Whenever the long rains hit us and stay for a long vacation to chill the bones, we often hear folks – particularly the singles – blurt, “Ayna panaglalam-min manen. Kasapulan kakinkinnepkep!”
This bearded daily laborer often smiles, upon hearing this, knowing it’s just a matter of expression.
Last week, he got invited to attend a seminar. Being an ignoramus, he didn’t ask about the topic and nodded he’ll attend.
In the seminar, he got surprised the topic discussed was about roots of problems of marriage and counselling.
He nearly fell off his seat laughing because the participants started to debate and outshout each other. Result: they were unable to scratch the surface of the roots of problems of marriage and counselling.
When the participants demanded from this bearded nincompoop why he was laughing, he simply said “When there’s no marriage, there’s no counselling problem, right?”
The participants grudgingly said, “Yes.”
Therefore, “marriage being contagious, is the problem, right?” the bearded man asked again.
The participants grudgingly nodded their heads again.
There happens to be more contagious disorders in our world than are to be found in a medical dictionary. Some put on the dangerous form of an epidemic and hundreds are infected.
We have what is called heart attack – and fatal.
Then there is the heart complaint, not a fatal one, but a disease just the same, and contagious, too.
That heart, that singular little organ, that exists in every breast and which St. Valentine always tries to disturb and causes it to fall prey to the disease of heart murmur.
Wen apoh, that little heart, which is often seen in pictures as having wings and, when shot by arrows of Cupid, the heart becomes two hearts, which, arm-in-arm, happily wends their way to a church or before a solemnizing officer to be wedded.
The aim of this pesky Cupid of shooting arrows into two hearts, is to impair a heart disorder by rendering the excitable hearts to be susceptible to impressions of affection to the other.
It makes couples go into a bind where their destiny will be irrevocably united.
For the unmarried ladies, they are likely to be attacked by this disease, that their hearts experience palpitations, fluttering, flirtations, intermittent paleness or blushes soft as clouds. These are just some of the dangerous symptoms.
These maidens-in-waiting are the gamekeepers, to trap or snare any heart shot by the arrows of the Cupid.
Result? That an epidemic of this character – a marriage contagion, occurring. Numerous victims are known to have fallen under this disease.
Go visit your Local Civil Registry and it will show the number of marriages registered. It will also show no slowing down of the marriage epidemic.
Awan ti baro, however comfortable and proud of his independence, awan ti balasang, however pining in single blessedness was spared from this disease.
There seems to be a general predisposition towards this feverish sickness. It will run its course until, two individuals, a man and a woman, are hopelessly tied by the knot – and no devil could rend it asunder.
Anyone mesmerized by this disease have no answer whatsoever as to the cause of variation of the tick-tick- ticking of their organ called heart that refuses to keep time in the way it was normally desired to tick.
When the infection sets in, the ticking of the heart just ticks the wrong way.
No remedy has ever been discovered by science to stop this disease, no cold water-cure could dampen its fever and no hocus-pocus could deter this love-sick blues.
The only cure-all to stop this marriage infection is by putting a marriage ring in the fingers of those afflicted. Once the rings are in place, two hearts are cured of the so-called marriage fever.
A question. What could be the cause of this infection? All the skills of physician have failed to help the afflicted.
Some there were, who have been afflicted by a virus of disappointment, or relations breaking off, and they thought they have been inoculated by the disease. But it was a false sense of security.
Because, Cupid, having seen a relation breaking off, started his big joke again by re-shooting arrows into the hearts of the disappointed.
Once again, the hearts of the disappointed started to tick in the wrong way, hoping another relation will bring them to the altar.
The disappointed at first, have found the way to be infected again. Aha! This Cupid, ngamin, forever toying with the hearts of mere mortals.
“Prevention,” ‘tis said, “is better than cure.” But there’s nobody among you, readers, who could tell what’s prevention, any more than anybody can say how did the infection come about.
Some say the infection starts when one pair of eyes sees another pair of eyes and the two pairs ogle at the face of each other.
Others swear the medium of infection starts when a male hand starts to handshake a woman’s hand and the owner of the male hand says, “ Igamak ti imam, Maria, ta baka ketdi mapukaw ka.” (Allow me to hold your hand, my dear Maria, lest you become lost.) Thereby the hearty handshake ought to be forbidden or prohibited outright.
There are those, devilish enough to declare it’s the kiss the main reason why the infection proved so rapid in infecting victims, and fatal in its result.
Whatever the manner may have been in which the infection has been started, there certainly appears to be no antidote.
However, this daily laborer had the chance to meet an old-old lady who became immune to the marriage fever. She happens to be a Cordilleran.
How she was able to keep away from the infection? She, during her young days, studied closely that humans are like moths.
Remember the oft said phrase, “drawn, like a moth to a flame, “meaning moths are attracted or drawn to a flame that ultimately leads to their downfall or death. They get burned.
It is a fatal attraction, sometimes called “Ignis fatuus, “a Latin term which means a love flame or fool’s flame.
In like manner that humans are drawn into the Ignus fatuus and are burned.
So this unmarried lady concluded that for “human moths” to keep from burning and destroying themselves, she concocted a potion placed in a small bottle with a tie and worn around the neck, the bottle hovering above the heart.
She said it’s the only effective potion against the deadly marriage affliction.
The concoction is made up of leaves of the sabawil plant, arti. . .. Hey, but wait a minute, why is this daily laborer telling the bottle’s contents?
Should marriage infection strike you, contact this peon. He’ll gladly accompany you to the old lady who’d be willing to hand you the potion.
