The Pods of Inang Bayan

In the summer of 1996, when I was seven, my family lived in a cramped but cozy house on the outskirts of a small town in Laguna. Rice fields stretched like green quilts to the edge of the Sierra Madre, and the air always smelled of damp earth and ripe guavas. We were poor but content—my father worked as a tricycle driver, my mother sold vegetables at the market, and I spent my days chasing dragonflies near the irrigation canals.

One afternoon, while my mother was doing laundry at the community well, I wandered toward the old acacia tree that stood alone in the middle of a dry lot. It was ancient, its bark gnarled like wrinkled skin, and its branches hung low, heavy with clusters of long, dark brown pods that rustled even when there was no wind. I had never seen such fruits before—they looked like dried tamarind but twice as long, and they swayed as if alive. I called my mother over, and she too stared at them, puzzled.

‘Those are strange,’ she said, shading her eyes. ‘They look like they’ve been hanging there for years.’

Curiosity got the better of us. I begged for the pods, and my mother, always willing to please me, picked a few that dangled within reach. They were leathery and cold, with a faint musty smell. But I wanted more—the highest ones, the fattest ones. She found a broken branch and tried to knock them down, but they wouldn’t budge. Then she picked up a stone and hurled it at the tree. A loud crack echoed, and dozens of pods rained down, landing with soft thuds on the grass.

We gathered them all, filling my shirt with the strange harvest. Back home, I laid them out on the floor like treasures. They were smooth and slightly sticky, and as I rolled them between my fingers, they seemed to pulse faintly, like a sleeping heartbeat. I dismissed it as imagination and played with them until dusk.

That night, I woke to a blood-curdling scream. My mother was thrashing in her sleep, her eyes wide open but unseeing, her voice raw: ‘No! I don’t want to be with you! Let me go!’ I ran to her side, shaking her, but she wouldn’t wake. My father rushed in and held her down, but she fought with superhuman strength, her nails raking his arms. Then, just as suddenly, she fell limp, gasping for air.

When she finally opened her eyes, they were vacant, as if she were looking through me. ‘The pods,’ she whispered, her voice hollow. ‘They’re not fruit. They’re eggs.’

I didn’t understand. Over the next days, my mother deteriorated. She would sit for hours, staring at the acacia tree from our window, her lips moving soundlessly. She refused to eat, saying the food tasted like soil. At night, I heard her talking in a low, guttural language I’d never heard before, and sometimes she would scratch the walls, leaving deep grooves.

One evening, I found her in the backyard, digging a hole with her bare hands. When I asked what she was doing, she turned to me with tears streaming down her face. ‘I have to plant them,’ she said, clutching a handful of the pods. ‘They’re calling me.’ I tried to stop her, but she pushed me away with unnatural force and buried the pods near the fence.

That night, I dreamed of the acacia tree. Its pods burst open, releasing thin, black tendrils that slithered through the soil, seeking warmth. I woke to find my mother gone from her bed. My father and I searched the house, then the yard. We found her at the base of the acacia tree, her fingers buried in the earth, her face pressed against a large root. She was whispering, ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ over and over.

We dragged her inside, but she fought, screaming, ‘They need me! They’re my children now!’ We tied her to the bed to keep her safe. The next day, a foul odor spread from the buried pods. My father dug them up, but they were already rotten, filled with a black, oily liquid that seeped into his hands. He scrubbed until his skin bled, but the smell clung to him like a curse.

That night, my father began to twitch. He would stare at his hands, muttering about worms, and then he would burst into hysterical laughter. By the third day, he too was lost, following my mother’s obsession. They would both sit by the window, watching the acacia tree, their heads tilting in perfect sync, as if listening to something just beyond hearing.

I was left alone with the pods I still kept in a shoebox under my bed. I knew I had to destroy them, but every time I tried to throw them away, a voice in my head whispered, ‘They are your siblings.’ I fought it, but the pull grew stronger. I began to see ripples in the air, shadows that moved against the wind.

The climax came one moonless night. I was awakened by a scratching at my window. I drew the curtain and saw thousands of tiny, dark shapes crawling from the acacia tree, across the ground, up the wall. They were baby-like, but made of twigs and leaves, with hollow eyes. They whispered in unison, ‘Come out, little one. Your mother is waiting.’

I hid under my blanket, trembling. Through the walls, I heard my parents’ voices, but they were wrong—too high, too melodic, like wind through reeds. They sang a lullaby I didn’t recognize, and then I heard their footsteps coming to my room. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying it was just a nightmare.

The door creaked open. I felt cold air rush in, and then a heavy weight on my bed. Something skeletal and damp wrapped around my ankles. I screamed, but no sound came out. The creature—a writhing mass of pods and vines—climbed over me, and I saw my mother’s face emerging from it, her eyes hollow, her smile too wide. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘You’ll be part of the family again.’

I blacked out.

When I woke, I was lying on the ground beneath the acacia tree. The pods were gone, but the tree itself had changed—its bark was smooth and dark, like polished obsidian, and from its branches hung dozens of new pods, each one swaying gently, as if breathing. My parents were nowhere to be seen. I staggered home, but the house was empty, and the fields were silent.

Years later, I still live in that town, but I never go near the acacia tree. Yet every night, I hear a faint scratching at my window, and when I peek through the curtain, I see the pods glistening under the moon, waiting. And sometimes, just sometimes, they move in rhythm with my heartbeat, and I know they’re still calling me home.