There once was an old lady who lived at the end of our street in an old corrugated-iron house filled with the light of candles and the smell of liniment and the sounds of rosaries and whispers. She lived all alone and she sold yema balls.

One day, early in the morning, as the alarm-cocks were ringing cockadoodledoo and the water pump squealed at the length of the line of people that would handle it, the old lady went through her rust-coloured rusty door and out of her house. There was nothing extraordinary about this alone, because every morning she had come out to wash her dentures at the pump. But what was startling today was that she shuffled out on her wrinkled knees instead of her bunioned feet.

Of course the neighbourhood was surprised at this, and they all stood and stared. The children came out of their houses in their underwear to follow the naked dogs who ran around and laughed at the old lady. The women put down their water-pails and kept making the sign of the cross, sure that the old lady was possessed. The men leaned over to whisper into each others ears and chuckle and shake their heads. And the old lady passed the ogling crowd and moved down the road, not stopping to clean her dentures at the pump or to buy Tiger Balm at the store. She went past the last house on our street, her white duster dusty at the knees and her hair tied up in a grey siopao that moved up and down as she went on her way.

"Hey old lady, where are you going?" yelled Jose the carpenter, our next door neighbour who often helped the old lady put her house back together after typhoons scattered it about.

Without slowing her pace or even turning her head, the old lady answered: "To kiss the paint on the feet of the blessed Sto. Nino." She said this quietly as she turned left at the end of the street and disappeared around the corner.

I left my school books and my bag and I followed the old lady. I didn't want to go to math class anyway, and I knew that on knees the cathedral was far far away.

The old lady moved on down the quiet roads of our area and drew muttering crowds without saying a word. Her shadow fell tall and thin behind her short and stout figure and a small cloud of dust drifted up and then down as she passed with her dirty knees. Her brown skin became shiny like leather and the sweat wet the loose hairs on the back of her neck. They looked like little grey thorns as they fell in tight curls. A small brown dog from our street continued to follow and circle around her, and it shouted and barked, as if to say "Hey old lady, here are you going?"

"To kiss the paint on the feet of the blessed Sto. Nino," she said softly without turning her head, as she shuffled on and left the dog behind.

The old lady turned right at the main street, and didn't stop at the stop light, and drew shouted beeps from the cars and the buses. She moved on as the sun overhead encouraged her silently to stop and give up her crazy idea. She plodded along on her bloody knees and in her shredded duster and she paid no attention to the vendors selling brightly coloured car rags for only five pesos. She didn't look at the people who stood on the pavement like rows of trees waiting for water, nor did she look at the trees which stood on the sidewalks like rows of people waiting for jeepneys. The old lady just looked straight ahead at the blessed Sto. Nino who waited for her obediently in the shade of the cathedral that couldn't be seen because it was still too far away.

As the old lady neared the cathedral, the crowd that came to see her prayed the rosary and whispered in awe. Other old ladies rushed onto the street behind her and gathered into vials the blood from the sticky trail that the old lady had left as if she needed it to find her way home. Flies took their share as well, and so did the dogs that licked their fill of this miraculous blood that people were already claiming to be more effective than aspirin or Tiger Balm for curing arthritis, paralysis, and even halitosis.

The priests who ran the church held open the doors for the old lady as she entered the cathedral, and the Archbishop stood at the end of the long center aisle to welcome her. The crowds of the devoted and the beggars and the tourists who usually lined up to see the statue had been cleared out. The priest who kept the Sto. Nino locked up in a glass box opened the glass door for the old lady to come and kiss the sacred feet. The mayor was there, and so was the vice mayor, the governor, the congressman, and other assorted dignitaries who had all brought their reporters to get pictures with the old lady for campaigning purposes. The little brown dog panted excitedly as he waited for her at the foot of the altar like a nervous groom. Filling the pews and the outer aisles were camera crews from PTV, MTV, BBC, and ABS-CBN, and waiting with pens and contracts ready were the people who made the Tanduay rum calendars. Mike Velarde stood in a purple suit on the frontmost pew and waved his right hand back and forth over his head, but even he was awed into silence from the sanctity of this holy event.

As the old lady entered the cathedral, the whole crowd ceased their murmuring and all attention was placed on her. Her duster was by then a patchwork of blood, perspiration, torn sections, and empty holes, but to the crowd she wore a rainbow robe of stained glass and sunshine, and the hair around her face and head was a crown of silver thorns. And I thought that Jesus himself could not have looked more magnificently humble than this old lady who knelt before us all.

The old lady shuffled down the center aisle. The only sound was the scuffling of her knees and the sweating of the crowd. The blood from her knees and the perspiration from her body and the spittle from her open mouth smeared the hard warm marble behind her. She slowly lifted each brown and red knee up the steps of the altar and gingerly set each one down on the next step. Her face didn't have the knitted-brow look that she usually had when she prayed the rosary or concentrated on making yema balls. Rather her face looked peaceful and serene, like it always did when she would wash her dentures in the morning at the squeaking pump, while still half asleep within happy dreams. The old lady made a slow sign of the cross and murmured a little prayer on her lips as she approached the glass house of the sacred baby Jesus. Trembling, she lifted herself from her knees, and she kissed the paint on the feet of the blessed Sto. Nino.

The next day a big black hearse came to pick up the prone old body with bandaged knees from the little corrugated-iron house that was at the end of our street. A crowd of tearful faithful gathered around, and a small brown dog howled until he died. The old lady who had made a journey on her knees to kiss the paint on the feet of the Sto. Nino had died in her sleep that morning.

Newspapers later said that she died of fatigue and of heart complications.

The tabloids announced that her soul was assumed into heaven in a bright flash and that her mortal body was left behind without a single wound or liver spot.

An old faith healer in Quiapo claimed that she was given the old lady's sacred dentures by the Holy Spirit to heal all those afflicted with gum disease, but this was later discredited when no one was cured and when the teeth fit perfectly into the faith healer's own mouth.

Word around the village was that at three in the morning the night the old lady died, she was seen walking on her knees into the sky towards the silver moon with a little brown dog to her left and a little boy in a dress toddling hand in hand with her on her right.

The official coroner's report nailed to the old lady's door the following week said that she had died from lead poisoning.