I flagged down a cab but it just zoomed past me. Then came another one; flagged and zoomed. Was I invisible or were the cabbies just blind? I stood by the curb for the next five minutes, waiting. I lit a cigarette and slowly puffed on the stick, arms interweaving with each other; getting cold now.As soon as I took my second puff, a cab materialized before me. I found myself trapped in a dilemma of great magnitude: the taxi or the freshly-lit cigarette. After a nano-second of thorough deliberation, I crushed my cigarette and got into the cab.“Sayang…” I muttered.
“Ano ho yun?” the cabbie inquired.
“Ah, wala."
“Singkwenta po, traffic po kasi sa Edsa.” The meter-calculated fare plus fifty bucks, he meant. Under normal circumstances, I could’ve threatened to hurl the cabbie’s butt to court.
But I wasn’t in a combative mood, so I said “Fire!”
True, traffic’s so severe along Edsa that you actually see the air, diesel fumes painting it brownish-gray. And except for the cabbie’s striking resemblance to Tado on steroids, the drive was long yet uneventful.
I reached my destination with the same expression plastered on my face, the same look as the skeletal guy in my bathroom mirror. Slamming the door behind me, I headed toward the escalator. The guard ran his black electronic palo-palo through my body. Beep! Oh, did I forget to leave the grenade at home? But the guard just nodded and said “Welcome to
Boy was that close!
(to be concluded...)
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