-=(Sagien)=-

Gather Round the Campfire

It's time for another story from my childhood in a third world nation.

If you guys like this one, I'll start digging even deeper for more stories to tell. Keep in mind that my memory from when I was in my prepubescent years is a bit fuzzy, and I've had to embellish a little.

But there's more nasty words to say in Filipino in this entry, so I'm sure you won't complain.

The Assault on the J&L Compound

It's always a bright sunny day in the summer time. Today was no different.

Sagien felt pretty good today. He was rather proud of the arsenal he's assembled. Everyone in his little posse was well armed. Everyone's built their very own bottle cap slinging assault rifle. It was almost like a rite of passage to build one's own, like a Jedi would build his own lightsaber.

In addition to the massive collection of bottle-cap rifles, his brother has built himself something much more menacing. Using the same rubber elastic technology in the bottle cap guns, he's fitted a meter long piece of wood with much thicker rubber. Some serious leverege was necessary to pull the rubber three quarters of the way down the length of the stick. This monstrosity didn't fire bottle caps. Its ammunition consisted of something much more menacing and plentiful: it fired rocks.

His brother was nowhere in sight during this beautiful tropical day, and neither was the rock rifle. He couldn't be bothered to hang out with sagien and his childish whims, no. Today, he's on the roof of the three story apartment building, trying to shoot down birds.

Sagien, on the other hand, was busy with his newest addition to his arsenal. He and his friends found an abandoned truck battery. They skillfully broke the top off, dumped the acid out, washed it out with a garden hose, and dumped their impressive collection of bottlecaps into it. So far, he's counted about two hundred and fifty caps. Plenty to wage war with... but with who?

Suddenly, out of the sky, came a slipper, landing menacingly at his foot. He looked up. The shot came from the roof deck of the building adjacent to their apartment: the J&L office building. Standing atop it are his mortal enemies.

"Bruha!" yelled sagien, pointing skywards. Bruha was the nickname of a girl who's real name has long since forgotten. The word translates to "hag" or "witch." Bruha and her brothers lived on the roof deck of the J&L building. Much like squatters, but welcomed there, for her parents were the caretakers of the building.

Sagien fires off a shot, which ricochets harmlessly off the building's wall. Bruha and her siblings' heads pop out of hiding, realizing that sagien has missed, as he often does. They start cheering, triumphant in getting a rise out of the warrior on the grounds below.

Infuriated, sagien assembles his assault party:

Bon-bon, hailing from the converted garage to the east.

Norman, the curiously gay ten year old, emerging from the cross-dresser driven tailor/barbershop/dentist office on the same block that sagien lives on.

Mark, who lives in the corner of the warehouse grounds. His hut uses the corner of the property's wall as two of its walls.

He even found his brother, who refuses to use the awesome power of the rock thrower against other humans. He opted for a bottle-cap gun.

The band gathers, with sagien taking the point. They stand at the mouth of the office building, staring at the flight of steps going upwards. Sagien walks in first.

Whap!

A slipper comes hurtling from above, narrowly missing sagien. Sagien lets off a shot into the balcony above and misses. Angered, he charges up the steps, followed by his well trained strike force.

He stops at the corner, looking around it. Office workers were milling about, hopping from the various office spaces set in the building. He reloads his rifle.

"Itota ang ido mo!"

Go fuck your dog. Sagien's dog is dead. They are just taunting him now. A few of the office workers stop and look at the group of kids in assault formation at the stairwell. One of them yells for them to get out.

Bruha suddenly comes out from one of the offices, running towards sagien's direction.

"Good," he thought, "I'll cap the bitch right now."

As she runs past him, about 5 feet away, sagien pulls the trigger.

The bottlecap goes flying, propelled by some significant force from the rubber band. It flies true as it connects with the muddy-faced girls chest. She stops and she begins to cry.

Sagien smiles inwardly in triumph. Mission Accomplished: he's made the little girl cry.

With their leader fallen, the opposing force scatters, coming out of their cover and running in all directions. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

In a battlefield, a few moments of live combat could seem an eternity. In the end, the office hall was strewn with bottle caps, crying kids, and angry office workers. It was time to get out.

They run back to their home territory, drunk with the pleasure of making tears flow from the eyes of children half their age and only armed by insults.

Today was a good day.

Posted by sagien at March 14, 2005 09:49 PM