FX Aftereffects

It was already a bad indication when the FX driver ignored the “No U-turn” sign along J. Vargas Avenue. What made it worse was just after he turned; a traffic police who apparently saw him commit the violation pointed at him and motioned him to pull over. Uh-oh.

But the FX driver seemed to be unflustered. He placed his hands on his back languidly – there’s no other way to describe it. And I had the sense of foreboding that this could not be good. True enough, I have another reason to believe that I have psychic ability because the driver did not pull over but sped past the officer. He made a run for it. At this point, I took off my earphones and looked disbelievingly at the driver. You’ve got to be kidding me. He overtook car after car and recklessly swerved in the road to gain distance from the officer who mounted his motorcycle and had started chasing the FX.

I turned to my fellow passengers. Surely, one of them would share my sentiment that this was terribly, terribly wrong. But they seemed to be oblivious to everything. It’s as if they were riding a totally different FX wherein their driver was not snaking his way in full speed along St. Paul road while a traffic police was pathetically trying to keep him in sight. I wonder whether I could have just said that I needed to get off at the nearest corner so I could get off the damned FX and the officer could catch the errant driver. I doubt if that would’ve been a welcome twist to the whole incident, though. For the driver and other passengers.

The chase ended in Meralco Avenue. Mamang Pulis was unable to catch up and was lost somewhere in the turns and Manong Driver even got off the vehicle and looked around during a stop sign to make sure that he was clear. I got off two blocks later. Thankful that I need not be part of that horrific ride anymore.

And that was not the end of my horror commute for the day. On my way home, a pair of men was occupying the front seat of the FX. They were loud and annoying and arrogant. Everyone was forced to hear their conversation. One of them works at a construction project and told his friend of how he miscalculated and cut a cable five meters short than expected. He then continued how he and his coworkers skillfully take supplies from the construction project. They do it regularly and with organization. No remorse whatsoever! They were robbing their employers and they were proud of it because they do it so well! And I thought to myself, an incompetent and a thief. Perfect. Employee of the year.

Not to be outdone, the FX driver displayed his own alarming behavior. He opened his cellphone inbox while waiting for traffic to move (not a very good thing to do, for starters) and made an angry call after reading a message (worse thing).

Here’s how the driver’s phone conversation went almost verbatim (worst thing). Imagine him talking in a VERY loud and angry voice, enough to overpower the incompetent thief in the front seat.

“Di ba sinabi ko sayo na itapon mo na yan?! (Pause) Di mo pa tinatapon? Anak ng tinapay! (Pause) Pagdating ko dyan, wala na dapat yan! (Pause) Anong takot-takot? Sinasasabi ko sa iyo itapon mo na yan!” End call.

Images of a dead body being disposed played in my head. And can you blame me? How else can you interpret that? I discreetly paid my fare to the driver and kept a low profile. Heck, he could be a homicidal maniac, for all I know! Whenever he cursed at a red light or at a slow car in front of him didn’t help in dissuading me otherwise.

Public commuting is such an adventure. Horror adventure.

Tick tock

It had begun almost imperceptibly. It had been a long day. A very long night. And it could have been just another sound in my head - mingling with the other commotion of a whole day of continuous keystrokes and mouse clicks, frustrating dead-end investigations in front of Google and Wikipedia, all the excitement in the life of a programmer.

Inside that cab on my way home, I was looking forward to lying in my bed and finally get some sleep. Admittedly, it would only be for a few hours as I had to be back in the office early the next day – later that morning. But then the ticking started.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

At first I dismissed it and continued to rest my head against the window to look out the state of Ortigas Avenue at past midnight. It’s very different from the Ortigas Avenue during rush hour. I wouldn’t say more peaceful. There’s always something creepy about urban streets late at night.

It pressed on, the ticking sound. It seemed the more I ignored it, the more persistent it became. Just like in that Edgar Allan Poe short story, The Tell-Tale Heart. I looked around, expecting to find a clock under the backseat or something. None there. I craned my head to check the dashboard thinking maybe it was the cab driver’s cellphone with a weird ringtone, but he glanced back at me, apparently thinking it was my phone making the sound. At least, I confirmed at that point that the sound did not exist only in my head.

And with the ticking sound as a faint background and all sleepiness wiped out from me, my imagination let itself loose, as it is wont to do. What if the ticking sound was from a bomb placed in the trunk of the cab? What if it was about to blow up at any moment? I sat up a little straighter. I had officially freaked myself out.

I must admit, I was scared as hell. Or of hell, if you want be to be more specific. Most people don’t deal with the idea of afterlife until – well, until they have to. I guess John Mayer was onto something when he wrote, “I am invincible as long as I’m alive.” In my head, I said a frantic prayer. These days, it seems that’s all the kind of prayer I get to pray. Frantic. And trust me, I’m not too proud of it, either.

And my morbidity kicked in because my other concern was that if my cadaver would be recognizable to my family. But of course I’d be blown up to pieces and the only way to identify me was through my ID. And the John Mayer soundtrack persisted in my head, “… should’ve smiled in that picture… it’s the last thing I’ll see of you.”

“Mabait ba Diyos mo?”

EJ asked me this question out of nowhere during one of our usual afternoon conversation breaks from work. We were talking about some inconsequential thing, as we often do. Maybe something about my awkward Tagalog – a source of amusement for him. Or maybe he was feigning inaudibility and just asking me to repeat something I said at least three times, just for the heck of it.

Whatever nonsense we were talking about, I certainly wasn’t expecting him to segue into the sudden theological question.

“Diyos ko? Bakit, iba ba Diyos natin?” I had to ask. I was under the impression there was only one God. For everyone. But he said yes. My God. Or more specifically, my concept of how God is like.

Is He a God who asks me to confess to priests? To have my forehead smeared with ash on a certain Wednesday? To fast during lent? To be afraid of a hell in the afterlife?

Hmm.

While we exchanged our thoughts on these questions, we got around to talking about doctrine, salvation, sacrifice, the church.

EJ’s God, he says, is a forgiving God - a God whom he can talk freely without the memorized prayers. His God is not impressed with outward display of religiosity. And most importantly, EJ’s God will not allow His beloved children to end up in a fiery hell.

It was a long time since I had a conversation about faith. The last time was with two of my other closest friends: with Luz during our Los Baños overnight trip and with Gary while we were rowing a boat in Kalaw. Although, come to think of it, over pizza just this weekend, we talked about the fragility of life and the overwhelming question of what happens after this. All this.

I don’t write about it this often because admittedly, it’s a very touchy topic for most. But I have friends who have different beliefs. Or non-beliefs. (Rye, Tim – I know you’re out there somewhere) And although there must only be one truth out there, each of us has our own ways of finding out what that truth is. What comforts me is that they share with me the uncertainties of… well, everything. Some people would claim that they got it down. Solved. Really, really, really got it. With my friends, I know that we may have different view on things and we may not even know what we really want to believe in yet, but it’s ok. It’s really just ok.

And even for that, alam ko, mabait ang Diyos ko.

Of Tonsillitis and Projects

At the risk of ostracizing my non-Azeus and non-IT readers, do allow me to write about my work for just a bit. I’m home sick right now with very annoying inflamed tonsils and a slight temperature. I would have wanted to read one of the books in my pending stack but I can’t get off my worries over work just yet.

I’m part of three projects right now. With PONICS, I just do mostly ad hoc stuff. I am just the spectator when Blas bullies Jerome, in jest of course - I hope. CSIS, which I am supposedly coordinating, is just made up of me, Aldwin – our software test engineer, and Marco, our newbie dev. It’s an old project and most of the time, we are in a constant guessing game – trying to figure out what exactly goes on, but we only have each other to rely on. As Aldwin succinctly put it once, “A duling leading a blind leads them to a pit.”

And of course, COMIS, my first project with the company. My teammates and I consider it our “sanity” project. No matter how crazy things become, we always welcome COMIS tasks because it keeps us sane. The camaraderie in our team is widely known, even by the senior management. We still keep in touch with old teammates who have resigned, like Aimee and Patrick. In fact, Patrick once dropped by the office just to catch up with us. Afterwards, he texted us that he’s been feeling down at his job and he only felt better only after seeing us again. (All together now, “Aww…”)

An offshoot of that team is COMIcS, friendships forged through sleepless working nights spent at the office; our energy on coding and testing were fuelled by Starbucks coffee in our bloodstreams. That was the time when we all go home still with yesterday’s clothes on when normal people are on their way to work. Sleep for a few hours at home and then go back to work again. Imagine doing this for a couple months.

Hmm, I’m not sure if I was allowed to divulge what my projects are. I honestly don’t remember the contents of the confidentiality paper I signed almost three years ago. I could always claim that I did not have the mental faculty to recognize what I was doing. On account of my tonsils. And fever. Right.

While our housekeeper heads to town to buy my antibiotics (yeah, that’s how far we are from civilization), my mother pushes two glasses into my face. One with salted lukewarm water and the other malunggay tea. Gargle with one, drink the other.

Gargling the salted water just reminded me of beaches in Surigao where we used to go as kids. And all those times I accidentally ingested seawater whenever we play the game of finding the tossed coin. I terribly, terribly want to go back and visit this year. Beaches just a trike ride away. My amusing nieces and nephews. And the food! Fresh seafood. Sinugba. Chicken barbecue by the pier. *Sigh* Anyone else wants to go to Surigao?

Anyway, the malunggay tea didn’t remind me of anything. It just made me squirm in distaste.