Ashes in the Rain

#119: One Smoky Night

A mixture of spit and ashes builds up in my throat. My hair drinks of the smell of burnt tobacco and a hazy film descends over my eyes. My lungs begin to falter. At least 8 sticks of second-hand smoke and I don't know whether to cringe, cough or cry. How can some people be so cruel?

I drive home under the heavy rain, half-blind, through dingy streets of old Manila. Motels outshout each other with glowing billboards that announce the price of morality. Which intersection will find me in this flashy car begging for my life from one who went too far in finding his family their next meal? I drive faster to shake away the thought. The next red light sends shivers up my spine as half-naked kids take turns scrubbing my window, my side mirror, my windshield while wildly knocking their coin cans against the car. I toss them a couple of coins. Not even enough to buy each of them a piece of bread but enough to make them detach themselves from the vehicle. How insensitive of me to think of scratches on the paint and the glass when I should've have thought first of the cold rain clawing on their bare backs and scrawny bodies. I let that sink in my head as I look for my next turn out of this place.

Hitting the highway, I let the car fly and send showers of dirty water spraying out of rain puddles. A couple of shadows skip across the road barely visible. I wince as I think of how easily I could've missed them - or hit them. Were they suicidal or does rain just do that to people?

My last intersection is in knots. At the center stands a traffic enforcer. No, a woman flailing her arms and drowning in lunatic laughter. Naked, she unabashedly faces truck headlights with her breasts. I drive off thinking of what drove her insane. Was it hunger? Was it the loss a loved one? A child? Her husband? Was it the rain? Or was it 8 sticks worth of sickening cigarette smoke?