Fran’s Valentines
From what I could recall, it began in kinder. My friends pushed the door to the classroom and we were bombarded with red hearts taped to strings dangling from the ceiling, pink hearts stapled to bulletin boards, and the blackboard with a massive “Happy Valentine’s Day!” lettering in pink and red. The whole room was covered in these shapes and colors. A piñata filled with hearts and glitters must have exploded inside here and scattered paper and string entrails all over the place.
Whatever happened here, I didn’t want to find out so I reached for the door. A strong tug on my backpack made me pause.
“Where are you going, Fran?” Our teacher, Ms. Pincy, came out of nowhere. Her shadow consumed mine and as I looked back, a wide smile was plastered on her face. Her face blushed the same shade as the hearts and her brown hair was in a neat ball on her head. The apron she wore billowed and made her appear twice as large.
“Forgot something at the…” I mumbled, taking my backpack away from her grip. I had no idea what to say but all I wanted was to get out.
“Oh, maybe we can look for it later, we’re going to start today’s activity.” She said.
“But Miss, I-“
“Let’s go to our seats now, shall we?”
With no other choice, I dragged myself to the seat in the farthest part of the room. Even this seat did not escape the explosion of that imaginary piñata. There were paper hearts all over the desk. The room was already filled with my classmates. They compared their paper hearts with each other while some traded their red ones for pink ones.
“Good morning, darlings!” Ms. Pincy beamed in front of the class.
“Gooooood moooorning, Missss Pincyyyyy!” The class said, sounding like the kid’s version of a horde.
“Do you know what day it is?” She poked at the blackboard as if she was that stupid arrow always pointing the obvious in Dora the Explorer.
“Valentine’s!” One snotty classmate shouted.
“It’s Valentine’s!” Another one said.
“Yehey Valentine’s!” And another one cheered.
“What’s a Valentines, Ms Pincy?” Lena, one of the girls, raised her hand. She had black twin tails and a snubbed nose which was almost a smooshed little potato baked to a certain degree. Her eyes had a trance-like stare in them. She was in another world and when she spoke, her voice was from a dream I never wanted to end. She was wearing a lavender dress — one with ribbons on the sleeves. A recognizable contrast to the vomit of pink and red all over the classroom.
“Well, Lena, Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate with someone you love.” Ms. Pincy explained. “It comes on February 14 and people all over the world give each other gifts to remind them of their love.”
“Shouldn’t that be an everyday thing, Ms. Pincy? Showing our love?” Lena asked.
“Oh, sadly no. The whole world would go broke if we give gifts every day.”
“That would be nice.” I said. I crumpled one of the paper hearts on my desk.
“Okay, class. Let’s leave our seats for a moment. We will form a circle.” Ms. Pincy instructed. She carefully put aside our chairs on the edge of the room. “Don’t forget the hearts on your desks!”
I grabbed the cut-outs and waited in the center with my classmates. The whole class formed a circle and Ms. Pincy took her time arranging us.
“You, Fran.” She placed her hand on my back and led me to a part of the circle. “Will be here.”
On my right was Lena. She smelled of vanilla and flowers. On my left was another classmate called Dilbert. Dilbert was clean since it was still morning. His hair was combed neatly like a newly pressed shirt he was wearing. He clutched the hearts in his hands with a nervous vibe. His fingers might tear into them any moment if a ghost said “boo!”
“Is everyone ready?” Ms. Pincy asked.
“No.” I said.
“Yeees, Ms. Pincyyyy.” My classmates said.
“For the first activity, I want you to think of someone you like in this room. Think of them reeaaaal hard.” Ms. Pincy said.
Some of my classmates closed their eyes. Dilbert was one of them. Their faces squished in concentration like they were trying to imagine whoever out of thin air. I didn’t really have to think that hard. I mean, she was already next to me trying to count the people she loved on her hand.
“Now, once you’re done thinking of that person, write your message on one of the paper hearts I gave you. It can be simple ‘Happy Valentine’s!’ or an ‘I love you!’, any pleasant message is welcome!”
I took out the crumpled heart from my pocket and unfolded it. It was the biggest among the hearts on my desk. It bore my frustrations because it was the biggest. Its fault. Not mine. On the paper, I wrote: ‘dear lena, u r pretty hapi watever day’
I was feeling bold.
“Okay, let’s go around and give our hearts to people!” Ms. Pincy said.
I tapped Lena and pushed the wrinkled heart with the message to her face. Her expression was of surprise as she reached for it. When her hand wrapped around my hand, she screamed and ran away. All my classmates screamed next. They dashed around the classroom, crying for escape. Ms. Pincy chased them and did her best to calm them down. I could tell she was also horrified.
My hand had turned into an insect’s leg. The leg was similar to a beetle’s or a cockroach, serrated on the edge and long like a violinist’s ruined bow. The edge pierced through the heart I was originally holding. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even speak. My head was an egg cracking open and as I shifted my view, antenna sprouted like tall plants in the wild.
“Monster!!” Dilbert shouted.
The rest of the class started shouting “Monster” too.
Fucking Dilbert.
The next day, the kindergarten closed down. We moved to another city. I never saw my classmates again. My parents didn’t have an explanation as why and how it happened. The only solution we found was that I shouldn’t go to school on Valentine’s Day. I spent those days in my room. Climbing the walls, bumping into my bed or wardrobe and scuttling on the floor.
In my 20s, I moved out from my parents’ home. They were hesitant about it. I reassured them I wouldn’t go out on Valentines Day no matter who I met. Despite whatever this is, I couldn’t call it a curse. I didn’t want to give it that power. I still went on dates but I told them I was always ‘busy’ during Valentine’s Day. Most of the ended in break-ups sadly. They thought I didn’t care or I was cheating. If they knew the truth, I’m sure we’d still break up anyway.
I met Adora after my recent 10-month relationship ended before February 14. We met one week after Valentine’s Day. Adora was a curvy woman who often loved to have her coffee black with three teaspoons of sugar. She loved walking around the city after our coffee dates. Her hair was short and wavy, she dyed it in black because she wasn’t fond of the brown. She had a small nose that was blushed and eyes that stared into distance often in contemplation of where we will go next.
On Saturdays, I would pick her up from the City’s Children Center she volunteered to work in. She had a soft spot for children and she would teach the young ones their ABCs or read them stories. The kids loved her too. Every time Adora exited the gate she held gifts of drawings or flower crowns. We walked all the way to the local café on another street.
“You know, these kids are so precious.” She stared at the drawing of her and the children scribbled in crayons and color pencils.
“Really? Then why did their parents leave them?” I asked.
“They’re irresponsible and heartless… Most of the kids were abandoned or rescued from abusive moms or dads — other times, both.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine living with that.”
Not going to lie, I was drawn to her because of how she cared and loved those people.
On the eve of our third month together, we were going to hike. Our itinerary was set. We were going to leave the city at dawn. I was packing my clothes when my head started to break open. My sight became lopsided and my antenna came out.
“Why now?!” I shouted. My human body slipped away from my thorax and was now a pool of flesh by my abdomen. My human face stared back in anguish and I flipped backwards waddling in mid-air like an upturned turtle. I open my wings to push me on all fours.
“What am I going to tell Adora now…” I sighed. There was no use going hiking. I was a monster and it was not even Valentine’s Day. It was the middle of April and I was in this form.
I ruffled through my flesh for my phone. The screen wasn’t able to detect my leg no matter how hard I swiped up.
“Ugh, call Adora!” I said. Voice recognition came to life and began dialing Adora’s number.
“Fran? Hello?” Adora said.
“Adora! Hiiii, how are you?”
“I’m fine… By the way, about tomorrow…”
“I-I just finished packing!”
“I see… Well, I don’t think I can go tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I just feel this relationship is going too fast. Maybe we should call the whole thing off…”
“Call the whole thing off?!”
“I’m sorry. It’s hard to explain. I-”
A crashing sound came from the other end.
“Adora? Are you okay?”
“I have to go, Fran. Bye bye.”
“Wait!”
Dial tone.
The next few minutes was spent debating whether I should go see Adora or not. A weird feeling that I was supposed to see her bugged me. No pun intended. Was it just an excuse so I could see her after she just dumped me? Or was my intuition telling me something was wrong?
I scuttled to the window and looked at the night. There were no people awake. Just lights in different buildings, unmoving and bright, mimicking the stars in space. I opened the window and jumped out.
The longest distance I’ve flown was from one end of my room to another. Flying from rooftop to rooftop was a new feat I had to master for a short amount of time. At first, I barely reached the edge of another building but thanks to my legs, I was able to stick to the walls. I scuttled when I couldn’t fly. I never understood the design of my body but I had to make do with what I had.
Adora’s apartment was on the border of my city and another. Her apartment building had paint peeling off in the dark. It overlooked a river with floating debris and sewage and it was next a park that had trees with chopped off branches. The sounds of people drinking in the street echoed. I had to carefully skirt the nearby buildings to stay hidden from them.
There was a light in Adora’s apartment window. I couldn’t make out what was happening because a curtain was covering the view but the window was partially opened. I took out my phone from under my wing and instructed to call Adora.
The ringtone could be heard from outside. After two missed calls, she picked up.
“Yes, Fran?” Her voice was calmer this time.
“Adora, I’m not sure what happened. But I’m outside your apartment.”
“Huh? I can’t go out Fran. I already said the trip is off!”
“Wait, you meant the trip only? Or the relationship?”
“The trip, Fran! The trip! I didn’t mean the relationship.”
“Okay, ’cause I thought-”
“Listen, Fran. I can’t go out for now. You have to go home.”
A silhouette appeared on the curtain, but it wasn’t Adora. It was the shape of a beetle. A large beetle. It was huge as a refrigerator and it was moving.
“Fran? Are you there?”
“Adora, can you come to the window?”
“No, Fran! Go home!”
“I know what you are.”
“What?”
“Just open the window.”
“O-Okay.”
An insect leg quickly opened the window. I hang up and started scuttling to the side of her building. I flew up. When I placed a leg on the ledge, there was a loud gasp. I stumbled into the apartment and there she was.
Adora as a beetle was different. She was bigger than me and she couldn’t fit into the window unlike me. Her form was a little brown and refined at the edges. She had no horns but did have raised areas that were hills in place of the towering horns.
“Hi, Adora.” I said.
“Hi yourself, Fran.” She said.
“Were you always…?”
“A monster?”
“No, you’re not a monster.”
“Really? My parents thought otherwise. They left.”
“Is that what happened, Adora?”
After this encounter with each other, Adora and I left her apartment before dawn. She was able to fit through the door. We scuttled upwards and ended on the rooftop. With one last look at the crowd of buildings, we took off and flew along the river, leaving the city and its monsters behind.
There are on-going rumors of monsters living among humans in the city. Although recently, they say the real monsters were not really beetle-like or cockroach-like.
They were human.
Julienne Maui Castelo Mangawang finished BA Asian Studies at the University of Santo Tomas. She is taking up her MA in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines — Diliman. She writes poems, short stories, and essays. Her writing is published in 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, ALPAS Journal, Inklette Magazine, The Rising Phoenix Review, Revolt Magazine PH, Vox Populi PH, and is forthcoming in The Rumpus. She recently released a zine of poems entitled Aftermath, which delves into home, family, and healing. Her interests include esoteric practices, Japanese studies, and Jungian archetypes. Email her at maui@voxpopuliph.com.
