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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Monday, April 30, 2012

entry arrow10:43 PM | From Nick Joaquin's May Day Eve



“And I will not lie down!” cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor. “Stay, old woman. Tell me what I have to do.”

“Tell her! Tell her!” chimed the other girls.

 The old woman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and fixed her eyes on the girl. “You must take a candle,” she instructed, “and go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up to the mirror and close your eyes and say:

Mirror, mirror, 
show to me him 
whose woman 
I will be. 

 If all goes right, just above your left shoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry.”

A silence. Then: “And what if all does not go right?” asked Agueda.

“Ah, then the Lord have mercy on you!”

“Why.”

“Because you may see—the Devil!”

The girls screamed and clutched one another, shivering.

“But what nonsense!” cried Agueda. “This is the year 1847. There are no devil anymore!”


[Art from the poster for the play by Juan Ekis. Read the rest of the short story here.]

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