Twelve Minutes and Thirty Eight Seconds

[Iesu]

Twelve Minutes and Thirty Eight Seconds





I don?t know what it is about a jeepney ride that makes me fall asleep. Is it the rumbling sound of the old engine obvious of wear and tear, roaring every few seconds to a speed much faster than a snail?s pace? Or perhaps the accursed roads having pot marks deeper than an adult who spent all his teenage years popping pimples from his face, mimicking the rocking of a crib only with a signature deadly push? But in those twelve minutes and thirty eight seconds from home to the town, give or take a few seconds, I fall in the deepest of slumbers. And in those moments, what else is left but to start to dream.

It?s nothing out of the ordinary really, perhaps it?s even more normal than usual, but there are moments in those dreams where you wished the ride would take you as far away from the world and into some fantasy of a life where you could just taste the smallest of difference. But when the ride ends, the dream disappears, clouds that dissipate out to the skies after a shower of rain, nothing left but the softest glow of the sun and the faintest smell of the clean world.

I?ve forgotten all my dreams in this shortest span of twelve minutes and thirty eight seconds.

I put on my mask again, all of you understand. A smile that you?ve practiced for so many times it comes naturally regardless of what the mask holds inside. I?ve worn it so many times before that at times it becomes difficult to know which part holds the true thoughts within; is it the mask or the wearer?

The soft glow of morning reaches out into the new awakening of the city, the motion and bustle of early day delivery trucks and old ladies selling candies, cigarettes and side walk coffee littering around the streets. I buy the usual, a menthol and a cup of instant, a stride and a newspaper under my arm, like a practiced dance; choreograph of early mornings.

And so the day continues, the motion towards the work desk, sitting through a pile of flash disks and hard copy reports littering the small table, like a bunch of sardines trying to stuff themselves in a can. Pulling open my laptop reveals ten new messages, five from the higher ups with the oh-so-important words ?URGENT? beginning each topic, one from my parents, another from a friend that I haven?t spoken to in years sending some forwarded mantra and three others advertising Viagra or breast implants and how to make your ?thingy? larger.

I barely could remember the first day, when I would be overwhelmed with this volume of work, when I would intently and intensely read the words written by my boss, the ever so impatient dwarf of the office and his ancient of an old maid secretary; not to get me wrong, their good people. I almost have forgotten the days when Viagra and breast implants would just go to the trash and ultimately be deleted, forever to disappear in the abyss of the web.

Now, the patterns of words from those above me play around my head as if they had spoken them to me for the past thousand years. Flash disks swapped so quickly, I almost seemed like flash on a caffeine and sugar rush; papers fluttering from the ?IN? box and just as quickly to the ?OUT? box and an interest in actually opening the mails from the Viagra people, just out of curiosity, I?m twenty four for Christ?s sake, and all these messages of breast implants make me consider probably having one. I?ve forwarded so many ?Send to fifteen people and your wish will come true? messages I?ve already lost count, only that I think I only send them to five or ten, that must be why I?m still here.

It?s not a bad life, in all honesty, and perhaps I?m just passively complaining to myself again. But it was never really a good life. It?s not that I wanted more; it was simply that there should be something more. I still could remember the days when I would ink in all the holes of the letters ?O? and ?Q? and the entire round and oddly shaped holes in the letters of memos destined for the shredder.

Which reminds me, an instructor from college told us that that same behavior was the result of having something missing in your life, to fill a void or of the sort. I think that was a psychology class? or was it sociology..? Maybe management..?

In a single word, I?m bored. Not to be too prideful, probably just to brag, but the day?s work, I could finish in the early mornings and still have time to read the paper, have another cup of instant and lounge around, staring out of the office window as if something would change in the world or something interesting would happen.

Nothing?

It?s not a bad life, in all honesty, and perhaps I just don?t see the better side of it. But it really was never any good.

Clock bell chimes softly across the room, another mark and another signal, twelve chimes in total.

Lunch break?

Outside of the office and back into the streets now littered with high school and college students, bustling around to get to some new place everyone?s talking about or crowding in small food courts, centers, whatever you wish to call them. Another menthol moves between my lips, the air agreeing with every puff of gray smoke that leaves my mouth.

The same questions would pop into my mind, the simple ?SM? or ?Center Mall? choices, the same ?Noodles? or ?Rice? and again, ?Lemonade? or ?Iced Tea?. I motioned through the streets, no direction at all, trying to find that one place with the special rice I like so much, or I have learned to like through habit, or that salty noodles and lechon combo that always brings all the cholesterol up to my head.

I stopped slowly, silently, standing upon the cross roads of a busy site, the sound of construction in the background with the hollering dispatchers and jeepney boys coupled with the honking and rumbling of cars and vans and trucks and jeeps and bikes; thinking about it, it all sounds beautiful, an orchestra of the afternoon rush. And then there were three roads, one to SM, the other to Center Mall and another which I haven?t really moved through that well.

The third road, for some reason, and don?t mistake it for a feeling or any of mumbo-jumbo and hocus-pocus garbage, or some twist of fate or demand of destiny, but for some reason, it moved me to head through.

A few steps through the busy streets and the formerly ladies of cigarettes and coffee now replaced by toknene and calamares boys with the grillers of isaw and barbecue not far behind and, of course, the evident sound of the takatak boys. I bought three menthols from one with a toothless smile, and a four of Snow Bears, just to complete the ten peso coin from my pocket.

Smoking through a few more blocks, and you would think it would never happen to you, but you go into autopilot, realizing only after you arrive into something so unfamiliar that you step and look around, just as this moment in time.

I gazed around myself, in almost the smallest of curiosity, the wooded area of trees and shrubbery were around me. The sun in high noon pierced through the leaves that covered the skies above me and for the smallest moment, I felt as if this was the same as one of my jeepney induced dreams, were I to remember the dreams.

A bench that stared out into the endless horizon laid amidst the canopy, beckoning me to sit upon it, or perhaps it was just tired legs or the strain from standing and staring around this place for far too long. I walked slowly, soft pads of my shoes against the green of the grassy knoll, breathing in what felt like the cleanest air I have taken in for so long now, only to be corrupted by the dark smoke escaping my lips.

I sat there upon the lone bench, trying to hum a tune playing in my head since this morning, was it Bon Jovi or Aerosmith, I couldn?t really remember, nor was it important. Another menthol reached my lips, lit by the one now in its last breath of life. A slight of habit, I flicked the butt off to the end of the field, but something about clean and quiet places that drives your conscience insane, and so I stood and walked over to the fallen remains of my addiction and held it in my hand, maybe there was a trash can somewhere here.

My motion towards the bench halted, another person had moved to my seat. She parted her lips slightly; looking upon me like a deer looks at something new, the smallest tint of curiosity playing across her eyes. Then, she did something I didn?t really expect, she smiled.

Don?t you ever notice that when someone smiles at you, you tend to smile back?

I put on my mask, my practiced greeting and the customary raised brows in a sort of nod, a smile played a thousand times before, moving towards her, almost forgetting that a lit stick still stuck between my lips. I took a seat about a good two persons distance from her, leaning off to stare into the distance, into nothing at all.

Then a sound, simple and silent, played from her voice?

Hello?