UNSPOKEN THREADS

 CHAPTER 1: The House on General Luna Street

Not just a roof over your head
Nor walls that cover you from the cold
It's a sanctuary, a nest
Where you keep warm and fed
Until you learn to soar.

The house smelled of wood rot and eucalyptus when I unlocked the gate. Not the fresh kind used in liniments, but the scent of dried leaves left too long in the sun. Something brittle. Something medicinal trying to outlive itself.

It had been at least fifteen years since I last stepped inside my grandfather’s house. I was sent here to quarantine after testing positive during the second wave. “Just for a week or two,” they said.

My aunt called from abroad when she learned about my situation. She suggested the house in the city, since I actually lived in a rural area with my own family. “Your husband isn’t near, but that house is close to a hospital. The caretakers cleaned it up last summer,” she said.

But no one ever really cleans up an old house—not the parts that matter. Memories cling to things, especially in silence.

I agreed anyway. I called the caretakers and asked them to prepare the house. The municipal government arranged my transportation. They brought me to the city after fogging my house, which was fortunately empty at the time. I felt like I was being escorted to jail by the military.

The medical team looked like astronauts ready for takeoff—characters from a movie I once watched, where the people who locked themselves inside their homes were the ones who got terminated. Those who stayed just outside the door were the ones who survived.

 

I pushed the door open. The hinges groaned. Dust spiraled in the sunlight like it had been waiting to dance for someone.

The living room remained familiar. Except for a few additional decorations, most of it still looked the same. Wooden chairs with woven seats, covered in crochet doilies. A framed photo of Lolo in a barong, staring down with unsmiling eyes. A grandfather clock that hadn’t worked since 2004, its hands forever frozen at 4:23. And beneath it, a small table with a couple of plastic succulents on a miniature desktop wooden planter.

I placed my overnight bag by the stairs and sat on the nearest chair. The air suddenly felt too thick. A gecko clicked in the corner. I told myself it was just that—a lizard. Not footsteps. Not a whisper. Not anyone I used to know.

The electricity was still running, surprisingly. I flipped a switch. A lone bulb above the dining table flickered, buzzing faintly, like it didn’t want to wake up. I opened windows, drew back curtains stiff with time, and let the light bleed in. It made the place feel smaller. Less haunted.

But then came the hum.

Not loud. Just low and steady, like something mechanical turning on. I followed the sound past the kitchen, into the small storage room beside the stairs—the one my grandfather used to call “kwarto ng mga di tapos.”

Room of the unfinished.         

The door creaked open. A layer of dust veiled the floor. Boxes, plastic bags, a broken umbrella. And in the corner, a cassette player. Covered in an old T-shirt, yellowing with age.

I don’t know why I plugged it in.

Maybe it was boredom. Maybe curiosity. Maybe something else—the kind of pull you feel when the past nudges you, not with a hand, but with a breath.

It turned on.

No music. Just white noise. Then—

“Kung gusto mong maging guro, dapat marunong ka ring makinig. Hindi lang magturo.”

My mother’s voice when she was young.

She had been dead for six years.

I backed away, fast. The player stopped. My hand trembled as I reached for the plug and yanked it out. Silence.

But something in me stirred—not fear exactly as I realized later. Not grief. Something deeper. As if a story had waited all this time beneath the noise. And it had just begun.