fiction: gumamela & rosang taba

Two of my older stories, both from the Hinirang cycle, can be found over at Panitikan (an online resource center for Filipino writers and readers).

"Gumamela" was previously published in ab ovo 2 as "Hindi Ako Gumamela (I Am Not Fringed Hibiscus"). It's a small tale in English with some Tagalog dialogue about a girl named Aponikalandao.

"She told her mother about her dream and her mother told her of the secret bond between the gods and the women of their tribe, the reason she and all other women before and after her would bleed, why that blood must never touch the earth, and the choice she had to make. And she cautioned her daughter never to tell any man about the things she shared." (read more)

"How Rosang Taba Won A Race" is previously unpublished in print (but has prior online incarnations). I retooled it as a short story for children (simply as "Rosang Taba") but it is the original version that appears at Panitikan. Too bad the footnote attributions vanished - but the footnotes themselves can be found at the end of the story.

"This is the story of Rosang Taba (who gained a certain notoriety among the pale-skinned elite as Rosa Gordura, and among the foreign merchants and traders as Rosa the Fat) and how she won a footrace against Ser Jaime Alonzo Pietrado ei Villareal - champion fencer, marksman, runner, swimmer, horseman, and the pride of the Ispaniola-in-Hinirang." (read more)