IAN ROSALES CASOCOT

The Last Days of Magic

No one thought that it could happen. But there finally came a day when there was no more magic in the village of
Daguet.

And Kulas was sad.

The change came in a crawl of silence, and also darkness. No one knew exactly when it began. It must have started
the day the sun refused to wake from its blanket of blue waters to the east. Or it must have been the night the moon
refused to talk to the stars. Or perhaps it was that morning when the cocks did not bother to crow a welcome chorus
to the beginning light, or perhaps that evening when the night breeze took to bed in a deep sleep and nothing stirred
all night, not even the frogs or the crickets that used to lull the village into slumber with their constant music. Or it
must have been the moment the light faded away from the cluster of trees the village fireflies danced in.

No one knew.

Only Kulas knew, but he was only a boy, and all he could do for magic was to make things—small things—fly about
him. The other people in the village of Daguet had so much more magic than him. Some could still typhoons with
the purity of their songs. Some could control the waxing and waning of the moon with poetry. Others could speak in
the language of the old forest spirits, and still others could make delicacies—cakes and pastries made from old and
secret recipes—that conjured up long-lost memories of love, and sometimes even hate.

Kulas sadly told himself that in a town full of magic, no one would certainly believe a young boy who could only
make things—small things—fly.

If the people of the village where only a bit more aware of the slight sniff of the changing air, they could have
divined the many small moments which could be said to have sparked magic’s unexpected retreat from Daguet, but
no one knew. There were, of course, the lazy sun, and the sad moon, and the unlit fireflies, and the muted songs of
nocturnal musicians. Perhaps it could have even begun the moment when Pedrito, Kulas’ older brother, whispered
carelessly to a stray wind, “I do not believe in magic anymore.”

Just like that, the wind whispered it back to the quicksilver spread of air.

You must understand, this was not a solitary, uncommon wish. There were already many people in Daguet—
conscious of the practical changes sweeping the nearby villages and islands—who thought of magic as a relic from
the old days, the gift of ancient babaylans who were no more than shadows of primordial tales. Perhaps they thought
that they could do something more than magic.

“Something more useful,” Mang Andoy said. “More useful than common magic.”

“I could be a nurse,” said Maria. “I don’t want to sing anymore.”

“I could be a call center agent,” said Pedrito. “I don’t want to play games anymore.”

“I could be a lawyer,” said Rosario. “I don’t want to bake sweet pies anymore.”
“I could be an accountant,” said Aling Pening. “I don’t want to write poems anymore.”

Magic, they said, had no more place in Daguet. With each quiet pronouncement, the fireflies died off one by one,
and soon only traces of the magical remained.

***

And so the magic slowly faded away. No one in the village knew.

No one in town noticed that Mang Andoy had stopped plucking out colors from the thin air with his magic brush.
That very day, the grass lost its sheen of green, and for a brief moment the sky stopped being blue.

No one noticed that Maria had gone mute, her magic songs suddenly turning to silence. That very day, it was enough
to stop the flowers from blooming too much, or the birds from chirping from tree to tree.

No one noticed that Pedrito had tossed away the luck of his magic dice, or the speed of his magic ball. That very
day, people began forgetting the games they knew, and the play that made them remember childhood.

No one noticed when Rosario laid aside her magic cloth strainer that used to extract the sweetest juice from fruits,
enough to quench the hardest thirst.

No one noticed that Aling Pening had let her pen go dry, its magic ink crusted into a hardened blot on a piece of
forgotten paper. Soon there were no more lovers waking up in the middle of the night in Daguet, knowing only a
driving passion for a kiss.

Only Kulas, in his simple straw hat and white kamison, saw what was happening.

And Kulas was sad.

***

Everybody in Daguet soon became something else.

Some became doctors, others became lawyers, and still others became engineers and nurses and call center agents
and accountants. Each one soon became lost in the grind of his work, having already forgotten that there was a once
upon a time when every one had abilities that made the village soar into the realm of wonders.

And because there were no more magic brushes to paint—in the deepest, truest hue—the sky, or the trees, or the
seas, there was only a dull matte to things, bordering on gray.

Because there were no more magic verses or songs or dances, there was only a quiet, deadening reckoning that
called simply for clicking on a confounded device of a strange picture box, called a television, that soon dulled the
minds of the people of Daguet village.

Only Kulas kept his magic.

When no one watched, he would go to a quiet spot somewhere in a little alley not too far away from the munisipyo,
and there he would let his magic fly into the air to catch what was left of everybody’s magic. Day after day, he kept
to his old ways, and came to know how magic was intimately part of the soul. In the beginning, he only flew his
father’s old enchanted cane that used to divine the proper path for any journey. Soon, the gravity of his abilities
seemed to attract all the other abandoned relics of people’s forgotten magic. Into his flying orbit came Rosario’s
magic cloth strainer, whipping through the air with its forgotten smells of miraculous concoctions. And then there
came Aling Pening’s magic pen, scrawling on the air invisible words of forgotten charmed poetry. And then there
came Mang Andoy’s magic brush, tinting with a sudden burst of color any object that it touched. And then there
came Pedring’s magic dice and ball, wheezing through the air with a supernatural speed. On and on, other magical
objects flew around Kulas, and this happened almost every day in his quiet, secret corner, until he would succumb to
tiredness and sleep, and dreamed of old days when charm was the life of Daguet.

But as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, life seeped away from the busy villagers, all of whom
have succumbed to the drone of the every day without the usual magic.

***

One day, like a freeze from a dead place, Daguet came to a stand still. Nothing, and nobody, could move. There was
a sheer paralysis that sprung from deep within each one’s soul. It was so that the abundance of everyone’s sadness
soon gelled into a kind of smoke which then lifted to the air, and turned everything gray. The sky was a slate. The
earth was parched brown, and cracked in places where grass used to grow in their wildest green. The mountains
looked wasted. And the air had no cackle of energy.

When the people of Daguet finally came to their senses, they walked about the streets of the village in the snail gait
of weary travelers, and saw how everything looked old and tired and gray.

“I miss my colors,” Mang Andoy said. “I could have painted the sky a bright blue, and the trees a verdant green.”

But Mang Andoy did not have his brush, and so everything remained dull.

“I miss my songs,” said Maria. “I could have breathed life into the absent birds and the wilting flowers with the
quickening magic of melody and harmony.”

But Maria no longer had her singing voice, and so everything remained dull and lifeless.

“I miss my speed and my luck,” said Pedrito. “I could have given energy, and the will to live, to the parched earth.”

But Pedring no longer had his dice or his ball, and so everything remained dull and lifeless and motionless.

“I miss my words,” said Aling Pening. “I could have written poetry to bring back the glow of the sun and the moon.”

But Aling Pening no longer had her pen, and so everything remained dull and lifeless and motionless and without
glow.

It was the boy Kulas who called them. Into his quiet corner they came, and saw the swirling objects gravitating in
his presence. They were all manners of familiar objects, blurring in the soft orbits they kept around the boy.

The people of Daguet listened carefully. “I have everything we need to get our lives back,” Kulas  said, “and to
make Daguet glow again with our forgotten magic.”
He turned to Mang Andoy, and said, “To paint is important. It gives color to our lives, and puts to shape our secret
dreams.” Then he plucked from the orbit of flying things about him, and gave Mang Andoy his brush back.

To Maria, he said, “To sing is important. It gives our lives rhythm, which keeps the universe humming in balance.”
Then he plucked from the orbit of flying things about him, and gave Maria her singing voice back.

To Rosario, he said, “To bake and cook is important. It sates our desires, and nourishes our hopes.” Then he plucked
from the orbit of flying things about him, and gave Rosario her cloth strainer back.

To his brother Pedring, he said, “To play is important. Your ball is all of our memories of childhood in play, and your
dice ensures us the limitless possibilities of choice.” Then he plucked from the orbit of flying things about him, and
gave Pedring his ball and dice back.

He turned to Aling Pening, and said, “To write is important. It is the chance to chronicle our stories, which is our
lifeblood, and the chance to render in words what the moon could only glow, or the flowers could only bloom. To
write is to understand our world.” Then he plucked from the orbit of flying things about him, and gave Aling Pening
her pen back.

Kulas gave everyone back their long, lost magical things, and said in a wizened voice, “You can be everything and
anything you want in your life—but it will take our own little magic deep within ourselves to give all of us a life of
color, of energy and motion, of glow. To forget our magic is to forget what makes us who we are.”

Magic finally returned to Daguet in a rush of song and dance and play and color and food and poetry. And
everything was good.

But you must know by now that this is really a story of a boy, and how that boy grew up to be a wise man, simply
because he knew magic. Most of all, he knew how magic could make everyone’s lives the stuff of stories with a
happy ending.

This story won Third Prize for Short Story for Children in the 2007 Palanca Awards