Kapitan Sino Chapter 15

"You are the asw.a.n.g whale monster, I am Captain Who, then I'm going to electrocute you…Zzzzzzt!" The kid with the toy helmet and carpenter's gloves is on the street once again, playing with the kid who also wants to be Captain Who. "Then you're going to fall to the asphalt when I kick you…yaaaaah!'

"But you'll miss," the kid with the loose shorts dodges.

"No, I'll hit you!"

"You'll hit me but then I won't fall down," the kid moved in slow motion like an action star.

"No, you will fall and then you'll die."

"But I will be alive again then I will be the real Captain Who all along."

A few steps from the children is the basketball court in the middle of the street. And a few steps from the half court is Mang Berto on a bike, chatting with Mang Boy who was with Aling Baby, who was chatting with Aling Chummy who is the friendliest resident of the place, which is being serviced by Anghela the manicurist, who is busy gossiping away with Aling Precious, who is sitting in the long bench with her children, in-laws, and grand-children, who are all making a ruckus to the other people of Pelaez who is part of the town communion.

"Eh I don't know, I'm not a gossip to ask around if what those drunkards saw really was a kid or not," said Anghela who was the first out of the house that night to ask around. "The rumors just said that it was a kid. But, can we really hold things to rumors?"

"But you could easily mistake that Luisa for a kid."

"Tessa."

"Luisa, Tessa, Aurora—they're all just names, what's important is how will we stop this problem in our town!"

"Why are we like this in the first place, what is our government doing?"

"What if there's a connection between here and those victims of the sickness on Peru and on j.a.pan?"

"You mean Alaska!"

"No, Ernie Baron said Peru and j.a.pan last night¹."

"Are the incidents in Alaska and Ukraine different things too?"

"AY, YOU, WHY ARE YOU BEING SO CARELESS?!" Aling Precious shouts after Jasper Von's plastic bag of Nips explodes. "Jonymay! Pick up the fallen pieces of chocolate, why aren't you helping your nephew in opening his food anyway!" The mother points to her daughter the pieces that flew away. "There, there are some more by the gutter, pick them up, it hasn't been 5 minutes!"

"Do the kids not have school today?"

"It's Bonifacio Day."

"What's that, like a field trip?"

"Maybe a teacher's meeting, I don't know! All I know is Mishqua doesn't have school today either."

"WHY YOU LITTLE BRATS!" Aling Precious is shouting once again after seeing some of her other grand-kids playing with garbage on the street and bringing it to her yard. "You pigs! Let go of the trash, it's dirty. Throw it over to the next house, this garbage isn't ours!"

Some of Aling Precious' kids are carrying their seats away from the kids skewering the garbage on long pieces of bamboo. Just the other day, the madam was boasting that she will lead the citizen's cleaning effort of the surroundings of Pelaez. Which Aling Baby replied to by promising to voluntarily form the cooperative. But the talks ended up going nowhere and just went back to gossiping when the two housewives couldn't agree on the responsibility of the sportsfest.

"Hey, all that better be coming just from the hospital, you hear me!" Mang Berto eyes the pa.s.sing Jong carrying old pieces of metal sheets. That morning, the people of Pelaez immediately feasted at the discovered junk from Lunas Hospital that could be resold. "Is the news that it's the Mayor really true?"

"Yea, but he's got nothing on Captain Who," Jong points at the superhero's face on his t-shirt that he's always wearing.

"Tsk, tsk," Mang Boy shakes his head. "We should've just voted Captain Who as the mayor, then we wouldn't be having this problem now."

"For real, we didn't gain anything good from that Suico anyway!" Added Aling Baby.

"Captain Who should be president!"

"But who will be our Mayor now?"

"I don't know with them," said Anghela while coloring white the black nails of Aling Chummy. "That's their problem, they should be ashamed of themselves! I'm doing my job, it's the munic.i.p.al's job to pick Mayor Suico's replacement."

"I hope the person who replaces him is a good person; if not, who will the people of Pelaez cling to?"

"How about we push through with our projects already!"

The people all turn to the resident with a different idea. "All you have in your mind are projects when our town is suffering!" The neighbors chime in with their 'Yeahs' and 'That's rights'. "We're already talking about what we could do, yet here you are spouting nonsense about projects!"

Beep! Beeep-beep!

The discussion was paused for a bit when a red Mitsubishi Starion started beeping it's horn. It was having a difficult time maneuvering with all the people on the street. The driver tried to run the wheel through the sidewalk, but decided against it because he was going to hit Aling Precious' potted plants, and the s.p.a.ce isn't enough anyway because a small new sari-sari store is occupying the sidewalk.

"Rude-a.s.s driver honking his horn when the street's so small, just cause he has a new car!" The crowd is irritated with the disturbance. Only Aling Chummy smiled meekly at the driver and asked for the people to move from the middle of the road. It took a few minutes before the car could pa.s.s through the blockage made by people. But the car has yet to disappear from their eyesight when a noisy police mobile suddenly appeared.

"What is it with these cars, always pa.s.sing on the street!" Complained one resident. The exasperated loiterers could do nothing but look at where the police are going and ask around what is happening.

Translation Notes:

1 – Ernie Baron was a famous Philippine broadcaster.