train story
It's nothing really, you and I simultaneously entering the MRT. (a lot of other people do that, no cosmic energy brought us together, we come not by fate, but for sheer time-in checks, curfews or the urge to simply go somewhere.) I assume you are going somewhere. I am too, I just don't know yet where that is.
when I was a little girl in my fathers car, I would look out the window and say "the clouds are following us!" and my father, driving ever so steadily just rode along with that smirk on his face not even bothering to correct me. He simply mutters "then we have to go faster," and then we do, watching the clouds racing to catch us as the gauge reads the highest speed he could pull off without earning a speeding ticket. we were fast, and while I thought no policeman could get us, the clouds did. They always did.
(that was my father then. now you can give him a ticket for being the slowest driver in the whole of metro manila.)
I guess I never really grew out of that feeling. I ride trains and pretend that the city is moving, for the motion of this train is imperceptible; I - we - are suspended in this cubicle while right outside is the world speeding by. I suppose in a sense that is true also, everything about this train is suspended, while outside, eveything is in motion. Everything about this train is suspended, especially the people - it's amazing how close they get without even sharing the most fundamental things - like a word, or eye contact; we all stand so unimaginably close, this distance usually reserved for couples, or siamese twins, and then the minute we get off the train, we disappear forever, in each others lives just like that. Forget that we stood so close to a stranger enough to feel the heartbeat we never even knew.
like one person said: this has the makings of a sad story.
we leave the train. life resumes.
when I was a little girl in my fathers car, I would look out the window and say "the clouds are following us!" and my father, driving ever so steadily just rode along with that smirk on his face not even bothering to correct me. He simply mutters "then we have to go faster," and then we do, watching the clouds racing to catch us as the gauge reads the highest speed he could pull off without earning a speeding ticket. we were fast, and while I thought no policeman could get us, the clouds did. They always did.
(that was my father then. now you can give him a ticket for being the slowest driver in the whole of metro manila.)
I guess I never really grew out of that feeling. I ride trains and pretend that the city is moving, for the motion of this train is imperceptible; I - we - are suspended in this cubicle while right outside is the world speeding by. I suppose in a sense that is true also, everything about this train is suspended, while outside, eveything is in motion. Everything about this train is suspended, especially the people - it's amazing how close they get without even sharing the most fundamental things - like a word, or eye contact; we all stand so unimaginably close, this distance usually reserved for couples, or siamese twins, and then the minute we get off the train, we disappear forever, in each others lives just like that. Forget that we stood so close to a stranger enough to feel the heartbeat we never even knew.
like one person said: this has the makings of a sad story.
we leave the train. life resumes.
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