Holy Week Horrors

Finally... a long break from work is coming up, a chance for me to slow down my pace and recharge my batteries.

Not really.

You see, every year for the last six or seven years, the week I dread the most is Holy Week. It's the time of the year when I don't know if I'll live to see the next day.

There is some truth in the superstition that during Holy Week, the devil and his minions and the spiritual mumbo-jumbo traps are most active and predatory. My lola would say "Patay kasi ang Diyos" and hence evil will be at its strongest. What makes me believe all these is that during Holy Week, I always experience weird, supernatural and sometimes horrifying event whenever I'm sleeping or when the clock strikes 3 am.

When I first encountered this "problem", I dismissed it as a case of over-eating and hence the popular 'bangungot' theory. My first Holy Week nightmare involved a lady clad in black at the foot of my bed and four dark men holding me down on my bed at my wrists and feet. I tried to relax, but panic overtook me and I endured the whole ordeal by reciting three complete rosaries.

The following year, my semana-santa experience was at a beach while I was on vacation. My best friend and I just downed a whole bottle of vodka by ourselves. Straggling back to our room, we realized an unusual number of black cats congregating at the front of our room. In what seems to be choreographed by some unknown force, all the cats hissed at us with fangs open. Time-check: 3 am on my watch.

In the succeeding year, I encountered a hermit in my dream. He told me a story about how the devil and his minions go after people with unnatural abilities and eat their brains. At the end of the dream, when I was about to stand up, I discovered that I could not. And the hermit removed his cloak and his appearance changed to a demon. My... what big fangs he has! (the better to eat you, my dear...). I woke up in a break of cold sweat.

I have more stories of my Holy Week horrors to which I have compiled in one of my personal journals (it contains everything macabre that I have encountered so far).

The reason I write this is that last Sunday early morning, I had my most recent Holy Week horror. At exactly 3 am on my digital clock, I felt a continuous electric shock going through all my body (is that how epileptics feel when they have seizures?). I was caught off-guard. From year 3 onwards of my abnormal experiences, I've made it a point to keep a silver rosary under my pillow as my anchor/amulet. But that time around, I only had a Timex watch under my pillow.

I guess I need to prepare once more for my yearly ordeal with the devil and his minions.

And that will be the subject of my next post.