Forgotten and Lost 10

Dr. Ordonez. Dr. Vincent Ordonez, the chief of the trauma and emergency medicine department of GSU's hospital and somewhat of a fanatic of Eric Ong. That name was enough to shut the man up. Ordonez was a surgeon who did more than just surgery on trauma victims. A few days after the incident, the man learned that Ordonez had removed "Pinkie's" pituitary gland as well as those of several other cultists. They would suffer from panhypopituarism for the rest of their lives.

He was walking down the corridor to the special arrivals area for EOGC personnel and noticed that the cardinal was walking ahead of him. He wanted to speak to him but they had already reached the end of the corridor. Other people were waiting there to meet incoming personnel. There were family members, co-workers, superiors, subordinates and many others. A broad white line on the floor was the only thing that separated the greeters from those who were arriving. They were not allowed to cross the line, but those on arrival could do so. It was different from the regular arrivals section, where arrivals were separated from greeters by  a low fence and there were designated exits. There was discipline enough to show that the processes were orderly.

Presently, Lord Ethan arrived; a small man with a big smile on his face. "Zhang Mingshi, wanshang hao!" he said as he approached the cardinal.

"Wo hen hao, Lin Wenyong," the cardinal replied, extending his right hand. His expression unchanged.

"You look terrible," said Lord Ethan as he shook the cardinal's hand. "You didn't have to come all the way here to pick me up. I came here to see you!"

"And I came over to show you that I'm not as frail as I look."

"Lord Ethan, sir," said the man, taking a step forward. "I'm in charge of you security escort."

"Ah!" said Lord Ethan. "Well then, let's get my luggage and we'll be off, then!"

As they went along another corridor with Lord Ethan leading the way, the man walked a little faster in order to be at the cardinal's side.

"Eminence," he murmured. "I-"

"It's alright, Johnny." said the cardinal, his eyes still fixed forward. "There are things that are beyond our control and the only thing left for us to do is act."

"But-" 

"You were at GST. Your job was to keep the two crowds apart as best as possible," the cardinal continued.

The man smiled wryly as the cardinal went on, "You had a duty to fulfill. And although violence did break out in the end, it would have gotten worse if you didn't act."

"Does this mean I did the right thing?"

The cardinal paused for a moment ant looked at the man. "Johnny," he said, a faint smile appearing on his face. "You're in the security department; your job is to protect. And that job carries many risks with it. But if it weren't for the risks you have to take, would there be anyone left to protect? I'll admit I don't know everything, and life throws questions at us that we have no answer for. We have to give those questions the best answers we can ever muster. Life is not an illusion; we have to face it. And those who run away and hide behind strange self-proclaimed messiahs who promise an end to suffering by denying its very existence are the ones who are truly forgotten and lost."

The cardinal resumed his walk and continued, "'I should have,' 'I wish I could turn back time,' 'this isn't real,' This is all just wishful thinking. We can't fix the past; but we can learn from it to make a better future."

The man halted for a moment, awestruck at the cardinal's words. For a moment there, time stopped and all things fell into place. The man looked down and smiled.

"Hey, hurry up, slowpoke," said the cardinal, who was already more than twenty feet away -and behind Lord Ethan, who was even further ahead. "We still have to help Ethan get his baggage."

"Uh, right," said the man as he hurried to catch up with the cardinal.

The Eric Trinity

Anselmo: Here's a photo of a picture the author drew of Eric; he's in the middle. The other two are characters from another novel that the author never finished. Uh, who are they, by the way?

Lorenzo: Emperors of the same country who lived five hundred years apart, although they're clad in business suits like Eric. While both reform-minded, the one in white was extremely violent in implementing reform and cleaning up his government. Five hundred years later, the red-haired one appeared. He was the opposite: he worked through existing channels to get his reforms in place, using force only if necessary or unavoidable.
Anselmo: So why'd the author put them together with the boss?
Lorenzo: No idea, but do you have the guts to ask him?

Lemon Tree - Nice Version!

Anselmo: Here's the song "Lemon Tree" by Fool's Garden that the previous post was talking about. The author kinda likes this version. Enjoy!

Lorenzo: Just tells you how meaningless locking yourself in your 'illusions' can be. The terror of all who blindly follow cults.
Anselmo: Meaning...?
Lorenzo: Cults promise you everything, but when you stop and think, instead of the "blue, blue sky" the talk about, all you just see is the lemon tree, which is the reality that we all have to face.

Forgotten and Lost 9

Eric Ong walked across the vast lobby of Great South Tower and down to the main entrance. The crowd of employees, upon noticing him, made way like Moses' parting of the Red Sea. It was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to set. The cultists had been put down with no help from the (ineffectual) police. 

As the taipan made his way through the path his employees made for him, Anselmo Sanchez put his shovel down, grinned in his usual childlike manner and gave a small wave. "Hi boss," said Anselmo sheepishly.

The taipan passed by him, patting his shoulder as he did so.

Eric came to the highway to meet the man, who was standing over the cultist Maximilian referred to as "Pinkie." The cultist lay on the ground, bleeding and moaning.

"So this is the one who shot Cardinal Zhang?" he asked the man.

"From what I've gathered, yes," the man replied, not taking his eyes off Pinkie. "Bastard," he snarled and ground his boot heel into the cultist's right shoulder.

Eric crouched behind the cultist. "Hi Pinkie," he hissed. "It's been a while."

The cultist didn't respond. He continued to moan in agony. Eric turned his head around and saw Maximilian standing in the distance, back turned to him and holding his sword.

"Excuse me, sir," asked the man. "You know each other?"

"Sort of," the taipan replied. "He used to threaten me."

"But he's only a kid."

"I was in that group before," explained the taipan, "both my son and me. But I left because I couldn't stand the stupidity. I tried to get my son to leave but-"

"He ended up joining them for a while," the man finished.

"For a while," Eric repeated. "And then he noticed, as I did, that something was wrong."

"You both discovered that the group was a fraud," the man concluded as the taipan stood up and lighted a cigarette.

"'I wonder how, I wonder why,'" Eric said to Pinkie, recalling the words of the old 1990's song 'Lemon Tree' by Fool's Garden. "'Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue, blue sky and all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree.'"

He reached into a pocket with his left hand while whirling the cigarette in small circles with his right as he continued, "'I'm turning my head up and down. I'm turning, turning, turning, turning, turning around and all that I can see is just another lemon tree.'"

"What do we do with him?" the man asked.

"Him? Why, bring him off to the hospital of course."

"You can't be serious!" said the man incredulously. 

Eric pulled out his cellphone and dialed a number. "Hello, Dr. Ordonez," he said

Forgotten and Lost 8

The last few shots rang as the man stopped running. The cultists were not used to being shot at and were now nothing more than a dazed, confused and panic-stricken lot. Some went mad and half-danced, half-fought with their swords, clubs and knives, only to be subdued by security  troopers who simply shouldered their guns and took them down with their bare hands. Some tried to blow themselves up with what remaining molotov cocktails and IEDs they had left; a few of them succeeded and the rest were too panicky to properly detonate themselves. Others dropped to the ground, shivering in fear. Others charged forward blindly and were either shot or subdued. Still others fled; and they were the least lucky of all, for they had fallen into the clutches of the third crowd and were lynched. At the end of the day, the corpses of those who ran into the third crowd lay on the streets, beaten and broken.

The man looked around, his eyes scanning, looking for the cultist with the megaphone. It didn't take long to find him.

Maximilian had just disarmed a dark, bearded, skinhead in an orange robe and left him writhing in pain. The cutlist's tendons had been cut. When the security forces' counterattack started, the taipan's son cut a swath through the crowd of cultists. Unlike the cultists, the boy's training included practical application of the techniques. Trained in Taijiquan, Changquan, Baguazhang and Qinna as well as Daoshu, Gunshu and Qiangshu, Maximilian was both awe-inspiring and terrifying in combat.

As the bearded cultist fell, the next one in Maximilian's path was the one with the megaphone.

"Stay back!" screamed the cultist with the megaphone, raising his gun with a trembling hand. "Stay back, I'm warning you!"

"Pinkie," Maximilian murmured.

The cultist screamed an squeezed the trigger. A click was the only sound; all the bullets were spent. Several more frustrated clicks followed.

The cultist screamed again. He threw the gun at Maximilian; the boy merely leaned to the left as the gun whizzed pas his head. The cultist screamed some more and hurled the megaphone. But since this megaphone was the type that was carried under the shoulder with a sling and connected to a handheld microphone by a cord, it didn't travel far and landed only three feet from Maximilian.

"Traitor!" the cultist screamed. He pulled out a batangas knife and lunged at Maximilian, crying, "Swamiji!"

Maximilian parried the knife and thrust his blade horizontally into the cultist's head in a single circular motion. He didn't thrust it in completely, just a mere two inches of the blade.

The cultist sank to his knees and slumped forward as Maximilian walked past him. For a moment, the man thought, the blaspheming cultist was dead until a cry erupted. The cultist went up back on his knees, screaming in pain and holding his hands to his head in an attempt to stop the profuse bleeding. 

"Pinkie," murmured Maximilian again without glancing back. 

The man ran to the screaming cultist. He realized that somehow Maximilian had managed to avoid hitting the brain because the wound was above the eyes but below the forehead, where the nose and the forehead connected.

"Shut up!" roared the man. He lifted his right foot, put it against the right side of the cultist's head and drove it in a forward-downward motion, sending the latter to the ground.

"Stay down and shut up!"

But the cultist's screaming continued.

Forgotten and Lost 7

The cultists came, some walking, some dancing to the beat of drums and flutes. Some of them wore ordinary clothes while others wore orange robes that resembled those of Indian ascetics. Some had shaven heads. Some of them carried placards with anti-EOGC slogans, others, pictures of Hindu gods and religious figures as well as divinities and saints of different religions. A few of them carried huge portraits of their recently-deceased guru.

Although this was a cult with strong Indian motifs, the guru himself was a Filipino. He was a fat, middle-aged man with a shaved head and dark skin. The portraits the cultists carried had his image somewhat embellished with halos around his head and garlands of flowers around his neck.

The cultists chanted mantras, praises to their guru and slogans hostile to the EOGC. They waved their swords, bloodied by their confrontation only a few minutes ago. Others carried knives. Within the group of cultists was a circle of women dancing roundabout a chunky man whose head had been shaved and stripped to the waist. He wore a garland of flowers around his neck and an orange sheet of cloth around his waist; he held aloft a large framed tarp bearing the image of the guru. Another cultist, similarly dressed, carried a megaphone and a .45-caliber pistol. He was shouting out anti-EOGC slogans, mantras and orders. He was even mocking the cardinal. This cultist, the man zeroed his attention on.

But he had to sound professional. He turned around to address the security forces. "No shooting unless necessary!" he shouted. "Exercise maximum tolerance! Strike to suppress! Emphasize restraint!"

"Those orders are useless," commented Maximilian as the man turned back to him. He glanced at Maximilian then looked at the fanatics. Almost immediately, something flew from the ranks of the cultists and burst into flames at the line of security personnel, burning some of the men. It was a molotov cocktail.

"Brace yourself, captain," continued Maximilian, unfazed by the explosion. "It's about to get worse."

A few seconds later, what looked like a paper package was thrown from the cultists and exploded with the force of a grenade. It was an improvised explosive devise, an IED. If the fanatics had IEDs, that now made them terrorists. This was no longer a riot operation; it was now an anti-terror operation.

"IED detected! IED detected!" came the warning on the EGOC security radios.

Maximilian drew his sword. "No more Mr. Nice Guy," he said to the man.

"Call for backup!" the man roared at his subordinate.

The fanatics began shooting.

The man readied his sub-machinegun. "Advance and return fire!" he cried.

Forgotten and Lost 6

"They shot the cardinal!"

Those words hit the man like a speeding train. He turned around.

The crowd of employees in front of GST was getting restless. The news was on the radio, live on television and distributed through cellphones and tablets. It was appearing on the headlines of news websites.

"They shot the cardinal!" roared an angry factory worker clutching his cellphone.

 "Oh no! Not Cardinal Zhang!" cried a female clerk.

"They'll hang for that!"

"Cultist bastards!"

He could see that Anselmo Sanchez character in the angry crowd waving a shovel.

The cardinal!

Since that rainy day the cardinal helped him back on his feet, his life, as well as that of is family, changed. He and his siblings were given scholarships at Great South University -all the way to college. The agreement was that they were to work at any of the EOGC's companies for five years; after five years, they were free to go wherever they wanted. If they stayed at the EOGC, they would receive an automatic promotion. He chose Maintenance and Sanitation and decided to become part of the security forces.

He joined the security forces to return the favor the cardinal did him. The latter saved him and his family, he made his mind up to protect the cardinal.

But the cardinal was shot -and the man, now an officer, wasn't around to protect him. Regret, that was what the man felt, and guilt; regret and guilt. Now he was struggling to keep the anger under control.

"Hey boss!" cried a subordinate holding a phone. "It's the chief!"

The man took the phone. "Yes, Mr. Ong?" he asked.

"Captain Verde," said Eric Ong on the other side of the phone. "The cultists have to be taken out. Another crowd is forming around Gaston Park and heading for GST. You have to take the cultists  down before that other crowd does."

"I understand, sir-" as he spoke a tall, long-haired and somewhat scrawny-looking and bespectacled young man in a black GSU student's uniform walked  past his right and straight toward the front line where the cultists were expected to arrive. He recognized him at once.

"Hey, you can't go over there!" he said.

"My son is going to take charge," Eric Ong continued. "He has a score to settle with those former 'brethren' on his. You'll have to coordinate with him."

The man looked at Maximilian. The young man was carrying his dao, the wushu broadsword, in his left hand. Its two red square silk tails fluttered.

"Understood, sir," said the man.  He returned the phone back to the subordinate and ran to Maximilian.

"Any moment now, Captain Verde." said the young man. 

He looked at Maximilian, then he looked at the street. It didn't take them long to wait. The fanatics came.

Forgotten and Lost 5

"Po?" the man asked in Tagalog. "Where are you from?"

"From Manila po," said the boy as he knelt down and opened his shoeshine box.

"You'd better start learning Visayan, boy," said the man. He took his shoe off the box. "Tagalog's a dead language. It only reminds us of what those fools from Manila did to us."

"But po-" pleaded the boy as the man turned away.

"I ain't doing anything with some braggart kid from Manila!" he walked off. "You Manila people are all the same," he continued. "Rich or poor, you all look down on us."

He was left without a customer. Since he started shining shoes he had only two or three customers, he couldn't remember. The last time he had a customer was two weeks ago. Fifty pesos slipped his grasp. He would still be eating tonight, but there would be no money for anything else. 

The clouds were gathering and rain began to pour. Gaston Park wasn't the place to hang around in the middle of a thunderstorm. He headed to one of the waiting sheds, where people were gathering but caught sight of the man.

Fearful, he turned away and the rain started to fall, and it fell heavily. By now, all the waiting sheds were crowded to capacity. The concrete was wet. He slipped and fell. His box fell open, its contents scattering. He turned and looked at the contents; the bar of ink was getting soaked in the rain and turning to liquid, the can of shoe polish rolled away, the brush and rag were nearby.

Then he became aware of another presence. Turning back, he saw a pair of shoes under a black robe whose hem was getting soaked in the rain. A priest? He looked up and beheld a pair of eyes staring back at him

Those eyes belonged to the man in the black robe. They were steady and piercing. The priest wore a red sash around his waist and from his neck hung a large Byzantine cross and a pair of large pendants bearing the images of saints. So this was no ordinary priest.

The priest held an open umbrella in his left hand. He stretched out his right, holding it to the boy. He said not a word.

Thunder boomed and lightning lit up the sky.

A subordinate placed his hand on the man's left shoulder. "Sir?" he said. "Lord Ethan has just gotten off the plane." 

Kanon

Anselmo: Pachelbel's "Kanon."  Cardinal Zhang's favorite classical piece. Practically never gets tired of it. I know it's great, but what does he see in it that other people can't?
Lorenzo: It's because that song has a way of touching one's soul.
Anselmo: Really?
Lorenzo: Just listen.

Forgotten and Lost 4

The airport had a special arrivals and departures section for EOGC personnel. When the man alighted from his vehicle, he caught sight of another group of EOGC security vehicles that had already parked. They were guarding another car, an SUV with Cardinal Zhang's coat-of-arms on it. Its driver alighted and opened the back door. Out stepped the cardinal.

The man was somewhat taken aback. The cardinal was not wearing his robes as usual. Instead, he wore a plain white collared shirt tucked into his black trousers. The only indicator of his status was a small wooden cross worn with a simple brown string around his neck. The man knew why: the cardinal's left arm had been bandaged and he wore a sling around his neck to support it -a gunshot wound, the result of a cultist's attempt on his life during the stampede a few days ago.

A large group of cultists whose frauds had been exposed due to their own internal squabbling attempted to take control of Cagayan de Oro by seizing Great South Tower. The cardinal tried to stop the attempt by blocking the cultists' march to the building by interposing himself along with many priests and nuns of the archdiocese between the cultists and the highway to GST. He then tried to persuade the cultists to return to their place of abode, but they wouldn't listen. Instead, they turned on the cardinal as well as the priests and nuns.

While most of the cultists carried swords that they bought from martial arts supplies stores and thought a few rounds of Taijiquan made them ready for a brawl, some of them brought guns. Two priests were killed and many were injured. After this small victory, the cultists continued their blind rush toward GST, which was still several kilometers away. They thankfully didn't bring any prisoners with them so those who survived the clash managed to carry the injured to safety.

During the clash, one of the cultists armed with guns fired a shot at the cardinal, who succeeded in fending off several attackers with a six-foot section of water pipe from an adjacent construction site. It was not a surprise on the part of the priests that Cardinal Zhang could do this because they knew he was a wushu athlete in his younger days and continued to practice wushu up to the present.

The shooting was recorded by reporters and people with cellphones and the news sent shockwaves all throughout the city and the country. There was already another group of people assembled in front of GST; it consisted of EOGC employees who learned of the impending cultists' attack and gathered on the grounds of GST to defend one of the EOGC's most important centers of power. An entire battalion of security forces in riot gear was also at GST, ready to keep both groups apart. 

But the shot changed the whole nature of the game. The cardinal was a popular figure, respected by the social elite and revered by the rest of the populace not just because of his position in the Church. When he was shot, his fall was captured on cameras and cellphones. A third crowd was now forming. It was an angry one bent on avenging the cardinal, who was instrumental in saving many people from poverty.

Upon hearing the news of the shooting, the crowd of EOGC employees became agitated and restless. It was then decided by the security forces that the cultists had to be taken out before the two angry crowds would join forces and deal with the cultists themselves. The man knew; he was, after all, an officer and he was there at GST when the orders to take the cultists out came from the top, from Eric Ong himself. Although the taipan was somewhat reluctant to allow it, his prodigal eldest son, back from a long hiatus, took it upon himself to take charge of the operation. MUSDO, Maximilian Ulrich S. D. Ong, had a score to settle with these cultists -and he didn't just lead. He took the field.

Forgotten and Lost 3

The drive to the airport was long. He never traveled this way when he first came here; it was through the ports. As the convoy drove through the night, memories went through the man's brain.

It was not easy to get to Cagayan de Oro; but it was easy to get a job when they got there. Adjusting, however, was tough. As people from Manila, they had been brainwashed by the media into thinking the provincianos were nothing more than ignorant country bumpkins. But now that they were here, the illusion had evaporated. The Kagay-anons were sophisticated and better-educated. Life here moved at a faster pace and although they could speak Tagalog, it became clear that that language was not what was needed to get around. In the Visayas and Mindanao, with the exception of the ARMM, the monopoly of control of Imperial Manila had been broken after the Takeover. They had to learn to speak Visayan, since it wasn't just the local tongue, but the first in order of priority of usage.

The peoples outside Luzon spoke at least three or four languages: Visayan, English, Ilonggo and Chinese. Everybody could speak Visayan and English while Ilonggo was spoken in the Ilonggo-speaking areas. Chinese, once confined only to the ethnic Chinese community, was now spoken out of necessity as a medium of commerce; the Taipan, Eric Ong himself, was Chinese. There was also Korean because Koreans had settled there and, in some places, Japanese.

They had to borrow money again. First, their father went off. He found a job as a janitor -not the EGOC security forces- and gradually sent money to his family. Months later, they were able to pay their debts. By the end of the year, they found themselves at the port of Cagayan de Oro... impressive and intimidating.

His mother also found work as a housekeeper and she was allowed to bring her children to her master's house on work days. Although her employers were kind, it was apparent that she couldn't depend on her salary alone. This new environment was different from Manila. Then it was his turn to work... but he couldn't find any. After all, what could a boy who didn't finish grade school be able to achieve?