Some time ago, when I was four or five, I made up a story in English. I didn't speak English then. I was taught at school, but my monther tongue was Tagalog with a sprinkling of Bisaya in the background. I told my story in English anyway, broken as it might have been.
The story was about a man. A white man who was driving in the middle of Manila traffic and had somehow gotten into some sort of automobile accident. His head was cut off and rolled onto the street. Someone managed to pick it up and they brought him to the hospital. At the hospital, the doctors did their best to put back this man's head, and they finally did with success. Only, when the man looked at himself in the mirror, his head was a black man's head, not his own white man's head. He began to cry and was sad because he wanted his own head back. So he prayed to Jesus to give him back his original head. He went to bed and when he woke up in the morning, he had his very own white head back. He was very happy, the end.
I have an audio tape of me telling this story, otherwise I would never have remembered this strange, yet symbolic tale.
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