there would be nothing left, only a canvas of black.
And then he remembered.
The Olimaw was not the only being in his lolo’s stories.
He shouted at the top of his lungs, “Amman! Saguday! Cabuyaran! Revenador! Anianihan! Bulan!”
“Please, hear me!”
A soft white glow started to appear around him. After a few moments a woman appeared in front of him and grasped his hands. As soon as she did his bloody palms healed.
In that instant he knew he was in the presence of the gods.
He saw them fly towards the dragon and use the soft glow of the moon to envelop it. A fierce gust of wind and peals of thunder led the serpent to release its grip on the moon.
The serpent fell towards the earth and the land shook. Mariano held his ground and waited until he was sure it was over.
Moonlight filled the sky and settled on Mariano’s grateful face.
“Thank you,” he said to the sky.
He picked himself back up and shrugged the weight of the past few weeks off his shoulders. Mariano couldn’t find his rosary and for once it didn’t matter.
He knew now how to pray.
——————————————————
*Anianihan is the god of the harvest, Cabuyaran is the goddess of healing, Saguday is the god of wind, Revenador is the god of thunder and lightning, Amman is the god of the sun (the sun is his eye) and Bulan is the god of peace.
Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Story inspired by the Oilmaw description in
Gelade, George P. I993. Ilokano-English dictionary. Quezon City, Philippines: CICM Missionaries, Inc.
Olimaw Illustration by Manuel Liwanag
FB: Meowinism
IG: https://www.instagram.com/meowinism/
