When Back In Time

"TULONG! TULUNGAN niyo po kami!" she pleaded as she knocked on the door. (Help! Help us!)

The sun was setting down.

Beaded sweats covered her face. She looked at Pepe.

His arm was anchored around her shoulder. Drooping on her side was his face. It was pallid and sweating heavily.

"Hang in there, Pepe," she whispered in perturbation. She wiped his sweat.

She knocked again on the door. Looking around she yelled and pleaded.

The simple 'Bahay Kubo' or Nipa Hut was beside a stream.

Laying Pepe down on the floor, she went down the stairs and looked around the hut. The hut, which was built in bamboo and other wood material, sat on posts raised above the ground and had wooden stairs. The roof was covered with voluminous thatched. Its windows were shut down. Silence could be heard inside.

'Maybe no one is home, ' she guessed.

Her knees fell on the ground. Touching the earth, her hands clawed the dirt as she started bawling.

'This is my fault,' she told herself. 'I am worthless. I am a harbinger of misery. I did this to Pepe. Now…now…now….he is dying because of me."

Images came flashing in her mind. Bangun Bangun had warned her once. He said that she's going to bring Pepe his tragedy, his misery.

'And now this is it. Pepe first broke his nose and two fingers. He has been shot on his shoulder, leg and his abdomen. And now he's breathing his last breathe all because of me. All because of me, I dragged him here all the way from Luzon to find that Jose Rizal and finish the darn quest! But all we found here is more pain and suffering. I dragged him here, I dragged him in this situation. This is my fault.'

She continued, 'I always did the wrong thing. Always. Just like how I did a mistake which caused my friend's injury and suffering. Just like what happened to Maria, it is now happening to Pepe. My fault. My fault!'

The wooden door creaked and opened ajar. A head popped out and looked around.

Esperanza lifted her head and directed her eyes towards the door.

A man came out. He was wearing a camisa de chino (white shirt) and black pants. Kneeling down, he examined Pepe's body and mumbled, "Pepe."

Looking shocked, Esperanza stood on her feet and approached him. "T-tulungan niyo ho siya ginoo," she said. (H-help him, mister)

The man carried Pepe inside the nipa hut. He ordered Esperanza to clear out the table. After she did what he said, the man laid Pepe down.

The man went inside a room.

Esperanza started biting her nails.

After a few seconds, the man came out with a black bag on his hand. He put the bag on the floor near the table and went to the nearest cabinet. He pulled some bottles and put them beside Pepe.

He pulled a knife from the 'batalan' or sink.

"A-anong ginagawa niyo?" she asked the man. (What are you doing?)

The man said, "Huwag ka mag-alala. Isa akong doctor." (Don't worry, I'm a doctor)

He opened Pepe's shirt using the knife and saw how badly Pepe's abdomen was.

"Mahabaging Diyos! Sabihin mo, anong nangyari sa kanya?" the man asked. (Merciful God! Tell me, what happens to him?)

She eyed the man. She thought to herself that this man looks very familiar to her.

The man looked at her and yelled again to her as she didn't hear what he just said. He said, "Sabi ko, kumuha ka ng mga tela sa loob ng aking silid-tulugan." (I said, take the clothes inside my bedroom)

He eyed her the moment she stared back to him, he told her to hurry.

Esperanza rapidly obliged.  Entering the room, she first saw a lonesome, small bed made of bamboo woods, a table stood beside it with a lamp on top. A wooden chair was put in front of the table. She inched towards the cabinet. All in all the room was neat and minimal.

Opening the cabinet, she grabbed clothes she could get.

'That man,' she told herself. 'He looks familiar.'

When she went out, she handed the fabrics to the man. The man was in his 20's. He has a well-trimmed mustache. On his hands, he's wearing gloves. The man looked at Esperanza and told her to hold Pepe.

She did what she was told.

Pepe screamed in pain as the man dozed his wound with alcohol. The man tried to calm down Pepe.

'This man,' Esperanza could not shake off the idea that kept knocking on her mind.

The man sliced Pepe's wound to open it wider. Pepe let out a scream of excruciation. She worriedly looked down on Pepe and then to the man.

The man pulled the bullet underneath the wounded Pepe by using a tool Esperanza did not recognize. 'This man.'

She looked again to the man and eyed every inch of his face. He had seen him somewhere, she knew that. But where? He really looked familiar to her. 'And that mustache of his, I surely frequently seen it,' she told herself.

She focused.

'Where did I meet him?' she asked herself.

She kept fumbling inside her head that memory. She searched it in every corner of her mind. He's familiar. Where did she meet him?

And then she remembered. She did not recall the exact date but she remembered him.

She remembered meeting him in Tondo, Manila. He's that stranger who kindly gave her food and coins and mistaking him as a beggar. It was him.

It's also him whom Pepe met in the ship, the one who gave him the wine and the one who also saved him from the storm.

She gasped, 'Agustin!'

The man in front of Esperanza was Agustin.

Her eyes searched the wristwatch from his hands. She saw nothing on his wrist. She looked at the man. 'He is Agustin, right? Right? I remembered he's wearing that wristwatch in Tondo. And I remembered Pepe told me way back that Agustin also had the wristwatch like mine.'

Her heart pumped faster. 'Where is the wristwatch? Why he's not wearing it?'

Her eyes landed on the door of Agustin's room.

'That's it,' she told herself, 'He might put it in his bedroom.'

She took a step back and eyed the doctor. Agustin carefully and expertly putting herbs on Pepe's abdomen.

Esperanza stealthily went inside the bedroom. She began rummaging through his bed. Nothing.

And then he went to his table and rummaged to his drawer. And then to his cabinet.

'What the heck,' she told herself, 'Where is it?'

She started to get anxious. Why she couldn't find it?  She started grabbing her hair in frustration. "Where is it?" she whispered while gritting her teeth.

She went outside and roamed her eyes around Agustin's hut. 'It can't be,' she said to herself. Her heart was pumping faster and faster per second.

'Where in the world is it?' she asked herself. She started to walk and stopped when she kicked on something. It was Agustin's bag.

Bending down, she tried to open it.

"Kumuha ka pa ng tela!" Agustin ordered.

She was shocked to hear him but she immediately composed herself. She gave him more clothes she harbored from his cabinet. Then, carefully bending down, she opened the bag. She saw lots of tools she didn't recognize, probably some medical instruments. She saw no wristwatch in there.

She looked up and watched Agustin.  He was very focused on operating Pepe. 'Where did he hide it?'

She eyed his pants. 'Is the wristwatch inside his pocket?'

Closing her eyes, she hoped it was not in his pants.

She gazed again his bag.

And then…. she carefully rummaged. Finally, she saw a pocket. She slipped her hand inside the bag and there she felt something hard. It's the wristwatch! She took it out and her heart could not stop from racing.

'Finally!, ' she gleefully thought to herself, 'Finally, finally, finally! I got. I finally have the other clock!'

Secretly, she slipped it inside her bra and nonchalantly walked away from his bag.