C015 Apparition
2080 Words
"Wah seh... You are full of action," Cheng mimicked the way the old man was speaking when I approached near them.
"Sheesh... Please do not mimic the way the old man talk. It's not really that funny to make fun of the way he talks,"
I defended the old man as I had attained a certain level of respect for him since he had helped me to open up my Third Eye, whether I need it or not, and also activated my Qi, somehow.
"Alright... Alright... We would not try to make fun of you and the old man anymore," agreed Cheng as he tried to calm the rest of his brothers into not mocking and poking fun at me and the frail old man, just in case the old man would cast a curse on them instead.
"Hey, Bo. What can you do with your Third Eye? Anything special that you can do with your third eye besides seeing the Guardian Spirit."
"I heard the old man talked something about dying earlier to you and he was rather enthusiastic when he kept mentioning 'Die... Die... Die...!"
Ding raised the question at me as he looked at me with deep interest to find out what is the meaning of the old man earlier on.
"I am not too sure of what the old man was saying about during and so on. I guess it's nothing much really, and it could just help me to see things clearly and opened up my mind about other matters of the supernatural world."
I added and assured the brothers that nothing would happen to me much, especially the dying part, and only I could see things they the normal people could not see.
"Boy, the Keris, you bring to me, I see now." the old Master pointed animatedly to the Keris behind the small of my back.
"This is my Father's. He left it for me." I commented as I handed it to him.
"I know, boy. This Keris I made. Your father good man. Fighter and true spiritualist was he."
The old man reaches out his both hands to receive the Keris after I had heard that he was the one that forged for the late owner. I carefully removed the Keris from the small of my back and handed it to him.
He took the keris in both hands and then he weighed the keris and raised an eyebrow in a sort of peculiar manner.
When he unsheathed the keris slowly from the scabbard, I could see a slight throbbing from it. It may be my imagination and as the more, I look at it closely, indeed I find that the blade was pulsating as it had a life on its own.
This was the second time I saw the keris being unsheathed out from its scabbard and the first time I do not feel anything peculiar about it.
Maybe it's just that I had not awakened my third eye and so I would not be able to see anything magical or spiritual to it.
That time, it was just a piece of metal that had a sharp point and was of a wavy design. That was it.
Using the Third Eye subconsciously, it seems that the keris was emitting a very slight glow and throbbing slightly as like it has its heartbeat.
Faint but noticeable using the Third Eye.
"Keris power small the very. Long time no bathe," the old man explained to me and I find it hard to comprehend when he mentioned about the keris power being small and also about a bath.
"Bathe? You mean that I should bring it to shower every time I go and shower myself in the morning and in the evenings?"
I knew that the questions I asked was rather nonsensical but I need to know. How do you expect a farang who had just transferred his mind and soul over to this new body of mine to expect and know everything?
"Yes, keris bathe with Sampaguita and smoke ceremony." The old man muttered softly while holding the hilt and turning the keris to one side and then the other.
He was brandishing the Keris and as if was about to stab someone with it. The brothers, that had not seen the Keris being removed out from the scabbard before, crept close and watched the way the old man manipulated the Keris in his hands.
It was as if the old man was wielding a shadow puppet and was waving it about close to his face to look at it properly.
No other words could describe that moment as I was truly lost at what the hell this old man was muttering about giving the keris a bathe with Sampaguita and then a smoke ceremony?!?
And what the hell was with this Sampaguita. If anyone heard it wrongly, they may even regard Sampaguita as a lady...! But it was actually a Spanish word for jasmine flowers...!
At this moment, I became downright confused and could not really describe or have the faintest idea on what this old man was rambling about.
I guessed that he had passed his prime already and on the verge of going senile then.
"Come... You follow. See me what I do." the old man motioned to me and to the rest of the brothers as well as they started following me as well.
We then headed towards the old man's house.
The old man went up to his house and placed the keris in the middle of the verandah. He then gestured to all of us and sit down and make ourselves feel at home while he then ambled slowly with his crooked walking stick inside the house.
From the position we were sitting, we can catch glimpses of the old man and his wife working with somethings inside the kitchen.
"At last, we would be served with some refreshments after watching the first part of the show." That was what the brothers were thinking when they saw that the old man and his wife were busying themselves in the kitchen.
The old man later reappeared a short while later and brought a large green lime, a few bloomed Sampaguita flowers and a bronze bowl of clear liquid on a large rectangular tray.
The old man placed the tray near to where I was sitting down and took the Keris they had been unsheathed and placed them together on the tray as well.
It took some time for him to arrange those things and when the brothers offered to help, the old man refused any sort of assistance from any of them.
A short while later, the old man's wife came and brought a large clay incense burner called a censer with some burning coals which she had removed from the rocket stove in the kitchen and some crystalline rocks or stones called Frankincense on a small clay saucer and placed the censer alongside her husband.
The items were arranged in such a manner that the incense burner or censer was set in the middle and the bowl of clear liquid beside it.
The rest of the items were scattered with no preference at all on which would be processed by the old man.
We all looked at the way the things were set up and was piqued since this was the first time I saw such a ceremony in my life.
A bit of Frankincense was broken up and then placed on the censer with a bit of coal and soon a greyish white smoke started to emit from it.
A sweet scent could be smelled from the censer.
"Now bathe. Properly see. You do every 2 weeks. Good?" the old man was beckoning to me to observe the whole ceremony properly as I have to perform the ceremony once every two weeks.
I nodded my head in acknowledgement at what the old man was guiding us through.
The old man first held out both the Keris and the sheath towards him slowly and gently. He then placed the sheath diagonally across the incense burner or censer.
The old man then placed the keris on top of the bowl and looked at it as if the keris was 'communicating' with him somehow.
He then picked up the keris by the hilt and picked up the green lime and sliced the top part of the lime into half, just right for an opening but not cleanly cutting it through.
The old man repeated the process of cutting the line with the other side of the keris's wavy blade and therefore completed halving the lime altogether.
I glanced around and happen to catch the glimpse of the three brothers, looking intently at the old man's way of handling the keris with awe, while their lips formed the shape of an 'O'.
I observed how the old man took a slice of lime as he rubbed the keris in one direction from the hilt to the tip once. Flipping the keris on the other side, he repeated with the other slice of lemon.
"So it was one half of the lime to run on one side from the hilt to the tip and repeat with another one of the lime pieces. Alright, it seems fair enough and easy to follow." I thought to myself inwardly as I observed the procedures.
Afterwards, using one bloom of Sampaguita flower, he sort of caressed the blade following the wavy curve from the hilt to the tip. The used Sampaguita was then dropped into the bowl. Next, he then repeated the same procedure on the other side of the keris as well.
"Alright... First the line and then it's the jasmine flowers. Got it...!" I thought to myself again as I made proper checks to get the lime and jasmine flowers once I am back at the settlement.
As for denser and Frankincense, I am not sure if I could find any back there. Maybe it would not hurt to ask from the old man a bit later on.
I saw a somewhat glittering pattern on the Keris as if the blade now had been polished clean with the lime and then followed by the jasmine flowers.
The old man was as if twisting the blade around in his wrist with the glare of the sun reflecting on it, and thus made as if the keris had its apparition or host.
After the old man had performed the initial cleansing of the keris, he placed it on top of another bowl and dribbled the clear liquid off from the first bowl he had brought along earlier and onto the sides of the keris from the hilt to the tip.
Once the old man had done so, he then placed the keris on the mat alongside the sheath.
He reached out for the incense burner or censer and placed it directly in front of him. He pushed aside the bowl with the clear liquid and took one of the crystalline rock or Frankincense and place it right in the middle of the embers.
Suddenly a thick whitish-grey smoke emitted from the burning coals and was much more than the earlier ones that he had done when he broke a few pieces from the huge Frankincense rock.
He took the keris and made some moves within the billowing smoke from the incense burner, moving the blade in and out of the billowing incense smoke.
He then dropped a few more pieces of the smaller pieces of the crystalline rocks inside the embers as more smoke came out of it.
All four of us cannot help but notice the sweet pungent smell that emanates from the smoke which of course does not irritate the others but only to my nostrils.
Smoking tobacco is fine but in this case, I was not accustomed to the incense smoke at all.
Suddenly, my Third Eye caught something extraordinary within the smoke above the Keris just near the hilt.
The smoke was initially billowing upwards and fumigating the whole place when suddenly, it took an apparition that resembles an old bearded man between the rising smoke and the blade.
"Hey, Old sage, awaken, are you? Present yourself now. Your owner seeks guidance." The old man commanded in a low voice as if he was whispering to the keris and the apparition within, to appear before me.
In fact, I thought that I was the only one that could see this s**t but then I noticed that the brothers could also see what I am seeing right now.
There were Oohs and Aahs from the three brothers as they watched the sudden apparition before them in awe.
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Dear friends, if you spot any errors, please leave your comments in the paragraphs or the chapter section. Thank you for the POWERSTONES and God Bless.
- Writer
