Fantastic Tales in Paper Boats

By Melford Maderazo

An ex-convict, who rendered penitentiary service on faraway planet, goes back to Earth, to his wife who is now half a century older than him, to continue his love on her.
A fisherman in a small village meets a mysterious woman who tells him about cleansing the world in the future.
A hopeless romantic guy goes to his mother for consolation in an alternate world.
A kid, who takes a pee under the tree, is punished by a deity.
In a world invaded by aliens secreting green substance to impair and kill human, one guy discovers how to fight them.
A beggar unknowingly travels back in time and saves the death of his wife and kid by telling his story to a person he meets under the bridge.
A mysterious stranger appears in the coin collector's house to look for an ancient coin.
A witch, who has been kind to the villagers, punishes them for not helping when her times get rough.
A parrot, who is punished because of a joke, takes a pious and sweet revenge.
A strange old lady vanishes and leaves her mysterious house, because of the kids unintentional mistake.
A monster confesses on how he attacked a family and ended up jailed.
A production assistant travels back in time to convince the mother of an actor who plays a role in a blockbuster film.
A student, who meets a guy from the future, learns how the guy he met dies.
An alien discovers the greatest discovery of his race by visiting Earth.
These are some of the fantastic tales which will take you to worlds you've never been to.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melford Maderazo
• Release date: Dec 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463079737

Melford Maderazo

M.G. Maderazo started writing fiction in 2008, inspired by Mike Resnick's Novella "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge" and Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder." His humorous flash fiction "The Wick" was chosen for Shortbread Friday Short Story in October of 2012. His science fiction short stories "Timeless Love" and "Commit a Crime, We ́ll Always Know" were awarded an Honorable Mention in the prestigious L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.

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Melford Maderazo

Fantastic Tales in Paper Boats

A Collection of Short Stories

Copyright © 2020 by Melford Maderazo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by the Author

ISBN: 9781790553242

First edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Contents

DEDICATION

PREFACE

Timeless Love

Meeting at the Seashore

The Last Smile of My Pain

The Drunkard

Wet Punishment

Green Blood

The Beggar

A Silent Day

The Silver Coin

Commit a Crime, We’ll Always Know

The Small Bridge

The Switch

The Secret Door to Heaven

The Witch Who Becomes a Healer

Cursed in the Middle of the Forest

The Styrofoam Collectors

Paper Boats

Leaving Home

Uncle Jeff’s Bedroom

Yda’s Gift

A Merman’s Valentine

Solitary

Tia’s First and Last Fly

Salvage My Broken Heart

Fearful Peep

The Pious Parrot

The Souvenir

The Old Lady in the Mysterious House

They Wouldn’t Believe

The Hearing of Maria Juliana

Itnaya’s Sacrifice at World’s End

The Advice

Father’s Stake

Cigarette Butts

The Coin Collector’s Dream: A Sequel to the Silver Coin

Feathers

Die or Marry

Stay With Me Forever

The Real Illness

Trek to New Earth

Gift from the Matriarch

The Regret

Confession of a Monster

Acting in Time

Incident after Three

Infectious Smile

Two Knocks

Mistaken Return

Orakne’s Discovery

Nay-nay and Me

The Wick

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEDICATION

This one is for my lovely wife, Magnolia,

lovely woman of Cansa,

With the timeless love I feel for her.

PREFACE

I had written this short story collection from 2008 until 2018. Most of the stories here are fictionalized based on my life experience (The Beggar, The Small Bridge, Salvage My Broken Heart, Fearful Peep, The Real Illness, The Souvenir and The Regret). Some are based on stories told by my great grandfather, grandmother, uncle, and grand aunt (The Drunkard, Uncle Jeff’s Bedroom, The Pious Parrot, Feathers, Two Knocks, and The Wick). A few are based on the ideas I got from watching films, including TV news, and reading stories written by my favorite authors like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Mike Resnick (Orakne’s Discovery, Mistaken Return, Acting in Time, Solitary, and Commit a Crime, We’ll Always Know). Some just came up from something that interests me (The Silver Coin, The Hearing of Maria Juliana, The Old Lady in the Mysterious House, and The Witch Who Curses and Cures the Curse). And, two of the stories here (Leaving Home and Cursed in the Middle of the Forest) are based on my unforgettable dream.

I remember one of my mentors’ feedback for a short story I published in the defunct Shortbread Stories website. She told me that I had written one of the best inspirational stories she had read. I was overjoyed to hear it from a proficient English writer. In fact, it has motivated me to keep on writing. The story she referred to is Paper Boats. It’s a flash fiction and was initially intended to compete in Shortbread Stories Competition along with other aspiring writers all over the world. But it was disqualified because it exceeded the word limit set for the competition. I tried to edit it several times to meet the required word count, but it didn’t work. I thought that compressing the story would defeat its real purpose - to deliver its core message.

Paper Boats is a flash fiction I wrote based on my childhood experience. It’s a story to remind us that despite how fragile we humans are, and even how difficult the situation is, we remain to stand, we strive to live, and we reach for our dreams. The paper boat in the story symbolizes us. The main characters of the stories in this collection are paper boats too. They struggle. They survive. And they reach for their dreams. Their stories are engraved in their hearts. Just like the drafts of these stories I wrote on papers which my kids folded into paper boats.

All stories (tales) in this collection are written imaginatively, ergo the title of the book: Fantastic Tales in Paper Boats.

Enjoy the read.

Timeless Love

Ifelt anxious about knocking at the door. The same door I left closed more than four decades ago. The luster of its surface had melted away and some flower engravings had been chipped off. I was not sure who would open it and neither sure if I’d be able to recognize them or they’d be able to recognize me.

I made two hesitant soft knocks, though. I never used the doorbell. The door slowly creaked in. An old woman in pink duster released the knob in her rheumatic hand and set her eyeglasses up her nose. Her surprised eyes strove to lock with mine. Then tears glistened on her wrinkled cheeks.

I forced a smile though something lumped in my throat. My eyes swelled up with tears, too.

‘'Kumusta,’’ I said, my mouth shaking.

Silently, she drew slow steps to me and touched my cheek. I felt her coarse palm. She embraced me, pressing her ear against my chest seemed to convince my heart is beating.

I put my arms around her aged body, feeling her skin rubbed with mine. I felt the crinkles, picturing dark dots of senility on skin in my mind.

She led me into the living room and offered me a seat. I sat down. The cottony cushion gave comfort to my hand. I waited for her to sit, but she trudged to a door which also had been the door to the kitchen before.

‘'You haven’t altered the house divisions, Maggie.’’ I commented.

‘'No, I haven’t.’’ Her voice joined with the clanking of spoon and a cup.

I inspected the house. The once-curtained window to my left was now a wall. The antique flat-screen TV was still plastered upon the wall to my right. Every corner of the living room was adorned with a combination of daisies and chrysanthemums blooming in light green vase. I looked at the vases and there was a switch on each. The flowers were certainly just holographic displays, but they had no difference from the natural ones. Overhead were ilang-ilang orchids which brightened up the living room. They were anti-gravity stuff, once set in the air would float forever. Across from me was a white wall. It was not really a white wall at all. They have this kind of technology on Monteen.

I remembered two inmates had spent five days in dungeons under Philippine Penitentiary grounds on Monteen because of that technology. They called it compack, obviously, because it is a complete-packaged appliance. It had anything you want for entertainment and comfort. It had a holographic video. A telecom which you could use to communicate in a way that you and the receiver seem just a few inches apart. It also had a monitor of surveillance cameras outside and inside a building or a house. It had an air-conditioning too. An alarm system which lets you know something bad going on in the house. A library that preserved your digital documents and everything you want to store including your favorite digital books from the two-century old Ray Bradbury classics to the five-decade old Jean Aphrose romance, etcetera.

On Monteen never was an inmate allowed to touch the compack’s remote control which was always placed on a table near the front of the white wall. It was fenced with laser and only deactivated by a jail guard who would enter the penitentiary lobby. Usually it was in the morning that the assigned jail guard activated the holographic video to let the prisoners watch the news from Earth. News that had actually taken place fifteen years ago.

During that moment, the jail guard didn’t yet enter for some reason, but the lobby had been opened for the perspiring prisoners. Air-condition was not yet turned on. That was to conserve energy. Monteen is a planet hotter and smaller than Earth but it supports flora and fauna life. Just like Earth, every living thing gets energy from a yellow dwarf like our sun. But Monteen’s sun is smaller than Earth’s. Thus, penitentiaries and the newly-built cities conserved solar energy practically. Geothermal is limited for the planet’s core is less active compared with Earth’s. There’s hydroelectric but is also restricted since there are only a few wide rivers.

Going back, an inmate from Luzon State desperately rushed towards the compack and snatched the remote from its burning cage. It happened when several of us noticing it. Those near him, including me, saw lots of blood squirting from his sliced arm. Two things lay on the floor, his dead hand and the remote control. He was twisting with agonizing pain.

A close-bearded inmate from behind me leaped down to the remote control and scrambled up. I knew what he wanted to switch on. Lots of sweat had been dripping down since we were in our quarters last night. But, he did not know what button to press. He looked at me, eyes asking for help, but he knew that I also had no idea about it.

The white wall sprung to life. It flickered and gradually began to show a recorded video of a building construction. It seemed that the building was the penitentiary, the first time it had been built. Every penitentiary has records of its history, which were put in the compack’s library.

The close-bearded inmate pressed another button. The scene changed to a middle-aged news anchor announcing news fifteen years ago from Earth. The image cut to a video clip of some agricultural innovation.

There was some bad news. Crime rate had dropped down on Earth, Moon, Mars, and Ganymede since half a century ago. The UN devised a way to achieve it. They implemented the compulsory law in all countries and states that no child is born without a tracking chip in his heart. It was not dangerous, putting a technology inside your heart. It was thoroughly researched and ever since its inception no infant has been put to risk. It wouldn’t intrude one’s private life either because it could only be used to track crime suspect who tries to escape from authority. Innocent suspects would not worry about it, because an instant trial would be acted upon immediately in local courts as government protocol. Higher courts like Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court no longer exist. They had been in no purpose after Russian scientist invented the crime-detector device a few decades ago on Earth. It’s a local court instrument similar to a small flashlight, connected by infrared to a digital box, which looks like the obsolete laptop. It records the suspect’s memory by way of flashing its beam to the eye. In the digital box the recorded memory is scanned and reviewed. The new prisoners on Monteen benefited from it.

Now another inmate got near him and seized up the remote. A deafening hardcore music broke in. I looked back to the entrance as the inmates were shouting with complaints. A group of jail guards was coming in. And that was it; the two inmates were locked in the dungeons for a week.

Maggie came back with a tray; a glass of milk on it, a platter of cooked rice, and a basket of fried drumsticks. That was just enough, for I hadn’t eaten Earth-food for twelve years.

‘'You’ve never forgotten my favorite,’’ I said, standing up to assist her.

Before I was incarcerated, I had always had this menu on the table after work.

‘'You’re still very young. Your looks haven’t changed.’’ She sat down in the chair to my right. I noticed she was keeping her eyes on me.

I took a sip of the milk. She hadn’t forgotten my taste. I sipped and savored it.

‘'Where is she?’’ I asked, drawing a handkerchief in my pocket.

‘'She’s in Manila with her husband and kids.’’

I wiped my mouth. I was elated to hear it. ‘'She’s got kids?’’

She nodded. ‘'Three. One boy and two girls.’’

Forty two years ago here on Earth, Milla was still cradled in Maggie’s arms. I too had held her for a very short time in the hands that had worked hard for them. And when I got home from work, Milla’s babble let wane my weariness. Her smile was my strength.

Maggie pulled out something from the pocket of her duster. It was a remote control. She pointed it at the white wall and clicked. The wall flickered.

‘'It’s Milla’s videos.’’ She introduced the scene that began to play.

We watched the videos. Milla’s childhood. Her adolescence. A short video of her and Maggie walking in the busy streets of Luna City. Her college graduation. Her first job as a nurse in Manila Doctors Hospital. And her wedding. Milla looked more like me than Maggie. If we could’ve been together, people might think us fraternal twins. We also watched my grandchildren’s videos. Maggie was narrating and commenting on the videos. She answered my questions once I asked who those unfamiliar faces were. It took us the entire day to finish them. We smiled, laughed, and shed a few tears.

A short time later, Maggie suggested that we go upstairs to the terrace to get some fresh air. She suggested I hadn’t yet completely filled my lungs with the air I breathed in when I came out of my mother’s womb and first saw light in my world. She was right. I escorted her up, holding her hand and supporting her waist.

In the terrace I let her sit first in a wooden rocking chair. Then, I set a steel chair next to her and settled down in it.

We were looking up into the purple sky. The tangerine beam danced over the cities of Samar islands like aurora borealis. The stars in the clear sky had begun to show true lights. To our right, specks of vehicles were moving smoothly above Caibiran City through the skyscrapers. Far away beyond us were passenger spaceships gliding like shooting stars. They had replaced the defunct planes. Then, a cruise ship passed fifty yards above us.

‘'That’s from Tacloban City bound for Manila City,’’ Maggie said. ‘'It picks up passengers to Luna City.’’

‘'I haven’t gone to the Moon,’’ I said. ‘'I heard they have a lot of tourist spots there.’’

‘'Yes, that’s right. In fact, Luna City is now crowded with tourists. Unlike the time Milla and I went there. That was twenty years ago. A required educational tour in her college.’’

I felt a sting of guilt. I knew it was a family trip, that fathers must come too. It’s a custom in all colleges in the Philippines, to expose students to space travel and take a view of Earth from the moon, as well as a family bonding.

‘'I’ve preserved your atmosbike.’’ She changed the topic. I knew she sensed out what I felt. ‘'No one has touched it since you were gone.’’

‘'Really?’’ I glanced over my shoulder to her. ‘'I would like to ride on it again.’’

‘'Can you still fly it?’’ she said, smiling.

‘'Maybe.’’ I chuckled. ‘'Twelve years is not long enough to forget how to operate it.’’

She chuckled too.

We were quiet for a short while. The night breeze blew. The rustling leaves around the house got my attention.

‘'Are they the mangoes I planted?’’ I wondered.

‘'Yes,’’ she responded.

It came back again, that very day I lost my world.

I was working as a grade two teacher in a Montessori school. I was always the last teacher to leave the campus. I stayed working with my lesson plan to be prepared for the next day. At six I should have been riding in my atmosbike heading home, but something made me stay for a while.

I suddenly heard a clatter from somewhere outside. By way of its noise, I could determine it was in a nearby classroom. I thumbed on the digital time-clock beside the door and moved out.

A woman’s soft cry filled the air and it made my heart jump. I focused to where the cry came from. There was a stir about. And I was pretty sure it was coming from the principal’s office. I headed there. The soft cry was replaced with a guy’s moan of pleasure.

The door was not totally closed. Someone might have forgotten to thumb out. I sneaked in. Then I saw an indecent scene clear as daylight. The principal. His pants and underwear had been pulled down to his knees exposing his butt. He was thrusting against an unconscious body of a woman. Her skirt had been flipped up and underwear hanging in one leg. Her blouse had been stripped open. Her right arm was swinging freely in the air. His left hand was squeezing her right bosom.

I slowly moved to my right and noticed that he was gripping a knife in his right hand. Its sharp blade glittered against the fluorescent light over them. The only mistake I made was I didn’t think of getting something that I could use to cripple him. I jumped at him instead and tried to take away the knife. But, he gripped it in full-strength. We dropped to the floor. I strangled him with my left hand, but he was able to push me back. When we were facing each other, he hit me in the face with his left hand. I took revenge by knocking him in my head. He was over me and it was easy for him to point the knife in my chest. If I gave up my strength, then the knife would plunge into my heart.

He was heavier and stronger. The knife slowly cut to my chest and I felt cold metal. I thought if I would let him outdo me I would be dead in minutes. I concentrated to gather all force, gasped, and pushed him off. He flipped over to my right side. Warm blood gushed out my chest. I didn’t mind it. I must have a weapon to defend myself, or else I’d be dead. I was wounded.

I looked to my left and saw a trophy that resembled a pointed pyramid. This was one of the principal’s awards. I crept to it. Just as he dived to stab my back I turned up holding the trophy upward. It cut through his ribcage. His eyes fell out and blood spurted from the mouth. He was dead over me.

There was no witness. He had turned off the surveillance camera to hide his lewd action. The victim, his secretary, was unconscious, like a white paper on the table. I had no choice but to call and surrender to the authority. I had dripped my blood on the floor. Even if I’d clean the mess, run away, and hide, I have a tracking chip in me. Everyone has a tracking chip since the day he is born.

The trial lasted for about a week and I was sentenced to a 10-year imprisonment on Monteen. Had the crime-detector device been invented at that moment, there wouldn’t be any trial at all. They secured me in the city jail not allowing someone to see me, including Maggie. I cried every night.

The day came when I was going to serve imprisonment on Monteen. And, I hadn’t yet seen and talked to Maggie and have a last look at my daughter. The law forbade a prisoner to see and talk to whoever has recognized him. There must be complete isolation from the people he knows in preparation for his service on Monteen. Nevertheless, I spoke with the jail warden for the last time. I pleaded with him to let me see Maggie and my daughter. Perhaps, due to the weight of the crime and sympathy for me, he let me.

It was a sunny morning, as if the day was smiling at me departing the good life I had. They took me to my house.

I knocked on the door. Maggie opened it. Surprised, she hugged me merrily. I knew she was thinking that the court had reversed the verdict and that I was going to stay. But, the jail guards were waiting for me at the gates.

‘'Where’s Milla?’’ I said, staring at the automatic crib gently swaying in harmony with the instrumental classic Tagalog song ‘'Tulog na Baby’’. Through the pink nets surrounding the crib I could see her sleeping peacefully. I choked. I tried to swallow down, but I couldn’t. Tears streamed down from my eyes. I wouldn’t touch her, not now. I did not get in. It would just add to the pain I was going through. And, I didn’t want to change everything I had established in my mind. I had accepted the idea of not seeing her grow up. I thought of what would become of her when I get back. A full-grown woman or a mother? I didn’t know.

Maggie let me loose from her arms. Her face was drowning in tears too. I wiped the tears away in my hands. Hands that had touched her gently for eight years.

‘'I’m sorry,’’ I said the gravest apology I’d said in my whole life. I was very sorry for leaving them, for taking away their rights to have a husband and father.

‘'I’m letting you go, Maggie.’’ I didn’t like to say those words but it was necessary. ‘'I’ll be away for forty years or maybe more and I don’t want you wasting time waiting for me. You’ll find someone better than me.’’ Our tears continued to flow out. ‘'You take care of Milla. Tell her, when she gets to understand, that I love her.’’

The sun was smiling, but tears were flooding us like deluge.

‘'It’s time to go,’’ reminded the officer at the gates.

‘'I want you to close the door for me,’’ I said to her, for I didn’t want to see her looking at me as I left.

She kissed me once more, tasting our tears.

‘'I will always love you, Fred,’’ she whispered.

‘'I love you too, Maggie.’’ I smiled for us to be strong. ‘'Always will.’’

She closed the door slowly. I knew she was still crying inside and it hurt me more to think of it.

I stood there, looking at the door I’d used to close every morning when I went to work. I turned. My eyes rolled over the yard, to the flowering plants I’d propagated, to the mangoes I’d planted in the corners of my house. Then, I walked out of the gates and stopped to look back to the only wealth I had. I was going to leave all of them, my wife and my daughter, my possessions, my home, my town, my country, my world.

They took me to Muntinlupa City in Luzon State where the country’s penitentiary ships that traveled to planet Monteen stationed. Along with 54 convicts all over the country in that year, we lined up to the air-locked lift that carried six persons at a time up into the ship. Jail guards carrying long laser guns received us. I saw more or less hundred oval transparent chambers set like eggs on a tray, two yards apart from another. Inside them was a white couch with harnesses.

The head officer announced that all convicts were in. Each convict had a jail guard to guide and set him in the chamber. They did it all at the same time. ‘'All harness up!’’ shouted the head officer.

My jail guard strapped me with the harness, pushing me deeper into the cushion.

‘'Close chambers!’’ The jail guards simultaneously pushed the button on the side of the chambers. A tempered glass slid out from one side closing us in like unborn chicks.

I saw all the jail guards moved in the direction of the lift. I knew that when the ship began its journey, there are no others in it except us the convicts. It’s a self-operated ship. There are forty of them now, 30 of them travel to Monteen, one each year and comes back here on Earth after 30 years. The other 10 are reserved.

After a few minutes a woman’s clear and smooth voice spoke up in the built-in speakers in the chambers.

‘'This is the journey of your life. Forget everything in the Philippines. Forget everything on Earth. When you come back, another life awaits you. Relativity means 18 hours in your seat, 15 years of struggle of your loved ones. Now sit back and relax. Mabuhay Ka!’’

I could feel we were lifting up the ground. Then, perhaps to take away fear of travel, an instrumental music played on.

‘'I’ve never forgotten you, Fred.’’ Maggie’s voice put me back to reality.

‘'Me, too.’’ I stammered. ‘'Did you get married?’’ I asked, glancing at her.

‘'I did.’’ She wore off the eyeglasses and wiped her eyes in her fingers.

I put my hand on her back and stroked the way I’d done before.

‘'He died from an accident a couple of years ago.’’

‘'Sorry to hear that.’’

‘'He loved Milla the way you loved her. He was a good husband and father just like you.’’

‘'I would have thanked him very much for that,’’ I said, but a little feeling of jealousy tickled in my heart.

‘'Do you have children with him?’’ I asked.

‘'Yes. Two boys. But they’ve been away since,’’ she paused. ‘'Both wanted to study in Philippine Military Academy. Jeffrey and I signed the waiver. I didn’t like it, but Jeffrey agreed with them. He said it’s what our sons have dreamed of.’’

‘'Where are they now?’’

‘'Mars. After graduation they joined the UN army with 23 other Filipino soldiers. They were sent to Mars to hunt for space rebels.’’

‘'How are they?’’

‘'They are fine, I think, but I still worry about them. They just called me yesterday.’’ Maggie was slowly rocking the chair. I was staring up at the vehicles crossing in the sky. ‘'Fred,’’ she quit rocking and looked at me. ‘'I don’t want you putting all your time