An excerpt from David Hontiveros' NATAKDAN


On the Friday that I see her at the town square, she is with Emma. Sweating, sticky, skeletal Emma, the ravaged crescent of a watermelon ring still in her hand.

She is wearing dark glasses, the kind fashionable women in Hollywood pictures wear.

Of course.

Naturally, she would wear dark glasses on a Friday.

She sees me and smiles, that quick flicker of ruby lips over perfectly white teeth, like the gleaming flash of a blood-soaked butterfly knife-- the balisong of my faraway youth.

My name is Lito. Hers is Lila. Or at least, she claims it is Lila. I doubt that is real name at all.

My six-year-old, Jenna, clamps her little hand about mine, squeezing, her tiny nails, digging into the flesh of my palm, reminding me of a beetle scuttling across my open hand, its legs pricking my skin...

Jenna is staring wide-eyed at Lila. My daughter knows as well.

She is as scared of Lila as she is of me.

That's good.

I turn Lila's smile, reveling in our conspiracy, enjoying the pain of Jenna's nails against my skin.


Read the whole tale in the first issue of STORY PHILIPPINES.
Now available in bookstores and magazine shops.
Php 120. 40-pages. Full-color.