“So, who is this man who had taken Katja’s virtue?” asked Boy Miranda. Madame Nora, again, went through the same routine of shaking all over and making strange faces to the delight of the crowd. Even Carlito, backstage, turned up the volume of the monitor which he was watching and leaned closer to the speakers. “She was devirginized by some guy named Roy,” said the old fortuneteller. The audience members looked at each other confused as whether to cheer, swoon, or sigh. Boy Miranda was flustered. There was so much anticipation building up to this moment that anything less than a social fiasco was a bust. It was almost time for a commercial break and without another cliffhanger, the viewers would definitely change channels and the ratings would crash and the advertisers would pull out. Something had to be done. “Tell me, Madame,” he began, “in the near future, what catastrophic event should our honorable guest, Katja Majarais, be wary of?” “Not much. Except one. Someone dear to her will, how shall I say this? Someone dear to her will die in two days,” said Madame Nora. The audience gasped. There was complete silence. “Tell me, Madame Nora. Who? Who will die?” Just as Madame Nora was about to give her answer, the show’s theme music blared forth, the audience started cheering, and Boy Miranda jumped from his seat, pointed to the camera and screamed “Who is this person whom death beckons for? Who shall leave the living world to enter the realm of the departed? The public has the right to know! Don’t you?” Boy Miranda pointed to the audience and the audience howled louder. “The public has the right to truth! Don’t you?” The audience howled louder and stomped the ground and it sounded like a thunderous mob march. “Who is this person, dear to our beloved guest, who is cursed to descend into the depths of oblivion never to once again cast his or her doomed eyes upon the porcelain face of our divine angel of eroticism?! We will find out when Transgression Television returns!!!!!” The sudden noise and howling and stomping and screaming and violent movement was too much for the old fortuneteller’s heart. Her eyes stretched wide open, her mouth twisted, her tongue slipped out of her mouth, she started shaking, drops of saliva rolled down her chin. Everyone thought she was inducing another portentous trance and the loud audience cheered her on. “Go! Go! Go!” It was not until she had been dead for at least two minutes that it was discovered that she had had a stroke. Carlito rushed to the stage to ask the old woman personally if she was referring to him. But when he got to where she was, a young man was already pounding on her chest in an attempt to revive her. A few moments later, the young man was shaking his head and checking his watch: “Time of death. 7:00 pm.” 22
Likhaan