Dark by Delfin Fresnosa

Dark (Delfin Fresnosa)

A woman and her son sat by the window looking upon the darkening road. Every now and then the woman would turn to the boy anxiously, trying tor read the expression of his eyes. The boy, sickly looking, with dark and sensitive features, seeming to note her gaze, would avert his face and shield it with his hand. She felt a great wordless pity for him, and a sense of her helplessness gave her keenanguish. He knew of her love for him and sensed her hurt like a sharp stabbing pain.

Men and women passed by on the road in front of the house, some coming from the fields carrying bundles or farm implements. Most of them walked slowly, tired after the day's work but glad of the cool wind and the coming night. They talked and laughed as they went by. 

Farther down the road children were at play, shouting and kicking an empty tin can about. Occasionally they had to stop their game to let some carabao cart or automobile pass. 

"Dis you see that car that just went by, full of people?" the woman asked her son.

"Yes." He said. "They must have come from an excursion."

"Yes, they were all talking and laughing. The people on the road shouted andlaughed back at them."

Sometimes a man or a woman stopped a while in front of the house to exchangegreetings with the woman at the window. The boy listened to his mother and to the voices of her friends. Some of them asked how he was, and he replied in a courteous voice that he was all right.

"Leon," suddenly said the mother. "Look at that boy with the monkey . He has monkey on hi shoulder. The monkey is jumping up and down."

"Yes," he said, laughing a little as if amused at the sight. "The boy is carrying a monkey."

He was again aware of his mother looking at him, trying to find his eyes, and again he turned his face away.

The boy with the monkey, and his father, a farmer, were now passing by the house. The monkey was a tame one and was crying out sharply and chattering.

"Can you see him, Leon?" asked the...