Fossil by Angelo R. Lacuesta - Love Stories Series #4

 

From Cecilia Brainard: I am proud to share ANGELO R. LACUESTA'S short story, FOSSIL. This is part of my Love Stories Series featured in my blog.  Fossil first appeared in Sarge's collection CORAL COVE AND OTHER STORIES (UST PH 2017).  It was also published in Santelmo Journal (2025). This is featured in my blog with permission from the author. 

***

ANGELO R. LACUESTA is a fictionist and novelist who also writes screenplays and essays. He has written more than ten books and two screenplays, and has won many national awards for his writing. He has represented the Philippines at numerous literary and film festivals and conferences. He is the current president of the Philippine Centre of PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) International. 

His most recent book is the novel JOY, published by Penguin Random House SEA in 2022. In 2024 he wrote and produced the film “An Errand,” based on a short story he wrote, for the Cinemalaya Film Festival. It was selected as part of the Bright Futures section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). His upcoming novel IRÔ (Milflores, 2025) was selected as one of 10 novels to be presented for possible film adaptation at the “Books at Berlinale” section of the  2025 Berlinale Film Festival. In 2025, “Song of the Fireflies,” a film he also wrote and produced, had its international premiere at the Manila International Film Festival in Los Angeles, California. 

*** 

FOSSIL

Copyright by Angelo R. Lacuesta. All rights reserved.

 

WHENEVER EMILIANO DATOY was drunk he stood up and declaimed in straight English how he had served, as a young boy, at meetings of town elders during the years before the war. The elders he had served themselves had served at the councils in their younger years, in Spanish times and then American times, entertaining traders, envoys and soldiers passing through Nueva Florencia, which had always been a dismal halfway town between the busiest of the island’s ports.

But I remember that when he was sober, Datoy spoke only Bisaya and could not even eat unattended, and he saved his feeble voice for when he needed it to carry from the veranda where he liked to sun himself, across the second floor living room, to his great-grandniece’s bedroom.

She appeared shortly, a dark young girl in her teens dressed in a batik house duster, carrying with two hands a thick, heavy, rectangular thing wrapped in the kind of velvet they used to cover statues on Black Saturday. Upon the old man’s croaked order, the woman swept the velvet curtain aside to reveal a block of black, stony wood bearing the smoothened etching of a winged figure. Dr. Hill drew a small gasp of awe from his throat and we bent forward to inspect the image, our heads softly colliding in the process. There were other things: vertical shapes etched around the figure possibly representing humans, and below it an inscription in badlit.

“Pre-Hispanic,” she said, when the old man nudged her ribs with an arthritic knuckle, which then pointed at the inscription. “The dragon of the swamps,” she translated, and Datoy’s folded hand sprung into a triumphant V and dropped to his side where he’d kept a bottle of gin handy, which he seemed intent to nurse into the afternoon. 

Dr. Hill remained silent but I know that by now he had begun to harbor a distrust toward the situation, his voice caved-in with exhaustion when he followed up with the old man about the tooth fragment. I was sure it was the heat, too. Datoy barked and sent the girl swishing out on bare feet to return with what looked like—and was soon proven to be—a two-inch tooth fragment. This she surrendered to us, depositing it into a piece of bubble wrap we had prepared specifically for this purpose.

Dr. Hill inspected the specimen while trying to express all due respect. It was Datoy himself who had started everything. He had seen my photo in a press release in the Daily Freeman announcing my scholarship in London and cut it out, A photo of the tooth-chip was stapled to a letter, written by the girl, explaining how she had discovered it while she had been playing in the dusty hillsides that surrounded their town.

 

The Mechanism of Moving Forward by Nikki Alfar - Love Stories Series # 1

 

Hello, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard here, 

I'm starting a LOVE STORIES SERIES in this blog, showcasing fine short stories by Filipino writers. 

The theme is LOVE, and by this I refer to love in all its guises, not just love between man and woman, but same-sex love, love for pets, love for family, love for country, love for God, love for nature … all the facets of this emotion called LOVE.

To start us off, here is a story by Nikki Alfar, who transports us to 1863 during the time of Shoguns. "The Mechanism of Moving Forward" is reprinted with her permission. 

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NIKKI ALFAR is a wife, mother, fictionist, dancer, arnis student, knitter, and origami folder. While she has yet to receive acclaim for folding, knitting, fighting, dancing, mothering, or wifing - go figure - she has managed to cadge repeated recognition out of the Palanca, Nick Joaquin, and global Mariner literary authorities, along with back-to-back National Book Awards for her story collections WonderLust (Anvil Publishing) and Now, Then, and Elsewhen (UST Press).

She’s edited more speculative fiction anthologies than she can count – there’ve been many, and her math is egregious – including the acclaimed, annual Philippine Speculative Fiction, which is now relaunched as New Philippine Speculative Fiction. By trade, she’s a marketing and corporate copywriter, so she writes fiction alllll the time. 

Nikki smokes like a chimney, and has one two children with writer Dean Francis Alfar - Ryo, 23, is also a published writer, and Asriel, 16, is an online novelist.

***

THE MECHANISM OF MOVING FORWARD

Copyright by Nikki Alfar, all rights reserved 

the mechanism of beginning

What enables the karakuri ningyo to commence operation is the auto-adjustment pin, which – as with all parts, save the mainspring – must be crafted of nothing but the most appropriate wood, harvested and fashioned at the proper time of year, to avoid air temperature and humidity taking their toll, before the structure has yet been assembled. This pin functions as a stopper for the cogwheel.

 

UPON ENTERING HIS workroom, on the nineteenth day of the twelfth month of the Nederlander year 1863, Tanaka Hisashige promptly lost hold of the lacquered tray he had been carrying, such that the tea implements he had so meticulously prepared, moments prior, fell clattering to the polished wooden floor.

“Such a clamor,” murmured Sakuma Kei, evincing no further reaction than the barest, most blamelessly demure of smiles. “One would almost think Tanaka-san had never seen a naked woman before.”

“In – in – in – the baths, certainly,” was the only response that politeness and his stunned state of mind enabled him to muster, gazing – while at the same time desperately endeavoring not to gaze – at the splendidly-unclad form of his revered teacher’s daughter.

“You did mention, in our correspondence, that you wished you might more closely study human anatomy, as the Redheads do,” she explained, with innocuous aplomb. “Therefore it seemed to me that I could offer you no greater o miage, upon my return from the capital, than the gift of myself.”

“The tea!” Hisashige exclaimed, dropping to his knees with unseemly haste. “The floor!” Tending to the fallen crockery would afford him a moment to clear his mind – not to mention, thankfully, avert his eyes – although of course she would see through the pretense immediately; it was only an ordinary tea set, after all, meant for everyday sencha. He had considered presenting something more refined, in celebration of her homecoming, but had reflected that it might seem overly presumptuous, or overly eager, for which diffidence he was now profoundly grateful, and not merely because his better porcelain had consequently escaped destruction.

“To think that the renowned inventor of the Ten-Thousand-Year Self-Ringing Bell Clock,” Kei was musing aloud, “at only twenty already a karakuri master famed throughout the land, should be so discomfited by a mere slip of a maiden, yet again deemed by our great thirteenth leader to be lamentably unimpressive, unworthy, and altogether unmarriageable.”

He very nearly fell into her trap, only at the last moment managing to refrain from looking back up at her. “He said no?”

“He said a great deal, including expressing his conviction that our Dejima, being an artificial island, must be composed of gears and pulleys – like one of your automata – or, more fitting to his mind, water and clockwork, like a mizudokei. I do not think he believed my explanation that it is merely earth, reclaimed for the purpose of maintaining the ludicrous fiction that the Nederlanders are not quite on our soil, thereby upholding, while at the same time unmistakably subverting the ridiculous sakoku ban.”

He did look up then, too alarmed to be constrained by propriety.

Her smile had become far less demure, her charcoal-dark eyes dancing with triumphant mischief. “I did not say it in quite those words, naturally.”

In his relief, he ceased resistance, resigning himself to merely confining his gaze above her chin. “You are presented to the shogun, and you spend the opportunity speaking to him of dirt?”

“I am fortunate he chose to address me at all.” Kei shrugged – firm in his resolution, Hisashige simply inferred the gesture from the tilt of her head. “The other maidens were not so favored. However many unwed women the bakufu persist in throwing at him, I do not think our Lord Iesada is at all interested in marriage; he spent no more than ten minutes on the lot of us.” She tilted her head the other way, raising an eyebrow. “Do you think it would have helped, had I been naked?”

He refused to be baited again, having at last regained some measure of equilibrium. “I believe I should go and fetch some more tea, as well as a servant to tidy the disarray.”

“Do, please.” She remained serenely unmoving, evidently not in the least troubled by his implied threat of exposure. “It is winter, after all, and somewhat chilly; tea would be most welcome.”

“I have heard that there is a most ingenious invention designed to aid with that condition,” he noted, accepting defeat and thus crossing the room toward the disheveled heap of gorgeously-colored silk and wool, lying blithely discarded on the floor. “It is called ‘clothing’.”

 

WORLD WAR II VETERAN'S LOVE STORY WITH FILIPINA

(I'm reposting some earlier blog entries because Google had changes making it difficult to access these blogs. - Cecilia)


This account will come in several blog entries. As I continue to gather information, I'll be posting it here. This account is true, but I will not be using real names. I am sharing this story because it is a unique one.

Around 7 years ago, I heard from a World War II American veteran. It was December when he first sent an email to my business http://www.palhbooks.com, expressing interest in an antique necklace. It was a gift for a Filipina who had been his fiancee back in 1947-49. They had been in love and were supposed to get married, but something happened and they broke up. They both went on to marry other people, and have families. But somehow, via internet, John (not his true name) learned that Ligaya (not her true name either) was now living in the U.S. Her family had liked him as a young man, and her family members in the U.S. reconnected with him. In fact when John learned that Ligaya's relative was hospitalized, he went to see the person - and saw once again Ligaya.

Now in their 70s, they found they still cared for each other. But since they had their own families, they did not want to hurt any one and did nothing about their feelings, beyond a few friendly phone calls. I post here his recent emails to me:

~~~~~~~
My name is John _____and in December 2000 I bought a necklace
from you for a lady that I was engaged to in 1947-1949 in
Paranaque. The information you gave me was that you
found it in Vigan, Northern Philippines. The lady's name
was Ligaya ______. It was a
beautiful necklace and she loved it. I don't know if you
asked or I just volunteered our story but to quote your
response, you said "I love your love story". I do not
know how much of our story I told you but I often think
I would like to write the story but am not a skilled writer.
I just feel sad that when we are both gone, no one will
remember our story. I guess her sister will but she is
also getting old.

She (and I) are now 79 years of age. She had a birthday
September __ and mine was December __.

She is not in the best of health (on medicines and oxygen).
but well enough that we converse by phone several
times a month.
~~~~~~~~~
I located Ligaya and I
began communicating again in 1999 and wrote a "poem"
(I think I later mailed them to her
but am not sure). I know they sadden me when I
read them but do not know if they are good, corny
terrible, morbid or what. As for our story being
forgotten; I do not think I care if people remember
it; I just do not think (had to stop and dry my eyes!)
something as sad and beautiful as our (or anyone
else's) story should just vanish when we "pass on"
although I imagine there are thousands that have.

You are welcome to put us on your blog and I trust
you not to put anything that would cause Ligaya
any sadness if someone that knew her figured out
who it was on your blog. I do not think you would
remember it as I told it 7 years ago so let me know
if you need me to email kind of an outline or something
of the story. Every time I think or write about it
the tears come even after all these years. Naturally
some her relatives know all about
it but Ligaya worries about her grandchildren or
my children or Grandchildren knowing that we
communicate. Also we are both married and, even
though I do not think there is anything wrong with
us keeping in touch, since the feeling involved are
so deep, I guess there is a slight feeling of guilt
even though there is actually no wrong-doing.

I had better end this email before it becomes a
book!

Here is one of the (cannot think of a descriptive word)
that I had. I sometimes think that if I was rich and no
longer married I would, as a kind of memorial, love
to have a beautiful log home with acres or a "small"
sturdy castle with about an acre of the yard as a
formal garden with marble "statues" modeled from
the few pictures I have had since the late 1940s
of Ligaya and I in the formal garden. Not much of
a description but hope you get the picture.

Sorry I ramble on and on but there is a lot bottled
up inside.

Thanks for your thoughtfulness
~~~~~~

Tags: #lovestory #WorldWarII #WWII #WorldWarTwo #veteran

PHILIPPINE STAR ABOUT MARILY & JOE

My friend, Marily Orosa, lost her husband,Joe, last January to cancer. This article by Josefina T. Lichauco appeared in The Philippine Star.


Business Life
A belated Valentine love story
HINDSIGHT By Josefina T. Lichauco Updated February 23, 2009 12:00 AM

This love story was meant to be published the Monday after Valentine’s Day, but my workload piled up and I was not able to meet the deadline. I usually write on Internet law, but on occasions like Valentine’s, Christmas and New Year, I deviate from my usual topic.

This is a love story that has to be written. It is within this context that I write it — it touched the heartstrings of everyone that was part of the spiritual process where His Creator claimed back Jose de Santos Orosa for his congregation in heaven on Jan. 26, barely three weeks ago.

My family has known the Sixto Orosa Jr. family from the time I was a young kid playing badminton with the Orosa brothers, together with my sisters. Joe Orosa’s father was nicknamed “Ting” and was bank president in his time. I’d see him and his wife, Tita Edita, at my late parents’ parties after we, the kids, lost touch with one another, as we pursued further studies abroad and thereafter forged lives of our own.

It was only when I met Marily Ysip-Orosa at a number of common political endeavors that I met Joe again after so many years. Immediately, upon seeing the two together, what struck me about this married couple — a second marriage for both of them since both were widowed — was the remarkable intellectual synergy and rapport that existed between the two. It was not only remarkable but also absolutely impressive.

Being a widow myself, what I kept going over and over in my mind was the fact that these two high-powered individuals found each other and fell in love — in fact, fell in love so mightily to bravely marry each other the second time around. I am convinced now, however, that when the Lord has a hand in it, love flows, as Joe said at one time, “effortlessly.”

Certainly I agree with those who believe in love. In fact, I believe not only that love makes the world go round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile. Let me go one step further for I subscribe to the theory that the only abnormality in life is the incapacity to love.

In the case of Joe and Marily Orosa, Kahlil Gibran’s words are so applicable: “To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.” There was indeed a love so great that even in the darkest moments during Joe’s journey back to His Creator, Marily guided him not only with her heart but also with her mind constantly. If anyone has ever doubted that true love really exists, that someone will immediately be constrained to relinquish that feeling.

And there was likewise an admiration for each other, so outstanding, that friends like me could not help but appreciate.

I cannot just call Joe and Marily’s meeting each other as simply arranged by destiny, for it was God that made certain that the two would meet. About eight months into Joe’s widowhood, he hosted a lunch at the Manila Polo Club. On the agenda was an audiovisual presentation (AVP) to raise finances and gather support for a Christian school expansion and relocation.

Businesslike and brief though the AVP was, Joe was impressed by, in his own words, “the courage and strength of character of the presenter.” Marily had been widowed less than a month before and she was making this efficient and brisk presentation so well. Their pastor had asked Marily to take on the job of crafting and making the presentation needed by their Christian congregation. She was requested to work with one of the prominent members of their church, Joe Orosa, who had accepted the chairmanship of the project. In spite of Marily’s protestations because it was soon after she was widowed, she could not refuse the pastor. In an essay she wrote, she said she “acceded reluctantly, hoping obedience to a man of God would get me closer to heaven.” That, indeed, was the Lord working in His strange way.

The business meetings soon graduated into friendly dinner dates. Joe had written in an essay likewise that he had been invited to write on his widowhood and eventual meeting with Marily, that he “started to take notice of this woman of character, beauty, grace, wit and humor.” As Joe himself had said, through five years of courtship, God guided and strengthened us, “especially in the areas of patience, relationships, and dealing with our past.”

In spite of this fundamental identity as far as intellectual compatibility was concerned, Marily, however, says in the same book of essays, which was published in 2002, that she was “amazed at how wonderfully opposite we were. I was talkative and an extrovert; he a man of few words and an introvert. I was bubbly; he, serious. He loved Pavarotti; I, the Bee Gees! He enjoyed the sea; I, the mountains. I hated oysters; he could consume a plateful of them! He insisted on “fine dining”; I was constantly watching my newfound figure and was content with a salad. He was always punctual, and me, late. Rose Yenko, my psychologist friend, ventured to say that Joe kept my feet on the ground. I liberated him from his seriousness. Happily our love blossomed in this fertile soil of diversity” (excerpts taken from the book From This Day Forward).

From this fertile soil of diversity sprang a unity of purpose to serve God and to clasp each other’s hands in solidarity. And there was indeed that fundamental intellectual harmony that created the opportunity for love and admiration for each other to blossom and prosper in the manner it did.

They were intellectual equals. Marily had founded and was president of Studio 5 Designs, Inc., involved in various aspects of visual communications such as corporate literature, marketing and sales collaterals, special arts events, calendars, etc. She was head of a highly competitive group, responsible for the excellent quality of its products and services produced by the company for its clients. In this capacity, Marily was the main reason for bringing to the company multiple awards for works designed and developed for Studio 5’s clientele. She had majored in Communication Arts in college and came prepared, armed with her degree, to undertake such a business.

Marily Orosa is an entrepreneur par excellence and the complete businesswoman.

Joe Orosa graduated cum laude from the De La Salle University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce with Accounting as his major, so it was but natural that Marily sought advice from him and made him chairman of the board of the firm that had now expanded into publishing. The union of two great minds produced what Studio 5 is today.

The couple worked together on a great number of publications. But more than anything, to my mind, the most remarkable achievement of Joe was his being project director of the Every Nation Leadership Institute, Inc., a leadership training and development institute located at the Universal Park of Fort Bonifacio Global City. He is committed to the vision of training a new generation of leaders in the Christian ministry, business, public governance, sports and media. It is one of the most beautiful edifices in the Global City.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that all of the above was brought about by that formidable combination of spiritual, intellectual, and business synergy that existed between Joe and Marily Orosa.

But I am getting ahead of my story. After all, this was intended to be a belated valentine love story.

On Dec. 21, 1993, six years after they were both widowed, and five years after they first met, Joe and Marily were wed in a wonderful garden ceremony at the then Westin Philippine Plaza. For a backdrop, the two professed their marriage vows against the golden sunset of Manila Bay.

After approximately 15 years of a marriage beyond compare, Joe Orosa passed away peacefully and beautifully with his loved ones around him. According to Marily, no matter how heartrending her grief is, she knows so well that Joe would want her to carry on bravely. Her reminiscences of her husband are touching. She was only 40 when she met Joe, who was eight years her senior. She remembers 15 qualifications for a future husband that she drew up after she was first widowed. She did not know Joe yet when she made the list. He found out about that list, asked for it from her, and kept it in his wallet for 20 years.

Joe gave her beautiful red roses several times a year with a handwritten note always. And especially on Valentine’s Day, the red roses would be there with the day ending in a romantic dinner for two.

After Joe was diagnosed with cancer and became seriously ill in spite of all the medical procedures and medications here and abroad, there were no roses for Marily. But this time, Marily surprised Joe with a beautiful note that said in simple words: “To my husband, my best friend, I love you every day, and Valentine’s Day gives me just another reason to tell you how much love you bring to my life. You are always there for me … you make me feel secure, cherished and loved. Your trust has helped me to reach beyond myself and to become all that I can be. You are my best friend and my favorite person to be with. You are a wonderful man and I am proud to be your wife. I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

On the first day after his passing, I paid tribute to Jose de Santos Orosa at the Santuario de San Antonio in Forbes, for leading such an exemplary life. Beneath his casket was a little round table with 15 lovely red roses (15 years of marriage) that said: “I love you, honey-pie.”

I know that even now, there is still that synergy that goes on between Joe and Marily Orosa. Death could not just break this up. I myself am an incurable romantic, for which reason this love story had to be written.

Sophocles so wisely said: “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.”

* * *
Photo shows Marily and Joe Orosa on their wedding day, Jan. 21, 1993