Apples & aswang
By: Carielyn; Dharug/Sydney, Australia
“As with the other shape-shifting monsters around the world, the aswang taps into the universal fear that humanity has about confronting their shadow side. After all, anyone can be an aswang.” — Carl Lorenz Cervantes
My mother told me that when she was pregnant with me, she cried at least once a day to rinse the soreness from her heart. She cried and cried until the salt of her tears dried the earth of her village. Crops choked on their own roots and the soil in the fields slipped and shifted, forever changed.
Maybe that’s why you feel sad, Da, she said.
She ate her words as soon as they spilled, forced laughter a cover for things she buried long ago and doesn’t have the language to exhume. I prompted her to continue.
It’s okay Ma, you felt scared and alone.
But the moment was gone. Lost down the river again.
I don’t have many memories of my lola. I found an old photo of her once, in a box of letters and ticket stubs, paper detritus of a pre-digital age. She’s probably in her late thirties in it, wearing a simple dress and a stoic half-smile. My cousins, just children then, stood beside her on what I suppose were the banks of the Pasig River. Corroboration in black and white. But I’ve lost that photo now.
My mother and I are cutting apples when I ask her for stories again. I put her on the spot and she flusters.
What you wanna know? She counters, buying time.
It’s Halloween tomorrow, Undas eve, the Day of the Dead in the so-called Philippines.
Anything. Did Naynay tell ghost stories? Ma’s eyes brighten. She puts down the paring knife, slides apple pieces into the spitting pan.
Ah ganoon. Yes, she liked the aswang stories.
Cool. Can you tell me one?
She focuses on the apples again while she speaks.
When I ran away from your father while I was pregnant, I lived with Naynay and kuya, diba? Your Tito - but back then he was your yaya.
She giggles at this gender bending and I bite back the lecture about pre colonial gender roles. Wrong time and that.
I was sooo pregnant then and one night I heard this ‘crkkk, crkkk’ on the roof. Oh my god, Da, I was so scared. Like a fingernails scratching. She makes a clawing motion and pulls her face into a contortion of campy-horror.
And then I heard this, like, ticking noise. And I knew it was aswang - come to eat you and kill me! But lucky, I had lots of garlic. Naynay bought lots of them, on the ceiling and the bed - we had mosquito nets so we hang them up there like this - you know?
She moves her hands like a Pangalay dancer picking grapes. I do know. She’s told me many times; how she yelled for her brother to join her in Lord’s Prayer-ing the monster away.
Oh you know already! Good girl, you remember everything, ha?
I try to ask for another story—one from her mother—but she’s lost interest now. The granny flat fills with the smell of melted butter and apples frying, caramelising.
Carielyn Tunion / 林嘉蓮 (she/they) is a writer, videopoet, educator, and cultural worker with a background in screen and media arts. She has also worked in the community sector supporting migrant and refugee women; and has experience in creative approaches for grassroots community organising. Carielyn’s work explores themes of yearning and radical nostalgia from an anticolonial diasporic perspective.
Artist Links:
Website: www.carielyntunion.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aswangnibbles/
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