Into the Night
It was towards the end of October. Rushing through the exit at around 4:30PM, I left my university to belatedly enmesh myself in the midst of the growing mass of commuters, all caught up in the rush hour. The pavement showed signs of a recent shower, while the wind rushed aggressively against me as I made my way through the barren streets. Pockets of students here and there all made their way towards the front of a Shell gas station, where they impatiently waited for packed jeepneys to squeeze themselves in. The scent in the air oddly reminded me of a scene after an April rain, all the while the broad cloudless yellow sky, beyond the towering skyscrapers, was gradually being consumed by the incoming twilight. Night was on its way.
After about 5 minutes of waiting, I managed to catch a semi-empty jeepney, and then a few moments later, I would be squeezed in with all the other students, all heading towards the train station, and from there, God knows where. While it was damp and cold outside, it was stuffy and nauseating in the jeepney. Students, blue-collar workers, and your average Joe's, bodies compressed and interlinked, forced to bear the inequities of public transportation. As the jeepney reached the station around 5, we all alighted in the middle of the road and, like mad tribesmen, played Patintero with the oncoming traffic, trying to avoid getting hit, as we ran for the station. Rank and file, we went up through the sidewalk, then up the stairs, then through the train security, and then finally through the turnstiles, positioning ourselves next to the rails, eagerly waiting for a train. As with the jeepneys, the train cars were tightly packed, and so we had to squeeze ourselves inside; all the while, passengers were groaning and complaining about the increasing aggression with which we, the new passengers, forced ourselves inside.
For almost 30 minutes, I lay compressed in the middle of my car, waiting for my station. Ennui was killing me. Eventually, several others and I alighted at Monumento station at around 5:30 and made our way through the turnstiles and then through the exit. Attached to the station is the SM Grand Central, gradually coming to life as its lights shine through the darkening sky. Twilight was nearing its end, about to be swallowed by the night. Among the commuters, I rushed along the passageway that led down to the main front entrance of the mall, and while waltzing my way through, odors, sounds, and a chaos of light barraged me from all directions. Jeepney horns, whistles, the movement of the mass, the roars of motorcycles, and the cry of small children all coalesced and formed the busy and indifferent mass below. As I made my way to the entrance, I stood in front, waiting yet again for a jeepney. After 10 minutes, I managed to squeeze myself inside a bigger-than-usual jeepney, while the driver was shouting to give space to the newly arrived. The lights inside the jeepney were turned on to a neon purple, changing colors intermittently, from purple to green, red, blue, yellow, and back to purple, illuminating the faces of the passengers around me.
As the jeepney moved into the Monumento Circle, a series of sounds, images, and thoughts all surrounded me, weaving together a strange symphony of erratic scenes. My thoughts focused on one trivial thought to the next, semi-alert, as is always the case when one is commuting. The jeepney was circling the monument, trying to get to McArthur Highway, while aggressively warding off the jumpscares of unsuspected motorcycles, all sneaking in between the cracks. The whole scene was both absurd and beautiful, a seeming chaos given form and purpose, all heading to a definite place, all heading for the highway. When the jeepney made it to McArthur Highway, where the road was wider, it immediately accelerated forward. This acceleration produced a cacophony of sounds and images of individual elements that can be discerned only if the jeepney slowed or stopped, but was rendered as one coherent sound through its advance. Every sound and image sank into a gigantic and oppressive throng of a world that begged to be left alone. Along with this was the dancing, the slow undulation of all the colors around, swirling before me and consuming me within its gradient spiral, producing itself as the very animation of humanity's violent flight from dusk. As if to ward off the advance of the night, every structure and entity produced its own light, casting the world around it in an uncanny chiaroscuro. Jeepneys, casinos, bars, and restaurants stood with their gigantic signs and neon lights, in the hopes of attracting the swarm of consumers, all enthralled before the sheen of the night.
Further down the road, I couldn't shake off the feeling that we were being chased by the night. The night that emerges from the death of twilight, as the coming of dusk, this darkness that rages onwards, sucks up all light behind us, treading the same path we rode. It is a darkness from which no light can escape, a darkness that slowly swallows up a city. All the buildings, cars, people, all the colors, sounds, and odors, were gradually being consumed by this darkness out of our view, and it is now coming up on the jeepney. Suddenly, the passengers before me were being transfigured, turning black, taking on amorphous shapes with gaping, empty mouths. One of these "things" decides to utter a horrible cry to the driver, who by then was already up to the neck by the dark. Another scowled and produced unintelligible sounds with their gaping mouths, all accompanied by equally unintelligible and violent gestures. One by one, these monsters in the jeepney all alighted, until it was I who was left. Soon, even the light inside the jeepney was consumed; the neon lights that erratically shone and moved during acceleration were now robbed of their luminosity and slowly eaten up by the dark. Sitting, I feel the dark now creep onto my foot, now my legs, now my thighs, now my abdomen, and eventually my neck. It was eating me up. Before being consumed by the dark, I realized gradually that this night, this empty nothing, is me. This night of the world is a world of my own making, a world of my mind, a world painted in black. For the world is my dream. In its pure simplicity, the night contains everything and nothing, empty and full. Before it, I surrendered and gave myself up to its clawed embrace. For I am this night, and the night of the world is I, and now I return to this world as I am painted black on black as the jeepney gradually disappears into the night.