A night of deep-black city highway

The overnight get-together finally pushed through.

Dinner went with tuna and green tomatoes, chili sardines with egg (haaay, I miss Jay and the potato marbles) which Liyo graciously cooked. Russ was fighting his way out the jungle of a YM-world out there, Chai was with bent head and also fighting her way out SMS exchanges of family matters that's been tightly clutching her for a long time now. I, in my practiced and half-honest piece of social skills, watched a soap opera with Russ' mother. Yen is by this time waiting for their local Mother Lily to go home from a birthday party so she could leave (and perhaps imagining Chai's tea already brewing).

Tea didn't share our night though. What we had were scattered pieces of our days spent with work and impossible people. Russ with the installation assistance at an upscale wine bar. Yen with her walk-out response to a day slammed with work and bad luck. Chai with the long list of clothing requirements to this training she will be having for one of national TV's highly-sensationalized (but helpful to the performers at least) reality shows.

We laughed, yes of course we did. But only because we still had those reserves for silliness and natural pull to... well, probably the child in us. Hope 'mine' won't leave me in frustration.

Liyo slept. No further explanations.

Yen arrived with the urge to go out and share the night's cold while randomly picking convenience stores and the usual fastfood chains.

While Malabon in this morning paper's photo showed an utterly sad neck-deep flood, the part of the city we were walking along is curiously attractive. Deep black. When I looked at the length of it, which was by this time already empty of cars and other vehicles, I felt like I was stepping on hard foam drunk with rain and some of the city's garbage, that hard foam used for absorbing spilled water at home. Russ said something about it being too dark, but I can't be sure if I heard him right. I was wondering more about how I can actually sleep right below the blinking traffic lights. If Jay had his under-shooting-stars-night at a tennis field in Italy, I could have this...

At the 24-hour-fastfood, Chai narrowed down her list of clothes-to-bring, while Yen and I brainstormed for possible mix and matches. If Chai had her own way and resources, she could fly off to wherever there are tops with Oriental designs and colors. Russ slept and woke up to a little frog flat on the transparent wall.

We went back to Russ' place (or 'that' place) and slept.

I woke up without the sunshine on my face. The rest of them were still sleeping. Liyo went home earlier. No further explanations.

There was that occasional momentary blank that greets me when I open my eyes. I went home uneasy of the way I looked in my office clothes and obviously looking like someone who just jumped off the bed without visiting the bathroom.

Technically, the day is new. So hello world.