Visions of Noise

I can't remember exactly why we met that night but I do recall the Starbucks branch and that we sat at the foyer; smoking and chatting away. It was as if we knew each other a long, long time and that there was nothing we couldn't or didn't talk about. She was a young student then at an exclusive college in Manila. I knew from the moment she walked in that I liked her. Not since 1993 have I ever met anyone that I've liked at the onset. My fondness for her grew by the minute as I listened intently to her while never taking my eyes off her. We talked, a whole, helluva lot! We met at around 8PM the night before and ended at around 2AM the following day! She said she lived close by so I asked if I could walk her home and she agreed. It was drizzling that night and I offered an umbrella but she refused and slipped on her hoodie and just kept on walking until we got to her place. "This is me," she said as she pointed to the gate of her house. I simply shook h...

I don’t know why but I find strange comfort travelling at night; the uncertainty, the prospect of discovery, and the melancholy of the trip itself takes me back to a time when me and my Papa would go on a long drive to Baguio in the wee hours of the morning to get to the old, ancestral house on Gen. Lim St. as the sun broke the fog drifting over the view deck at the top of Kennon Road. Most of the trips I enjoyed were in the cover of darkness, long after the world has gone off to dream land and there is that sense that you are in the only vehicle that's on the highway or in the air. I remember, when I worked in Malacañan, the long waits at the airport boarding lounge, reading a book or fidgeting with a phone as other passengers break out blankets or throw on warm clothes and hunker down to catch some Z’s. It was two decades back when I first saw the world below at night, from 30,000 feet as we took off from the Mactan International in Cebu. I have seen many nights like ...

It was a rainy day in July or maybe August of 1993. I walked up to her on the driveway of the hotel she worked in. She was a boss in her department and she seemed like an interesting person to get to know better. That particular day, I wasn't really thinking of anything more than striking up a conversation so I just said, "Hi!" and she reciprocated with a giggle. Of course, we already knew each other but this was the first time, after watching her walk by the hotel lobby so many times before that I actually mustered the courage to make contact apart from the pleasantries we exchanged whenever we passed each other. We ended up talking for about a half hour while she waited for her mom to pick her up. I managed to acquire a phone number and got her permission to call whenever I felt like it. This was one of the rare times I felt butterflies in the belly and a restlessness I could not explain. I was aching to get home that night and ring her. Although I never called ...

At no other time of the year is the city as dangerous as on New Year’s Eve. I remember some decades back that I myself would run around the neighborhood; beer in one hand, a bunch of firecrackers in the other, terrorizing neighbors with my daredevil, pyromaniac stunts. It was only a miracle that I actually survived with all my fingers intact the next day. But all throughout the city, people would start bonfires using old tires where they would throw all sorts of firecrackers. The streets were impassable as soon as it got dark and people would be drunk and rowdy. Passersby faced the possibility of getting injured either by a blast or getting mugged or both! The city would literally be lit up like Baghdad during “Desert Storm” and for sure, any aircraft that flew low enough during that time would have taken some ‘flak’ with all the surface-to-air pyrotechnics being deployed. Fast forward to 30 years after: I am now a first responder and a writer who ...