CHAPTER ONE

The Man in the Iron Mask

Forbidden City. A place where men voluntarily and eagerly do things of evil. Crimes are somewhat legal and good people are only a few. This is where I grew up. This is where I started walking. This is where I live.

I am the eldest of three male siblings. My mother has a foreign blood and my father is a pure Filipino. Most of my foreign relatives in my mother side already live outside of the country, so I do not really know most of them. However, some of her Filipino relatives still reside here, and I am also very close to them. When I was a kid, I used to go to her uncle’s place and live with his family for the vacation. He doesn’t look a lot like a Filipino, although he speaks the language very fluently. They are very rich and work as big bosses of different prestigious and prominent companies in the country. With regards to my father’s relatives, I am well acquainted with them and hang out with them almost everyday even until now. Some of them also lives in the U.S. and visits the country every once in a while.

When I was a kid, I started having these abnormal attacks. We do not really know what it is and why it happens. I do not even recall how I got it. From what I remember, I started having these attacks when I was in third grade. When I entered high school, these attacks became recurrent and continual. My family thought it was just because I was anemic, or over-fatigued, so we ignored it for so many years. Until after my high school graduation, my aunt, who is the Head Nurse of Somerset Medical Hospital in New Jersey, went home to have a vacation here and spend her time with us. Without hesitation, she told us that what I have are seizures, and I should go and consult her neurologist friend here in the Philippines. So we did. After several tests, which I hated so much, the lady neurologist told us that I’m epileptic, and I am already having seizures. She tried to trace the reason on why I had this illness, she went back to my family background, and none of my relatives on both sides have epilepsy. She thought maybe there was some sort of an accident that might triggered it. My mother told her about an incident when I was still a young boy, I had an accident wherein a nail got through my head. I do not remember that accident; however, I still see the skid mark it left whenever I had my hair shaved. Even up to this moment, I still take medicinal maintenance to prevent my seizures.

When I was still in high school, I was actually one of the brightest students in the class, I belong to different youth organizations, clubs, councils and entered different contests and factions just to please my parents and myself. I was considered as one of the good boys of the school. I never got into trouble regarding fighting with other students. I befriended most of them, especially in our batch. But I despise some of my teachers, to the point of disobeying them and answering back. I was a pro-student, a messenger, and a voice of the youth back then. I was an officer of the student council, the science club, the values formation team, knights of the altar, and a member of different organizations such as the arts and crafts club, eureka math club, and a contributor of the school paper, the HEY! newsletter. I both do sketches and articles for the said paper. I actually enjoyed doing all of it. Well… almost.

Most of the people I knew, especially my teachers, believed that I was one of the students who had enriching values. You see, I tend to maintain a good image, not because I want to, but because I had to. I belong to a well-known family here in our place. My mom is a well-respected chemistry teacher who works in the same school I’m studying, my dad is a renowned artist, who happens to be one of the founders of a critically acclaimed art group in our province, and his sister is my principal, who is actually married to our town’s vice-mayor. Everything is actually complicated at that time, and I never wanted my life to be that way, so I had to hide everything about me. The real me.

I first tried smoking when I was in grade three. I remember I had a school record together with my friends and our parents were invited to the principal’s office afterwards. But when I reached high school, I discretely started smoking and drinking with my classmates everytime we get the hang of it. We watched porn movies back then and did a couple of stuff that people might misinterpret back then. I did a lot of bad things at the back of my parents. They never knew about it. I never told them. I was so busy engaging myself into the evil world that I forgot all about the meaning of the word “life”. I was hiding inside a mask. My favorite icon. I used to call myself "The Mask" when I was in high school. I believed this is what I’ve been doing all along. Hiding behind the mask. A face that I never had.

I am pretty much the man in the iron mask.