Sleep working

I posted this in my old blog, Belligerent Bliss, almost six years ago. So much has changed since then.

It's three a.m. and I am walking down Ayala Avenue. It had rained hard earlier (like it had been since... forever) and I am careful not to get the hem of my pants wet. It's quite unbelievable really, the way my work has evolved into something that rivals industries with graveyard shifts. And I'm not even sleepy. 

My stomach grumbles, reminding me that it's been hours since I last ate (though it definitely does not look it). I want tapa or any other oily, MSGd thing that goes well with fried egg but the odds of finding such a meal given the hour and location does not look good. But after passing BOC, I notice that the Jollibee there is still open. I realize that both it and the McDonald's in Banker's Square are open 24 hours. My feet steer me inside. The slightly bored counterperson informs me that I was in luck - they were already serving their breakfast meals! Rice and cooking oil before dawn breaks! What joy! Thank the heavens for the thriving call center industry in this city. 

I take in the atmosphere inside the resto. Groups of people, probably down for a break from their call quotas, huddle together, sipping coffee and being as loud as possible. Outside, a small circle of people are smoking and littering the sidewalk with their hundred or so cigarette butts. They are trying to treat this hour like that of a normal shift, trying to reorient their body clocks as best they could with overreactions and tar. 

This blasphemous hour interests me. Whenever I take the jeepney home, I take note of the people around me, largely for security (need I flaunt my phone-losing record once more?) but also out of curiosity. I try to create storylines and collegiala dialogue based from their expressions and their non-verbal cues. (You can not not communicate people. Communicologists rule!) I see tired and sleepy guys, probably just ending their shift as a guard or a construction worker, hugging their worn backpacks. ("Manila is the answer to all my problems. I would rather be here with my fifteen children, living in a shanty than go home and suffer a provincial life. How droll would that be?") I see women lugging huge plastic containers filled with ice and fish from the fish market in coastal. ("This frickin' stink does not come off. Ever. And that bi-atch just ripped me out of five bucks. Again.") I see people with suspicious looks on their faces, as if they have just committed something that their spouses would make them regret later on. ("Let's see, which excuse have I not used before? 'Honey, I was ambushed by a gang of munchkins who insisted that I give them my salary and drink fifteen bottles of beer. Oh, and one of the munchkins wanted to test the shade of his lipstick on my neck. Munchkins are weird.' Yeah, that's sounds about right.")

I have always said that I can never take working, thinking properly at this hour. Yet, here I am, somehow functioning at a mechanical pace with the rest of the nightcrawlers. ("I am 30 pounds overweight na and I treat my house as if it is a hotel. My parents keep on giving me sad, hurt eyes, which distinctly screech, 'WE DON'T KNOW YOU ANYMORE'!")

The cholesterol hits my bloodstream and mates with the five cups or so of pure caffeine I had inhaled that day. I am filled with euphoria and a diligence to proofread the preamble to the Philippine Constitution. 

It's three a.m. and I feel lost. But alive.