Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo

      Lantern Parade

      1

      SUSAN F. QUIMPO

      December 1981

      I HAD TO GO to school. I clutched thick folders to my chest, wrapping both arms around them. There was no need for my notes that day, but I felt I had to hold on to something, even if it was only folders stuffed with notes for a test I had taken days ago.

      It was the last day of school before the three-week Christmas break. A few exams were scheduled, but these were the exception. Even the faculty were lenient, for they too were excited about the biggest university event of the year, the evening’s Lantern Parade.

      The college theater group I belonged to had a good shot at winning first prize. Ramonlito, the group’s artist, had designed a six-foot lantern; its thick cardboard frame was to take the shape of a pyramid, or in keeping with the season, a Christmas tree. But as always, the group was bent on making a statement, and the well-attended Lantern Parade was the perfect venue.

      The lantern’s black frame would be scored into a template of cutout human forms, and red cellophane would be stretched underneath this cardboard scaffold. It was to be mounted on bamboo poles and lit from within, casting crimson shadows of quivering human forms. From top to bottom, the lantern would be covered with faces of society’s