Devil's Hour

Five months ago, it felt scarier than my recent heartbreak.

Darker than my alter-ego.

June 23. Technically. 

Part of June 22's extended night.

Raining hard.

Braving my way home without an umbrella from our voice coach's gig at a bar.

Alighting a rusty cab with a driver that was totally weird. Weird driving. Weird music. Weird aura. Not looking at me the entire trip.

Checking my cellphone's clock: it's exactly 3:00 am. Touching down home, I was welcomed by our neighbor's open dirty kitchen in its unusual state - fluorescent light flickering. In a swift glance to my left, I saw a red umbrella seesawing on the ground. Thought it's our family's umbrella. But a look up at our house's facade, there's the blue umbrella I last saw hanging by the window when I left home. There can't be two umbrellas drying outside our house. Wind blew w/ what sounded like whispers from the softening rain. My neck craned back to the kitchen and for more than five or so years living in this neighborhood, it seemed only now that the cobwebs looked clearer, even "closer," than ever. Then one of our neighbor's dogs began making what occurred to me like aggrieved howls. Indescribable howls of pain. All the other minute sounds from the surroundings have now grown deafeningly louder. The whoosh. The cryptic ear-splitting feedback-like tone. The random sounds from the nature on an opaque night. I decided to dismiss the "3:00 am" idea. Finally bolting our door open, one shadow caught the corner of my eye and me dead in my tracks - a swaying Meralco meter chain in the middle of a line of all the other chains that were so steady. No more air this time. Both from the surroundings and inside of me.

Insidious? 

Maybe.

I might have had a "Devil's Hour" last night.

That was weird. Considering I was holding a fresh garland of sampaguitas in one hand all throughout. I sealed the night with a prayer as I offered the flowers to the altar. Parang Pinoy horror flick. Classic.