🏆 LONGLIST - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022
Vincent Pareja longs for the day when his family won't worry about money and his siblings can go to school without skipping a meal. With his choices limited and with the wage, however small, promises to help h...
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We weren't using the normal police vehicles people see in the streets. There were no sirens either.
I leaned over from my seat, keeping my eyes on the back of the driver's head. It's someone I wasn't familiar with. I didn't think any of us knew. Beside me, Sonny squirmed in his seat, his hand stuck into his pocket no doubt looking for a stick of cigarette or a pack of gum. Ever since our academy days, he's known to keep spare stashes of both in his jeans.
That's another peculiar thing about today's assignment. The first one was the time we were told to depart. Then, before we head out, the Major told us to dress casual with just our guns on our belts. With a quick wink the Major gave who's supposed to be the commanding officer of the team, the raid pushed through as scheduled.
The road whizzed past the tinted windows of the van, its black finish glinting against the faint moonlight and what meager light the flickering post lamps coughed out. I stifled a yawn building at the base of my throat and looked out past the window and into the street beyond.
Houses much like the one I lived in back then caught my eye as well as the people dressed in thin sandos, tattered jeans cut-off by the knees, and worn tsinelas scraping against the rough road whose asphalt had long ago withered away. If I have to bet, I figured this part of the city hasn't even experienced what a street with asphalt felt like.
Plastic wrappers bearing well-known brands of snacks I used to eat as a child flew with the scant night breeze as men with towels over their heads trudged a few paces away from the car bearing a beat-up cart made from rotting planks of wood nailed together. I leaned closer to the window to see one of them bend over to pick up some of the trash.
I knitted my eyebrows. Why would the rebels hole up in a place like this? Our car could barely fit through the narrow, one-way street. Up ahead, the buildings shrank and shrank much like how the ones in my old neighborhood did as far as my memory went. If there were places rebels would flock into, it would be the big city, with high-rise buildings and wide streets where it's easier to lose one's tails and hide in plain sight as an errant among a thousand ordinary people.
Children with grime smeared on their cheeks munched ice candy they got from the nearby dilapidated sari-sari store, racing each other to see who would reach the kanto the fastest. A boy maybe four or five years younger than my youngest brother, Carlo, was in the lead, his faded green shorts flashing against the headlights of our car. The driver honked the horn but the children barely looked behind them and swerved out of the way and waited until we got past.
Then, they started running again.
Sonny had finally fished a pack of gum from his packet and stuck the wad into his mouth. His loud chewing was the only sound heard in the car for the next few minutes along with the silent whirr of the vehicle's air-condition.
I looked out of the window again, eyeing the rusty roofs, the bumpy roads, and the occasional holes in the nonexistent pavements that house lots have gobbled up because there's nowhere to build their home anymore. A sickening feeling gripped my gut. This was just a normal barrio. Why were we sent here, of all places?
