Fiction: The Nemenzo Brothers

The toilet in Langgal Elementary School, where three murdered brothers

were embalmed and said to be dwelling in as santermos.

I prefer to read and write literary stories, as it were, but almost two years ago, I tried my hand at genre stories. I wrote two or three such stories. I wanted to write at least one suspense story and one fantasy story and be over with them—just so I could say I did try.

Now don’t accuse me of being a snob. I don’t believe in genre distinction and hierarchy. A good story is a good story. A good writer is a good writer. It’s just that I currently enjoy reading and writing a story that is more character-driven than plot-driven. I must say, however, that I enjoyed writing my genre stories, and I put my best that time in them.

Enough about me and on to the stories. One of them appeared in New Asian Writing, an “online literary community,” something like Wattpad but much less mainstream and not overpopulated by pimply teenagers. “The Nemenzo Brothers” is a whodunit (or at least I believe) and inspired by true events. It tells the story of a young boy haunted by the souls of three murdered brothers.

The haunted abandoned toilet in the story is based on an actual toilet in my elementary school. In 1980s, three teenage brothers were murdered in our village, and their bodies were taken to the school’s toilet and embalmed there. After that, students and teachers stopped using the toilet because of stories that santermos were dwelling in it. (If you do not know what a santermo is, you may read the story. It contains some descriptions about it, both non-scientific and scientific.) For more than a decade, the toilet remained closed. I was in elementary from 1991 to 1997, and as far as I know, it was never opened for use the entire time. As in my story, weeds and trees were left to grow around the structure.

For a few years now, however, the toilet has been open for public use. Probably the teachers—many of them are new—and students no longer believe in santermos. When I visited the school recently, I found the toilet painted in bawdy colors. The wall was light blue (“sky blue” in local speak) and the wooden doors mint green. The school also constructed in front of the toilet parallel wash areas for children that looked like common urinals for adults. It was still a nightmare, but only for designers this time.

In my story (spoiler ahead!), the boy eventually finds out who killed the brothers and why. In real life, though, the murder remains a mystery. The family of the brothers has long left the village, without pressing charges against anybody. The killers are still at large and, if they’re also residents here, still in our midst.