The Crayon Drawings

The last time I saw my cousin’s husband, he was laughing at a joke my father told, his wide grin showing teeth stained by years of coffee and cigarettes. That was in January, during the reunion we held in our cramped ancestral house in Bulacan. By February 20th, he was gone, a sudden hemorrhage that painted his hospital bed in crimson before the doctors could even say his name. My cousin, Elisa, was a widow at thirty-two, and their son, four-year-old Marco, seemed to shrink overnight, his usual chatter replaced by a quiet that felt unnatural.

We stayed in Bulacan for the wake, the air thick with the smell of candles and wilting flowers. The house buzzed with relatives, all speaking in hushed tones, their eyes darting to the coffin where Tito Ramon lay, his face a waxy mask of peace. But Marco refused to go near the coffin. He clung to his mother’s leg, his small face pressed into her skirt, and when asked to say goodbye, he simply shook his head, his tiny fists clenched.

On the third night, my mother and I were helping Elisa sort through some of Ramon’s things. We were in the storage room, surrounded by boxes of old receipts, faded photographs, and tools that had gone rusty. Marco had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, but I heard a soft padding of feet. I turned to see him standing in the doorway, his eyes wide and glassy, a piece of paper clutched in his hand.

‘Marco, why are you up? You should be sleeping,’ Elisa said, her voice tired.

He walked over to me, his steps deliberate, and placed the paper in my lap. It was a crayon drawing – green, purple, and black scribbles that formed a crude figure with long, spindly arms and no face. At the bottom, in his wobbly handwriting, were the words: ‘For Mike. He says hi.’

A cold shiver ran down my spine. Mike was my boyfriend. He had left earlier to book our bus tickets for Baguio, where we were supposed to go that weekend, despite everything. The trip had been planned for months, and we had decided to push through, not wanting to waste the money.

I forced a smile. ‘That’s nice, Marco. But who is ‘Mike’?’

He looked at me with an unsettling calm. ‘The man in the black coat. He’s sitting in the corner.’ He pointed to an empty space near the window. The curtains stirred, though no breeze came through.

Elisa turned pale. ‘Honey, there’s no one there.’

But Marco insisted. ‘He’s been following us. He was at the hospital, and now he’s here. He wants me to give you this so you know he’s real.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the drawing, the faceless figure, the name ‘Mike.’ When my boyfriend returned, I showed it to him. He laughed it off, saying Marco had a wild imagination, but I noticed he clutched the drawing a little too long, his knuckles white.

The next morning, we left for Baguio as planned. The bus ride was long and winding, the mountain roads slick with rain. Marco sat between us, quiet, occasionally sketching in his worn notebook. When we arrived at the transient house, a two-story cottage with creaky wooden floors and a musty smell, Marco ran to the window and stared out into the dense pine forest behind the property.

‘He’s still there,’ he whispered.

‘Who?’ I asked, though I already knew.

‘The man in the black coat. He’s standing by the trees.’ I looked out, but saw only shadows. Yet, a chill settled in my bones.

The first night in Baguio, we heard footsteps upstairs, though we were the only ones in the house. They were slow, heavy, like someone dragging their feet. My boyfriend went to check, but found nothing. When he came back, his face was ashen. ‘I saw footprints on the dusty floor of the attic,’ he said, his voice shaky. ‘But they were too large, and they were headed toward the window.’

Marco, now wide awake, sat up in bed. ‘I told you. He’s following us. He wants to say sorry.’

Elisa, who had been relatively composed, finally broke down. She told us that on the night Ramon died, she saw a tall man in a black coat standing at the foot of the hospital bed. She thought it was a doctor, but he wore no badge, and his face was shadowed. He just stood there, watching, until the monitors flatlined.

The next day, we decided to leave early, but as we packed, Marco started throwing a tantrum. He screamed, ‘He’s going to take the doll!’ We had no idea what he meant. Elisa had bought him a small stuffed dog earlier, and it was still in his backpack.

Suddenly, the lights flickered, and a loud crash came from the kitchen. We ran in to find a cabinet door wrenched off its hinges, and on the floor, scattered among shattered glasses, lay a faded photograph. It was of Ramon and a man we didn’t recognize, both in their twenties, standing in front of an old warehouse. Written on the back was a date – February 20, 1998. Exactly twenty years to the day Ramon died.

My boyfriend picked it up, his hands trembling. ‘That’s my father,’ he said, pointing to the other man. ‘He killed himself on this date, when I was a kid. He used to wear a black coat.’

We all stood there, frozen, as a deep, guttural laughter echoed through the house. Marco began to cry, clutching his drawing. ‘He’s angry. He says you were supposed to take him to Baguio, not leave him behind.’

We fled that day, leaving the transient house in chaos. On the drive home, Marco told us that the man in the black coat had been trying to reach us – to apologize for dying and leaving us, and to request that we remember him. He said the man’s name was not Mike, but Ramon, and that he had been confused because we looked like his son.

Elisa sobbed, clutching Marco. ‘Ramon wanted to come to Baguio,’ she said. ‘He always talked about it, but we never had the money. He died before we could.’

Now, months later, I still find crayon drawings left on my doorstep, always of a faceless figure standing in a corner. And every time I see my boyfriend, he looks over his shoulder, as if expecting someone. The last drawing I found had a new word at the bottom: ‘Soon.’

I don’t know who he is, or what he wants, but I know one thing – Marco still talks to someone no one else can see. And in his little hands, he always holds a black crayon.