Sundo

The 27th of April. It was a quarter to nine when I arrived at the MRT Quezon Avenue station. Just in time, I thought. In times like these, when I was supposed to meet my baby somewhere, I have to be there early. I have to show up because I don't have a fone.

There were a lot of people hanging around, and the area where I used to wait for him was occupied. I remembered the second time we met - our first date. It was October 1. Last year. I was wearing my Simple Plan shirt and khaki shorts. I was so nervous, then. The same feeling I had when meeting one-nights. So much has happened between us since (not to mention going beyond one-nights). And tomorrow will already be our sixth monthsary.

He wasn't there yet. Still early. And there was an awkward moment where I was looking around, finding the best place where to wait for him. I lingered in front of the food stalls. For something to do, I looked at the hotdogs, the fish balls, the empanadas and the yemas and pretended I was thinking of buying some.

In the end, I decided on buying some sago and gulaman drink. I was a bit thirsty anyway. The vendor was still busy with some customers when I went to her stall, and I wished she would take her time and not notice me right away. I was looking for excuses to stay there as long as possible since I had nothing to do.

My drink was finished sooner than I thought even if I drank it as slowly as I could. It was still a few minutes before 9. And I was still standing there in front of the stalls, folding my arms beneath my chest. Looking impatient and awkward at the same time. I wanted to smoke but I was unsure if that was allowed inside the station.

A couple of trains have arrived since I finished the drink but my baby was not in either of them. It was already a few minutes past nine. It wasn't normal for my baby to be late. At the most, I thought, he will be there by 9:30. I walked to a place where I can look down on the vehicles zooming past below to amuse myself.

There's something different about looking down on the cars, the buses of Manila's mighty Edsa. And I thought of the postcard pictures showing the lights of this certain city, with the roads marked by indistinct lines of light made by the cars' headlights. I even tried to predict how such a picture of the view I was looking at would look like. Every three minutes or so, a train would arrive (I can see them before they reach the station) and I would hopefully turn my back on that view to observe the alighting of the passengers, trying to catch every one of them as they cross the silver thingies where they insert their tickets. But my baby still wasn't there.

I returned to my waiting place, thinking while looking at the vehicles moving fast below me. The longer I stood there, the more apprehensive I became. I imagined that the security guards were looking at me suspiciously, wondering what I was doing. I imagined them telling me to go, especially after seeing a sign with "Bawal Umistambay" on it. I imagined the vendors secretly laughing and gossiping about me, about what I was doing there. While I had my back turned, I imagined someone pulling the back of my shirt and throwing me down the hi-way. I imagined falling off the station and wondering what my last thoughts will be before I hit the road or smash onto a car and die.

It wasn't like my baby to be this late. Once, last sem, when I used to wait for him at the Solair shed after his masterals every 7pm, we missed seeing each other. I was 5 minutes late, and his professor dismissed them early. I waited in the shed til 8pm, only to find out that he went straight to my apartment, and has already left when I returned.

While I was considering the possibility that I might have missed him - that because I wasn't in my usual waiting area, that maybe he didn't see me - someone approached me. He was a middle-aged man wearing a cap. He didn't talk to me. He simply stood there, waiting beside me. He pulled out his fone and pretended to text or something.

I wasn't as clueless as some guys about these things. "Shux", I thought. "Where's my baby? Pinipick-up na ako." I looked at the guy sideways, and saw that he wasn't my type. He's too old, for one thing, and his belly bulged a bit. And I wasn't there to be picked up in the first place. To show him that I wasn't there waiting to be paid for sex, I ostentatiously looked at my watch and pointedly looked at the passengers.

After ten minutes or so, with him trying to call my attention discreetly and me ignoring him, he finally left. It was already an hour since I came there, and I was starting to have the bored and hopeless look of a person waiting for someone who will never arrive. I was seriously considering leaving the station, thinking that my baby might have taken the bus instead.

From repeatedly looking at the passengers on their way out, I've noticed that it takes a surprisingly short time for such a large number of people to get out of the station. In fact, they were almost running. A few do move towards the food stalls for a bite, but most have the determined look of people with a purpose. People with their destination clear in their minds and have no other intentions but to get there as soon as they can.

I thought that most of them might be going home, their families waiting for them. Some might be going out on gimmicks, their friends waiting for them. Some might be on their way to their call center work, foreigners on the line waiting for them. And some of them, might just be like the guy who tried to pick me up, waiting to feel affection. Waiting to come across someone to love and who will love them back in this train station, one of the few places where a large number of unrelated people mingle. For a short time at least.

From looking at the hundreds of passengers passing through, I also realized that there really are a lot of people in the Philippines. In Manila particularly. That even if I streaked right there, no one will know who I am. And I thought of how small I am. How insignificant I appear. I was trying to touch as many lives as I can through my teaching. Trying to make a difference in this world, but there are just too many people... It was frustrating.

I looked at the other waiting area where I used to wait just to check if my baby was there, and I was surprised to see that there were still a handful of people waiting. "Looking for hookups," I smiled inwardly.

It was now 10pm and I was wondering if it was already closing time. The vendors and some of the security guards were packing up. More than an hour waiting, and my baby still wasn't there. "One last train and I will leave", I thought. "He's probably waiting at the apartment."

Waiting is an exhausting task, true, especially if you don't have a fone, but I felt that there was something quite symbolic about that whole waiting scene. That in a way which I cannot fully describe, there's a correlation between me standing there patiently waiting for my baby, and relationships in general. I was about to grasp that something when the last train arrived and poured out its passengers.

Finally, there was my baby, looking around the place in that cute manner of his, and spotting me, standing on the side, my arms crossed and tapping my foot. I looked at my watch and he smiled apologetically as he approached me.

"Anong oras na?," I asked in a mock-angry tone.

"10pm," he answered still smiling.

And I knew, right then, that it didn't matter how long I waited. Because in the end, my baby is still there. That in the end, we are in love. We have each other. And that two hours later, we will be celebrating our half-a-year together in this relationship.

And I also realized that it was foolish of me to worry that I might have missed him, because he will also be looking for me. If I failed to catch him, he'll still be there to catch me.

I couldn't help but smile as we went down the stairs together. The waiting is over.