Lolo’s Jar

My grandpa held my hand gently. “Are you ready for this, hija?”

I looked at him curiously. “What do you mean, Lolo?”

“I have something special to give you, since you turned 10 today. My lolo first gave it to me when I was 10, and now that you’re 10 too, I’m giving it to you.”

I looked around the room we were in and decided immediately that I didn’t want anything of his. Everything was so… old. The lights didn’t work half the time, the TV didn’t have colors, and dust covered the spots the cobwebs didn’t reach. Even Lolo himself looked old; he was wrinkly all over and often smelled like mothballs. I scrunched up my nose in disgust.

Lolo gripped my hand tighter and laughed. “Hija, don’t worry. What I’m giving you is something good, something you’ll treasure forever.” He looked really excited about it, so I let out a small smile.

If there was anything about my grandpa, he only ever gave me good things, like sweet dried mangoes or little haw flakes, those pink disks of Chinese hawthorn candy. He even gave me 500 pesos once for Christmas, and winked when he told me not to give it to my parents.

He stood up and led me outside the room. He stopped to see if there was anyone else in the house, but it was just me and him there that afternoon. Mama and Papa dropped me off before they went out that night, and the maid had already left for the day.

Satisfied by the silence, he quickly pulled me to the kitchen. Was he going to give me kiat-kiat, little oranges that exploded in sweet bursts in your mouth? Or maybe he was going to give me a new set of jólen, little marbles, that I can brag about to my friends? Oh, perhaps a new kitten!

While I happily considered what treat I would get, I felt him let go of my hand and stop in front of the staircase. These were old stairs that were really noisy and creaked with every step. They also had a gap between them that I had to be extra careful about. Mama said say that if I slipped between them, I would die from the fall and never be able to eat her kare-kare, her delicious peanut stew, ever again.

Puzzled, I looked as he pressed his fingers against the stone wall while muttering under his breath. ‘Nasaan na, nasaan na,’ I could hear him whisper. I wondered how a kitten would react if it was stuck in a wall. I was deciding that it would not like it at all when I heard a triumphant shout.

I turned to Lolo, who was holding a dirty-looking jar between his fingers. He had a big grin on his face as he wiped the object with his shirt and handed it to me. “Here, take it. It’s the Sansinukob.”

I stared at him, not understanding why he’d want to give me a dirty jar with a funny name. But he nodded cheerfully at me, so I took it. It was light, almost too light, as if it had nothing inside it.

“Open it, hija. Open it.”

The lid was screwed on a little tightly, but I soon managed to open it. I took off the cover and peered inside.

An explosion of dark blues and whites and pinks and oranges immediately flooded the room. I stepped back and rubbed my eyes, and opened them not to see the noisy stairs or the old kitchen, but what looked like a colorful sky brimming with twinkling stars and clouds of purple. It looked like a poster I saw of the Milky Way once, only this was constantly moving. There were bright stars, planets, asteroids, even satellites. It was beautiful and scary at the same time.

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, and looked up to see my grandpa staring at the view. We stood in silence for a while, taking everything in.

Finally, he took the jar from me and closed it up. The colors quickly disappeared, and it looked like the old kitchen next to the noisy stairs again. I missed the stars already.

Smiling, he handed me the jar. “The Sansinukob is yours now. There are many secrets to it, and I’m sure you will figure it all out, just like I did.”

I held it in my hands, amazed at how such a small jar held everything I saw. Did it really have planets and stars, or was it just a mirror of outer space?

I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Hija, let’s have merienda now.” Lolo held a plate in front of me, and it was full of kutsinta and Calasiao puto, my favorite rice cakes. “Come, let’s eat.”

Grinning, I placed the jar carefully on the table and grabbed some kutsinta. As I dabbed it in the shredded coconut, I thought about what secrets the jar held, but I guess that could wait another time. I looked to my grandpa, who nodded at me as he raised a puto into his mouth.

I bit into my snack and enjoyed the moist coconut with the sticky brown sweet, and I was happy about my lolo’s special treat that afternoon.

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Image source: deviantart.com/rolycul/art/Roulette-challenge-Glass-jar-708113531
First written January 26, 2018.
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