I've already been feeling the presence of my kuman thong. I connected to it as soon as my student brought it to his house, where it stayed for two days fed with milk and Cadbury chocolate bars. I remained connected to it when my student placed it inside a box, bubble-wrapped the box, and placed it in an LBC sheath for speed delivery. I immediately sensed that it was terrified. It had always been hand-carried during travel days and had never been shipped this way.

My kuman thong is afraid of the dark and of cramped spaces. Could its spirit, then, be that of an aborted fetus rather than that of a baby or child who experienced a violent death?

I didn't sleep a wink last night. I didn't feel sleepy at all. I was always hungry, though, and I gorged myself on ice cream and pudding in the kitchen. I admit that I was working on a novel, but I did keep thinking about the kuman thong all the time. I sent it thoughts of love and reassurance every once in a while, though I know that it remained unhappy and terrified.

I still have unanswered questions. Will my kuman thong understand what I am saying in English and in Tagalog? Can I translate the katha into English or Tagalog because I can't read and speak Thai? After the spirit of the kuman thong is ready for reincarnation and leaves, will it be replaced by the spirit of a Filipino child or another Thai child?

Even so, the kuman thong already started playing pranks on me. An expected visitor failed to arrive last night. And, after saving pages upon pages of my novel in my C drive at dawn, I shut down the computer only to remember that my techie friend placed my C drive on deep-freeze and I should have saved everything in my D drive before shutting down. I lost all of the pages, of course, and I am spending the entire morning writing all of the passages I composed from memory and by sheer tenacity.

LBC has no idea that it has a frightened child in one of its packages. I hope that speed delivery is speedier delivery and that the package arrives soon.