The Man From Mars - Episode Forty

   I am not sure when it happened to me, but I noticed it when Tiny, or Phuc, which he asked me never to call him again, told me to get into the shower and clean up. He said he would take of the mess out here, in the bedroom.
   I asked where here was and he said, "It's a safe house that Ponleak and I have used for years, but has obviously been compromised."
   "You mean Akela." I said.
   "Yes." He replied. Adding, "You need to hurry. I'm sure Akela, somehow, got a message to Bopha about our location."
   After I left Tiny to clean up his mess, and went into the bathroom to shower. I found toiletries waiting for me inside the lavatory. I decided to shave first.
   That is when my mind started going through this perplexing dilemma. I couldn't stop thinking about it. When did I become impassive or indifferent to death?
   Sure, just like everyone who has a few years of life under their belt, I have been to a few funerals, of family and of friends.
   In my job, as an investigative reporter, I have covered stories of Mob hits and Serial killers. I've seen the aftermath of family squabbles turn deadly. Best friends getting inebriated and one turns up in the morgue. But never, not once, did I ever not feel remorse and or pity for the victims and their families.
   Until now.
   As looked into the mirror, to watch my hand swash the lather away from my face with the razor, I remembered seeing Akela's eyes.
   It was right after the point where I thought she was going to put a bullet in the back of my head after I had fallen flat on my face again.
   I was lying there when I heard a thud. Looking with my peripheral vision, I could see Akela's dead eyes staring at me. Her face expressionless.
   But I tried to get right up, with the help from Tiny, not even caring that the woman was dead.
   Was it because I knew she had it in for me? That if she had gotten the drop on Tiny, she would have killed me too?
   Or, did it have anything to do with carrying the amulet? The untapped power which it is suppose to hold?
   Was it influencing me somehow?
   Akela said, that I had no idea of its true potential. 
   I stopped staring at my face and hopped into the shower. Turning the temperature up as high as I could take it. Trying to relax and soothe every aching bone in my body.
   I wanted to burn away the guilty feeling I had, for not having any remorse over the death of the Atlantean woman.
   With my head down and the hot water spraying against the back of my neck, my senses perked up when I started hearing voices in the other room that I didn't recognize.
   They were speaking briskly, in a language I couldn't quite identify, at first. Then it hit me. It was three distinct Filipina women, talking Tagalog, at a hundred miles an hour!
   I turned off the shower, dried off, put the amulet around my neck, and quickly got dressed.
   I wasn't sure what was going on, so I barely cracked the door. Just enough, so I could take a peak, and see what was going on in the bedroom.
   Tiny was standing in the middle of the room, watching these three small women work.
   If you would have put one on top of the other, you might have gotten a fourteen foot person.
   Barely.
   Maybe.
   If the one on the bottom stood on her tippy-toes.
   But all, were working vigorously.
   One woman wiped down everything for fingerprints. One vacuumed the carpet, then the curtains, and even had an attachment to vacuum-brush the bedroom walls. The last was bagging up Akela. All by herself. With no help from Tiny.
   When I came out from the bathroom, none of the women paid any attention to me.
   They just kept working and talking to each other in Tagalog. With their voices getting louder and louder. As each one competed with the others to be heard.
   When the noise started getting too loud, Tiny said, "Ladies." Emphasizing the last syllable and raising it in pitch.
   Each immediately stopped talking and turned to face him, smiling. Looking like a pack of animals, which were just called to attention, and hoping to receive a treat.
   After a moment of silence, each went back to their duties. Once again, talking to each other in one of the many dialects of Tagalog, at a hundred miles per hour.
   By the time I reached the side of Tiny, the women's voices were rising in pitch again, and getting louder. Before I could say a word to him, he again said, "Ladies."
   They immediately proceeded to perform the same act as before.
   Then, busting through the bedroom door, an excited thirty-something Filipino male looks to Tiny and says, "They're here."
   With that, all three women pulled out the biggest butcher knives that I have ever seen. From somewhere, hiding on their person.
   Where they hid them? I do not know. But all three seem very capable and prepared to use them.

   To Be Continued.....

Next Week.

This is,

Telling You From Experience,

That You Do Not Want To Mess With A Filipina,

Jim Hauenstein,

And,

“Maria Clara did not faint, simply because, Filipinas do not know how to faint.”
- José Rizal, -

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

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