Alipin

Edit: Hi, this is my twelve-year-old sister Caitlin's work. She wrote it for our school paper, The Campus Observer, and I thought it was a pretty cool first attempt at writing. She says she ripped the names off Wikipedia. - Aimee


I am a mere alipin, a slave to the datu. No one looks at me. No one hears me. Nothing more than property, I can’t even own a piece of land. Life these days is tough. We cook and clean and cook and clean every single day without break. I wasn’t always like this though.

                My father is a proud and stubborn man. If someone disagrees with him on a petty little topic, he’ll find a way to prove that he’s right. Limbona, a family friend, was talking to him the other day about birds and what keeps them up. Father claimed it was because the wind lifts them up and plays with them. Limbona said it was because they were actually witches in disguise, doing some dark magic. Personally, I chose to believe Limbona, because I refuse to think about what would happen if the wind played with us. (My fear of high places can explain that.) Father found that the local umalohokan had sided with him and became very smug.

                The fatal error my father made was betting all our money and more on something incredibly stupid. He claimed that he could talk to the engkantos, the fairies that live in the forest. To prove this, he challenged everybody to ask him a riddle. “Come on, folks! Earn gold quick! Ask me whatever you want! Of course, the answer will be correct! I can talk to engkantos!” If the “engkantos” get it right, he wins all their money. If they get it wrong, he loses everything and more. He used to constantly do these things, so I never gave it a second thought. “Getting rich without the hard work, Malaya! Can you think of anything better than that?” he used to say. He never expected someone to beat him.

                Datu Padujinog approached him silently. “Kalantiao! I have a question for the forest spirits.”
                “Step right up, Padujinog, old friend! Ask me anything, anything and I assure you, I have the answer.” Father flashed the datu a quick, charming smile.

                “Give it food and it will live. Give it water and it will die. What is it?” he asked expectantly.
                “Oh, a tricky one I see! Come back tomorrow and I’ll give you the answer!” Father replied, grinning, but his eyes were worried.

                He came back much later, supposedly from the woods nearby, conversing with the spirits. No matter how hard he tried, he could not find out the answer. As he told Mother about our predicament, I watched as Mother grew steadily redder, then paler. Finally, she made a sound. “Oh my Bathala! What on earth are we going to do, Kalantiao? Why did you have to go and challenge the datu? He’s the cleverest person in the barangay, for Bathala’s sake!”

                “Relax, we’ll just pay him the gold and we’re free to go!” was his nonchalant reply.

                “Maybe you’re forgetting that we don’t have the gold! You spent it all on the useless decorations!” It was true. Apparently, Father‘s philosophy is that the more meaningless decors you have around the house, the more respect from the neighbors you’ll get.

“Then we’ll just have to work as slaves. Pay off our debt. Do some hard work. Who knows, maybe we’ll enjoy it!”

The next day, Father marched over to Datu Padujinog to announce his defeat with dignity. “The answer, by the way, was fire.” Datu Padujinog told Father arrogantly.

A crowd had gathered around us to watch as we received the Padujinog alipin tattoos to signify that we belong to them. They have labeled us as theirs. We are not free from now on. We are never free.

                That is how I ended up here. I, Malaya, am a mere alipin, a slave to the datu. No one looks at me. No one hears me.