The Story Teller

Aling Dora is an old woman who always carries a bag with her. It is an old canvas bag she got as a free item from the supermarket where she gets her groceries. No one knows what is inside the bag and no one dares to ask.

Aling Dora is a very quiet widow who lives alone in her small house at the far side of the village. She doesn’t invite anyone in her house nor is she ever invited to other people’s. No one speaks to her except for peddlers who do not know her. She always washes her clothes every Monday, She goes to the market to get few supplies every Wednesday, and goes to church every Sunday. She doesn’t dress up except when going to church. Though she doesn’t talk to anyone, she always attends funerals as if she knows everybody in the village.

Almost everyone knows her daily routine. She sweeps her small backyard with a broom in the morning and waters her plants in the afternoon. She doesn’t borrow anything from the neighbors and no one borrows from her. She is never seen using a cellular phone and the silence of her house indicates that she neither watches television nor listens to the radio.

Because of her extreme silence, Aling Dora is always the topic of other people’s conversation the moment they get tired of whatever they are talking about. It seems like they are forever curious about Aling Dora and her beloved bag. Other people say that the bag contains gold and treasures that Aling Dora is so reluctant to leave at her house. Some people say it contains objects she uses in practicing witchcraft. Some mothers who can’t put their children to sleep tell them the bag contains arms and legs of small children that Aling Dora ate.

One day, a naughty lad who was passing by tried to pick the buds of Aling Dora’s flowering plants. The old woman came out just in time and shooed the lad away. That night, as Aling Dora was about to sleep, she heard loud knocks on her front door and when she opened it, an enraged man asked her what she did to his son.

Undaunted, Aling Dora asked what was wrong with the man’s son and the man answered that the boy was delirious with fever. Aling Dora asked him if he gave the boy some medicine but the man said no. Aling Dora went inside and came out with her canvas bag slung in her arm and asked the man to be taken to his house.

There on the bed was the lad who passed by her house. Aling Dora felt his forehead and in an authoritative voice asked for a basin of water, two pieces of face towel and a glass of drinking water. She got a plastic bottle from her bag, opened it and dropped a pill on her palm. She asked the boy to take it. Then, she wiped the boy’s skin with a wet face towel and dried it up with a dry one. She did it again and again. She did it for almost half an hour until the boy’s temperature went down a little.

Aling Dora, then started to leave. She slung her bag to her shoulder but handed the bottle of medicine to the boy’s mother and said

“This medicine is for fever, give him a pill again after four hours until his fever is gone. If you need any help, come to my house..” then she left.

The boy’s father ran after her and apologized. Aling Dora invited him inside her house and asked him to sit down. She fixed two cups of coffee and gave one to the man. As he was sipping his coffee, the man looked around Aling Dora’s small but very neat house. On the wall was a laminated diploma that says: MA. ADORA POBLACION, PhD and on both sides were shelves of books.

Before the man went back to his house, he learned that Aling Dora was a college professor who retired when she was widowed. She was a quiet lady who enjoys her privacy and her large collection of books. Her bag contains various over-the counter medicine, first aid kit, sewing kit, her identification cards, a book or two, an address book and newspapers she buys from the market. She attends funerals to pay her last respect to the dead. She lives on her pension and doesn’t bother anyone.

The following week, the boy paid Aling Dora a visit. Since then, other people started to talk to her and in her small little ways she tried to help them out as best as she could.

(Original story by the blog author. Any similarities with other stories, fiction or otherwise, are purely incidental)

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