The Coño Boy 6: Ten Lifetimes With You

Chapter Eight: Recuerdos

Farmacia Francia
Poblacion
San Angel
21 May 2019
8:32 am

Two houses down from Casa Arrastia, is the old house owned by Doctor Luis Francia. It is a cream coloured house with louvre type windows added during the 1920s. The ground floor of the balcony directly facing the street has served as a pharmacy since the American Period. The beaten tin sign spelling out Farmacia Francia has been kept intact, while a smaller panaflex sign copying the same Art Deco font is the only modern addition to the house's facade.

Migz and Drake step inside the farmacia.

Migz: Good morning po, Ate Isay. Nariyan ba ang Doctor Francia?

Migz asks the pharmacy attendant. She's wearing a white uniform with the words Farmacia Francia emroidered on it.

Ate Isay: Ay nasa itaas.

Isay speaks with a heacy provincial accent.

Migz: Pa-tanong naman po kung na-tanggap siya ng visita o kung ano oras po puede?

Migz politely asks her.

Ate Isay: Sige, panhikin ko muna ha.

She retreats into the back of the pharmacy through a small door.

Drake leans over the wooden beams of the old counter. His eyes are drawn to the old shop cabinets with shelves going all the way up to the ceiling. There are carved caduceus symbols set in medallions at the top of each cabinet. The shelves are lined with glass apothecary jars and medicine bottles, some still with their faded and aged labels. Drake could make out old cough syrup bottles, tin canisters for medicinal candy, ointment jars, cough drops, big glass jars for cotton balls, and boxes of old bandages.

Drake: Look oh, those are still in the original bottles. They even have Witch Hazel.

He points out a bottle of it to Migz. Who then explains to him.

Migz: Ito na ang pinaka-matagal na farmacia dito sa San Angel.

Drake moves to the right to get a better look at another cabinet.

Drake: It's nice na they still have the original cabinets and some of the medicines from that time. Even the poster oh—

He notices a faded poster for an aspirin brand still taped inside the back panel of one cabinet. One cabinet is used to store modern medicines. The colors and prints on the stacks of boxes of the new medicines are all looking out of place inside the antique pharmacy cabinet.

Isay emerges from the door at back of the pharmacy.

Ate Isay: Miguel, panhik na daw kayo.

She tells them.

Migz: Sigurado po bang hindi abala sa kanya?

Migz asks her out of the politeness expected of unexpected guests.

Ate Isay: Naku, nag-liwanag ang mukha noong sinabi ko sa kanyang may nagha-hanap sa kanya. Diyan na kayo dumaan sa may hagdan sa harap.

She explains.

Migz: Salamat po.

Drake: Thank you po.

They thank her and exit the shop.

_ _ _

Drake follows Migz to a tiled stairway leading up to the second level of the house. They ascend the steps flanked by pots planted with lush oregano from the ground up. They reach the top landing and step into a shaded porch where an elderly gentleman in his seventies, his white hair matching the white cotton shirt he's wearing, is waiting for them by the open door.