Commuters. A short story.

Commuters is a short short-story I wrote more than three years ago. The story was inspired by a road trip I took with Venus, one of my best friends, to Alcoy – a very rural municipality located in the Southern part of Cebu. In so many ways, Commuters is a representation of my life that year. Being 23 years old and naïve about love and relationships. Being gay my whole life but only fully acknowledging it after meeting a simple man who involuntarily twisted my world. Being young yet so grown-up all a sudden as a consequence of the painful choices I’ve made – choices that taught me the virtues of acceptance and tolerance, choices that gave a semblance of peace amidst my life’s complications, and choices that used to feel like toothache but now seem very fabulous.

Commuters
June 23, 2004

Saturday. Exactly twenty-five minutes past four in the afternoon. At the bus station, the air hangs dry and its dusts push its way into my pores, while my skin sweats with the saltiness of the day. The dusts crawl uninvited, drinks and bathes at the unseen folds of my skin. My skin has cried and dried, the stickiness never leaving though, and here we are inhaling the exhaust of the bus headed south. We could have been in that ride, squeezing with the other commuters, exchanging sweat and odor. Instead, we are standing here beside this concrete terminal station post like bookends, waiting for that next bus ride to destination nowhere.

This destination nowhere is not exactly a nowhere. It is supposed to be three hours away from the city. But then, I, and my best friend Iris here, have never been there in our less than glorious twenty-three years. We are waiting for the next bus headed south because some lady, an acquaintance of Iris’ uncle, invited us, through a brief telephone call, to her place for the weekend.

But then, what is the bearing of geography for people who are lost all their lives?

We got the next bus around five, swarming amongst men and a few women and some hungry-looking kids. It’s interesting really, these provincial people spending the next three hours either by sleeping from sheer exhaustion or by simply thinking of that homemade meal that would definitely be served as soon as they have crossed the threshold of their homes. Maybe a fiesta is happening somewhere, and an evening of dance is something that they were rooting for the whole year. The thought is so simple, uncomplicated.

It’s a more or less three-hour travel according to the konduktor. Adding or taking a few minutes from his calculation, though, might be of some use if we were traveling in broad daylight with mountain ridges or still waters on either side of the road. If it were some peak, maybe I won’t be scaling it, at least not this time if I am supposed to be back in the city by Monday. If it were a sea, maybe I would think of wading it until the waters would only be knee-high. Or, I might not go back to the shore, but instead, continue wading, with the grasses and all beneath my feet, until a wide expanse of sandbars would allow me to breathe again easily. I haven’t been to a sandbar for a long time anyway, and more than once during those younger years, I usually end up tiptoeing, holding my breath till I am fully certain that yeah, I am at the shore again.

But it’s evening, and my companion has her face against the darkness outside her window. She doesn’t care about her hair that screams with the wind, nor with her forehead and cheeks that are kissing the cold, forceful wind. If I were my mother I would have probably pulled her back or closed the window or exchanged places with her. It’s supposed to be dangerous, looking out of the bus window and things like that. But she’s inhaling her freedom, I know. And though we exchanged stories and even laughed at the naughty things that we say now and then, I know it’s the wind that screams against her face that she’d rather be with now. At this time, at least.

“When did we become so joyless?”

The question was hypothetical, but demands an article of time for an answer that neither one of us could immediately satisfy. She’s that person who knew the answer already before asking. She’s that person who asks because she wants an affirmation. Though, very so often I would think that her unrevealed answers are not usually affirmed after a question has been formed through her mouth. She would ask again, louder, and maybe she would get some affirmation this time.

And lately too, she has this habit of inventing hypothetical questions that neither of us could satisfy. I know at such times she’s grappling with her thoughts to make out the clearest sense as to why she’s throwing a question in the very first place. It’s sad anyhow – forming a very sad question as a consequence of the knowledge that it is coupled with an equally sad experience that would suffice for an answer.

Outside, the rain started to pour and I began to smile at her while she drinks the waters, which blends with the wind, the same wind that seems to be at her command. The other commuters began to close their windows, and we have to close our own after this woman behind our seat asked us to. I wouldn’t care less, really. Somehow it’s vain for a person to feel the discomfort of the rain that drenches. I would wonder what about those fishermen out there, in the middle of the sea with just their small bancas. Those lights that dotted the murky waters. A few times, yeah they have a companion who comes along but more often than not they are usually alone and it seems all the more reasonable that I open our window and join my friend in tasting the wind and the waters.

“Just exactly how well acquainted are you with this woman who has invited us to spend tonight and tomorrow at her place?” I asked my friend. “I know I asked you this before, it’s just that, you know, we don’t know her at all or you don’t know her at all. Except that she’s your aunt, supposedly, but you practically don’t know her, that’s it, and why, really, didn’t we give it a second or more thoughts before jumping onto this bus.”

“Because we could never stand living another minute in that city.” She said, in that same questioning smile that at most opportunities is rather elusive, though this time her answer is affirming.

“But we are not yet lost, aren’t we? This is the farthest that I’ve been in the last few months.”

She chuckled. “No, we’ve traveled far enough lately, haven’t you noticed?” Again, that questioning smile that weigh me down into submission.

“So we are once again venturing into figurativeness!”

She laughed aloud this time. “That’s a nice way of putting it. I love the sound of it. Venturing into figurativeness. Traveling in mile stretches now, whereas for weeks we were traveling in stretches of time and bizarre experiences.”

And as if reading my observations all the while, “The mountains, those lights dotting the waters, the rain kissing my lips, venturing into figurativeness. We really are, I suppose, venturing into figurativeness. I can’t seem to get this phrase out of mind.” She was staring into the night when she said this.

I said, “Good, the rain has stopped. What time are we supposed to arrive? I am starving, and I am not venturing into figurativeness this time. I am literally starving.”

It’s a three-hour travel and it’s forty past seven in the evening but I am beginning to doubt now if it really is just a three-hour ride. After all, it has rained and we are traveling at such careful speed that this trip would now seem to take forever.

“What do you suppose has happened to Gayle now?” I teased. ”It’s been two weeks you know, you think you might just have to call her sometime, maybe tonight? We still have some signal.”

“What do you suppose has happened to your Jeff now?” She whispered wistfully and all I could do was shrug and look at the ceiling. And I know she’s looking at me now, with the playfulness that I have missed for a very long time.

“What?” I asked.

“What what?”

“Never mind.”

“What would you think if we’ll just spend sometime here, in this nowhere, a few days more and go back to the city later? What do you think?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Maybe. But really, why don’t we?”

“We’ve got work, by the way.”

“We can always request for a leave.”

“We haven’t got money. Or clothes at the very least.”

“We can always worry about that later. Anyway there’s always a bus heading back to the city, so if it is no longer practical for us to stay, then off we go.”

“Were you thinking about this just now, or were you planning this already?”

“Actually, I thought I might want to surprise you. Guess you’re surprised now. More than surprised, perhaps. Thrilled.”

“Thrilled, my ass. We are going back tomorrow, that’s it.”

“We ought not to. How are you and Jeff now by the way?”

“Don’t change the topic ‘coz definitely we are not staying beyond tomorrow. As for that last question, you know my life completely and you know that we’re through.”

“But you’re not through with him.”

“You’re not yet through with Gayle either.”

“I don’t deny that. Two weeks is too short a time to be really through with anyone. Especially if two years of your life were spent with them.”

“And we promised not to indulge in those anymore ‘coz they’re through with us much as want we to believe otherwise.”

“Suppose we meet our potentials somewhere here.”

“Not likely.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Meeting other people is the last thing on my mind right now.”

“Because of Jeff?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Okay, okay you got me there. But I just don’t want to spend too much time and energy thinking about that now.”

“The last that I’ve heard of him is that he went south. He might be here somewhere. We might catch up with him, we wouldn’t really know.”

“What are you trying to tell me exactly?”

“Nothing. Just possibilities. I would still insist that we stay on for a few more days, though.”

“You really are stubborn, do you know that.”

“We both are. That’s why we are here now, and not in the city.”

“This trip seems to go on forever.”

“We should be there in a few minutes.”

At around eight thirty, the bus conductor informed us of our stop. The darkness immediately became familiar once we stepped off the bus and the bus moved on with the few passengers remaining. We are facing a school now, and beside it there is supposed to be a trail that would lead to the house where we will be staying until tomorrow, unless Iris would press on with her stubbornness. The house shouldn’t be difficult to find, she’s been told, only a short walk from the road. Beside the house is an old cottage, and beyond it is the beach. Right now, I thought I might want to walk in the sand, with the evening seemingly so fragrant and cool. The place hasn’t been rained upon recently, I thought, and the skies are calm, a sight that has eluded us while we were still on the road.

“Iris, maybe we should explore the beach tonight after we get settled. Or who knows we are no longer invited after all, and we would have no other choice but to stretch out at the beach until we catch the first bus ride to the city tomorrow.”

Iris nodded, as she shone the flashlight along the trail. There’s not much need of it though, we seem to be very accustomed to the darkness. Ahead, we could make out the form of a house, in its yard a small cottage that seems to have known many stories and exchanges among folks who have used this same trail for years.

Something about the night has changed though. Ahead of us, I could now make out the sight of a man, someone important to me. I could see now that he’s wearing the perennial black shirt and the certainty of that stride as he approached us is something that I have always known, yet had taken for granted, failed to appreciate but now.

Iris cut into my thoughts. “Perhaps you now know the reason why you ought to stay here for a few days more.”