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41. MONTAGE

The Habagat episode that Monday night was indeed a historical event in Philippine broadcasting.

People left work early, to ensure that they got home in time to see it, if they didn’t call in sick completely. Those who could not escape work and could not make it home in time, sought establishments that had TVs, inevitably, tuned into Channel 8.

Vehicles on the road were nearly non-existent during the time slot in question, everyone—drivers and janitors, lawyers and doctors, women and men, young and old—glued to their TV sets, cheering their hero on.

The numbers were so frighteningly high, they were practically in the realm of number theory, of conceptual mathematics. Not even Marimar, at its peak, had ever achieved ratings like these.

For one-and-three-quarter hours (due to the obscene number of sponsors), the Philippines was joined, a community, families and strangers united in the listening, the witnessing, to a story, a tale, of bravery and will, these people gathered around the warm cathode ray glow, feeling their spirits soar, surely as high as Habagat could fly, their hope ignited by the belief in heroes, and in the ability of heroes to set everything to rights.

42. EXT. THE TOP OF CHANNEL 8’S BROADCASTING TOWER – EVENING

And, at the precise moment Habagat coolly lays down his challenge, the moment a collective cheer rises from the Philippines, the bolt of lightning strikes Luis squarely in the chest, strikes the icon there, and he feels the strength, the power, flow into him.

He is strapped to the tip of the tower by strips of white leather, unnaturally sturdy, those straps in turn reinforced by a variation of the flying rig used in SFX shots for the show.

Luis is dressed in his Habagat costume (minus the codpiece, for the first time ever), cape flapping in the breeze, while below him, the Mahi-Mahi shaman shuffles and dances at the base of the tower, helping to channel the seething energies into the young, earnest vessel. The Mahi-Mahi clucks and shrieks in his strange and ancient tongue, imploring the cosmos, begging, pleading, arguing the justness of their cause.

And, as the lightning strikes Luis’ chest, strikes the icon there, the young man feels no pain.

Instead, he feels strength, and power. He feels hope, and belief.

He feels himself changing. Becoming. His muscles, the very sinew and fiber of his being, transforming.

He feels himself sublimating into a greater version of his essential self, guided by his internal vision of the character, and the vast, collective image held in the public consciousness, like a jewel rare, a flame kept sheltered from the ravaging winds of despair, a flame which bursts forth now in all its glory.

Here, at the still point, from where one signal is broadcast, and another received, is Luis, focal point now for the loop, originator and end result. Paradoxically, he is both the center of that loop, and every single point along its vast, immeasureable circumference.

Here, at the still point, Luis accepts all of it: the hopes, and dreams, and expectations, accepts it all gladly, fervently, confident his shoulders will be broad enough, his power great enough, to carry the burden.

He lets loose a shout, of joy, of awakening, of rebirth, as the cosmos reshapes him into a figure, an embodiment, of the power within all men.

Now, Luis is no longer just the symbol. Now, he is the force, the ideal represented by the symbol as well.

Now he is both symbol and reality.

He is the Great Good Man, come in answer to the need-fire of the community besieged.

And, as the end credits of the historical episode start to scroll up TV screens across the Philippines, Luis Conrado becomes, fully, completely, the hero he was always meant to be.

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