Good Morning

I'm suddenly sad. A near debilitating kind of sad. I'm sitting here in Ortigas Park, drinking coffee on this beautiful Wednesday morning and I'm just so messed up sad, like nothing really matters. It's a feeling of utmost futility…in everything! I don't know where it's coming from and I don't think anyone can understand it. Mainly because even I don't understand it. It would really make me feel better to talk to someone about it but I don't have anybody to say it to. I really don't want to worry my wife because I know this is just fleeting. It's just that right at this moment, I hate how I'm feeling. I wish I could make it go away but my brain betrays me. It just won't do as it's told.

I watch all these people walking past, a whole menagerie of them, scurrying to someplace they probably think is of some great importance like their work or their kids or just their bed to get some sleep. Damned call centers, used to be you knew exactly where people are heading off to in the morning, at least the lot of 'em. They're going to work. Now you can't tell if they're coming or leaving.  I wonder how their lives are. Do they like whatever it is they're doing? Are they dreaming of something better? Are those stupid white cords attached to their ears a mere companion or an armor of some sort? Do they even worry about it as much as I'm worrying about it right now? 

I see a nice enough looking couple walking hand in hand. She's dressed up well and all made up, obviously heading off to work in some office in one of these glass towers that practically surround me. He's wearing basketball shorts, flip-flops and a fake leather biker's jacket over a white wife-beater.  In his free hand he's carrying two helmets, the girl's black shoulder bag and a small pink paper bag that probably contains pork adobo on rice inside one of those disposable plastic microwaveable containers that's been reused one too many times. The sight of them together is just so sad. Yes, I know, I'm being judgemental but fuck it, it's painfully obvious what possibilities lie ahead for them and most of them aren't pretty. The few positive scenarios are so unlikely and yet you can see by how tightly they are holding each other's hand that it's what they are hoping for. That makes me even sadder.

Then I see this girl, pretty little thing, looking as if she just stepped out of a magazine. I bet she works for one too. There's one here nearby. You can see she's put a lot of thought in her outfit, her accessories and even her make-up.  She has this look like she just knows she's gorgeous, you know,

the contorted, I'm- so-pretty-I-don't-give-a-crap-about-you-unpretty-commoners look. 

However, you could see her watching the people looking at her. She could barely contain her glee that she is being admired.  It's really pathetic and sad and I just hate how sometimes people are so goddamned transparent.

Then I see another girl, probably no older than eighteen, walking this adorable collie. You can tell it isn't hers. She's perfectly perfunctory. She's obviously a maid, possibly from some charming little province trying out her luck in the big city, finding herself waiting for her rich master's dog to take a shit, shit that she will then carefully wrap in a plastic bag and throw in the nearest trashcan. Except that there aren't too many trashcans around here. The thought of her carrying dog shit around so early in the morning depresses the shit out of me. At home in the province, she'd probably be done sweeping the leaves off the front of their small yard and would now be warming her hands with a cup of cheap instant coffee sharing priceless laughter with her sisters or possibly even someone special. Here, she has shit to warm her hands. 

Then I catch myself and realize that these are all just stories I made up inside my head and it makes me even sadder that I can't come up with anything except sad stories. So I finish the rest of my coffee in one big gulp. I walk to my building, ride the elevator to my office and set myself in my tiny cubicle, away from all those walking tragedies. I turn on my electronic window to the world that mockingly declares, with the most ironic glee, "Yahoo!".

I sigh and begin my day.