For centuries, my people have spoken of the myth of the Galura, the gargantuan bird holding up the sky. Its wings send typhoons raging over our villages and storm tides swallowing our coastlines. It is a creature that never tires, never ceases flapping its enormous wings.
My lola (_grandmother_) told me the reason this bird works so tirelessly is to protect Alaya, the kingdom of Aring Sinukuan, from us. “Mortals,” she explained, “are cursed with humanity. For all the good that comes from being human, from all the generosity and creativity we put into the world, we release a greater abundance of miserliness and destruction.
“The Galura protects Alaya from humans’ destructive forces by creating a powerful rampart of air, strong enough to keep us away from the heavens. Sometimes, it works its wings so forcefully that the air becomes twisted up in itself, forming a moving column of wind that destroys everything in its path.”
“Is the Galura strong enough to make a storm tide, too?” I asked, and Lola nodded.
It was because of stories of the Galura that my childhood friends and I began to tie ourselves to our bedposts at night before sleeping. We were afraid that the Galura would get angry during the night and that we would awake inside a swirling cyclone or on the crest of a giant wave. Naturally, we outgrew this outlandish idea, but the fear of something sinister waiting in the wings haunts us until now. It follows us like a stubborn memory, a recollection of something we have glimpsed but not completely apprehended.
We did not know that our supposed paranoia was actually a portent of things to come. I am twenty-seven now, too old to be preoccupied with folktales from childhood. Yet I find myself returning to my old storybooks, searching for information on the Galura. I can’t help it—I’m looking for an explanation.
Two weeks ago, a catastrophic storm hit our shores. A storm surge washed away the homes nearest our beaches and a flood drowned most of the villages in the lowlands. A parade of cyclones charged through our province, leaving houses and buildings cracked and bruised, fractured steel bones protruding from their concrete bodies.
A week ago, I called my childhood friend Ric for our standard disaster check after a calamity—or, in this case, three. “Galura must really want us dead,” he’d joked grimly over the phone.
“Yeah, but which one of is a threat to Aring Sinukuan?” I wondered aloud, only half serious.
After we hung up, my lola approached, tottering over with her cane. “We are all a threat,” she stated hoarsely. Her eyes sparked with a fear I had never seen before.
“What do you mean, Lola?”
“You must go back to your stories,” she murmured softly, turning toward the kitchen to brew up a cup of gotu kola. “Find the Galura’s message in their pages.”
Work and school were suspended indefinitely, and I had nothing to do for the rest of the week except volunteering for relief operations. We were always sent home by six at night, so in the evening was free to do as my lola told me. I hauled a half dozen old storybooks from our storeroom, dusted them off, and scoured their stiff, yellowed pages.
One book, titled _The Great Galura_, read:
_The Galura is closely attuned to the lives of human mortals. It knows when we are joyous or suffering, when we are growing fat from our crops or dwindling to flesh and bone during summer droughts. It knows when our intentions shift from good will to ill, when our peace is overshadowed by violence wrought by discontent. When the Galura senses darkness brewing in our souls, it beats its wings relentlessly, sending heaving gusts down upon us, destroying our lands and subduing our stubborn wills. It drives the darkness back by distracting us as we rebuild our homes, replenish our supplies, and heal our injured. _
There was nothing in the book about why the Galura punishes mortals this way, but I found a possible explanation in a thicker tome, _Defenders of Alaya_:
_Alaya, the kingdom of Aring Sinukuan, is protected by the powerful Galura. This giant bird defends the kingdom against the capricious mortals of the Earthly realm. These mortals are capable of great kindness and great evil. Though they possess no mystical powers, they are crafty and tenacious about pursuing their goals. The closest thing they have to magic is their penchant for superstition, the only evidence of their attunement to the greater universe._
_The Alayan kingdom may come to mortals in dreams and promising visions of a land whose soil grants immeasurable power and wealth, even immortality. When mortals set their sights on these incredible gifts, they will stop at nothing to procure them. In their greed, they become selfish and violent; they retreat into a near-animal state, seeing only what they can steal and blind to what they already have. The mortals of Earth are capable of the greatest greed because what they lack in time, they make up for in material possessions. When their greed is fed by images of Alaya, they become a hungry, threatening presence to the kingdom. Their souls produce a choking vapor that rises up, polluting the kingdom with a thick smog, turning its soil into a blackened sludge and spoiling its rivers until they flow like curdled milk._
_With the help of the Kinara and Lambana, the Galura watches the mortal world so that it may protect the kingdom of Aring Sinukuan from the looming threat of human avarice._
I came out of the storeroom and set next to my lola at the kitchen table, setting down the stack of books I had retrieved. “This book”—I took _Defenders of Alaya_ from the pile—“says that the Galura only punishes humans when they become greedy.”
She nodded. “When mortals attempt to access the immortal, they are punished for trying to attain what is forbidden them.”
“But what does wanting what we don’t have have to do with immortality?”
“Everything, apo (_grandchild_),” replied my lola. “Greed is a disturbance in the universal balance. Humans are most susceptible to it. When we try to take more than what is spiritually and temporally allotted us, cracks in the lining of our world begin to form. It is through these cracks that the stain of mortal greed seeps into other realms like Alaya.”
“But what does the Galura’s punishment do?” I asked. “How will killing us, destroying our homes, make us _less_ greedy?”
“Remember I told you that humanity is also capable of goodness?”
I nodded.
“Tell me what you and your friends have been doing lately. Where did you spend your afternoon?“
“At the community center. Helping in the relief operations.”
“Do you get anything in return for doing this?”
I shook my head.
“Generosity,” Lola stated simply. “The opposite of greed. The Galura has studied humans for centuries. It knows that tragedies bind people together, for a short while. Greed and selfishness are allayed, however briefly, when humans feel their existence as a species is threatened. And receiving help without condition lightens our souls, makes us want be the same toward others.”
I nodded slowly, absorbing what my lola had said. “This time, though…” I began, thinking back to the mess of cracked cement, fallen trees, and over turned cars I had passed on the way home. “This time… feels much worse. Lola, we experienced _three_ disasters. Simultaneously. Ric said it’s like the Galura wants us dead.”
My lola set her teacup down and pursed her lips into a thin line. “This is what I need to speak to you about. There is a reason I can answer your queries so readily.”
“What is it?”
“Our family is one of the few left on Earth who can commune with the Galura—and, on the most grave occasions, Aring Sinukuan himself.”
I shook my head, nearly laughing. “Are you telling me to believe in it all? In the giant bird in the sky, the kingdom in the clouds? So I can accept that this latest tragedy is just a consequence of human action?”
Lola took my wrist, gripping it tightly. “No,” she said grimly. “I am telling you to believe because I need you to do as I have been doing for the past forty years. I need you to do something I am becoming too old to do.”
“Which is?”
“I need you to speak with the Galura.”
I gaped at her, open-mouthed, unsure whether to take her seriously or laugh off her statement as a joke.
“I am not joking, apo,” she continued, as if knowing my thoughts. “As you said, this time is much, much worse. Cyclones have stopped forming, but the the typhoon rages harder every day. The flood falls only to rise again within hours. It is all out of the ordinary. And we need to know why.”
I swallowed. “What do you propose we do?”
“I will accompany you to the Galura, show you the way into Alaya. There, we will ask the Galura what it will take for it to let us live in peace once more.”
*******
This is how I ended up here, in the middle of a dry, empty field three kilometers away from the nearest road. I watch my lola take dried leaves and brittle twigs from a grey pouch. She sets them in a small pile within a dirt circle she drew in the soil with her finger. She strikes a match and holds it to the pile until it catches fire. In a low voice, she recites what sounds like an incantation:
_Sinukuan mabutingari,_
_bigianmu camming_
_daananpapasoc_
_saniong Alaya._
The wind picks up, killing the small fire and blowing away the leaves and twigs from my lola’s fire. They twist in a small funnel of air, swirling and rising up into the clouds.
Above us, the sky cracks open. A preternaturally strong gust of wind takes me off my feet. Dirt and stone sting my face so I am forced to shut my eyes, waiting for the wind to calm. When I open them once more, I glimpse my lola standing firmly against the strengthening air currents. Beyond her silhouette, I see a blinding tear in the heavens, revealing another world. Magnificent creatures dance above us in the clouds. I marvel at the iridescent sky, not expecting to see a world such as this. The radiant sun shines through rosy clouds lined with gold. Around the opening, dark storm clouds glow an eerie green. Silent flashes of lightning zip through the sky.
The Galura is there, larger than I ever imagined it. Its enormous wings, spanning the entire sky, flap almost fluidly. Its feathers glow an aqua blue, as if made of the water from the seas. Smaller winged creatures constellate above us. I recognize them from my storybooks. The Kinara’s human torsos are poised proudly as their wings and feathered tails shake in the wind. Their mighty talons twinkle like deadly stars. The Lambana are much smaller—fully human save for the wings that they are now loosing from their backs as they float toward the ground. They walk toward us slowly, benign expressions on their faces. They look at my lola and I as if waiting for us to speak.
Lola turns to me and holds out a hand, helping me to my feet. “Do not be afraid, apo,” she says gently. “These are the guardians of Alaya, welcoming us.”
I fall in step with her as we walk toward the ethereal creatures. Nearing them, I feel a lightness spread from my core down to my toes. I look down, watching the ground drift away from me as I begin my ascent into the heavens. All the while, I am grateful for my lola’s strong hand holding tightly onto mine.
